Jo Leigh - Confessions Bundle

Heart pounding, Blake focused on calm as he slowly rounded the boulder, not sure what he’d find. An injured squirrel? A dog?

A child.

Sitting hunched over, knees pulled up to her chest, her head buried in her thighs. He’d only seen her once, but one glance at the curly brown head and Blake knew he’d found his daughter.

There was dried blood all over her.

The sound came again. A tiny moan followed by a dry sob, as though she was still hurting but was all cried out.

Keeping his emotions in check, when he wanted to grab up that tiny body and run for the nearest phone, Blake kneeled down a few feet away. He didn’t want to scare her, but he had to know how badly she was hurt.

“Mary Jane?”

She jumped, her eyes wide and glazed with fright. And then, seeing him, she hid her swollen, tear-and-sand-stained face.

“Honey, are you hurt?”

Dumb, Ramsden. Really dumb. Of course she was hurt. It hurt to bleed. And it hurt to think that the one person in the world you could trust had been lying to you.

When she continued to ignore him, Blake tried again. “Mary Jane, I understand that you need to be alone, but you’re bleeding. At least let me make sure you don’t need a doctor.”

“I don’t.” The voice was surprisingly strong.

“Can I please see where you’re hurt, just to be sure?”

A skinny little leg popped out, showing him a severely scraped shin and knee. While the cuts weren’t deep, there wasn’t much skin intact.

“Is that all?”

While she kept her head lowered, the other leg came forth. And then two palms and an elbow. From what he could tell, she was right. She probably didn’t need a doctor. But she would if those scrapes weren’t cleaned up.

“What happened?”

“I fell.” She was talking to her chest, but the words were full of energy. And anger.

“Where?”

She glanced up at him then, her little face puckered with irritation. “On the beach and here.” She pointed to the cliff.

Blake glanced up. And swallowed. “You tried to climb up there?”

“I saw a cave.”

She saw a cave. The kid had walked for miles. Been gone for hours. Missed at least one meal. And she hadn’t been planning on coming home.

And suddenly his years of not being a father were extremely evident. He had no idea what to do next.

THE ROAR OF THE WAVES was so loud he could hardly hear himself think—not that he was having any thoughts worth hearing.

“I’m a klutz,” the child announced suddenly.

“What?” He watched her, his heart filling, breaking, and filling some more.

“I’m a klutz,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact tone that lost some of its effect with the residual sob that accompanied it. “You might as well know, I knock things over and fall a lot.”

The condition didn’t seem to upset her much.

“Okay.”

“I don’t need a father.”

The words might have hurt, if he’d had any room for any more emotion. But he’d figured out, somewhere during his trek as he’d replayed that scene on the beach between her and her mother, that Mary Jane would not have chosen to see him.

“You know who I am.”

Green. Her eyes were green with little brown flecks, just like her mother’s.

“You met my mother one night a long time ago.”

Well, that just about summed it up.

“I…”

“You can go now. We’re just fine without you,” she said, and then, as he digested that, as he told himself he couldn’t possibly feel more pain, her face screwed up as if she might cry again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was mean.”

“A little.”

“But it’s true, and this is one of those times when someone asks if you like her dress and you have to say no, you hate it.”

In spite of all the heartache and frustration consuming him, Blake smiled. He couldn’t help it. The little girl intrigued him, and not just because she was his daughter.

But she was. He’d only just met her and suddenly felt as though he’d known this child all her life.

“You are your mother’s daughter,” he said.

“Yeah.” The derision was back. “But I don’t want her, either.”

“You don’t mean that.”

She studied him for a minute, her red-rimmed eyes serious beyond her years. “Pro’bly not, but I’m really, really mad right now.”

Taking a chance that she wouldn’t close up on him, Blake settled in the sand in front of her, his legs stretched out so his white tennis shoes were almost touching hers. Huge and so small. The contrast made his throat tight.

“Why is that?” he asked when he could.

Those wide green eyes hardened. “She lied to me. She promised me she wouldn’t tell you about me. I knew when she took your case this would happen, but she promised and promised and I believed her and she lied to me.”

Mary Jane knew he was Juliet’s client. And that he’d been with her mother once, a long time ago. What else did this precocious child know? The extent of his crimes? Why her mother never told him that she existed?

“She didn’t lie to you.”

Mary Jane didn’t believe him, not that he blamed her. He knew what it felt like to be lied to.

“I didn’t have any idea you existed until I saw you with your mother on the beach,” he said. “I knew she had a cottage somewhere on Mission Beach, that’s all. She’d never told me where. Freedom needs practice being around people. Mission Beach is a little busier than mine, but not too busy, so it seemed like a good choice.” It struck him that he was a grown man, sitting on the beach, confiding in an eight-year-old child.

He’d thought earlier that this child’s mother had brought him something he’d been searching for his entire life—a sense of peace that could be found with the right person.

Not with her—never again with her. But perhaps with the daughter she bore him.

IT WAS GETTING DARK. Pacing between the front door and the back, the beach and the street, with Freedom alongside her, Juliet watched frantically for anyone who might show up with her baby girl in tow. Duane and Donna were out, Marcie was out, some of the neighbors were out.

Blake was out.

The police had full descriptions and pictures, and had put out an alert.

Juliet was home in case the little girl returned on her own, and to answer the phone.

She was doing that, and slowly losing her mind. This morning she’d been relatively happy. She’d managed to patch things up with Mary Jane and Marcie. And she had Blake Ramsden on the periphery of her life, wanting to be her friend.

This morning she’d held her daughter in her arms.

Tonight, Mary Jane was gone. And two of the three people who owned her heart hated her.

Freedom whined, shoving his nose into her palm. She rubbed his black head almost unconsciously.

God, please let her be okay.

The eight-year-old had been gone for almost four hours. At best, she had to be getting hungry. At worst…

Juliet couldn’t even think about it. Not and stay standing.

That look in Blake’s eyes when he’d realized Mary Jane was his child tortured her. Over and over again. She’d lost the respect of the one man whose regard meant more to her than her independence.

And the worst part was, she’d deserved that look. She’d robbed a father of eight years of his daughter’s life.

Just as she’d robbed her sister of the confidante she’d needed at one of the most critical times of her life.

And at least partly because she had this contrary habit of believing that she knew what was best for everyone. How in the hell had she developed such an ego? And without knowing it? No, it had taken seeing everyone she cared about in pain before she’d recognized that little fact about herself. It had taken these hours of being utterly alone.