Catherine Spencer - The Secret Daughter

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.”