Carla Neggers: Betrayals

Rebecca, in turn, hadn’t surprised him or anyone else when she announced a fall wedding at Wesley Sloan’s house in Tiberon. That meant another trip. At least, Thomas thought, amused, he could afford it.

He felt better than he had in years. The carpenters would start in the morning. They declined to call themselves carpenters-they were restoration specialists or something, but in Thomas’s mind, a man with a hammer was a carpenter.

It was a warm June evening, and Athena, who’d been in her glory during his recovery, was beating the tar out of him at the new edition of Junk Mind. The doorbell rang, and he used the interlude to consider a ridiculous question about a cartoon character. He peeked through the window onto the doorstep.

Jean-Paul Gerard was leaning against the wrought-iron rail and trying desperately, Thomas thought, to look as if he didn’t give a damn whether or not he was sent on his way.

Gisela’s son…my son.

Rebecca had told him about Jean-Paul after her return from Paris, saying the secret had been his promise to keep to Gisela, not hers.

Thomas opened the door. “Come in, son,” he said. “Welcome home.”

Carla Neggers lives in rural Vermont with her husband and their two children. Since completing her first novel at the age of twenty-four, she has written over forty books and has appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.