Dani Sinclair - Best-Kept Secrets

“What did you want to ask me?” she asked instead.

He moved close enough that she could reach out and touch him. Her heart sped up and her stomach muscles contracted in expectation.

“Is Kelsey my daughter?”

The world dissolved in icy shock to reform in blazing anger. “How dare you ask me that?”

“Is she?”

Hands gripped her shoulders, pinning her beneath his steady stare.

“You bastard. You never even read my letters, did you?”

Jake blinked. “What letters?”

She tugged free, moving away from him, wrapping her arms around her suddenly chilled body. How could he stand there and ask her that?

“I never got any letters from you, Amy.”

“Right.”

“I never lie, Amy.”

She rounded on him angrily. “Well, if you didn’t get them, then your brother-in-law is a bigger bastard than you are.”

Jake flinched, but his gaze didn’t waver.

“Ask him,” she insisted. “I wrote you twice. Once when I found out I was pregnant, and once after Kelsey was born. I almost didn’t send you the second letter since you never responded to the first one, but I figured you’d at least want to know if you had a daughter or a son.”

Jake tried to quell the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could only stare at her while her words flayed him with a pain much deeper than any physical wound.

“My brother-in-law is dead,” he said softly. “He and my sister were killed in a plane crash almost eight years ago.”

He watched her face crumple in consternation.

“I didn’t know.” Her hand lifted as if to offer him comfort, then abruptly fell to her side.

He rubbed his chin, trying to make sense of what she’d told him. “You gave Ronnie the letters to send to me? Why didn’t you give them to Carrie?”

“Your sister wouldn’t take my calls after you left. I wanted your address, but Ronnie wouldn’t give it to me.”

She tried to conceal her remembered hurt, but he knew. One more snippet of guilt to live with.

“Ronnie wasn’t friendly, either,” she went on more stoically. “I figured he and Carrie knew we’d broken up and they didn’t want to get involved. While Ronnie wouldn’t give me an address to write to you, he agreed I could send you a letter through him.”

Jake’s pain bit a little deeper. Jake had told Ronnie and Carrie he didn’t want to talk to Amy. He’d never thought about the position he’d put them in. He hadn’t told Amy how to reach him because he’d wanted to keep the breakup simple and as painless as possible. Amy wouldn’t understand that he’d done it to spare her. He didn’t understand it himself anymore. He could see Ronnie tossing out her letters thinking she was trying to cling to a dead relationship.

“You didn’t tell Ronnie about the baby.”

Her eyes snapped green fire. “It wasn’t any of his business. Are you telling me he never sent you my letters?”

“I’m telling you I never got any letters from you, Amy,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if Ronnie didn’t send them, or if they never caught up with me. I moved around a lot on my assignments overseas. Some-times…well, mail didn’t always catch up with me. I didn’t learn about the plane crash until months after it happened. I swear to you, I never knew about Kelsey.”

He could see she wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. He didn’t blame her. He’d had months lying in that hospital bed not so long ago regretting the choices he’d made. Especially the fact that he’d let her go—and the unforgivable way he’d gone about it.

“I’m sorry, Amy.”

“So am I.” A sheen of tears hovered in her eyes. “Now get out of here, Jake.”

The words fell like a blow. She followed them up with a knockout punch of calm deliberation. “My duty was to let you know. I did my part. Goodbye, Jake.”

He deserved her anger and more. He shook his head, knowing he was going to have to hurt her even further.

“That isn’t how it’s going to work,” he said mildly.

“Oh, yes. Yes, it is, Jake Collins. Kelsey is my daughter. I’ve raised her, cared for her and loved her since she was born. I don’t need you and neither does she. Now get out of here.”

She immediately pressed 9-1-1 on the phone she held in her hand. Her eyes held his accusingly.

“This is Amy Thomas. I’d like to report an attempted break-in at my parents’ house. Someone—” she held his gaze steadily “—cut the screen trying to get inside the back door.”

Her pain ate at him. He deserved her anger, but she had it wrong. He wasn’t about to walk away now that he knew he had a daughter.

He was a father!

The unbelievable miracle would take some getting used to.

“The police are sending a car,” Amy told him. “You can leave now.”

“They’ll want to talk to me.”

“Maybe they will, but I don’t,” she said with quiet dignity.

The quiver of her lower lip was the giveaway. She was holding back tears.

“I’m not going to justify walking away nine years ago.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“I couldn’t if I tried,” Jake said softly. “But I want you to believe one thing. If I had known about Kelsey I would have done everything in my power to take care of both of you.”

Amy gave a ladylike snort. “I didn’t need anyone to take care of me, Jake. I managed just fine on my own.”

“Of course you did. You were always stronger than you thought you were.” He glimpsed the reflection of flashing lights in the living-room windows. “The police are here. I’ll speak to them, but this conversation isn’t over.”

“Yes, it is.”

He walked past her through the house, heading for the front door. Officer Derek Jackstone was just mounting the porch steps.

“Officer,” he greeted Jackstone.

“Hello, Mr. Collins. I didn’t expect to see you here. We had a report of a prowler?”

Jake explained the little he’d seen, then nodded toward Amy who watched the exchange in silence. “I’ll be at the Perrywrinkle if you need me for any reason.”

“Thank you.” Officer Jackstone stepped past him and Jake headed down the steps without looking back. “Ms. Thomas,” he heard Jackstone greet Amy.

“Derek, you may wear a uniform now, but I’m still the same Amy who sat next to you in biology,” she told him.

Yes, she probably was, Jake thought. She was still the same Amy he’d fallen in love with nine years ago. And she was more out of reach now than she had been then. He sighed and wondered if it was too soon to take another pill for his back.

ONCE DEREK LEFT, Amy paced the house nervously, trying not to think about Jake or the past or anything else. The attempted break-in didn’t disturb her as much as their conversation.

She didn’t want to feel sorry for Jake. She didn’t even want to believe him.

But she did.

Amy turned off the lights, double checked the doors and windows, and headed upstairs. Her parents must have fallen asleep early because even the flashing lights of the police car hadn’t brought them downstairs to investigate.

Ronnie had never sent her letters to Jake. All this time she had thought he didn’t care and Jake hadn’t known the truth. Not that it changed anything. Jake was Kelsey’s biological father, but he had no place in their lives. Amy had only wanted to show him what he’d given up.

Yet he hadn’t given her up if he never knew of her existence.

Amy shook aside that thought. Walking away without any explanation was proof enough that he wasn’t the sort of stable influence she wanted in Kelsey’s life. One day they were lovers in every sense of the word, then next he’d left on a mission for the navy. When he’d returned, he’d announced he was being sent overseas—indefinitely. And he’d thanked her—thanked her!—for the past few months and left.