The Secret Daughter

“Why what?” Surprised by Patsy’s sudden awkward silence, Imogen leaned forward, intrigued. “What were you going to say?”

Patsy shrugged and made a big production of wrapping her paper napkin around the base of her wineglass. “Oh, just that, well, I thought you might be...with someone.”

“No one special, no.”

“I see.” Still noticeably ill at ease, Patsy continued to find her napkin fascinating. “So, um, where do you live and what do you do?”

Imogen continued to regard her curiously. The girl she’d known in school was never at a loss for words, yet Patsy was foundering. “I work for an interior design company in Vancouver.”

“Interior design!” Her vivacity resurfacing, Patsy grinned delightedly. “My, that has a real Imogen ring to it!”

“Simply put, it means I help rich women decide what color they should paint their bathrooms.”

“I suspect it involves a lot more than that. You always had a real eye for style. You’re the only girl I ever knew who could make blue jeans and a T-shirt look like high fashion.”

“Probably because the only way I could persuade my mother to let me wear them in the first place was if they had designer labels sewn on them. But what about you, Patsy? Any husband or children in your life?”

“No husband, but there are children. I’m an aunt twice over. Dennis is seven and a half, and Jack will be six in October. And they’re adorable, as you’ll see for yourself.” She raised her wineglass, said, “Cheers! Lovely to see you again,” then went on without a pause. “Joe took the boys fishing for minnows in Flanagan’s Slough, and I met some of the old gang from school for dinner here earlier, but I don’t have a car to get home, so he’s stopping by to give me a lift.”

Imogen sat there like stone, unable to drum up anything resembling a coherent response to the stream of information Patsy directed her way. Whatever else she’d thought herself prepared for, the possibility that Joe had settled down to family life had never once occurred to her. If she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, the shock couldn’t have been more acute. But that’s not fair, she wanted to howl. If he was going to fall in love anyway, why couldn’t it have been with me?

“Did you go into nursing as you planned?” she managed to ask with a semblance of normality when Patsy stopped speaking.

“Oh, yes. Got my degree, took some post-grad training in neonatal care and have worked at Toronto General on the maternity floor ever since, looking after the premature babies. I love it, although it’s heartbreaking at times. But the miracle of birth never ceases to thrill me, especially when a baby survives despite the odds.”

The sun still sparkled on the lake, but Imogen was lost in a sudden darkness. How was it possible for old pain to rise up and consume a person so thoroughly that her vision was clouded by it and a giant fist seemed to be squeezing the life out of her heart? “I have to go,” she said, rising up from her chair almost violently.

“But you only just got here!”

“I know. But I just remembered—”

Too much. Far, far too much!

In her haste, she stumbled against the table and sent the contents of her handbag flying. Her wallet fell out and hit the patio with such a thump that the change purse opened, scattering loose coins under the adjoining table.

As if they’d been waiting for just such a windfall, two small boys appeared out of the lengthening shadows and, like beggars foraging for scraps, scooped up the shiny nickels and dimes with shrieks of glee.

Imogen didn’t need the chill of premonition creeping up her spine to tell her she’d waited too long to make her escape. Who but offshoots of the Donnelly clan could have been blessed with such unruly cowlicks, such thick black hair, such startlingly blue eyes? The boys scrabbling at her feet were miniature replicas of Joe, devils in the making. And if they were here, could he be far behind?

CHAPTER TWO

“GIVE the lady her money, kids.” Smooth and seductive as black satin, his voice practically stroked the back of her neck.

The boys could have robbed her of her last dollar for all Imogen cared. At that precise moment her only concern was that she not make a spectacle of herself. The last time she’d seen Joe Donnelly, she’d been an emotional mess. She would not appear the same way again. If anyone was to be caught at a disadvantage, it would be he.

Exercising an hauteur not even her mother could have matched, Imogen turned her head ever so casually and spared him a brief over-the-shoulder glance. “Oh, hello. It’s Joe, isn’t it?”

The effort was worth what it cost her, if only to witness the way his jaw dropped and his sultry black lashes spiked upward as the famous Donnelly eyes widened in shocked recognition.

“Imogen?” His voice changed, losing its baritone resonance and emerging rusty as a chunk of old metal fished from the depths of the lake.

“That’s right.” Even though her insides were churning, she flashed a cool, impersonal smile and tucked a few retrieved articles inside her bag. “Imogen Palmer. Patsy and I went to school together and were just reminiscing over old times.”

“The hell you say!”

He sounded as if he were being strangled. If she hadn’t been in such pain, she might have enjoyed his discomfiture. Instead, since there was no other way for her to escape unless she chose to vault over the iron railing separating the patio from the park, she steeled herself to turn and face him.

Oh, he was beautiful! Contrary to all she’d told herself, he was as trim and fit a specimen of manhood as any woman could wish for. Despite the intensified gloom under the awning, she could see that his face was more chiseled than it had been when he was twenty-three, defining more fully the character of the man he’d become. He stood tall and proud, the rebel in him controlled but not tamed.

“Well,” she said, turning away before he read the desolation she knew must show in her eyes, “it’s been nice seeing you again, Patsy. Sorry we didn’t have more time to chat.”

Patsy looked from her to Joe, her expressive face betraying utter confusion. “But—”

One of the boys held out a grimy paw. “Here’s your money, lady.”

“Thank you,” Imogen said, avoiding his clear-eyed gaze. She could not bear to look at him or his brother. Stepping past them and the man at their side, she said, “Sorry to rush off like this, Patsy, but we’ll probably see each other again in the next day or so. Goodbye, Joe. You have lovely children.”

She hoped she made a dignified exit. Spine straight, she tried to move with the unhurried grace of a fashion model through the maze of tables which wove an obstacle course between her and the gate. Only when she’d covered a hundred yards or so of her return journey along the shoreline boardwalk and was a safe distance from the restaurant did she allow herself to slump against the promenade wall and draw a shaking hand over her face.

Surprised, she found she was crying. Not with the great, harrowing, painful sobs she’d endured when Joe Donnelly had left her nine summers before. Not with the mourning hopelessness she’d known when she’d walked out of Colthorpe Clinic the following spring, her arms as empty as her heart. But silently, with tears flowing warm and unchecked down her cheeks.

Footsteps intruded on the silence, and again premonition shivered over her, warning her that escape was not to be so easily bought. A second later his voice, in control, bore out the fact. “Not so fast, Imogen.”

Appalled, she fished a tissue out of her bag, swabbed at her tears and tried to blow her nose discreetly. “What is it?” she asked, grateful for the blessed camouflage of twilight. “Did I forget something?”

He touched her, placing his hand on her shoulder as if he were about to arrest her for loitering. “Apparently you did.”

“Really?” Trying to shrug him off, she peered into her bag as intently as if she expected to find a snake hidden there. Anything was preferable to looking him in the eye. “What?”

“Us,” he said, spinning her to face him. “Or did you hope I’d forgotten that Patsy wasn’t the only Donnelly you were familiar with at one time?”

“He is immoral, insolent and socially unacceptable,” her mother had raged when she’d learned Joe had brought Imogen home from her high school graduation dance. “Should he dare to set foot on this property again, I will have him arrested for trespassing.”

But while he undoubtedly possessed more than his share of faults, unflinching honesty had been but one of Joe Donnelly’s strengths, and he’d lost nothing of his penchant for confrontation. Where other men might have gone along with Imogen’s pretense that they were nothing but the most casual of acquaintances, he was determined to challenge her on it.

“I hoped you’d be gentleman enough not to remind me,” she said.

His voice hardened. “But I’m not a gentleman, Imogen. I never was. Surely you hadn’t forgotten that?”

How did she answer? By confessing that simply seeing him again was enough to make her long for the feel of his mouth on hers? That it was suddenly too easy to look at the star-sprinkled sky and remember how, the night he’d loved her, the wash of the summer moon had turned his skin to pale gold? Or that, if she matched his truth with one of her own, she’d have to admit he was the most exciting man she’d ever met and he’d spoiled her for anyone else?

“How could I have forgotten?” she asked, overwhelmed by the vicious ache of memory. “A gentleman would have...”

He heard the unguarded desolation in her tone. “What?” he asked, his gaze scouring her face. “What would a gentleman have done that I didn’t do?”

Found a way to stay in touch, she wanted to reply. He’d have called or written or shown up at the door and refused to go away. He’d have been beside me when I needed him, and to hell with whether or not my mother approved He’d have shared my grief. But you did none of those things because you didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Our...what happened between us that night...”

“Yes, Imogen? Exactly what did happen?”

He was taunting her, daring her to speak as bluntly as he did. Well, why not? Why should she step delicately, afraid to trample on his feelings, while he stomped roughshod over hers?

“We had sex, Joe. A one-night stand. The ice princess needed to learn what ‘it’ was really all about, and who better to teach her than the guy who’d already had every other willing girl in town? Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” he said, his hands falling from her as if he’d found he was touching slime. “I was hoping you’d tell the truth, for a change.”

“You think I’m lying?”

He swung his gaze from her and stared across the darkening lake. “I never deluded myself about why you turned to me that night, Imogen. But even allowing for that, I still believed you came away from our—” he curled his lip scornfully “—encounter feeling better about yourself. So I hope to hell you are lying now.”

“What does it matter either way, Joe? You obviously didn’t lose much sleep over the whole business.”

“Didn’t I?”

A hundred yards or so ahead, the illuminated dome of the hotel reared into the night like a beacon. Why didn’t she run toward the refuge it promised? Why did she let his question provoke her into having the last word and thereby reveal the misery she was feeling? “Well, you’re married, aren’t you?” she said, flinging the rebuke in his face. “You’ve got two children, both already in school, which explains how you’ve been keeping busy since the last time I saw you. I’d call that getting on with your life without wasting too much time on regrets.”

“And that upsets you, Imogen?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said loftily, her bedraggled pride finally coming to the rescue. “Why in the world would it?”

“I can’t imagine,” he said, a suggestion of sly humor in his voice. “Especially since I’m neither married nor the father of those boys you met.”

“But Patsy said she’s their aunt, which makes you—oh, dear!” The laugh she manufactured to try to cover her embarrassment sounded pathetically like the bleating of a distraught sheep. “How very silly of me.”

“Right,” he said, so smugly she could have slapped him. “I’m their uncle.”

“Well, it was a natural enough mistake on my part,” she said, wishing she could disappear in a puff of smoke before she humiliated herself further. “Sean was a year behind me in school. It never occurred to me he’d be the one to settle down and get married so young.”

“Wrong again, Imogen. He tied the knot with his high school sweetheart, Liz Baker, when they were nineteen, and Dennis was born six months later.”

She’d had one shock too many in the past hour. That was the only excuse she could offer for her next incredibly tactless remark. “You mean, they had to get married?”

The look he turned on her, half pity and half disgust, made her cringe. “We mortals who come from Lister’s Meadows tend to make mistakes like that, Imogen. Our animal appetites get the better of us—not that I’d expect someone of your refined sensibilities to understand that.”

Oh, she understood—more than he’d ever know!

But what good would it do to say so at this late date? Casting about for an escape from a situation growing more fraught with tension by the minute, she saw they’d finally drawn level with the Bnarwood’s entrance. Wanting nothing more than to rush up the steps and disappear through the front doors, she forced herself to observe the social niceties ingrained in her from birth. “Well, it was a pleasure seeing you, Joe, and I’ve enjoyed catching up on all your news. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again some time.”

Any other man would have taken the hint, shaken the hand she extended and left. Not Joe Donnelly. He looked first at her hand, then at the floodlit facade of the hotel, before zeroing in on her face with that too-candid, too-observat gaze of his. “Are you telling me you’re staying at the Briarwood or just trying to get rid of me before someone you know sees the kind of company you’re keeping?”

“I’m staying at the hotel.”

“Why? What’s wrong with staying at home?”

“My mother is away for a couple of days, and I didn’t want to put the staff out.”

“Why did she go away when she knew you were coming?”

“Because—” She stopped and drew a frustrated breath. “You ask too many questions, Joe Donnelly.”

“I guess that means you aren’t going to let me buy you a drink while you fill me in on what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other?”

“Thank you, no. It’s been a long day, and I’m rather tired.”

“In other words, your life is none of my business.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t.”

He held her gaze an uncomfortably long time. “Fine. Sorry I bothered you. It won’t happen again.”

Then he did exactly what she’d wanted him to do—turned and strode back the way he’d come. Left her again, without so much as a backward glance. And she, fool that she was, felt her heart splinter a little, as if a piece of glass lodged there for years had suddenly broken loose.

Her strength seemed to drain out through the soles of her feet. She sank to the edge of the hotel lawn, afraid she was going to faint. Apparently, so did a couple who passed her. “Looks as if she’s had one too many,” the woman remarked, giving her a wide berth.

Imogen didn’t care. She had only one thought, to hide herself behind the closed door of her room before she confronted the emotions sweeping through her. Not shock. She was past that. And not the thunderstruck notion that, after all these years, she was still in love with Joe Donnelly. That was so clichéd as to be laughable.

No, what terrified her was the feeling of having her back to the wall as destiny finally caught up with her. She had run for years. But in coming back to Rosemont, she had tempted fate too far, and it was about to demand a reckoning.

The phone was ringing as she let herself into her room. It was Tanya, calling for an update.

“You’re overtired,” she said, when Imogen tried to describe the foreboding gripping her. “It’s a long enough flight from Vancouver to Toronto, never mind the drive you had to face once you landed.”

But Imogen remained unconvinced. She was realizing too late that it wasn’t possible to dig up selective parts of the past. It was an all-or-nothing undertaking, and she hadn’t bargained on that, at all.

Patsy was stretched out on the couch, watching the eleven o’clock news, when Joe got home. “Hi,” she said, turning off the TV. “How was your evening?”

“Just peachy!” He flung himself down beside her and scowled at the blank screen. “Did you get the boys home okay?”

“Of course I got them home okay. What’s put you in such a lousy mood?”

“I’m not in a lousy mood.”

“You could have fooled me,” she said, subjecting him to uncomfortably close scrutiny.

He squirmed under her gaze. “For Pete’s sake, stop looking at me as if I’ve just broken out in spots! I’m not one of your patients.”

She let the silence spin out for a while, then said, “I gather your hot date with Imogen didn’t pan out.”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Gee, you could have fooled me. The way you went racing after her, anyone would think—”

“Can it, Patsy!”

Her voice softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was that important to you.”

“She’s not.” He slouched against the cushions and gazed at the ceiling. “It’s just that some things never change, no matter how much time goes by. I wasn’t good enough for Imogen Palmer in the old days and I should have known better than to think she’d spare me the time of day now. End of story.”

“I think you’re selling both yourself and Imogen short. She was never a snob.”

“Don’t give me that! You’ve only got to look at the way she was brought up by that mother of hers.”

“Dad drinks,” Patsy pointed out, “but that doesn’t make us alcoholics.”

“I know.” He blew out a sigh of frustration. “But let’s face it, Pats, the Imogen Palmers of this world stick to their own breed—corporate giants backed by old money.”

“From everything you’ve told me, you’re not exactly subsisting on a pittance, either, Joe, and women have been falling at your feet ever since you started shaving. So what’s this really all about?”

Guilt, that’s what. And shame. But he wasn’t about to open up that can of worms, not tonight and especially not with Patsy. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Could be that she’s involved with some other guy and not interested in shooting the breeze with—”

“She’s not involved with anyone else. I know that for a fact because she told me so.”

“Well, that proves my point then, doesn’t it? She’d rather be alone than spend any time with someone like me.”

Patsy gave him another of those annoyingly clinical looks. It stretched to a minute before, having finally arrived at some decision, she said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this and I wouldn’t if you weren’t the brother I adore despite his bullheadedness, but I happen to know that this ‘goddess’ of yours has feet of clay just like the rest of us. She didn’t leave town suddenly the summer after we graduated because the air didn’t agree with her—”

“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “She went to some fancy finishing school in Switzerland, which also goes to prove my point.”

“No, she didn’t. She was pregnant, and her mother sent her to live with relatives somewhere down near the U.S. border so no one here would find out.”

When he’d first begun working with horses, a young stallion had kicked him in the ribs, only a glancing blow, fortunately, but at the time Joe thought his chest had caved in. He felt the same way now. “It’s not like you to spread ugly rumors, Pats.”

“It’s no rumor, Joe. To make a bit of extra money, I worked part-time for Dr. Rush and Dr. Stevens all summer, filing medical records, and I saw her chart.”

Sweat prickled the pores of his skin. Patsy had never been a gossip. Was it likely she’d be passing on information if she wasn’t sure of her facts?

Still, he continued to deny it. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “Or else you’re mixing her up with someone else.”

“No, I’m not.”

“What makes you so sure? Plenty of girls get pregnant. Look at Liz.”

“But not girls like Imogen Palmer, Joe. I mean, think about it. She hardly ever even dated, and when she did, the family chauffeur used to drive her and the boy to and from wherever they were going. Ian Lang bragged to everybody that the only reason he asked her out in grade eleven was so he’d get to ride in the back of that big black Mercedes.”

“Ian Lang always was an ass.”

“Yes.” Patsy had that look again, and it was pointing straight at him—again. “I know you won’t repeat what I’ve told you to anybody, Joe.”

Wrong! There was one person he’d definitely be talking to.

“It’s ancient history, after all, and no one else’s business.”

Wrong again, Pats!

“I only told you to rid you of this ridiculous inferiority complex you seem to have developed where Imogen’s concerned.”

“Yeah. Sure. Who gives a damn, anyway?”

He did! But he wasn’t about to let Patsy know.

He made a big production of yawning. “I’m about ready to hit the sack.”

“Me, too. Want anything before we turn in?”

He wanted plenty—answers, mostly, but he’d make do with a stiff belt of bourbon for now. “I’ll pass, thanks. You go to bed, and I’ll let Taffy out for a run before I come up.”

The back porch lay deep in shadow. Moonlight glinted off the bottle of Jack Daniels perched on the railing. Leaning against one of the posts supporting the roof, with Taffy, the dog he’d found abandoned by the side of the road ten years ago, at his feet, Joe stared at the strip of garden and wondered how everything could possibly remain so utterly untouched by the turmoil raging inside him.

The sound of the courthouse clock striking midnight came faintly on the night air. Another nine hours at least before he could get any answers. How in hell was he supposed to fill the time between now and then?

Taffy stirred in her sleep, whimpered groggily and twitched her arthritic old legs at the phantom rabbits chasing through her dreams. He knew all about dreams. They were what had got him through the time he’d served in Pavillion Amargo, the jail he’d been sent to after Coburn’s death.

They’d met when he’d signed on with the crew of a sailboat being brought from Ecuador to San Diego. Like everyone else on board, Joe had recognized Coburn for the brute he was, but the trouble began on Ojo del Diablo, a Caribbean island where they dropped anchor to pick up fresh supplies.

Coburn got in a drunken brawl and just about beat one of the locals to death. Joe stepped in to break things up, and Coburn fell and split his skull. Within minutes, the police were on the scene, he had blood on his hands, and there were two men lying in the gutter, one of them dead.

Justice, he’d soon learned, was pretty basic in little banana republics, especially when one of their own was involved. Before he knew it, he was in the slammer and the rest of the crew had set sail.

He survived the next months on memories of Rosemont Lake’s clear, unpolluted water, on the smell of clean sheets dried in the sun on his mother’s washing line, the taste of her apple pie still warm from the oven. Clichés every one, but they kept him from going mad.

And sometimes, when the moans of other prisoners filled the night, he dreamed of Imogen in a long white dress, and how she clung to him and wept in his arms, and how he’d made her smile again. He’d wondered if she remembered him, if he’d live to see her again, if there would ever be another time when she’d turn to him. But never, in his wildest imaginings, had he thought he might have left her pregnant.

Was that what he’d done? And if so, what had happened to the child?

He drained his glass, grabbed the bottle and stepped quietly to the end of the porch where the old hammock hung. It was going to be a long night. He might as well make himself comfortable.