The Gazebo. Kimberly Cates

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ My husband can’t help my baby girl. Neither can I. There is only one person who can. Her real…”

      Emma stumbled to a halt, hurt welling up as she raised her gaze to Deirdre. “I thought we told each other everything. Why didn’t you tell me you were adopted?”

      “What are you talking about? I’m not.” Deirdre took the letter out of Emma’s hands, scanned to where her daughter had stopped reading. Her real father…

      Deirdre reeled, struggling to grasp the unthinkable. “I didn’t know…” she breathed, her knees starting to shake. Deirdre began to scan the writing silently, but Emma put a pleading hand on her arm.

      “Read it out loud. Don’t…shut me out.”

      If there was any place on God’s earth Deirdre understood the pain of being shut out, it was here. Swallowing hard, she started over in a wavering voice.

      “I knew in my heart God would find a way to punish me for loving you.”

      Loving who? This stranger? This Jimmy?

      “What happened between us fifteen years ago was wrong. My husband will never forgive me. And my son—oh, God, Jimmy, he knows all about us.”

      Deirdre fought to breathe. Her mother…her mother had cheated on the Captain, gotten pregnant…

      No! Icy hooks tore at Deirdre’s stomach. She wished she could shove the letter back into the chest and burn it. Wished she’d never seen the envelope tucked in the play script. Wished Emma were anywhere on earth but here, peering at her with dark, stricken eyes.

      Deirdre pressed her hand to her mouth. This was impossible. She couldn’t believe it. But suddenly a life-time’s worth of pain and rejection made horrible sense.

      They’d known she wasn’t a McDaniel at all! Her mother and the Captain and Cade. Did they talk about the dirty little secret when she wasn’t around? Shake their heads and say it was no wonder she’d been such a disaster as a kid? She’d been a mistake from the moment she’d been born.

      She closed her eyes, remembering every time she’d found the three of them around the dinner table, whispering, going silent when she walked in the room. And yet, her parents had hurt her before, hadn’t they? It was Cade who stunned her now. Cade’s silence that cut the deepest.

      “Mama?” Emma hadn’t called Deirdre that since she was so tiny Deirdre could pick her up in her arms. Deirdre struggled to control her own reaction, felt as if she were about to shatter. “Did Grandma have an affair?”

      Deirdre’s head swam with betrayal. She’d been born out of some sleazy affair. No wonder the Captain couldn’t be in the same room with her for five minutes without exploding. No wonder Cade had run away to the air force and tried to leave her behind. She was the living evidence of how his mother had betrayed him. Of all the McDaniels’ secrets, Deirdre’s mere existence was the dirtiest, the ugliest.

      “I’m sorry,” Emma quavered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to…”

      Dig up the rotten truth after so many lies? Emma blamed herself. Deirdre could see it in her daughter’s anguished face.

      Deirdre tried to keep her voice calm, even. “You didn’t write that letter, Emma. You didn’t lie or cheat or bury things so deep I never understood…until I thought…”

      There was something horrific about me, some flaw so ugly, so unforgivable neither of my parents could love me the way they loved Cade.

      Deirdre unfastened the brace and closed the lid of the trunk, the edge of the letter crushed in her hand. “Emma, you head on in to work. Okay, honey? I need a little time alone.” Wasn’t that what she’d told Cade what seemed a lifetime ago? Why the hell hadn’t he listened? Was that why the stuff in the trunk was a mess? Had he been looking for that letter? Anything that could sully the image of his precious, perfect mother?

      “Time for what?” Emma asked, as Deirdre scooped up her keys. “Where are you going?”

      “To find out the truth. The Captain and Cade owe me that much at least.” Deirdre started down the stairs.

      “But, Mom…I want to come with you. I—”

      “No!” Deirdre snapped. Emma flinched back, tears spilling over her dark lashes. “No.” Deirdre repeated more softly. She cupped Emma’s cheek in her hand. “You head on over to the library. They’re expecting you to show up for work, and you’re going to need time off for play practice starting next week.”

      “I want to stay with you.”

      “Please. Just…go. Try to understand.” She felt flayed wide-open inside, bleeding. Didn’t want her baby to see her like this.

      “What’s going to happen now?” Tears ran down Emma’s face. “You’re all upset with Grandpa and Uncle Cade.

      I just got my family back. I’m scared everything will be all ugly like it was before. Mom, promise me…you won’t…”

      Run away again? Turn her back on Cade and the Captain? Pretend away her pain? It had been six years since Deirdre felt such an urge to leave Whitewater behind her.

      “Promise me you won’t let this change everything.”

      Oh, God. Emma was so young. So innocent. She couldn’t possibly know that the letter already had.

      “I swear I won’t let it change anything between us, baby. You and me. Nothing could change how much I love you.”

      “But—”

      “I’ll be all right, angel girl,” Deirdre assured her, but she could see disbelief in her daughter’s eyes. Emma knew she was lying. Hiding. But her family—they’d cornered her. What else could Deirdre do?

      Plenty. Starting with getting straight answers for the first time in her life. Deirdre hugged Emma fiercely, then stalked out to the van. She backed out of the driveway, glimpsing Emma, shoulders drooping, cheeks wet with tears, one last victim trapped by the house and its secrets.

      Damn them—damn them all. Her mother, the Captain, the brother she’d trusted more than God himself. She’d sworn she’d never let the misery of her own childhood touch her little girl. Now Emma was caught in the cross fire.

      Deirdre’s fingers clenched the steering wheel, pain, betrayal cutting so deep she couldn’t breathe. No, she vowed. She wouldn’t let them hurt her anymore. Wouldn’t let them hurt her little girl.

      She morphed pain into something harder, more familiar, easier to endure. White-hot McDaniel rage.

      CHAPTER 2

      TOYS SCATTERED THE PLAY yard fronting Cade’s log cabin, his beloved view of the Mississippi obscured by a fence designed to keep his five-year-old twins from tumbling into the river. But as Deirdre strode toward the gate, an escape attempt was well underway. Sturdy, dark-haired Will struggled to balance a tower made of furniture from the playhouse, while Amy perched on top with the grace of a fairy and the tenacity of a pit bull, attempting to unravel the mystery of the childproof latch.

      A СКАЧАТЬ