Katie Sara showered, put on her most comfortable pajamas, and then went downstairs to straighten up. Finally, she’d procrastinated as long as she could. There was nothing else left for her to do. A glass of white wine in hand, she turned out the lights and went back upstairs to her room.
Her hand shook as she set the wine on her bedside table. Since the album had been put together so meticulously, she had to assume he’d tucked the letter behind that particular picture for a reason. Yet she might never have found it if Danny hadn’t searched for her and Reiner, then chosen the picture of her on the horse for Reiner to see.
Propped up in bed, doubts assailed her. Maybe she should wait. It might be better to do this after Danny left tomorrow. Why stir up things anymore? Wasn’t she in enough turmoil?
But now she knew of the letter’s existence, it both enticed and intimidated her. Its contents would prey on her mind and nerves. All evening, her fertile imagination had conjured up possibility after possibility. Regardless of what she learned, it would be better than this uncertainty and all the speculation.
On the outside, her daddy had scrawled two words. I’m sorry. Those two words sent chills down her spine. They didn’t bode well for the letter’s contents. But whatever he’d written had been important to him, something he’d wanted to share with her—or felt he’d needed to.
Fingers trembling, she unfolded the slightly yellowed paper with its brittle creases. Because Daddy wanted her to read this letter, she would.
Katie Sara, honey.
In her mind, she heard her daddy’s deep, confident voice, not that of the frail shell of a man the prison system had returned to her for a few short weeks.
She stared at the opening words, then forced her eyes to read on.
First, I want to tell you how very, very much I love you. Writing this letter is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and yet I’m still taking the coward’s way out—as I have for far too many years. I can’t bear to look into your eyes or the eyes of your mother as I confess.
I’m making an album for you, sugar, and I’ll put this behind one of the pictures. Fate will determine when, and if, you find it. I know you have questions, questions that deserve answers, and I’ll try to give them to you.
As for your mother, I’ll leave it to you to decide what and how to tell her of this—whether she should even know of this letter’s existence or read it. I have no idea as I write this what circumstances Claudia will be in when it’s found. You’ll know what’s best.
The whys of things have never concerned her. She doesn’t care to delve too deeply beneath surfaces. I don’t mean that as a criticism. It simply is.
You, on the other hand, are never satisfied until you know “why”. You’ll need to understand the reason I stole the bank’s money, the reason I risked and lost everything. That’s your nature.
You’re hoping, even now I’m sure, eternal optimist that you are, that I’ll tell you I stole from the bank for some great and noble cause. No such reason exists, Katie Sara. I needed the money because of something I did when I was very young and very stupid. You and your mother both paid a high price for my indiscretion.
I hope someday you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me, but if, when you’ve finished this, you can’t grant me that forgiveness, I will understand.
I have no way of knowing how many years have passed since I’ve written this, but, although I hardly know where to start, I’ll leave you in suspense no longer. I fear this letter will shatter your world.
Since there is no good place, I will simply start at the beginning.
Katie Sara wiped sweaty hands on her pajamas, certain now she didn’t want to read anymore. Positive she had to. She sipped her wine, wetting a mouth gone cotton dry.
I love your mother very much, Katie Sara. I always have, always will. It’s important you know and remember that. We practically grew up together. Everyone always took for granted we’d marry, but when I went away to London for college, I met someone else. Jenna Holland.
It’s the same story that’s been told a thousand times. We fell in love, Jenna got pregnant....
The paper fluttered to Katie Sara’s lap, and she fell back against her pillow, her head swimming. Her father had gotten a girl pregnant in England while he’d been dating her mother?
She picked the pages back up.
...and we married without telling anyone, not even my parents.
“Oh!” Katie Sara threw back the sheets and jumped out of bed. “I can’t believe this!”
She moved to the window. Resting her forehead on the glass, she stared out over the quiet street. Finally, sitting on the bed’s edge, she picked up the letter again.
Your mother had no idea. I lied. I told her I couldn’t come home because I had to work—and I did, to meet my obligations as a newly married man. Rent, food, doctor bills. The money my parents sent covered my school expenses so I could continue my college courses.
It turned out that Jenna suffered from depression and had for years. The pregnancy triggered it again, and I didn’t know how to handle it or her.
One night I came home from work and found Jenna unconscious on the kitchen floor. She’d swallowed a bottle of pills.
I contacted her parents and explained the situation. She’d suffered severe brain damage, and the doctors gave her only a day, two at the most. Our unborn baby had already died.
It turned out she came from a very wealthy family, and her parents insisted I leave. They said they’d take care of everything, that I’d already done enough. I was not to attend her funeral or contact her family. Ever.
I was twenty-one years old, Katie Sara. I was grieving. God help me, I kissed my dying wife good-bye and left. I didn’t know what else to do. They flew her to their country estate to die, and I tried to pick up the pieces of my life.
After I finished my last semester, I returned home to your mother. It’s my shame that I married her as a widower without telling her. Because I didn’t want to hurt her, I kept my first marriage a secret. From everyone.
Her mother hadn’t known, Katie Sara realized. She still didn’t.
But here, daughter, is my deepest, darkest secret. The secret I could not face you or your mother with. The truth even I didn’t know until a letter arrived at the bank just before the holidays your junior year. Addressed to me personally, it bore British postage. It turns out Jenna lived for another two years.
Katie Sara’s heart bumped to a stop, then roared to life again at double speed. She wanted to throw the letter in the trash. How could any of this be true?
The doctors had given her a day or two. I assumed they were correct and never heard otherwise from her family. I compounded the error a thousand times over because I never checked. Therefore, I wasn’t a widower, and I didn’t divorce Jenna.
Katie Sara’s throat tightened. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Rhonda had warned her the truth might not be pretty. But this...far, far worse than anything she could ever have imagined.
When I married your mother, I was already a married man.
Unable to breathe, she dropped her head between her knees. Snatching up the letter, she read the words a second time before going on.
The secret burned a hole through my soul. The letter, after all those years, asked for money in exchange for silence. One of the guys I went to college with had been here on a business trip, met your mother, and put two and two together. He figured it added up to a big payday for him.
I decided instead to tell your mother...to make things right...remarry her if she’d still have me. But God help me, I couldn’t do it. I’d lived the lie too long.
Katie Sara could certainly appreciate that feeling. But while her mother stood in church in her white wedding gown, the real Mrs. McMichaels lay in a coma somewhere. Her parents’ marriage had been a sham.
Her daddy! How could he have done this? Her fist closed on the pages, crumpling the paper.
For a long while, she simply lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling, feeling disoriented. Her entire world had shifted so violently she felt in danger of sliding off the edge.
And in a motel room here in Paradox, her son slept. Her life had deviated so far off course, she wasn’t sure normal existed anymore.
Her head ached.
The letter taunted her. Smoothing the pages, she knew she had to finish it. It surely couldn’t get any worse.
I honestly thought I could borrow from the bank, cover my trail, and somehow make it all right before anyone found out. I took a chance and lost everything.
So you see, sugar, I couldn’t tell Cavanaugh what I’d done with the money. It would have meant airing all of this in public, and that would have killed your mother. Far, far better to spend an extra year or two in prison.
Better that than to have to face your mother with the fact there’d been another Mrs. Ralph McMichaels before her—and that I’d never told her. That, in fact, she and I had never legally been married.
I did not intentionally set out to hurt anyone. I did, however, allow circumstances to set my course rather than steer my own ship. My fault. My blame.
If you decide to share what I’ve written with your mother, please tell her I’ve loved her always and that I hope she’s found a new love and a new life. She deserves both. I would never, ever have married her had I known Jenna was still alive without getting an annulment first. I would never have knowingly committed bigamy. Please believe me. My biggest mistake was in not waiting for your mother in the first place.
There’s very little else for me to say, Katie Sara, except that I hope you’ll not let this overshadow the true love I have for you. You are my daughter, my life. You are everything to me. You have made my life worth living, and I love you.
I hope your life is filled to overflowing with true happiness and love.
I love you now and always,
Daddy
Katie Sara’s hands trembled. A cold unlike any she’d ever known invaded her body despite the fact that it was deep Georgia summer. Her daddy had already been married when he’d married her mother. That meant—
Running to the window, she threw it open, stuck her head out and drew in large gulps of air.
She was illegitimate. Just like Danny. Her own mother, who had been so afraid someone might find out Katie Sara had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, had done that very same thing herself—albeit unknowingly.
A fit of manic giggles overtook her. Cupping her hand over her mouth, she drew her head back in the window, recognizing the signs of hysteria. She had to get hold of herself.
How could her daddy have done this to them? How could he have been so careless?
He’d stolen the money to hide his secret from her and her mother. To keep from destroying their lives, he’d given his own. She’d far rather he’d simply told them. They’d have dealt with it. The three of them. As a family.
A photo of her father sat on her dresser. She picked it up, studying it as she would a stranger, then replaced it, facedown.
The morning couldn’t have been more beautiful. Katie Sara sat on her old swing in the backyard and watched the sun’s first soft promise spread over the Earth. With it a few birds began their search for breakfast, hopping from branch to branch, twittering and twilling.
Peaceful. Healing.
Exactly what she needed after last night, before today.
The air was still cool and dry enough to fool a person into believing the day might be bearable. Give it another hour, she thought, and it would heat up to a steam boiler.
Her father must have suffered, his secret jabbing and eating away at him. Had he ever been able to put it out of his mind? To give up their life together rather than tell them—
He’d done the right thing leaving her the letter. She was strong enough to deal with the truth—or would be eventually—and she did deserve to know why she’d lost her daddy.
But her mother? He’d pegged her, too. She seriously doubted Claudia could handle this truth. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to deal with the scandal. As awful as it was, it was better for her to lose her husband.
Talk about irony. Katie Sara had to leave town so no one would know she’d given birth to an illegitimate child, and all along, she’d been one—technically.
Her life had become a caricature of itself.
She’d just taken a sip of coffee when she heard Reiner out front. “I’m back here.”
When he peeked around the corner of the house, she had to laugh. “You look like heck. What are you doing up so early?”
“Might ask the same of you.”
In answer, she held up the coffee pot she’d carried out with her. “Want a cup?”
“It’s that, or I’ll arm wrestle you for yours.”
“That bad, huh? Well, you’re in luck. I grabbed two mugs on my way out. Sometimes Mrs. Jones comes over for a cup.”
He took the coffee. “Did you read your daddy’s letter?”
Her imposed serenity shattered. “What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?”
“Just tryin’ to make polite conversation.”
“There’s nothing polite about you.”
“Ouch, I thought Chia was the one with claws.”
“Actually, he’s safe. The vet declawed him. You’ve been keeping an eye on the wrong one.”
“Boy, ain’t that the truth.”
Bull’s-eye again. And she’d opened herself to that shot. She ran a finger around her coffee cup’s rim.
Matter-of-factly, he said, “Well, life sucks sometimes. You have to get over it.”
She wanted to throw her coffee in his oh-so-damn-handsome face. How could he turn that hot blood so cold? Instead, she simply shook her head.
The clock ticked away the minutes, all too precious and few, left with her child. This would never be repeated. It couldn’t be. He had a family, one that deserved his love and loyalty. It would be wrong to divide those feelings, to push and pull him in two directions. Danny belonged with the Wellners. They were his family, his real family.
The choice had been made years before. By her.
Poor Reiner. He made it tough to feel sorry for him, though. He was being a real ass. But not around Danny, thank God.
Reiner draped himself in her wooden lawn chair, a sulky, discontented expression on his handsome face.
Oh, well. What had he said?
Life sucked. Get over it.