Moment Of Truth

For Joan, Body Perfect represented just the opposite. Her responsibility to Helena had brought her here. The need to make a secure life for her daughter had forced the pampered country club girl, who had once dreamed of a life that included daily tennis matches and society lunches, to mature and transform almost overnight into a responsible parent.

A parent realistic enough to acknowledge that someday the time would come to tell Helena the truth.

“Maddie, you know that I’ve always planned on telling Helena about Hart,” she reminded her friend quietly. “But not for years, not until she’s old enough to understand. Right now she’s just too young.”

“No matter when you tell her, it won’t be easy for her to figure out how her daddy gave you up.” Maddie sipped her tea. “I sure can’t.”

“Hart didn’t give me up. He never wanted me.” Joan picked up a gold pen off her desk blotter, laid it back down. “His being here is such a shock because I never thought I would see him again. Never thought he would walk back into my life.”

Maddie leaned forward, sat her teacup on the desk. “He hasn’t exactly walked back into your life, has he? He came to the Lone Star because the D.A. brought him here to do a job. Hart O’Brien is here solely on business. When the bombing gets solved, he’ll go back to Chicago. Maybe forever.”

Joan stared across the polished span of desk and saw compassion in her friend’s blue eyes. Maddie was right. Hart hadn’t come back for her. Motherhood and the passage of time had erased the yearning that he do so from Joan’s heart. Yet, even now, she wondered what her life would have been like if Hart had remained in Mission Creek. If the loving words he had whispered against her heated flesh on that long-ago night had been true. If he hadn’t chosen to stay away for nearly a third of her life.

Joan shoved away the thoughts that even now had the power to make her heart ache. What-ifs, might-have-beens, if-onlys—they had the power to drive a person crazy. Hart was, and could only ever be, a dream from her past. She needed to remember that, Joan thought, pulling her defenses more closely around her.

Now Helena was the only one who mattered. She was the one whose feelings had to be considered. If she knew Hart was her father, if he told her he wanted her, loved her, then turned his back on her, the safe, secure world she knew would shatter.

Because Joan intended to protect her child by holding tight to her own secrets, Hart would never know Helena was his daughter. He wouldn’t get a shot at hurting her, of wounding her so deeply that her heart lay ripped open and bleeding for years.

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