Familiar Stranger. Шарон Сала

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СКАЧАТЬ shaken by what they’d done as he, and was afraid she’d withdraw in embarrassment before he had a chance to explain. He touched her shoulder, and when she turned, he cupped her face in his hands.

      “Look at me,” he said.

      Cara hesitated, then lifted her head, meeting his gaze straight on. Again, disbelief came and went as she stared at him. Then she touched the swollen edges of her mouth, as if needing the reminder of pain to assure her what had happened was real.

      “I see you,” she said. “Oh, David, there are so many things I have to tell you. After you left, I found out I was pregnant. We have a—”

      “I know,” he said. “Bethany.”

      A look of shock came and went on her face and then her eyes narrowed sharply.

      “You knew we had a daughter?”

      He nodded.

      The timbre of her voice rose a notch. “You knew and you still didn’t come back?”

      David felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He should have seen this coming, and yet after what they’d just done…

      “It wasn’t like—”

      “No. Wait. Let’s start this meeting all over again.”

      The anger in her voice was blatantly apparent now, and he knew there was no going back.

      “David Lee Wilson, just where the hell have you been?”

      Chapter 2

      “Cara, please…can we do this somewhere else?”

      She made no attempt to hide her pain. “Maybe we should adjourn to the bedroom to talk, since we just had sex in my hall.”

      David inhaled slowly, using every mental skill he had to remain calm.

      For Cara, his silence was stronger than any denial he might have made. Courtesy demanded she apologize. She lifted her chin.

      “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. What happened just now was more my fault than yours. If you don’t mind, I’d like to change my clothes. The guest bathroom is just down the hall if you’d like to…uh…I’m just going upstairs now and…”

      “Ssh,” he said softly, and lifted a lock of her hair with one finger, gently pushing it into place. “Go do what you have to do. I’ll be here when you get back.”

      The tenderness in his voice was her undoing. Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them go.

      “You’ll pardon me if I have doubts about that,” she said. “I seem to remember telling you the same thing about forty years ago and look what happened.”

      She walked away, leaving him with nothing but a cold, hard truth. He had walked out on her—twice. Once when she wouldn’t run away with him and then again when he left for Vietnam. He headed for the bathroom, feeling a lot less optimism than he had when he walked in the door with her earlier.

      Cara barely made it to her bedroom before she started to cry—huge, gulping sobs that shattered her all the way to her soul.

      Tearing off her clothes as she went, she staggered into the shower and then turned the water on full force, standing beneath the stinging spray until her mind was numb and her skin was burning.

      One minute led to another and then another until she lost all track of time. The adrenaline rush of making love to a man she’d long thought dead was fading, leaving her shaken and weak. If it hadn’t been for the slight discomfort between her legs, she could have made herself believe it was nothing more than a dream.

      She flinched as the water began to run cold and reached down and turned off the faucets. She pushed back the curtains only to find David sitting on a small stool by the door.

      He handed her a towel.

      “I got worried.”

      She clutched it in front of her nudity like a shield, and as she did, realized any show of modesty was like closing the barn door after the horse had escaped.

      “If you’ll give me a few moments…”

      He stood up and quietly closed the door, leaving her alone to finish drying.

      Cara’s hands began to shake as she swiped erratically at the moisture clinging to her body. It wasn’t until she was completely dry that she realized her clothes were in the other room, with him. She grabbed her bathrobe from a hook on the back of the door and quickly put it on, wrapping and tying it firmly before making another appearance. To her relief, he was nowhere in sight.

      As she began to dress, she glanced at the clock. It was almost three. It had been just after one when she’d come around the corner of the house. No wonder he’d come looking for her. He probably thought she’d gone to her room and slit her wrists.

      She snorted lightly as the thought came and went. If ever there had been a day when that thought had crossed her mind, it was long since over. She’d survived a lot more than this with a hell of a lot less reason. Except for their child. After she’d known about Bethany, everything had changed. David Wilson might have walked out on her, but he’d left a piece of himself behind that he’d never get back. With that thought in mind, she gave herself the once-over in the mirror, nodding in satisfaction at the simplistic style of her clothes. No need dressing like this was any kind of a celebration, because it felt more like a wake. But as she started down the stairs to face the ghost from her past, she had to accept the fact that she didn’t want to bury him again.

      David was lost in thought, staring at the array of family pictures displayed on the mantel and trying not to resent the picture of the short, stocky man with his arms around Cara. Ray Justice. They had been laughing when the picture was taken. He took a deep breath, making himself accept the reality of her life. She’d done just fine without him. Maybe being here was another selfish act on his part and he should never have come back. Before his thoughts could go further, he heard her footsteps in the hall and turned to face his accuser.

      She saw him by the mantel. Her gaze slid from his face to the pictures behind him, and she realized what he’d been doing.

      “She’s beautiful,” David said.

      Cara’s lips trembled, but she nodded. “She has your coloring. All that pretty dark hair and your eyes.”

      “But she has your smile.”

      Cara caught back a sob, determined not to fall apart again.

      “Oh, David…where have you been? We were told you were dead, you know.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      Cara tried not to stare as she sat down on the sofa, but it was difficult not to do so. Her memories encompassed a young, gangly sixteen-year-old boy, not this powerful, secretive man.

      “Won’t you please sit?” she said, as she seated herself on the sofa.

      “I think better standing.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ