Catherine Spencer: The Secret Daughter

“You had a baby. My baby. Didn’t you?” “You had a baby. My baby. Didn’t you?” The blood drained from Imogen’s face. “How did you find out?” she croaked. “By accident.” “I’m sorry.” She sounded as feeble-minded as she felt. “Sorry for what?” Joe blazed. “For the way I found out I’d fathered a child, or that I found out at all? You could have told me yourself, at the time. But let me guess why you didn’t. Donnelly genes didn’t measure up to what it took to be a Palmer heir. It was easier to erase the mistake before anyone found out about it. How am I doing so far, princess? Batting a hundred?” “You couldn’t be more wrong,” Imogen whispered. “Then what happened to my child?”About the Author CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Harlequin ® in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus three dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs. Catherine always enjoys hearing from her readers, so why not drop her a line at the following address: Catherine Spencer Box 1713 Blaine, WA 98231 U.S.A.Title Page The Secret Daughter Catherine Spencer www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“You had a baby. My baby. Didn’t you?”

The blood drained from Imogen’s face. “How did you find out?” she croaked.

“By accident.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded as feeble-minded as she felt.

“Sorry for what?” Joe blazed. “For the way I found out I’d fathered a child, or that I found out at all? You could have told me yourself, at the time. But let me guess why you didn’t. Donnelly genes didn’t measure up to what it took to be a Palmer heir. It was easier to erase the mistake before anyone found out about it. How am I doing so far, princess? Batting a hundred?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Imogen whispered.

“Then what happened to my child?”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Harlequin ®in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus three dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

Catherine always enjoys hearing from her readers, so why not drop her a line at the following address:

Catherine Spencer

Box 1713

Blaine, WA

98231 U.S.A.

The Secret Daughter

Catherine Spencer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

TANYA seized the crumpled invitation from the wastebasket where Imogen had tossed it, smoothed out the creases and said, “What do you mean, you’re going to send your regrets? Your high school principal’s retiring and your hometown’s celebrating its centennial anniversary. This is a heaven-sent opportunity, Imogen!”

“To do what?” Imogen barely lifted her head from the design she was working on for Mrs. Lynch-Carter’s windows.

“Why, to mend fences with your mother, of course. Or do you plan to wait until she’s dead before you attempt a reconciliation? Because if you do, my dear, let me assure you that you’ll be eaten up with guilt for the rest of your life.”

“If my mother wants to see me, Tanya, she knows where I live.”

“But you’re the one who refused to go home again. It strikes me it’s up to you to be the one to make the first move now.” Tanya adopted her most winning tone, the one she used on clients who mistakenly believed that money and good taste automatically went hand in hand. “Let’s face it, Imogen. You’ve been dreadfully hurt by the estrangement, and the odds are your mother has, too.”

“I doubt it,” Imogen replied, recalling the speed with which Suzanne Palmer had hustled her out of town and out of the country within days of learning of her daughter’s fall from grace. “When I needed her the most, my mother abandoned me.”

“Does it make you feel better to go on punishing her for it?” Tanya persisted. “Do you never wonder if perhaps she regrets the way she acted but doesn’t quite know how to go about rectifying her mistake? We’re a long time dead, kiddo, and it’s too late then to put things right. Do it now, while you still can, is my advice.”

If truth be known, Imogen had thought the same thing herself many times. And lately, she’d missed her mother more than usual. Having someone care enough to want to orchestrate every facet of her life was better than having no one at all.

Was it possible they could start over, not as parent and child but as two adults with close ties and a mutual respect for each other? The teenager in trouble with nowhere to turn had evolved into an independent twenty-seven-year-old thoroughly in charge of her own life. That being so, should she put aside her injured pride and offer the olive branch?

Never one to lose an argument if she could possibly avoid it, Tanya said, “She’s a widow, and you’re her only child, for pity’s sake! Who else has she got in her old age?”

The mere idea of Suzanne growing old struck Imogen as ludicrous. Her mother simply wouldn’t allow it. She’d be tucked, lifted and dyed to within an inch of her life before she’d submit to the wear and tear of time. Still, she was almost sixty. And it had been nine years.

Sensing she was winning this particular debate, Tanya pressed her advantage. “If it’s an excuse you’re looking for that will allow you to save face, you’ve got it here,” she said, tapping the invitation. “What better reason for simply showing up at the door and saying something cool and offhand along the lines of, ‘I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by to see how you’re doing’?”

“Whatever else her faults, my mother is no fool, Tanya. She’d see through that in a flash.”

“And maybe it wouldn’t matter if she did. Sometimes a little white lie is the kindest route to take, especially if it spares people having their noses rubbed in past mistakes.”

Put like that, it seemed mean-spirited and just plain immature not to seize the opportunity to end the estrangement. And Imogen liked to think that, in the years since Joe Donnelly had sped in and out of her life with the brief impact of a meteor shooting through space, she’d grown up enough to deal with whatever had to be dealt with and not fall apart in the process.

Still, there was more involved in going back to Rosemont than dealing with her mother. There was—

“Of course, if there’s some other reason holding you back, some other person you’re afraid to face, perhaps...”

The knowing, secret little smile with which Tanya finished the sentence found its mark. Too quickly and much too defensively, Imogen retorted, “Like who?”

“Oh, the name Joe Donnelly comes to mind for some reason.”

Cursing herself for falling into so obvious a trap, Imogen said blandly, “I can’t imagine why. I haven’t given him a thought in years.”

Tanya was tall and elegantly thin, beautiful and enviably sophisticated, cultured, educated and gifted. But none of that stopped her from crowing with the delight of a child, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

The devil of it was, she was right. If Imogen were to be honest, she’d have to admit she’d never been able to forget Joe Donnelly. Not that she didn’t try—and even come close to succeeding much of the time. Weeks, even months might go by without her thinking of him, especially when she was involved in a project. Helping a client decide between faux marble or French silk wall treatments didn’t exactly trigger her memory of him.