Chapter Thirty-One

The woman sitting across from Wade took his breath away. Even the scar over her eye enhanced her beauty. Her complexion was creamy smooth, with a pale blush to her cheeks and a deep rose to her lips, the black of her eyelashes and perfectly arched eyebrows, her platinum hair combed over in a flawless wave with her long hair pulled up into a fashionable do. He certainly wasn’t an expert on women’s styles, but there was no doubt in his mind that Addison James had earned her title as the world’s most beautiful woman.

Addison seemed to glow as she took in the ambiance of the restaurant. “Le Chalet reminds me of Christmas in France’s Central Square of Mègeve. The owners have created a lovely and homey atmosphere with the fireplace and all the decorations. Do they offer sleigh rides?”

Perfect, he thought. “As a matter of fact, they do, and I’ve arranged for a trip around the lake.”

She rewarded him with a dreamlike smile that caused his heart to ratchet up a couple of beats. With a smile like that, how could he not be drawn to this woman? Being near her infused him with an energy that made him optimistic about a possible future together.

He reached across the table and wrapped his hand around Addison’s. A kind of magic had entwined them. Her gaze rose to his. Deep blue. Honest. Expectant. He was speechless, and for what reasons, he couldn’t say except that he felt like the legs of the chair had been knocked out from under him. His mother and sister had nailed it. If he was to have a serious relationship with Addison, he needed to be forthcoming about Gracie.

“Addison…” He fumbled for the words. “There’s something important I need to tell you. Maybe later tonight, at my place.”

Her laughter reminded him of tinkling bells. “Please don’t say you’re going to propose. Neither of us is ready to take such an important leap this early in our relationship.”

Before he could answer, a voice laced with mockery said, “My, my, my. Isn’t this romantic.”

Her words were met with stunned silence. “What are you doing here?” Wade finally managed.

Her dark eyes widened with mock surprise as she set her long-stemmed goblet of wine on the table and pulled out a chair and seated herself. “I’m sorry, am I intruding?”

Addison’s brows furrowed as she looked at the petite woman with spiked brown hair and dark eyes.

The woman smiled as though she saw confusion and a hint of anger in Addison’s face. She heard Wade’s deep intake of breath and then the release. The two exchanged glances before she turned smug attention to Addison and held out her hand. “Forgive my rudeness. I’m Gracie Grey. Wade’s wife.” And then her belly laugh drew attention from guests at other tables.

Addison couldn’t bring herself to look at Wade. With as much calm as she could muster she pushed from the table and stood. “This is obviously a shock. I had no idea Wade was married.”

Before he could react, Addison had grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and wove her way through the crowded restaurant, intent on making her escape.

Gracie clutched Wade’s arm and held it with a firm grip. “Let her go. She’ll get over it.” She purred, “As Mother Dear would always say, ‘We mustn’t make a scene.’ ”

****

Addison couldn’t look at Wade. As she hurried away, she guessed he watched her. What he’d done was just more proof of her bad judgment in men. This time, however, she refused to come unraveled. She still had her apartment in New York. She’d sign the ranch over to Nell. Options raced through her mind. She’d open her own agency. Damn him. Damn!

The snow-covered landscape with its brightly lit firs and the old-style farmhouse had lost its charm. At the moment, her only thought was to escape. A man dressed as a French doorman held the door open. She asked, “Is there a taxi service available?”

“No, mademoiselle. There is only the sleigh driver and his horse. He doesn’t go into town.”

“How far is it into town?”

The doorman had lost his fake French accent. “Too far for those shoes.”

Fueled by anger and oblivious of the cold, Addison had just whipped out her phone to call Emmett when a white paneled van stopped. The window rolled down. “Addison, everything okay?”

Although she’d only met him once, at the Mistletoe Market, relief washed over her. “Dr. Montgomery. Can you give me a ride to Nell’s?”

“Hop in.”

As Layne Montgomery guided the vehicle down the brick drive, Addison glanced at the man dressed in navy blue coveralls. She wrinkled her nose against an odious stench. “What are you doing out here?”

“Sorry about the smell. Manure comes with the job.” He gave an apologetic grin. “Mr. Bettencort, the owner, keeps a stable of draft horses to pull the sleighs. One of the mares was having a difficult time foaling. The better question is where is Wade, and why are you in my truck without him?”

Addison groaned at the memory of seeing Gracie sitting at the table with a death-grip on Wade’s arm and a malevolent smirk in her eyes. Worse was learning he was married.

Wife.

That one word was a difficult blow. She wasn’t just angry. She was furious.

The fact that it had come out of nowhere only made the entire situation worse. Had Wade planned it this way? Had the entire family duped her? Did Aunt Nell know about Gracie, too?

She gritted her teeth. “Let’s just say I must be the biggest fool that ever lived.”

Her phone vibrated.

—Addison, where are you?—

—Addison, I can explain but not in a text—

—The doorman said you left in a white truck—

The screen on her phone lit up again. Damn! This time she turned it completely off.

She curled her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She thought back over the betrayal of her fiancé. She groaned at the memory, and then inexplicably she started to cry.

Lost in her misery, she was oblivious to the brief phone call Layne Montgomery made to his wife. It wasn’t until he pulled into the ranch yard that she realized a strange car sat in the driveway. She didn’t want to see anyone or answer any questions, and most especially she did not want to give details about her date with the not-so-honorable sheriff.

Layne opened his door, jumped to the ground, and raced around the front of the van to open the passenger door. He reached up to assist Addison.

She tried to smile. “Thank you for the ride. I’ll telephone Ava tomorrow and explain. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a terrible headache…no, wait. How rude of me. May I offer you a cup of coffee?”

A woman’s voice called out, “Addison?”

She turned toward the porch. Ava skipped down the steps toward them. She kissed her husband and thanked him for the phone call. “I’ll see you at home. Supper is in the warming oven.”

Layne Montgomery hugged his wife. Inside the van he gave a last wave and drove off. Before allowing Ava to guide her up the steps and into the house, Addison stopped to watch the taillights disappear into the darkness.

“I am such an idiot,” she muttered to herself. “The men in my life are like disappearing taillights.”

Inside the living room, Nell sat in her favorite chair. Lucy Grey sat on the sofa nearest the crackling fire, a cup of coffee in her hand.

All Addison wanted was to go upstairs and crawl into bed. She didn’t even care if she undressed. Instead she said, “I’m not fit company tonight, so if you’ll excuse me—ˮ

“Sit down, Addison,” Ava gently commanded. “Wade called and told me what happened. And that you disappeared without giving him a chance to explain. He’s worried sick that you may have gotten into a vehicle with some maniac.”

Addison’s voice bit harder than she intended. “He should have told me he was married.”

Nell said, “We all share the blame in this. Brenda told me yesterday that she thought she’d seen Gracie. I didn’t believe her. That’s neither here nor there. We wanted you to hear about it from Wade.” She patted the cushion. “Sit and listen, please. Once you’ve heard the entire story, then the rest is up to Wade and you.”

Nell reached for the coffeepot and poured a cup for Addison, who sat next to her foster mother and kicked off the high heels. “I suppose I have nothing to lose.”

Lucy reached over and held her daughter’s hand, as if she needed courage to say what she had to say. “First, Wade and Gracie were divorced a long time ago. He had planned to tell you about her tonight.”

The statement didn’t appease Addison. She still felt like the life had been drained out of her. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

Lucy began.

“He had loved Gracie all through school. The two of them were inseparable. He was the captain of the football team and she was captain of the cheerleading squad. Wade wanted a military career. Gracie planned to attend nursing school. Before high school graduation he joined the Marines. After graduation he left for San Diego to attend boot camp.

“The news wasn’t good when he came home for a short stint. His unit was to deploy thirty days after boot camp. Gracie insisted she and Wade marry before he left. He promised that when he returned from Iraq they would have her dream wedding.

“They were young and in love and immature. We naturally didn’t give it much thought when Wade called to tell us the happy news that he was about to become a father. We figured they had forgotten to use protection on their wedding night and every night thereafter until he left.

“By this time Ava was away at Harvard, studying medicine. Alice, that’s Gracie’s mother, and I were never close friends, but for the children’s sake we formed a bond. Ward and I treasured those rare times we got phone calls from Wade, because Iraq was a hot spot.

“Gracie kept promising that she’d enroll in nursing school when the baby was born and old enough for her to leave for a few hours. We thought she meant the local college. Thankfully, Wade was able to get leave and was here for the baby’s birth. A beautiful baby girl with blue eyes and a head full of blonde ringlets. They named her Meadow Lark. Unfortunately, Wade had to return to his unit to finish out his fifteen months. We thought he would get an assignment stateside. Instead he was sent to Africa.

“When Meadow was about nine months old, Alice found a note in Gracie’s bedroom saying she didn’t want to be a mother and that she had left for California to pursue an acting career. I think that’s about the same time Wade got the divorce papers. To say the least, he was devastated. He said he’d tried numerous times to get in touch with Gracie, but she didn’t answer her phone. He signed the papers and mailed them to me. He wanted to make sure they got filed. He also asked if I’d raise the baby.

“Well, I couldn’t just take her away from Alice. She and I agreed to share the responsibility as grandmothers.”

Lucy drew a deep breath and was quiet for a moment while she massaged her temples. It was almost as if she needed to collect her thoughts before proceeding. “In the meantime, Alice decided not to send Gracie any money, in the hopes the girl would come to her senses and return home. She did, all right. She came back with Tony Costa, Wade’s best friend. We didn’t even know they had left together.”

She again sat quiet for a moment before she continued. “Whatever happened to them in California changed them. Drugs, maybe.” She shrugged. “Anyhow, Tony and Hubert, that’s Gracie’s father, got into a physical altercation. It wasn’t pretty. Hubert suffered the worst end of the fight, with a broken nose and a couple of busted ribs.

“The next thing we knew, Ward was getting a call that someone had broken into BB’s Café. Brenda was found lying on the floor unconscious, with a gash over her forehead, and the cash register drawer was open and empty. Brenda knew her attackers—personally.

“You have to understand that Alice and Hubert Howard were good God-fearing citizens and mortified at what their daughter and her boyfriend had done. Wade was still in Africa when we notified him. He petitioned the court for his dad and me to get legal custody of Meadow. With his father being in law enforcement and my career as a nurse, the judge ruled in our favor. We naturally let Meadow visit her other grandparents as often as they wanted.”

Addison listened in stunned silence. Finally she asked, “What happened to Gracie and the guy?”

“They both went to prison.” Lucy shook her head and sighed. “It gets worse.”

Addison gave a tentative smile to encourage Wade’s mother to continue. She couldn’t imagine how much worse the story could get. The woman’s pale blue eyes briefly met Addison’s and then looked away.

“Because of Wade’s job in the Marines, he didn’t get to the States often. He had it set up that support money was sent to our checking account monthly to take care of his baby girl. When Skype came available, his dad and I bought a computer and had Skype installed. It was a blessing because Wade got to see Meadow take her first step, and when he had time, he read stories to her. I can’t begin to tell you how ecstatic he was when Meadow called him Dada, and when we taught her how to throw kisses to him with her little hand, to say ‘bye-bye’ and ‘I wuv you.’ ”

For a moment, Lucy broke down and wept. “When Meadow was two years old, she got sick, and by the time she was three, she needed a bone marrow transplant. Wade’s unit was in some remote mountainous area in the Middle East. Somehow he wangled an emergency leave. As Meadow’s father, he was the perfect donor. Nell and Brenda came to the hospital to offer their support. We were all there.”

Lucy’s voice trembled, and it was clearly an effort for her to continue. Nell shifted to grip her friend’s hands. Nell cleared her throat. “I still get angry enough to strangle that little bitch for what she did.”

Lucy drew her eyebrows together. “Me, too, Nell. I’ll never forget the look on Wade’s face when he came to the waiting room to tell us that he wasn’t a match for Meadow’s DNA.”

This wasn’t the confession that Addison had expected. “You mean Wade isn’t Meadow’s father?”

“That’s right. The doctor assured us that the test was ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent accurate that Wade was not Meadow’s father. Ward immediately contacted the prison where Tony was housed. According to Alice, Gracie was O negative. As it turned out, Tony wasn’t the father either. Meadow’s blood type was rare. The doctor said less than six percent of the population carried her type.” Lucy heaved a huge sigh. “Gracie admitted that she didn’t know who the father was. She actually laughed when she admitted that she’d slept with most of the football team and some of the young male tourists, and she was pregnant when she and Wade married. That was the reason for the hurry-up wedding.”

“I hesitate to ask.” Addison’s voice was faint. “Where is Meadow now?”

Lucy’s voice trembled. “She’s buried in the Meadow Creek Church cemetery. Had she lived, she would turn seventeen this coming May.” She picked up her cup and, finding it empty, set it back down. “Wade was devastated…nearly broken. Afterward, he started volunteering for every dirty job the Marines offered. I think he had died emotionally and hoped a bullet would finalize his death.

“Shortly afterward, the Howards sold their home and moved to South Carolina. They simply couldn’t face the friends they had known forever, after what had happened to Brenda and then with the baby’s death. We never heard from them again.”

Nell had sat quiet during the entire explanation. She could do nothing but sigh. “I owe Brenda an apology for not believing she thought she saw Gracie yesterday.”

Addison pressed the tips of her fingers to her eyes. “My emotions are going haywire. Why didn’t Wade tell me?”

Nell said, “You of all people should understand, Addison. It was too hard for him to relive the hurt.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. He must think I hate him.”

The wariness in Lucy Grey’s voice was unmistakable. “The question is why did Gracie return to Meadow Creek? She’s been out of prison for at least ten years. So what does she want from Wade?”

Ava reached over and clasped her mother’s hands. “Her returning may be a good thing, Mom. He’s never been clear about his feelings for Gracie. One minute he still loves her, the next he hates her, the next he’s befuddled.” She directed her attention to Addison. “I’m going to ask you straight out, and please be honest—do you love my brother and are you willing to fight for him? If not, cut it off. Don’t leave him dangling.”

Addison drew a deep breath as Wade’s image appeared in her mind—a far fresher image than his sister could imagine. She lifted her chin. “There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but unequivocally yes! I am in love with Wade, and Gracie has met her match.”