The Man From Her Past Read online

  “Now that was a mistake.”

  “Dad, can you let me talk? Will you listen to me?”

  “I’m listening.” He took more soup. “Someone else is at our house. Not a new guy?”

  She shook her head, scrunching the folds of his sheets in her fists. “I have a daughter, Dad. A little girl named Hope.”

  His mouth opened and the spoon slipped out of his fingers and clattered to the tray. He stared from her to Van.

  “You had a—you—neither of you told me?”

  Naturally, he assumed Van was Hope’s father. His troubled mind didn’t allow him to think Cassie might have met someone else. She swung around to stare at Van. He went closer, naturally protective of her. Leo wasn’t thrilled they might have had a child. How would he react—more importantly, how would he treat Cassie—when she told him the whole truth?

  “Go on,” Leo said.

  Cassie turned back to her father. “Dad, she’s not—I mean Van’s not—” She stood. “Hope—”

  “Is so young she doesn’t understand about me and the divorce.”

  Cassie spun back to him, upset. Van shook his head. She’d asked him to help. This was the best he could do. He wouldn’t let her father hurt her again. And if she could choose what to tell Leo, she wouldn’t want him to suffer, thinking that animal had left her with a child.

  Or so he told himself.

  Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know.

  Breathing heavily, Cassie stared at him, anger glittering in her eyes, but it dissipated when she looked at her father.

  “This is easier,” Van said.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You’re the one who said it wasn’t the worst thing people could think. Especially your father.”

  “What’s going on?” Leo asked. “What are you two talking about?”

  Cassie closed her eyes and then opened them. She seemed to reach her decision with an effort. “We haven’t told Hope about Van, so I don’t want you to tell her, either, Dad. I’ll explain when she’s old enough to get it.”

  “I’m pretty old,” Leo said.

  “You see everything in black and white. Hope is a shades-of-gray situation for Van and me. She was born after the divorce. She’s never met Van.”

  “I can’t believe you’d ignore your own child,” Leo said to Van.

  This was the price he’d pay for protecting Cassie. He could only stare his accusers down, starting with her father. “I was wrong,” he said. He’d been wrong to give up.

  “Van, I need some water. Come with me.”

  They were barely outside the door when she grabbed him by the shirt. “What the hell are we thinking?”

  How much he liked the warmth of her hand against his stomach. “That he might not be able to deal with the truth. That he might accidentally tell someone else and then it’d be all over town.” Temper flared in her eyes. “Not,” he said, “because anyone here would blame you or Hope for what happened, but they’d ply you and Leo with sympathy. No one knows why you left or Leo became a hermit. Hope is a perfect doorway into your lives.”

  “My daughter is not a conversation starter.” She pulled him even closer, barely glancing at the orderly who eyed her rough hand on his shirt. “I’m thinking of Trey Lockwood and the people who handle your business at the bank and your nephew, Eli. How many of them are going to believe you’re the kind of man who’d let me walk away, pregnant? Who wouldn’t try to find out the truth?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, his shame a suit of nails.

  She closed her mouth, breathing hard. She dismissed his bitter confession with an even more painful it-doesn’t-matter gesture. “Stop trying to manage my life, Van. I thought you realized—”

  “I understand everything you’ve said to me, but it’s better that people think I’m her father. You know it.”

  She did, but she obviously didn’t like it. “Not my father. Do you think he’ll suddenly get well enough to hear the truth? Who knows what makes sense to him? Or what he even understands, but I can’t—I won’t—lie to him. He is still my father—and Van, he loves you.”

  He backed into the old-fashioned textured brick wall and she had to follow. She let go of his shirt, and he stared over her head, down the sunlit hall, giving them both time to calm down.

  “Point taken. I’ll explain. I’ll say whatever you want. I was just trying to make sure nothing more hurt him or you or Hope. If you’d seen him on that bridge…”

  “You decided for all of us, and I’m not sure if he’d even see why you lied.”

  “Why don’t we let it go for now? We can explain after he comes home.”

  “We?” She turned away from him and pressed her head to the cool mint paint on the wall. “I don’t know if you did this because you’re ashamed a rapist made your wife pregnant or you just can’t leave me alone, but my door is closed to you, Van.” She took one deliberate step back, walking away again. “I was wrong to ask you for help.” She turned toward her father’s room. “I’ll take a cab home.”

  They’d scarcely noticed four nurses who bent over their clipboards and loose pages, and in one case, a tray of medication.

  Van had barely spared them a thought—the hope they’d be discreet—because he had a feeling Cassie was right. He told himself to get over her once and for all. He could pretend he’d finally stepped out of the limbo her divorce had exiled him to for five years.

  He straightened his shirt, tucked it back into his waistband and strolled toward the elevator.

  Why had he told Leo Warne that Hope was his child?

  “ARE YOU ANGRY that Van told me about your daughter?”

  “No, Dad. You need to eat your dinner.” Which looked much like lunch. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Try a bite of that and see if you could choke it down. Even the pudding tastes like those fake potato flakes.”

  “If you gain a little weight you might get to come home. Have you been forgetting to eat?”

  “My memory isn’t what it was, but stop trying to change the subject. Van wanted me to know about his child. You’re lucky he’s not mad at you.”

  She stirred tonight’s soup. “Try this.”

  “I don’t say that to hurt you, but any man would resent a woman who didn’t tell him about his own baby. You kept her a secret.”

  She shook her head, sweeping her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t want anyone to know about Hope.”

  He was distracted enough to eat without arguing. “None of this makes sense to me.”

  “To me, either, Dad. We’re in for a confusing time.”

  “Huh?”

  “Getting you well, deciding what to do next.” She couldn’t help it. She still hoped they wouldn’t have to stay in Honesty.

  He breezed over the subject. “When do I get to see her?”

  “As soon as you’re well enough.”

  “Is she like you?”

  “I guess.” She’d been so grateful to look down on her newborn’s face and recognize her own features.

  “You’re like my mother. I don’t think I noticed that before. You were always so much your own person I never saw her in you until you walked in that door this morning.”

  “I was my own person?”

  “Sure. You never took my advice. You wanted what you wanted, and you wouldn’t listen to me about taking a degree that would bring you a good job in college—”

  “You mean a degree that led to working in the bank?”

  He nodded, shameless. Her sociology major had always troubled him. “And then you just had to marry Van. There’d never be anyone else for you. You’d loved Van all your life.”

  She looked up, but the afternoon sunlight through his wide window blinded her to everything except memories from the past. Her wedding day, Van looking as dazed as she with happiness. The conviction that she’d done exactly the right thing.

  Unlike most brides, she’d never been afraid. Never doubted.

  “I chose the right career,
but you were right about getting married too young.”

  “Children never listen to parents. We’re so easily taken for granted. Do you know how many times I watched you walk out of the house, annoyed with me for trying to caution you about a mistake, but you never even considered your decision might be wrong?”

  She moved around the bed so she could see him. “Dad?” His eyes were clear. She’d swear he was back with her again.

  “Like about leaving,” he said. “You were wrong to go. You needed me and Van. We all let that beast rob us of everyone who mattered most.”

  His rising tone frightened her. “Don’t get upset. You need to stay calm.”

  “I helped break up your marriage because I was ashamed,” he said.

  “No, Dad.” With an arm around his shoulders, she hugged him, careful not to knock the soup spoon from his hand.

  As if remembering those days cost him too much, he returned to the refuge of his hazy present. “Now, now.” He started eating again, one bite after another until most of his plate was empty. After he drained his juice, he wiped his mouth and set the cup carefully on the tray. “You have to face the facts. We all hurt. We all let each other down. Now that you’ve brought Van’s little girl home, why couldn’t you care for each other again?”

  Cassie sank into a chair, as dazed as her father.

  Soon he began to drift off. She moved the food tray away from him. He barely blinked as the tray’s wheels squeaked.

  The nurse returned to check his vitals. “I think he’s asleep for the night, but you’ve done a good job. You’ve kept him alert and talkative all day. He’s probably exhausted.”

  Cassie picked up her coat. “How long do you think it’ll take to regulate his medication?”

  “A few days. His lungs are already clearing. Dr. Baxter wants to run a few more tests to make sure we have a clear picture of the rest of his health issues.” She whipped his bed into shape. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest? You can come back tomorrow.”

  “I gave my cell number to the nurse at the station. You already have my dad’s home number?”

  Her father muttered in his sleep.

  “Van gave it to us yesterday. We’ll get in touch if there’s any change. Try not to worry, Cassie.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Knowing he can count on you will be your father’s best medicine.”

  She meant it as comfort, but staying here, living in Honesty where her father could count on her—it was Cassie’s worst fear.

  In the lobby, she called a cab and then her father’s house to say she was on her way.

  “Take your time,” Beth said. “We’re making art.”

  “I can’t wait to see.” Anything that looked normal.

  As she was paying the taxi driver in front of her house, Beth opened the door. Hope skipped onto the newly painted front porch.

  “Hi, Mommy.”

  “Hey, baby.” Cassie ran to meet her and scooped her up for a noisy kiss on both cheeks, but her little girl struggled down.

  “Come look. I’m drawing flowers. And we made cookies.”

  “We burned some cookies.” Beth held the door. “Your father’s vintage oven defeated me.”

  “Vintage,” Cassie said with a laugh. “I’ll bet that thing’s over thirty years old. It always cooked a little hot.”

  “We had to clean it. Grampa had spidey webs.” Hope leaned confidingly into her thigh.

  “I don’t think he enjoys cooking,” Cassie said, trying not to imagine how he’d eaten in these past years.

  “I’m going to get my flowers, Mommy.”

  “Okay.”

  Beth held her back at the door. “How is he?”

  “Like one of those mystics who’s starved himself into nothing but the slight will to live. And wisdom.” But was he wise? She shrugged. “At least he thinks he knows best.”

  “A trait that afflicts my family, too. In the race to be right, Van and I have often acted more like combatants than siblings.”

  Cassie closed her eyes, the day’s frustrations tempting her to shatter. “Some things about your brother haven’t changed.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He told my father Hope was ours, his and mine.”

  “Oh, man.” Beth sank back. “I can see why you’re upset, but if you think about it, how would your father recover from hearing the truth?”

  “Did Van call you?”

  She shook her head with perfect innocence.

  “Dad’s much better trying to put Van and me back together again.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Mommy, are you broke?”

  She hadn’t heard Hope come back. “I’m just fine, sweetie. Why?”

  “Someone wants to put you together again, like Humpty Dumpty in my book.”

  “I’m all back together.” She gathered the treasure trove of drawings Hope clutched to her chest. “I can’t wait to see these.”

  “Are you sure, Mommy?” She looked Cassie over, as if she expected chunks of her to fall off. Cassie wouldn’t have been surprised. “You sounded mad.”

  “I’m not mad.” Cassie took her hand and led her to the kitchen, the calmest place in her father’s home now. Thanks to Van. She couldn’t forget everything he’d done.

  “But somethin’s wrong,” Hope said.

  Cassie sat in a chair and pulled Hope into her lap. This was where letting Van inside her head got her.

  “I was a little mad, but it doesn’t mean anything. My dad wants me to do some stuff I don’t want to.”

  “Like it was your bedtime?”

  “That is one of your least favorite words.” Cassie tried to smile at Beth, who followed them, obviously wondering if her brother had made her unwelcome.

  “I like my bed at home, Mommy. When can we go back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m betting Mommy wishes she could head straight back this second.” Beth straightened crayons and scented markers that lent the room a sticky sweet smell. “I’m sorry your grampa is sick, but I’m glad I get to keep you both with me a while.”

  Cassie lifted her head. “You think I want to run away?”

  “Run away, Mommy? With me, though?” Overtired and easily distressed by unfamiliar emotions in new surroundings, Hope looked wary. She half climbed off Cassie’s lap, up for an adventure, determined not to be left behind. “Where we going?”

  Beth held the box of crayons close. “I didn’t mean it was a habit,” she said to Cassie.

  “For five years I’ve never doubted every decision I made was for the best.” Cassie wrapped an arm around Hope, holding on for dear life. “But I should have checked things here once in a while.”

  “You want honesty, Cass?” Beth set the box on the table, steeling herself to be thrown out. “What happened to you—well—” With her eyes on Hope, she broke off, but who could say anything more about that? “Your father and my brother should not have let you go, and you shouldn’t have abandoned them. You all should have taken care of each other. You should have let us care for you.”

  “Beth.” Honesty hurt. “I never meant to harm anyone. I was trying to—” She struggled for the right word, looking down on Hope’s dark hair. “S-u-r-v-i-v-e.”

  The letters hung in the air. What mother hadn’t spelled something totally serious and hurtful to spare a child? Staring at Beth—Beth staring back—the incongruity got to Cassie.

  Laughter bubbled out of her, startling and clean. Beth laughed, too, and then she swept around the table. Her hug felt sweet. Because they were together and time hadn’t changed the fact that they loved each other.

  Just like that, sharp and dear as her best memories, Cassie wanted Van back, too. She faced the truth. She was afraid of letting him back into her life, letting him matter.

  But hadn’t she cowered enough? Hadn’t fear robbed her of five long years already?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CASSIE AWOKE gasping the next morning. The ceiling hangi
ng over her head, familiar and yet so unexpected, brought her immediately home.

  Van. His name whispered, a memory and a reason to feel guilty. A taunt? She lifted her left hand. For a month after she’d finally relegated her wedding rings to her jewelry box, their imprint had stayed on her finger. Gone now—as though they’d never been. As though Van had never been.

  She threw back her sheets.

  This house. Every time she opened her eyes here, memories, rich, and too dangerous, threw her back five years. Everyone knew you couldn’t go home again. Home had moved on without her, and she belonged in Washington.

  She twisted her hair into a chignon, slipped in a bobby pin, shivered in her tank and pajama pants and found one of her old high school sweatshirts.

  Only it was Van’s sweatshirt. Though he’d graduated eight years before her, she’d fished it out of his closet the first time he’d taken her to his house. She’d worn it with the pride of a barely-out-of-her-teens girl, distractedly in love.

  She hesitated before pulling it over her head. But she wasn’t a naive young thing anymore. She’d grown into a practical woman who chose to dress rather than freeze to death.

  Her bedroom door burst open, and Hope whirled into the room.

  “Time to get up, Mommy. I’m starwing, and I want to paint some pictures. Miss Beth said she’d bring paints today. Is my grampa coming home? Am I going to see Mr. Van again? He brings good food.”

  Cassie blinked. “Can I siphon off some of your energy?”

  “Siphon?” Hope tilted her head, interested. “Whazzat?”

  “Transferring some out of you, into me.”

  Hope grabbed her own pajama top, a fleecy rendition of Dora today. Still pink, naturally. “Nope. Might make a boo-boo. I’m really hungry, Mommy.”

  “What time is it? Did you make coffee, Hope?”

  She giggled. “Funny, Mommy. I’m not old enough to drink coffee. I could make some, though,” she said in all seriousness. “I know how ’cause I watch you.”

  Cassie grabbed her girl and they wrestled down the hall. “You’d better leave it to me for now.”

  They raced to the bottom of the stairs, and Hope landed with a thud on the hardwood floor just as someone knocked on the front door.