Moment Of Truth

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“No. I ran into Hart again this morning, and he’s real. Very real.” She gnawed her lip, thinking about how as they’d stood inches apart in the elevator’s intimate confines her heart had pounded hard enough to rock her body. She had always responded that way toward him—and she knew from her reaction this morning that the chemistry hadn’t changed as far as she was concerned. It didn’t matter how much time had passed or what else had gone on between them, she would always feel that thrumming, physical connection to Hart O’Brien.

Damn him.

Maddie ran a manicured hand up and down the thick gold links she wore around her neck. “If Bonnie’s description is accurate, the bomb tech is a real feast for the eyes.”

Joan pictured Hart as he’d looked a few hours ago, his mouth firm and unsmiling, his narrow, rawboned face made even more carelessly handsome by the dark stubble that shaded his jaw. And those inscrutable green eyes behind long, amber lashes. Just as they had ten years ago, his dark, go-to-hell looks had pulled at something deep inside her.

Feeling her throat go dry, Joan reached for the thermal carafe and poured two cups of steaming tea.

“For the record, Bonnie’s description hits the target. But Hart’s looks are the last thing on my mind.” Joan handed Maddie a tea cup. “Hart said he met with Spence last night, and for some reason, my name came up. Spence told Hart that I’m a widow and I live at the Lone Star with my daughter.” Joan clenched her fingers, flexed them. “I know it’s just a fluke, but Bonnie put him in the executive suite three doors away from ours. Maddie, you know how Helena has the run of the Lone Star. With Hart staying here, in a room so close to ours, he’s bound to at least catch a glimpse of her.”

Maddie’s perfectly plucked eyebrows slid together in thought. “His seeing her doesn’t mean a thing. Unless…”

Sipping her tea, Joan met her friend’s gaze over the rim of her cup. “Unless what?”

“I was at my cousin’s in California the entire time Hart worked here, so I’ve never seen so much as a glimpse of him. Does Helena resemble him? Can you look at the two of them and tell they’re father and daughter?”

“No, thank goodness. Hart’s hair is lighter than Helena’s and has a lot of auburn in it. Her eyes are brown, his are green.” And this morning, those eyes had looked as dangerous as his job, Joan thought. “Helena has my build, too,” she added. “Last night she and I went through some old photo albums for one of her Brownie projects. She looks exactly like I did when I was nine.”

“That’s something to be grateful for.”

“About the only thing. Maddie, Hart is a police officer. He asks questions for a living. Conducts investigations.” Joan sat her cup aside and rubbed at the headache building in her right temple. “He’s already had an occasion to tell me that lying to a cop generally doesn’t get you anywhere but into trouble. When he said that, I felt a premonition, like footsteps of the devil crawling up my spine.”

Maddie gave her a wary look. “Why the heck did the subject of lying come up?”

“Because I told him I didn’t mind sharing an elevator with him. He took exception to that. He was right, I did mind.” And her nerves were still scrambling from the experience. “My stomach knots at just the thought of being around him.”

“Considering your past, that’s understandable. But you should look at things this way. You haven’t lied to Hart about anything. In fact, you haven’t really lied to anyone,” Maddie pointed out. “The instant you told your parents you were pregnant they sent you packing to your aunt’s in Dallas. It wasn’t until you brought Helena back here to live two years later that you found out your parents made up the story about how you eloped with some fictional guy named Thomas Dean days before he died in a car wreck.”

“You’re right, I didn’t know. But when I found out about that story, I didn’t do anything to change it or stop it, either.”

“Why would you? Hart O’Brien whispered sweet nothings in your ear, then rolled out of town like a tumbleweed in a tornado. Your parents wanted to protect you and their grandchild. So, instead of everyone looking at you like you were a woman scorned and your daughter illegitimate, you became a widow and your child avoided being labeled. What were you supposed to do at that point? Tell everybody in Mission Creek that your parents lied? That they made up Thomas Dean because you spent a night with a man who did a ‘conceive and flee’ on you?”

Joan couldn’t help but smile at Maddie’s term. “You’re right, spreading the word that my parents had invented a combination husband for me and father for Helena wouldn’t have accomplished anything.” Even so, Joan had lost count of the nights she’d lain awake, smothering in guilt. Wondering if someday that lie might catch up to her and affect her relationship with Helena.

“And not only did your parents make up Thomas Dean,” Maddie continued, “they went to considerable effort breathing life into him. Endowing a wing at the hospital in his name. A couple of stained glass windows in the church in his memory. The children’s park. The artwork. They did all that to protect you and Helena.”

Joan knew those seemingly philanthropic acts were only part of her parents’ motivation. They believed that their only child had thrown away her future by spending what they viewed as a sordid night with a groundskeeper at the country club. The shame of that had been almost more than her class-conscious parents could bear. Still, no matter the reasons behind Zane and Kathryn Cooper’s subterfuge, in the end their actions had protected Helena.

Helena, who had changed everything. Nothing had prepared Joan for the love she felt for her daughter, something so deep and unfathomable it was undefinable. She would do anything for her child. Anything to shield Helena from harm. So, Joan had let her parents’ lie live and breathe for ten years.

She glanced down at the pink file folders on her desk, many of which contained schedules for clients who had contracted for Body Perfect’s services. People came to the spa to forget their responsibilities for a while. To forget the clock’s ticking, forget that they had a life they had to get back to. For however long they were there, the spa was a place without time.

For Joan, Body Perfect represented just the opposite. Her responsibility to Helena had brought her here. The need to make a secure life for her daughter had forced the pampered country club girl, who had once dreamed of a life that included daily tennis matches and society lunches, to mature and transform almost overnight into a responsible parent.

A parent realistic enough to acknowledge that someday the time would come to tell Helena the truth.

“Maddie, you know that I’ve always planned on telling Helena about Hart,” she reminded her friend quietly. “But not for years, not until she’s old enough to understand. Right now she’s just too young.”

“No matter when you tell her, it won’t be easy for her to figure out how her daddy gave you up.” Maddie sipped her tea. “I sure can’t.”

“Hart didn’t give me up. He never wanted me.” Joan picked up a gold pen off her desk blotter, laid it back down. “His being here is such a shock because I never thought I would see him again. Never thought he would walk back into my life.”

Maddie leaned forward, sat her teacup on the desk. “He hasn’t exactly walked back into your life, has he? He came to the Lone Star because the D.A. brought him here to do a job. Hart O’Brien is here solely on business. When the bombing gets solved, he’ll go back to Chicago. Maybe forever.”

Joan stared across the polished span of desk and saw compassion in her friend’s blue eyes. Maddie was right. Hart hadn’t come back for her. Motherhood and the passage of time had erased the yearning that he do so from Joan’s heart. Yet, even now, she wondered what her life would have been like if Hart had remained in Mission Creek. If the loving words he had whispered against her heated flesh on that long-ago night had been true. If he hadn’t chosen to stay away for nearly a third of her life.

Joan shoved away the thoughts that even now had the power to make her heart ache. What-ifs, might-have-beens, if-onlys—they had the power to drive a person crazy. Hart was, and could only ever be, a dream from her past. She needed to remember that, Joan thought, pulling her defenses more closely around her.

Now Helena was the only one who mattered. She was the one whose feelings had to be considered. If she knew Hart was her father, if he told her he wanted her, loved her, then turned his back on her, the safe, secure world she knew would shatter.

Because Joan intended to protect her child by holding tight to her own secrets, Hart would never know Helena was his daughter. He wouldn’t get a shot at hurting her, of wounding her so deeply that her heart lay ripped open and bleeding for years.