The Secret Daughter Read online

  Instead, he sat there tongue-tied and pretended he was just some guy who’d stopped in for dinner.

  “Do you want to come and watch?” She addressed the question to the room at large, but she was standing near enough that he could have reached out and set her on his knee if he’d dared. She had long black eyelashes, tiny little ears that lay flat against the sides of her head and a dimple in each cheek.

  He ached to hold her close, to smell the sweet skin scent of her after she’d had her bath, to have her skinny little arms wind around his neck as he piggybacked her upstairs to bed every night. Every night, damn it!

  “I’d like to,” Imogen told her, giving him a look that said, For crying out loud, you dumb cluck, if you can’t find something to say, at least have the good grace to shut your mouth and stop slobbering. “I used to have a fish pond in the garden when I was a little girl.”

  Cassie skipped off, tugging Imogen along by the hand, while he continued to sit there like a maudlin sot who’d had one too many. To his horror, he found his eyes filling with tears. Jeez, what a time to make an ass of himself!

  “You know, I could swear I bought another jar of mayonnaise, but I don’t see it anywhere.” Mona clicked her tongue in annoyance, but to Joe it was a heaven-sent opportunity to escape and try to get himself together.

  Blinking furiously, he hauled himself out of the chair and said, “I’ll drive down to the nearest store and pick one up for you.”

  “Not in my car you won’t!” Imogen said, coming into the kitchen in tune to hear his offer. “It’s a rental and doesn’t have your name on the contract. If it did, I’d tell you to start driving and keep going till you drop off the end of the earth.”

  “What the hell!” He moved back, affronted. “What have I done?”

  “It’s what you haven’t done, you dolt!” She jerked her thumb at the open door and the garden beyond. “That’s our daughter out there, itching to share her world with us. Is it asking too much for you to show a little interest?”

  “I’m interested,” he said, hanging on to his temper by a thread. Jeez, he felt ragged enough around the edges without Miss High and Mighty Palmer reading him the riot act!

  “You could have fooled me!” she said, sneering. “The way you sat there gaping without a flicker of expression on your face had me wondering if you were brain-dead.”

  All the raw emotion rose to choke him. “Don’t assume, just because I wasn’t fawning all over her and babbling like you, that I—”

  “How dare you, Joe Donnelly! I never babble!”

  “Of course not. You never do anything wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault when things don’t work out. That’s the story of your life, princess. And what’s ticking you off now is that you can’t point the finger of blame at me for the mess we’ve suddenly found ourselves in.”

  She looked about ready to smack him in the mouth when Mona interrupted. “About that mayonnaise,” she said, reaching for a set of keys on a hook near the back door. “You’re welcome to take my car, Joe. And since you’re going out anyway, dear, would you mind picking up another bag of marshmallows? Take your time and have a look around town, if you like.” She turned over the keys to him with a knowing look and gave his hand a surreptitious squeeze. “There’s no hurry on dinner. Now that school’s out for the summer, I don’t worry so much about Cassie getting to bed on time.”

  “Thanks,” he said, grateful for her intervention. He couldn’t remember when he’d last come so close to losing it.

  He found the little shopping mall Mona had directed him to easily enough. There was the usual collection of small businesses—bakery, supermarket, drugstore, liquor outlet, barber and real estate office.

  He hit the supermarket first, found the particular brand of mayonnaise Mona had asked for and the marshmallows and was headed for the checkout when he passed the candy shelf. Well, hell, he might not have grown up in the rarefied atmosphere of Clifton Hill, but even a guy from Lister’s Meadows knew enough to buy a woman a token of appreciation once in a while, and in his book, he owed Mona Wyborn a lot more than a box of chocolates. But it was the best he could come up with on such short notice—that and the bottle of champagne he picked up in the liquor outlet, along with a six-pack of beer.

  He was on his way to the car when he noticed the ad in the window of the real estate office.

  Distress sale—25 acre horse farm with 8 stall barn, 2 extra outbuildings, 6 paddocks, 70x130 outdoor riding ring, plus house. Cross fenced with creek running through. Property needs upgrading.

  The photo accompanying it showed gently rolling land, a stand of oaks casting long shadows and the corner of a barn that looked as if a good wind would flatten it.

  He stared at the photo for long minutes, wishing, wanting. If things had been different, what might he have done with such an opportunity?

  “Things happen for a reason,” his mother always said, “and it’s not up to us to question why. We just have to have faith that God knows what He’s doing.”

  “You want a miracle, you have to make it happen,” Charlie Greenway had told him the day he’d driven him from the prison on Ojo del Diablo and taken him to the horse ranch in the middle of the island to serve out the rest of his sentence. “Wait for someone else to do it, and you’ll still be waiting when you die.”

  It was after six. They had the picnic table set, the barbecue ready to go and the hamburger patties made, but still there was no sign of Joe.

  “I can’t imagine what’s keeping him,” Imogen said, for at least the fifth time. “Do you suppose he’s lost?”

  Mona didn’t seem unduly concerned. “If he is, he can always phone, lovey.”

  “Maybe he’s taken me at my word and gone for good. Again.”

  “Or perhaps he saw that you both need a little time to adjust to...things.” She nodded to where Cassie sat on the swing hanging from a branch of the sturdy maple at the bottom of the garden. “I thought you were rather hard on him, Imogen. Meeting his daughter for the first time quite tore him up, I’d say.”

  “Not Joe,” Imogen said firmly. “I never met a man so able to contain his emotions.”

  Mona busied herself folding paper napkins and tucking them under the cutlery to stop them blowing away in the breeze. “And you know him pretty well, do you, lovey?”

  “Yes, although he doesn’t think so.”

  “You fancy yourself in love with him, do you?”

  “I think I easily could be, if he’d let me get close enough. But he’s so...private.”

  “He strikes me as a very proud man, Imogen. And a very honorable man. You might have forgiven him for leaving you pregnant, but I doubt he’s forgiven himself.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault that I was alone. That much I did manage to weasel out of him on the way here today. He came for me that summer, the way he’d promised he would. If my mother hadn’t lied and told him I’d left town rather than have to see him again, we might have worked things out between us and be together today.”

  “And then again, you might not. You were only a girl at the time and hadn’t the foggiest idea of what marrying him would have entailed. He couldn’t offer you the kind of life you were used to, and I doubt that he can even today. Do you think he doesn’t know that, lovey, or that he doesn’t see it as a barrier he can likely never overcome?”

  “So what does that leave us with, Nanny? Separate lives and the only thing we share in common is a child we can never acknowledge? Do you really think I’m so shallow that I wouldn’t make whatever sacrifice is necessary to be able, some day, to tell her that we’re her parents?” The tears she thought she had in check suddenly welled up again. “It’s not that I think we have the right to take her away from you, you know that. But she’s my daughter, and I love her.” Stifling a sob, she pressed a fist to her chest “She’s in here, Nanny. In my heart. And there’s room for him, too, if only he’d see it And if the day comes when we can tell her who we really are—”

&n
bsp; “It will come, Imogen. I’ve always known that, just as I know I have no right to try to keep her from you. When the time is right, she’ll be with you.”

  “Well, if that’s so, don’t you think that the very least we should be able to offer her is some semblance of normality? Isn’t it bad enough that we’ve missed the first eight years of her life without then asking her to split the rest between a mother who lives in Vancouver and a father who lives heaven only knows where?”

  “He lives here,” Joe said from the screened kitchen door, sneaking up on her for the second time that day and eavesdropping on a conversation not intended for his ears.

  “What are you saying?” Imogen cried. “You weren’t even sure where this town was until this morning. And where have you been? I could have bought out a whole store in the time it took you to pick up a couple of items.”

  “Well, I did buy a farm, as well,” he said. “Does that count?”

  She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “A farm?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why?”

  “It was too good a deal to pass up.”

  She shook her head to clear the cobweb of confusion he was creating. “Have you lost your mind, Joe Donnelly?”

  “Nope.”

  Of all the times to play the strong, silent type! “And what do you plan to do with it?” she snapped. “Or doesn’t your vocabulary extend to more than one-word answers?”

  “What do you think, princess?” he drawled infuriatingly. “I’m going to work it.”

  “But you don’t know anything about farming.”

  “That just goes to show how little you know about me. Or else you never listen when other people are talking. Because I distinctly remember telling you that I worked with horses out in California, and the place I bought just happens to be a horse farm.”

  “I don’t believe you! Where is this farm?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. Not far away from here, though.”

  “Not seen it yet? Good grief, you are mad.”

  “Hey, cut me a little slack, will you?” he said, dumping two bags on the picnic table. “By the time I made some phone calls to the west coast and signed an interim agreement of sale, it was after six, and you’re already bent out of shape because I took too long getting back.”

  How many more insults they might have traded had Mona not stepped in was anyone’s guess. After taking the mayonnaise and marshmallows out of one bag, she peered into the other. “Joe, is this champagne I see?”

  His stony expression melted into a grin. “Yeah. Already chilled, too. You want me to put it in the refrigerator, Mona, or shall we crack it open now?”

  “I think now, dear. We seem to have rather a lot to celebrate. While you do the honors, I’ll see if I can find us something suitable to drink out of. I’m afraid I don’t have any real champagne glasses.”

  “What on earth’s gotten into you?” Imogen hissed the moment Mona disappeared inside the house.

  “Fatherhood,” he said, stripping away the foil collar on the bottle.

  “That’s no reason to rush out and invest in real estate on the spur of the moment For heaven’s sake, Joe, what were you thinking of?”

  “My daughter. It’s about time, wouldn’t you say?”

  She looked over her shoulder. The cat had come outside and Cassie, having abandoned the swing, had put him in her doll carriage and was busy covering him up with a blanket. “What are we going to do about her, Joe?”

  “The only thing we can do. We’re going to give her back her family. Why do you think I bought the farm?”

  She stared at him, aghast. “You plan to take her away from Mona just like that?”

  “No, Imogen. Tearing apart people’s lives is your mother’s specialty, not mine.”

  At that moment Mona came outside with three wineglasses. “I found chocolates in the kitchen, Joe. Did you get them for Cassie?”

  “No. They’re for you, Mona. Consider them a down payment on all I owe you.”

  He’d be charming the fruit off the apple tree next, Imogen thought sourly.

  Loosening the wire securing it, he twisted the cork out of the bottle and poured the champagne. “I’d like to propose a toast,” he said, handing the glasses around and raising his. “To the future.”

  “To the future,” Mona responded, bright-eyed with optimism.

  But Imogen was so busy trying to figure out what he was up to that she could barely choke down a mouthful of the wine. What had he meant when he’d said, “We’re going to give her back her family”? More to the point, how did he plan to do so? “Joe, you and I need to talk,” she said quietly.

  “So you keep telling me,” he said. “But right now, there are hamburgers waiting to go on the barbecue, and I’m the man to do the job.”

  He was avoiding having to face her, she realized eventually. Every time she tried to pry answers out of him, he found something else to keep himself occupied. First, it was flipping the hamburger patties over the charcoal, then it was refilling Mona’s glass and chatting about tomato blight. But when he disappeared into the kitchen to get himself a beer, Imogen seized her chance. She cornered him between the refrigerator and the counter.

  “All right, Joe Donnelly, I’m not going to stand idly by and let you play games with our daughter or Mona or me. I want to know what it is you think you’re going to do, and I want to know now.”

  “I’m going to persuade Mona to leave this house and come to live on the farm,” he said.

  “Oh, honestly!” She shook her head in disgust. “Only you would think nothing of marching into someone else’s life and just turning it upside-down without a thought for how it might affect the rest of the world. Even if you succeed in convincing Mona—”

  “Oh, I’ll succeed, princess,” he assured her airily. “You, of all people, should know that once I make up my mind I want something, I don’t back down until I’ve got it.”

  “And after you do, then what?”

  “Then I’ll tell Cassie that I’m her father and that she and her nanny are coming to live with me.”

  “And when she asks you where you were for the first eight years of her life, what are you going to tell her? Or are you so drunk on your own omnipotence that you haven’t thought that far ahead?”

  “Careful. Imogen. You’re beginning to sound like your mother.”

  “Perhaps because I’m just discovering how it feels to be one,” she said, knowing he was deliberately trying to antagonize her and refusing to rise to the bait. “Cassie is my child, too, remember. So where do I fit into this rosy picture you’re painting, or have you decided I don’t?”

  “That’s up to you. But to answer your other question, when Cassie asks me where I’ve been all this time, I intend to tell her the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That it’s taken me this long to grow up enough to deserve her, but now that I have, I don’t ever intend letting her go again. What’s your excuse going to be, princess?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE question plagued Imogen for the rest of the evening, overshadowing her pleasure in Cassie’s company. She supposed she ate her hamburger like everyone else. Toasted the requisite number of marshmallows. Laughed in all the right places at the jokes. And yearned intolerably when, before she went to bed, Cassie came and leaned against her knee and said earnestly, “Will you still be here when I get up in the morning?”

  But most of all, she raged inside at Joe. Oh, he was so sure he had all the answers! So much the man in charge, rushing out and buying property unseen, running errands, making decisions for other people without once stopping to question if he had the right! And such a coward when it came to facing his emotions. Did he think she hadn’t noticed that he’d not once found an excuse to touch their child or engage her in private conversation?

  When Cassie was in bed, he outlined his plans to Mona, wooing her with his smile, winning her over with his charm. These, added to the absolutely pl
ausible way he proposed disrupting her entire life, were powerfully persuasive. “I’d never demand you give Cassie up or try to cut you out of her life, Mona, you know that. All I’m suggesting is that you share her with us. Am I asking too much?”

  “Of course not,” Mona said. “A child can never have too many people to love her, and you’re her parents. She belongs with you.”

  “But she belongs with you, too. You’ve been her whole life so far, which is why I hope you’ll agree to come and live on the farm with us. We need you, Mona, far more than you need us.”

  Us? Imogen thought furiously, feeling like a piece of furniture for all the notice he paid to what she might think. Where’s the us in all your grandiose plans? When did you last bother to consult me?

  “It’s not much of a place right now,” he confessed with a self-effacing little shrug and a cajoling tone, “but it will be when I’m finished with it. And the house is big, even if it is run-down. Over three thousand square feet. Room enough for all of us and close enough to the village that Cassie won’t have to change schools.”

  Dazzled, Mona capitulated without a murmur, and in all fairness, Imogen could hardly blame her. Joe Donnelly in the role of new father out of his depth and floundering for want of a woman’s support could, when he put his mind to it, move a stone idol to compassion. “I’m sure you’ll do a wonderful job, dear, and you can count on me to help wherever I can.”

  He covered her work-worn hand with his. “I realize you’ve made a home here and that leaving it will be a wrench, but if it’s for Cassie’s sake...”

  He angled another winsome smile her way and let the sentence hang, the blackmailing wretch!

  Mona’s eyes filled with tears of sympathetic understanding. “I would give my life for that child, Joe, don’t you know that? This...” She looked at her chintzcovered furniture, her hoard of little treasures collected over a lifetime, then reached out her other hand to Imogen. “This is just a pile of bricks and lumber. We’ve been happy here, but home is where the heart is, so they say, and my heart will stay where it’s always been—with Cassie and her mother. If you can put up with having me underfoot all day, I’m not so old and set in my ways that I can’t put up with a bit of a move.”