Their Secret Child Page 9

  Jesse. The man her baby grew up calling dad.

  Addie had a name at last but it was useless now. useless because she could do nothing, couldn't breathe, couldn't hear for the thunder of her heart. "Becky?" she rasped.

  Skip's eyes were tortured. "Addie, let's leave—"

  "Damn you," she breathed. "Becky?"

  "She...she witnessed the fight."

  The fight. The murder.

  In the silence that followed, Addie stared at the man across the room.

  She tried to say something, anything. But her tongue wouldn't form the words, her throat couldn't produce the sound, and then his face went hazy and the last thing she remembered were his arms lifting her and his voice calling her name.

  Chapter Seven

  Skip carried Addie to the bed and pulled up the covers. He wasn't a doctor but he could see by those half-open blank eyes and slack mouth that she'd fainted. Wheeling around, he hurried to the washroom for a cool, damp washcloth. His hands shook. He had no idea if she was prone to fainting or if this was her first time. Whatever the case, he knew instinctively she'd be mortified at this kind of vulnerability around him.

  Once more he sat at her hip. He wrapped a cool cloth around her right wrist, wiping a second one over her forehead and down her temples.

  "Addie," he whispered, hoping to rouse her. Carefully, he pressed the washcloth against her pale cheeks. Concern spiking, he pulled back the covers, pushed a pillow under her knees. "Come on, honey, wake up."

  At last her eyelids fluttered and he watched her pupils focus, first on something across the room, then slowly weave in his direction. For a fleeting instant, relief rushed through him.

  She would be okay. Physically.

  Emotionally... God only knew. She had endured thirteen years of heartache and guilt, and now this.

  "Skip?"

  He forced a smile. "I'm here, babe."'

  "I had the worst dream."

  "You fainted." He took the cloths from her forehead and wrists. "Do you remember our conversation?"

  Her eyes widened slightly and he saw she recalled it, recalled it all. "It's true? She's...?"

  He dipped his chin.

  Her eyes turned wintry with each beat of his heart. "When are you planning to tell her about me?" she asked.

  "When it's right. When the two of you have had a chance to bond." He took a sustaining breath. "It's the reason I moved back to the island, Addie. Listen," he said when her face crumpled, and she covered it with both hands. "Let me make a cup of tea or something."

  "Nooo." Shaking her head, she turned onto her side, away from him, and coiled into a fetal position. "Leave me alone."

  "Honey..."

  Her arms came up, shielding her head. "Just go, Skip. I need to be alone."

  He debated. His heart broke for her grief, for all the sorrow that would crowd her mind, her soul, through the night. She'd blame herself, because that was Addie. She'd been blaming herself for years. As he had. Hell, he still got nightmares over the horrors their little girl suffered.

  But he'd also had ten months of joy with Becky, months in which he'd witnessed a massive change in his child's personality. Oh, she still went to counseling, but every day he observed the genuine happiness in her eyes. He saw her strength.

  In this moment. Addie was where he'd been less than a year ago, when he'd wanted to crawl in a deep, dark cave and never come out.

  "All right," he said, rising to his feet. "If you need me for anything, I'll be in my office down the hall." The room he hadn't any real use for until now. Until Addie needed him in a way she never had before.

  "I thought you were sleeping on the couch," she mumbled, but he caught the angry lilt to the words. She wanted him gone— far, far away.

  "I've got a sleeping bag." No way was he going downstairs again. "See you in the morning," he said, and left the room on silent feet.

  Besides, what did it matter where he laid his head tonight? His mind blazed with a hundred thousand scenarios of what tomorrow might bring. Front and foremost: how would Addie react to Becky?

  Differently, a small voice nattered.

  And that difference worried him as nothing had before.

  Addie wanted to die.

  She wanted to leap for joy.

  Her tears held both. Becky, she thought as the sobs built, shaking her body with great hulking gulps.

  Oooooh! The pain was enormous, slicing her soul from every angle.

  Burrowing her face in the pillow, she curled tighter, 'til her knees touched her chest.

  How could she not have known? How could she have missed her own child's uniqueness?

  The bygone years pressed down, and she cried for the distress her baby had lived. With parents who had not given her precious child the home Addie's father promised thirteen years ago.

  She cried for the moments she should have shared with her child: Becky's first smile, first tooth, first word. And all those treasured developing moments. I should've been the one whose hand she held that first day of kindergarten, of first grade. I should have read the report cards, watched the soccer games or piano recitals or swimming lessons that surely they would have observed.

  But had they? In their raising, had those parents granted Addie's cherished gift the chance to do the things she liked? To choose avenues she enjoyed? Had they protected her against wrong decisions?

  Unlikely, her inner voice cried. From Skip's description, sound parenting would've been a rare product in a home filled with anger, where a mother was murdered.

  Oh, Becky, Addie mourned on a fresh flow of tears. I'm so sorry-so-sorry-so-sorry.

  The guilt of her decision at eighteen threatened to crush her as she listened to the storm rant outside. The wind howled in sync with her soul, scattering a million thoughts through her mind, but none as deviant as the acknowledgment that she could have chosen differently. She could have fought harder against her father's persistence.

  A roller-coaster ride of "could haves"...with none reaching a destination.

  And so she lay, fatigued in body and spirit in Skip's bed, waiting for the easement of the storm beyond the windows, for flecks of dawn on the horizon and for her heart to quiet its insane race.

  Skip was up and showered before daylight. He hadn't slept. Hadn't been able to close his eyes for ten seconds. She'd been on his mind every minute; his ears tuned to the slightest of sounds from across the hall. Twice he imagined her weeping, but it was only the wind keening in the trees sheltering the house.

  After yanking on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he tiptoed down the staircase to the kitchen, where he started the coffee, a dark roast blend of Seattle's Best. By the time he took his first sip, a gray light announced the start of day. Though the storm had subsided, a drizzle glossed the flagstone steps and patted the earthen beds where he would grow nonflowering shrubs to thwart the interest of bees.

  A soft thud had him looking over his shoulder. Arms around her waist, Addie stood in the doorway still wearing Becky's teddy-bear pajamas, and for an instant he mistook her for the child he'd reclaimed.

  Until he saw her sleep-tumbled hair, the hair he'd yearned to thread his fingers into six hours ago.. .and the mouth he'd kissed as a teenager, the mouth he wanted to kiss now, as a man.

  "Hey," he said. Last night their lives had shifted, and he was unsure where or how she would take that shift.

  Her gaze sidled past him to take in the windows. "Storm's let up. I should get back to my place." But she remained in the doorway, motionless as a cornered mouse.

  He walked to the cupboard. "Coffee's fresh," he said, and poured her a mug.

  Still, she stood in the doorway.

  He stirred in a teaspoon of creamer, the steadiness of his hands a contrast to his heart. He walked over to her with the steaming cup. "Addie..."

  "No wonder she seemed a little vague about your reaction to bees when she went out to check the hives with us."

  Skip shook his head. "This...family thing i
s still a learning process."

  "And now there's me." Her arms stayed tight against her ribs; she didn't reach for the coffee, but instead shouldered a look toward the second floor. "I want to run upstairs, grab her and hold on forever." Her voice held a load of need, anxiety and hurt. "I want to pretend this never happened. No. To be weeks, months, a year down the road with all this behind me. I want...I want..." Eyes closed, she shook her head. "I want her to love me," she whispered.

  Skip's heart rolled over. "She will, honey."

  Her eyes latched on to his. "Do you think so?"

  The stark eagerness in her voice tore him in half. It was an effort to smile. "What's not to love?"

  She blinked as if coming awake and then she walked past him. past his round pine table, to the patio doors where daylight rose in ashen layers.

  "I gave her up, Skip. I was the one, not you. I carried her for nine months and still...still signed the papers and let them cart her away like dirty laundry. I didn't look for her. I didn't rescue her. I did nothing for twelve years."

  "Let me tell you a little secret," he said, coming up behind her. "Becky hated me the first two months we were together. Oh, she was glad to be out of foster care, but she had a chip the size of a football field on her shoulder. She didn't show it often— she'd gotten real good at hiding her emotions." His mouth twitched. "She's a lot like you that way. When the going gets tough—and I won't whitewash it, Addie—her tough was tough." He sighed. "When she felt threatened or hurt or angry, she'd lock herself in her room and not come out for two days. Any tiny thing could trigger it. The last time was when I told her to cap the toothpaste."

  "Sometimes I see her watching me," he went on. "She still has issues she's working through with her counselor, but it's getting better. We created a strong girl, you and me."

  He let that sink in.

  She slowly turned. "Has she ever, you know, asked?"

  About her real mother, about Addie.

  He wouldn't lie to her. "Once. When I told her we were moving back to Burnt Bend. She knows I grew up here, so she asked if her birth mother came from the same town."

  "What did you say?"

  "That you did." He didn't add that Becky had gone into her "holing up" stage at that point. That it had taken him a day and a half to coax her out and when he did, he knew she would not ask again. But he also knew she had stored the information for another day, one well down the road, perhaps when she was mentally and emotionally ready. He wasn't sure their daughter was ready this time, but what was done was done. Addie knew and they needed to go forward with the decision he had made for them all.

  "Why now, Skip?" Addie asked. "Why tell me at all? And why, for God's sake, in the middle of a storm after...after..."

  After her house suffered considerable damage. Incapable of meeting the misery in her eyes, he stared at the floor. "Not telling you felt wrong." He lifted his head. "The guilt was driving me around the bend and I know that sounds selfish, but then... here you were under my roof." Under my covers. "I had to tell you."

  "I can't say I grasp your logic. I'm too hurt. No matter that I was married, I had the right to know. Then."

  He bobbed his chin once. "I know. But my omission wasn't by malicious intent. I wasn't sure how your husband would react, or what he knew."

  "He knew I'd given up a child." She scowled. "Who in this town didn't know? It was juicy gossip for years."

  "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."I should've been here for you, he wanted to say. Though the words would only add salt to a wound that hadn't truly healed.

  She rubbed her arms as if cold. "So what do you want to do?"

  "It's not what I want, it's what you want, but since you asked I think it's best to give you both some time to get acquainted first."

  She let out a long breath. "I agree." She moved past him. "I'll have that coffee now, then I need to wake Michaela and take care of my house."

  "Why not let her sleep?" He glanced outside where dawn hovered, wet and glum. "It's barely light and miserable to boot."

  "She'll be scared if I'm not here."

  "Becky's with her," he countered.

  "I can't expect Becky to do my job."

  "It's not a job, Addie. Becky likes your daughter." He attempted a smile. "She's her sister. And, their friendship is mutual. Besides," he said, aiming for a little levity, "what kid wants to go out in the rain to a cold, damp house—which yours will be—when they can sit in their pjs, eat Cheerios and watch TV or play with their toys?"

  She took several sips of coffee, evidently thinking over his rationale. When she checked the stove clock, he knew he'd won. "Fine. I'll leave Becky a note and pay for babysitting."

  He ignored the latter. "I'll go with you."

  "You've done enough."

  For her house? Or about his disclosure concerning Becky? I want to help, he craved to say. With everything. But at this point she wouldn't want his help. She wouldn't want a damned thing from him.

  He watched her dump the coffee remnants into the sink and rinse the mug. "It's my problem," she said. "I'll deal with it." On that note she walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Looking at the empty doorway, Skip heard the shower come on in his private bath. If there was one thing he'd learned in the past two weeks, it was that Addie's years of struggle with Becky's adoption, a failed marriage and a stuttering child had granted her a formidable inner strength.

  Skip rummaged in a drawer for a notebook to tell Becky he'd gone across the road. Addie wasn't the only one with a stubborn streak.

  She heard the whine of the chain saw before she caught sight of his yellow slicker among the dark branches of the fallen hemlock.

  The rain had lessened to a saunalike mist but without heat. On her approach, she noticed that a good portion of the tree had been cleared from the side of the house. The branch causing all the damage was gone, cut into four-foot lengths and tossed on a pile nearby.

  Skip was bent over the main trunk, guiding the saw's blade through the next section. Blue smoke colored the air while sawdust streamed against his muscled, denim-clad legs and workman's boots.

  The fact he had retired from the NFL hadn't deterred his will to keep in shape. She'd recognized the evidence last night when he'd picked her up as easily as a feather pillow and carried her to his bed. And then this morning in the kitchen, when he stood in that black crewneck T-shirt showcasing a chest that for years graced magazine and TV ads for cologne and polo shirts.

  The trunk gave, twisted slightly and fell apart. Between Skip's broad, gloved hands the saw sputtered before he set a boot against the top section of the wood and zinged off another limb.

  Becky's yellow slicker must have caught his attention; his head turned. Under the bill of a cap donning the logo of the Denver Broncos, the team he'd retired from, his eyes were as somber as the day. He killed the stuttering motor.

  "Hey." That familiar crooked smile zapped electricity through her bones. "Thought I'd get a head start."

  She walked closer. "I need some answers, Skip."

  He set the chain saw on the grass. "Sure. Shoot."

  "Tell me exactly how you found out about Becky from your dad."

  He sighed. "It was something he said when I came home after he first got sick three years ago. Strange as it sounds, he'd never stopped thinking of his grandchild, wondering where she was, how she was doing."

  Addie could relate a hundredfold.

  Skip went on, "We were sitting at the kitchen table one night after he'd gone through another round of chemo, and he said Mom never got over our family's one big mistake."

  Addie stood as motionless as stone. How could the senior Daltons have believed for one second Becky was a mistake?

  Her thoughts must have shown in her expression, for he hurried on. "Dad thought a piece of Mom's heart died the day Becky was—" he swallowed "—adopted. And he'd been part of that. He'd been the one to contact the lawyer for your father."

  Addie blink
ed. "What do you mean? I gave my baby to the adoption agency."

  "A private agency, Addie."

  "But that can't be." Her voice rose. "I signed the papers. I saw the papers. They were official. The woman from the state came and talked to me, explained the procedure."

  "The woman worked for the lawyer. Oh, she was legit, he was legit. The agency was legit and had been doing business for thirty years. They just erred with this family. With Jesse Farmer."

  Addie rubbed her forehead. Defeated, she looked at Skip. "How?"

  "How does anything get screwed up? Someone miscalculated, misjudged, hadn't done their homework."

  "Your father knew all this and didn't do anything?" She was horrified the man would keep his mouth shut for almost a decade.

  Skip shook his head. "Our parents didn't know at the time, either. Dad was acquainted with the lawyer of the agency, that's all. Apparently, the guy had been someone from Bellingham, my mother's hometown. They'd grown up together."

  "A regular reunion." Addie couldn't help the ice in her voice.

  "My parents thought a private agency would be better. They figured kids fall through the cracks too often through state adoptions."

  Addie studied her crumpled truck. "I never met the parents. I always wondered why I couldn't meet the parents. The agency lady, Darby Peters, said it was hard for them to travel because the mother suffered from agoraphobia, but that the woman was talking to a counselor and was making big strides in overcoming the problem." She shoved her hands into the slicker's pockets. "Darby told me that by the time the baby was born, the mother would be fine." She looked at the fallen tree, her broken house. "I was barely eighteen. What did I know?"

  "It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault, except the agency's."

  "I should've been there for my baby."

  "So should I. But we can't beat ourselves up over it." He came closer, and carried with him the scent of wood shavings and motor oil.

  "What prompted you to look for her?" Addie wanted to know.