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Their Secret Child
Mary J. Forbes
But that was all in the past.Addie Malloy had finally moved on and made a life for herself and her young child. Except now Skip had come home. And he'd brought someone with him. Skip was determined to make amends for running out on Addie when she needed him most.But how would the single mother react when she discovered that his daughter was her daughter, too? Would this be the end? Or could this long-awaited reunion be a new beginning…for them all?
“Do you ever think of our baby?”
“Addie.”
“Do you, Skip?”
He looked away, sighed, turned back. “I’m so glad you asked. So glad. There’s something I need to tell you.” He lifted his eyes and a chill skimmed her spine.
“Do you know something? Do you know where she is? Is she all right?”
“Addie…Oh, God, how to say this…Addie, she’s here in—”
“Here?” She tore her hand away, grabbed his arm. “What do you mean here? Where?” Her fingers clutched his T-shirt. “Who—?”
“It’s Becky, Addie.”
“No, I mean our baby. The one I…we…”
His eyes didn’t waver. Those honey-gold eyes she had loved when she was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Until he’d deserted her.
Dear Reader,
Two summers ago, I traveled to Bowen Island for a weekend writing retreat. A twenty-minute ferry ride from the mainland, the island harbors a small village with eclectic shops, restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, while its rural interior hosts small farms of livestock, fruits and vegetables. In contrast, million-dollar homes dot the western shores. But what struck me most was the serenity the island offered.
And so an idea evolved about a fictitious island, which became my new miniseries HOME TO FIREWOOD ISLAND, in which three sisters—Addie, Lee and Kat—make peace with their pasts by finding happiness on their little island home.
Their Secret Child is Addie’s story, and first in the series. I hope you enjoy her journey as she reunites with her high school sweetheart.
Mary
PS—For upcoming details about Lee’s story, next in the series, check my Web site at www.maryjforbes.com.
Their Secret Child
Mary J. Forbes
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MARY J. FORBES
grew up on a prairie ranch where the skies were broad and blue, the hay fragrant, and the winters cold and snowy. Today, she lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest where she teaches school, writes her stories, nurtures her garden, and walks or jogs in any weather.
For R, V, K & J—
Love you all!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Today she would see him again—the first time in thirteen years.
Thirteen years. And she’d counted every one.
Not because of him. Never because of Skip Dalton.
If she’d thought of him at all in that span of time, it was because someone mentioned his name in passing or because Dempsey Malloy had loved to watch football.
But she was no longer married to Dempsey and football hadn’t crossed her TV screen in over a year.
Truth be known, little crossed her TV screen these days. Any leisure time she had, she utilized by sewing, baking or caring for her bees—when she wasn’t teaching or tutoring. And then there was her mother, who’d decided last spring to cut back her hours at the hair salon, which meant this summer Charmaine called her every “free” day and asked, “Whatcha doing?”
No, the thirteen years Addie had counted had been for another reason—a logical decision her father termed it.
Logical.
Forget emotion. Forget tears. Forget the hole in her soul that some nights threatened to kill her.
Decisions didn’t cater to the weak-minded. Decisions meant logic—and Addie Malloy lived logic.
For a fleeting moment, her work-scarred fingers trembled at her left earlobe and she nearly dropped the tiny golden sunflower dangling on its fine chain.
God, why had she listened to her parents all those years ago?
Because you were a coward, Addie. Just as you are now, shaking in your boots, knowing you’ll see him again. Shaking like a little scaredy-cat.
Clamping her bottom lip, she pushed the earring post firmly into place and uttered a sigh of relief when it was done. Should she add a bit of mascara to her stubby lashes? Her sisters, Lee and Kat, always demanded she should wear makeup, that mascara would augment her eyes, make them fab-u-lous.
But this wasn’t a date and she wasn’t going for Skip Dalton.
Stepping back from the bathroom mirror, she checked her face, her strong tanned arms, the yellow sundress that was a hand-me-down from Kat. It would have to do. She would have to do. Money wasn’t a commodity on the island, especially Firewood Island with its two thousand souls, the majority of whose heritage heralded from the hippie sixties.
And as keeper of 480,000 bees she fit right in with the island’s agriculturalists and minifarms, or “hobby farms” as some had the audacity to call them. Maintaining and nurturing twelve hives year-round wasn’t a hobby. It was damned hard work.
She pulled her unruly hair—dirty blond hair, she’d always thought—into a thick knot on her head, shoved in four long pins to hold the mass in place and ignored the flyaway strands creeping free around her face. Not her best attribute, her hair. No, that would be her mouth. Her downfall at sixteen—and again at twenty-two.
Closer to the mirror, she scrutinized the absence of lines, creases or thinning. Thank God. Thirty-one and holding. Her lips remained full and feminine and youthful and…a little wanton. Maybe even sexy if she applied a trace of pink. She would not let him think she’d been kitchen-bound these past years with a passel of kids clamoring around her ankles.
Her heart lurched. You don’t need a houseful, Addie. Michaela embodies every one of your dreams.
Still, she couldn’t stop the ache that stabbed her chest. Thirteen years of memories bleeding out of a black mist like a herd of fire-snorting dragons. God, why today of all days?
She knew why—Skip Dalton.
Forget him! You did it before, you can do it now.
Right. That’s why her heart hammered and a flush spread up her neck. Don’t be an idiot. He won’t recognize you, anyway.
Holding tight to that notion, she shut off the bathroom light and stepped into the hallway.
In her daughter’s bedroom, seven-year-old Michaela sat on the floor, changing the apparel of three of her ten Barbies.
Her little sneakers were on the wrong feet again, and her left sock was missing. Addie noted the clothes Michaela had pulled on: a yellow T-shirt that was inside out and pink shorts. These days, neon pink and sunshine-yellow were prize contenders in her tiny fashion world. And she’d attempted to snap four pink barrettes at precarious angles into her dark ringlets.
Addie forced herself to remain calm, not to rush in, crush her baby to her heart, drink in her child’s scent. “Ready to see Gram, honeykins?”
“’Kay.” Scooping the dolls into her arms, her daughter scrambled to her feet and caught Addie’s hand.
“You’ll have tons of fun making cookies with Gram.” Gently, she swung their hands. “Better than what Mommy’s having at the high school and that boring party.”
“Yeah.”
She wished her little girl would talk more. The school psychologist was trying, but it would take months of patience and a variety of strategies, Addie knew, before her baby would come out of the funk she’d fallen into with Dempsey’s departure fourteen months ago.
Outside on the wooden stoop shaded by three western hemlocks towering over her turn-of-the-century carriage-style house she hesitated a moment and looked down her long lane and across the road. A big new house stood almost completed and barely visible amidst the lush growth of red cedars, ash, Douglas fir and Garry oaks. Painted white with green trim and shutters, the building jutted up two stories, showcasing a turret at one end and a massive stone fireplace at the other. An expansive wraparound porch enclosed the entire structure like a small moat.
Observing the construction for the past two months, Addie had heard rumors in the village of Burnt Bend about the owner. Some rich guy, they said, looking for a summer place.
If he was rich, why hadn’t he built on the water where he could moor his yacht? Why here, on a piece of property dense with woods and creeks, and down a rural road out in the middle of nowhere?
Well, it wasn’t her affair. She didn’t care who lived in the house, as long as they minded their own business and the quiet returned. She was tired of the hammering and sawing, the constant buzz of power tools, the coming and going of trucks. She wanted the peace of the woods again, the song of birds waking her at dawn, the deer visiting her backyard.
With a sigh, she looked down at her daughter. “Go on, honey, get in the truck while Mommy locks the door.” On the faint, early August breeze, Addie heard Charmaine’s cynicism: No one locks doors around here. Why do you?
“Because, Mom,” she whispered, watching Michaela climb into the Dodge Dakota, “I don’t trust Dempsey.” Though she’d never tell Charmaine Wilson that. Her mother favored Addie’s ex-husband, thought he should have time to sort things out in his head, to “find himself.” Which was what he’d told Addie the day he walked out of their lives. According to Charmaine, Dempsey was just a “mixed-up kid.”
Interesting turn of phrase for a man of forty-two. But not surprising, coming from a mother who had told Addie thirteen years ago to “grow up” when she’d found herself pregnant in high school.
With the divorce from Dempsey finalized last January, Addie had moved to her dad’s “homestead” house—three miles from Burnt Bend—and installed new locks. She had no intention of letting her globe-trotting ex back in her life or her house.
Today, however, she wanted to install a dead bolt. On her heart.
She would need it when she watched Harry McLane transfer his three-decades-old title as coach of the high school football team to Skip Dalton, his former student.
And her first love.
Skip Dalton. Back to stay. Back where she’d no doubt run in to him at the post office, the coffee shop, his mother’s grocery store. Skip Dalton, hero on the mainland, and now on Firewood Island. Again.
She couldn’t win no matter how hard she tried.
The school gym and the grounds out the side doors were crowded with students, current and past.
People had come from places as far away as San Francisco and Cheyenne to honor the coach for whom they had cheered and/or run yards, caught field passes and scored touchdowns on the Fire High football field. Thirty years of history had happened between those posts and on those bleachers. Skip should know. From the field, he had waved and grinned at the girls sitting in those bleachers.
And that, unfortunately, had been the start of his history.
He stood beside Coach at the door, greeting folks he hadn’t spoken to in thirteen years. People he’d last seen as kids, and who now had kids of their own. Some former schoolmates had gained weight. One guy was bald, while three were salt-and-pepper gray.
But the girls, the women—he had to blink a couple times to recognize even the smallest familiarity. Not until they’d said their names had he remembered. Ah, yes, Alicia Wells and…was that Francie—aka Fancy Torres? And Elise Haply and…
He regretted not recognizing the women the way he did the men. ’Course, he’d played ball with twenty-five of the guys during his high school years, shared locker jokes, showers, training techniques, victories and losses but, hell, he’d dated damn near as many girls back then.
Admittedly, at one time or other, he’d likely dated every woman standing around today chatting, laughing and sipping punch. Many—when their eyes collided with his—gave him cool, distant looks. No, they hadn’t forgotten his cocky attitude as quarterback of Fire High.
Today, they likely detected the I don’t remember you in his eyes when he looked their way or was introduced to them. That had to hurt, to know they’d been about as important to him as the socks on his feet.
Not something he was proud of. Hell. If history could be rewritten, he’d erase his entire senior year and begin again.
To right the wrongs he’d done to her.
For that chance, he’d give up his nine years of pro ball.
