“You had a baby. My baby. Didn’t you?” About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“You had a baby. My baby. Didn’t you?”

The blood drained from Imogen’s face. “How did you find out?” she croaked.

“By accident.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded as feeble-minded as she felt.

“Sorry for what?” Joe blazed. “For the way I found out I’d fathered a child, or that I found out at all? You could have told me yourself, at the time. But let me guess why you didn’t. Donnelly genes didn’t measure up to what it took to be a Palmer heir. It was easier to erase the mistake before anyone found out about it. How am I doing so far, princess? Batting a hundred?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Imogen whispered.

“Then what happened to my child?”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Harlequin® in 1984. She moved to Canada from England thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus three dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

Catherine always enjoys hearing from her readers, so why not drop her a line at the following address:

Catherine Spencer

Box 1713

Blaine, WA

98231 U.S.A.

The Secret Daughter

Catherine Spencer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

TANYA seized the crumpled invitation from the wastebasket where Imogen had tossed it, smoothed out the creases and said, “What do you mean, you’re going to send your regrets? Your high school principal’s retiring and your hometown’s celebrating its centennial anniversary. This is a heaven-sent opportunity, Imogen!”

“To do what?” Imogen barely lifted her head from the design she was working on for Mrs. Lynch-Carter’s windows.

“Why, to mend fences with your mother, of course. Or do you plan to wait until she’s dead before you attempt a reconciliation? Because if you do, my dear, let me assure you that you’ll be eaten up with guilt for the rest of your life.”

“If my mother wants to see me, Tanya, she knows where I live.”

“But you’re the one who refused to go home again. It strikes me it’s up to you to be the one to make the first move now.” Tanya adopted her most winning tone, the one she used on clients who mistakenly believed that money and good taste automatically went hand in hand. “Let’s face it, Imogen. You’ve been dreadfully hurt by the estrangement, and the odds are your mother has, too.”

“I doubt it,” Imogen replied, recalling the speed with which Suzanne Palmer had hustled her out of town and out of the country within days of learning of her daughter’s fall from grace. “When I needed her the most, my mother abandoned me.”

“Does it make you feel better to go on punishing her for it?” Tanya persisted. “Do you never wonder if perhaps she regrets the way she acted but doesn’t quite know how to go about rectifying her mistake? We’re a long time dead, kiddo, and it’s too late then to put things right. Do it now, while you still can, is my advice.”

If truth be known, Imogen had thought the same thing herself many times. And lately, she’d missed her mother more than usual. Having someone care enough to want to orchestrate every facet of her life was better than having no one at all.

Was it possible they could start over, not as parent and child but as two adults with close ties and a mutual respect for each other? The teenager in trouble with nowhere to turn had evolved into an independent twenty-seven-year-old thoroughly in charge of her own life. That being so, should she put aside her injured pride and offer the olive branch?

Never one to lose an argument if she could possibly avoid it, Tanya said, “She’s a widow, and you’re her only child, for pity’s sake! Who else has she got in her old age?”

The mere idea of Suzanne growing old struck Imogen as ludicrous. Her mother simply wouldn’t allow it. She’d be tucked, lifted and dyed to within an inch of her life before she’d submit to the wear and tear of time. Still, she was almost sixty. And it had been nine years.

Sensing she was winning this particular debate, Tanya pressed her advantage. “If it’s an excuse you’re looking for that will allow you to save face, you’ve got it here,” she said, tapping the invitation. “What better reason for simply showing up at the door and saying something cool and offhand along the lines of, ‘I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by to see how you’re doing’?”

“Whatever else her faults, my mother is no fool, Tanya. She’d see through that in a flash.”

“And maybe it wouldn’t matter if she did. Sometimes a little white lie is the kindest route to take, especially if it spares people having their noses rubbed in past mistakes.”

Put like that, it seemed mean-spirited and just plain immature not to seize the opportunity to end the estrangement. And Imogen liked to think that, in the years since Joe Donnelly had sped in and out of her life with the brief impact of a meteor shooting through space, she’d grown up enough to deal with whatever had to be dealt with and not fall apart in the process.

Still, there was more involved in going back to Rosemont than dealing with her mother. There was—

“Of course, if there’s some other reason holding you back, some other person you’re afraid to face, perhaps...”

The knowing, secret little smile with which Tanya finished the sentence found its mark. Too quickly and much too defensively, Imogen retorted, “Like who?”

“Oh, the name Joe Donnelly comes to mind for some reason.”

Cursing herself for falling into so obvious a trap, Imogen said blandly, “I can’t imagine why. I haven’t given him a thought in years.”

Tanya was tall and elegantly thin, beautiful and enviably sophisticated, cultured, educated and gifted. But none of that stopped her from crowing with the delight of a child, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

The devil of it was, she was right. If Imogen were to be honest, she’d have to admit she’d never been able to forget Joe Donnelly. Not that she didn’t try—and even come close to succeeding much of the time. Weeks, even months might go by without her thinking of him, especially when she was involved in a project. Helping a client decide between faux marble or French silk wall treatments didn’t exactly trigger her memory of him.

But when it came to romance, she’d find herself comparing the current man in her life to a black-haired, sultry-eyed rebel with a smile as handsome and dangerously knowing as sin and a way with words that could persuade a saint to stray.

By the time she’d tell herself that, in the nine years since she’d seen him, Joe Donnelly probably had degenerated into a shiftless, beer-swigging layabout, run to fat and, like his father, lost most of his hair, it was too late. Whatever spark might have existed between her and the Tom, Dick or Harry of the moment had already fizzled and died.

“I gather from your silence that I’ve touched a nerve,” Tanya observed.

“Not at all.”

“Oh, come on, Imogen! You’re still hung up on the guy. Admit it.”

“I remember him, of course,” Imogen said, truly trying to be objective, “but to say I’m hung up on him is absurd. The last time I saw him, I’d just turned eighteen and was barely out of school—a girl with a crush on a man who seemed attractive because he was a few years older and had something of a reputation around town. I’ve matured since then. Motorcycle hoods no longer strike me as appealing.”

“A woman never loses her fascination for the man who introduces her to love.”

“I have.”

“Then there’s no reason you can’t go home again, is there?”

“No reason at all,” Imogen said, the same pride that had kept her from reconciling with her mother rising up to back her into another kind of corner.

“And since you’re so mature, you’ll find it in your heart to kiss and make up with Mother?”

Well, why not? Imogen chewed the end of her pencil and considered the merits of such a move. Going home would necessarily mean raking up some painful aspects of the past, but wasn’t it time she laid to rest the ghosts that had haunted her for over eight years? The important thing was to be selective in her remembering, to focus only on her relationship with her mother and not to allow herself to become bogged down in useless regrets over a man who had never spared her a second thought once he’d introduced her to sex.

As long as she stuck to that resolve and remained in charge of her emotions, nothing could really go wrong. Or so she thought.

“All right, you’ve convinced me,” she told Tanya. “I’ll accept the invitation and see if I can’t work something out with my mother.”

But nothing went as planned, starting with her arrival, one afternoon toward the end of June, at Deepdene Grange, her family’s estate and possibly the only property in town whose house warranted the description “mansion.”

“Madam is not at home,” the maid, a total stranger, informed her, standing guard at the door as if she feared Imogen might take the place by storm.

Imogen stared at her, speechless. In the month before she’d set out from Vancouver, she’d suffered more than a few qualms about the wisdom of her decision to go home again, but her misgivings had taken serious hold when she’d picked up her rental car at Pearson International and headed northeast, away from the sticky humidity of Toronto and toward cottage country. What if all she did was make things worse and widen the gulf between her and her mother?

By the time she’d reached Clifton Hill, Rosemont’s toniest residential area, and turned in at Deepdene’s big iron gates, nervous anticipation the size and texture of a lump of clay hung in the pit of her stomach. But she’d come this far, and nothing, she thought, could deter her.

Except this.

“Not at home?” she echoed, shaking her head in the way people do when they’re not sure they understand the language being spoken.

The maid didn’t so much as blink. “I’m afraid not.”

But it was four o’clock on Saturday, the hour when, winter or summer for as far back as Imogen could remember, Suzanne Palmer had taken afternoon tea in the solarium prior to dressing for whatever social function she was holding or attending that evening.

As though to verify that she’d come to the right house, Imogen peered over the maid’s shoulder. The foyer looked exactly as it always had. The Waterford crystal chandelier sparkled in the sunlight, the carved oak banister gleamed, the hand-knotted Persian stair runner glowed softly. Even the bowl of roses on the console beneath the ornate gilt mirror might have been the very same as that occupying the identical spot, the day she’d walked out of her home almost nine years before, believing, at the time, that she would never return.

The maid shifted to block her view and narrowed the angle of the open door. “Who may I say called?”

“What?” Already becoming enmeshed in the past, Imogen gave herself a mental shake and steered her attention to the present. “Oh! Her daughter.”

Too well-trained to betray surprise by more than a faint lifting of her eyebrows, the maid said, “Madam is gone for the weekend but she should be home by late tomorrow afternoon. She didn’t mention anything about a guest.”

Unwilling to give her mother the chance to reject her a second time, Imogen had booked a room at the town’s only good hotel—a wise precaution indeed, since Suzanne Palmer clearly had declined to inform her current household staff that she had a daughter. “She wasn’t expecting me. I’m staying at the Briarwood. However, I would like to leave a note telling her I’m in town.”

“I’ll be happy to give her a message.”

“I’d prefer to leave a note.” Not giving her time to protest, Imogen stepped past the maid into the foyer.

She’d have thought her familiarity with the layout of Deepdene Grange and the exact location of her mother’s private sitting room would have lent credibility to her claim of having grown up in the house but, face tight with suspicion, the maid stuck to her like glue.

“Madam prefers not to have her private papers disturbed,” she objected, as Imogen sat at Suzanne’s pretty little Empire writing desk and lowered the lid.

“Madam” had preferred not to acknowledge her wayward daughter’s behavior nine years ago, but she hadn’t been able to change its outcome. “I’ll make sure you’re not held responsible for my actions,” Imogen said, “and if it eases your mind any, I have no intention at all of invading my mother’s privacy.”

In fact, though, she did just that. Reaching into one of the pigeonholes for a slip of paper, she accidentally dislodged a sheaf of canceled checks, some of which fluttered into her lap and others to the polished floor.

With an exclamation of distress, the maid stooped to retrieve those on the floor while Imogen gathered the rest. “No harm done,” she said, aligning hers into a neat pile by tapping the edges smartly on the desk.

“But they were arranged by number,” the young maid almost whimpered. “Madam is very particular about things like that.”

Then little had changed, after all! “She always was,” Imogen said, “but as long as they’re left the way I found them, she’ll never know the difference.”

Quickly, she shuffled the various checks into the proper sequence: number 489, made out to the Municipality of Rosemont for annual property taxes, number 488 to the telephone company and number 487, a tidy sum payable to St. Martha’s, her mother’s old private school, in Norbury, about forty miles west of Niagara Falls.

Imogen wasn’t unduly curious or surprised. Suzanne had always contributed generously to those causes she deemed worthy and prided herself on her largess. It was only where her daughter and certain segments of Rosemont society were concerned that she lacked charity.

With the checks restored to order and replaced in the desk, it took Imogen only a moment to write her note. “I’m not planning to stay in the area more than a few days,” she said, handing the folded slip of paper to the maid, “so I’d appreciate it if you’d make sure my mother receives this as soon as she comes home.”

She was barely out the door before the maid closed it behind her. Faced with empty hours to fill, Imogen drove slowly toward the center of town, searching out familiar landmarks and, despite her best intentions, remembering too much.

Banners proclaiming the town’s centennial anniversary flanked the columns fronting the courthouse, baskets of flowering plants hung from the wrought-iron lampposts on Main Street, Judge Merriweather’s house had been turned into an accountant’s office, and the old Rosemont Medical Building was now a youth center.

Once past the railroad station, Main Street split in two, the right lane following the curve of the lakeshore and the left leading to Lister’s Meadows, where the Donnellys used to live.

“Definitely the wrong side of the tracks,” her mother had determined when, the summer she turned fifteen, Imogen had insisted on attending a birthday party there. But Imogen had loved the friendly neighborliness of the area. Although the houses were small and close together, with long narrow gardens at the back, there were no fences separating one place from the next, no signs warning trespassers to stay away.

The Donnelly house had been at the end of the last street, she recalled, with a creek running beside it. But whether or not they’d moved, she had no idea. She and Patsy Donnelly had lost touch when Imogen went to stay with her mother’s cousin the autumn after her eighteenth birthday and Joe...

Oh, Joe Donnelly had not cared enough to pursue a relationship with Imogen Palmer and had left Ontario within days of his one-night stand with the richest girl in town. He did not deserve to be remembered.

So there was no earthly reason for her to head east to where Donnelly’s Garage used to be open for business fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. Did she seriously expect to see Sean Donnelly manning the pumps or Mr. Donnelly bent over the open hood of a car? Or Joe Donnelly straddling his idling Harley-Davidson and surveying the unending parade of girls willing to show off their physical assets in the hope of luring him even further into temptation than his natural inclination had already led him?

Apparently she did. How else to account for the wave of disappointment that washed over her when she saw that what used to be Donnelly’s Garage was now a slick, twelve-pump, self-serve gas station owned by a major oil company? She ought to have rejoiced that nothing remained to remind her.

“Oh, grow up, Imogen!” she muttered, annoyed by what could only be described as blatant self-indulgence. “Instead of wasting time dwelling on a man who, except for one memorable occasion, never spared you a second glance, think about what you’re going to say when you see your mother again because, whatever else might happen, at least she can’t deny you ever existed!”

Swinging the car in an illegal U-turn and consigning Joe Donnelly to that part of her past she had determined not to revisit, she headed to her hotel. It was almost six o’clock. By the time she’d showered and changed, it would be dinnertime.

Imogen’s room on the second floor of the Briarwood was handsomely furnished and looked out on the lake. Preferring the flower-scented breeze to the sterile discomfort of the air conditioner, she opened the French windows and stepped out on the small balcony overhanging the gardens. Immediately below, a wedding reception was in progress, with tables set out on the lawn and a wasp-waisted bride, lovely in white organza and orange blossom, holding court beneath an arbor of roses.

Imogen was unprepared for the envy that stabbed through her at the sight of that young woman. Not because she had a husband and Imogen had not—remaining single was, after all, her choice—but because the bride wore an air of innocence Imogen had lost when she was a teenager.

Though only just twenty-seven, she felt suddenly old. And bitter. By most standards, she had all those things that mattered in today’s world. She was successful, she had money, and men seemed to find her attractive enough that they asked her out often. One or two had even proposed marriage.

But inside, where it counted, she was empty. Had been empty for the better part of nine years. And it would take a lot more than a shower and a good dinner to restore her to the kind of optimism that left the bride so luminous with joy.

If only...

No! Grief softened with time, the sharp edge of heartbreak melted into kindly nostalgia, and only a fool dwelled on horror. She might have been born and raised in Rosemont, but her future lay half a continent away in Vancouver, and she’d do well to keep reminding herself of that.

The courthouse clock struck seven. Too keyed up to face dinner, Imogen changed out of the smart linen suit she’d worn for the meeting with her mother and slipped into a thin cotton dress and sandals. A brisk walk would go a lot further toward relaxing her and insuring a good night’s rest than beef Wellington or lobster thermidor in the formal elegance of the hotel dining room.

Although the air was warm, a slight breeze blew across the lake, stirring the surface of the water to dazzling ripples. Slipping on a pair of sunglasses, Imogen turned right at the foot of the hotel steps and headed west on the shoreline boardwalk, past the pier, the public beach and the band shell, then through the park, to end up some forty minutes later at what used to be the Rosemont Tea Garden.

Like so many other places, though, this, too, had undergone change. A smart awning covered the fenced patio where faded sun umbrellas had once given shade to patrons. Wicker furniture and woven place mats had replaced the old plastic tables and chairs. And instead of scones, homemade strawberry jam and tea served in mismatched china cups, a chalkboard menu propped by the patio gate offered a selection of chilled soups, salads and trendy pasta dishes.

Tempted by the thought of langostino salad, Imogen passed through the gate and waited to be seated. It was as she was being shown to a table that a voice exclaimed, “Imogen Palmer, is that you hiding behind those dark glasses?”

Startled, she looked around to see Patsy Donnelly, of all people, rising from a table just inside the patio’s wrought-iron railing, her dark blue eyes and black hair so much like her brother’s that, without warning, all Imogen’s fine resolutions to stay in charge of herself and the events surrounding her wilted like roses left too long without water.

Mistaking her stunned silence for nonrecognition, Patsy said, “It’s me, Imogen. Patsy Donnelly. Surely you haven’t forgotten?”

“Of course not,” Imogen said weakly. “I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all.”

But if her response was less than enthusiastic, Patsy didn’t seem to notice. Inviting Imogen to join her by pulling out one of the chairs at her table, she laughed and said, “I don’t see why. It is Rosemont’s centennial celebration, after all, not to mention Miss Duncliffe’s big retirement bash. Just about everyone we went to school with is in town, even Joe. I’m just the first of a long line of familiar faces you’ll be running into. How long are you staying?”

“Not long at all,” Imogen said, suppressing the urge to bolt to the hotel, pack her bags, race to the airport and climb aboard the first flight headed west. Why was Joe Donnelly here when, from everything she’d ever heard, the only time he’d shown the slightest interest in school had been during basketball season?

Patsy flagged down a waiter, asked him to bring an extra wineglass, then sat regarding Imogen expectantly. “So, tell me about yourself. Are you married? Do you have any children?”

“No.” Her answer was brief to the point of rude, but not for the life of her could Imogen get past the fact that Joe Donnelly was in town. She couldn’t face him. It was as simple as that! Bad enough that he was resurrecting himself in her memory without her having to confront him in the flesh.

Patsy leaned forward, her pretty, vivid face creased with concern. “Did I ask the wrong question, Imogen?”

Realizing she was committing the kind of social gaffe that would have put her mother under the table with shame, Imogen struggled to rally her composure. “No, no. I’m just...surprised you remember me.”

It wasn’t an entirely moronic observation. She’d been tutored by a governess until she was thirteen and would have been sent to boarding school after that if Suzanne had had her way. But Imogen, desperate to be “ordinary” like the teenagers she saw around town, had prevailed on her father to allow her to attend Rosemont High.

But she’d never really belonged. Her circle of friends had been limited to those few girls her mother had decided were sufficiently gently reared to associate with a Palmer. In fact, she could count on one hand the number who’d been allowed to set foot inside Deepdene’s gates to enjoy a game of tennis or dabble their well-bred toes in the swimming pool.

Although Patsy had been universally popular with her schoolmates, she had not met Suzanne’s rigid standards, and the best Imogen had been able to establish with her was an association that, though friendly, had rarely extended beyond the school grounds.

“Not remember you?” Patsy hooted, gesturing to the waiter to fill both glasses from the open wine bottle on the table. “Imogen, you were the most unforgettable girl ever to pass through the school doors. When we weren’t all terrified of you, we wanted to be just like you. You were—” she stopped and waved both hands as if invoking divine intervention “—a princess in our midst. Mysterious, regal. The Grace Kelly of Rosemont High, which is why—”

“Why what?” Surprised by Patsy’s sudden awkward silence, Imogen leaned forward, intrigued. “What were you going to say?”

Patsy shrugged and made a big production of wrapping her paper napkin around the base of her wineglass. “Oh, just that, well, I thought you might be...with someone.”

“No one special, no.”

“I see.” Still noticeably ill at ease, Patsy continued to find her napkin fascinating. “So, um, where do you live and what do you do?”

Imogen continued to regard her curiously. The girl she’d known in school was never at a loss for words, yet Patsy was foundering. “I work for an interior design company in Vancouver.”

“Interior design!” Her vivacity resurfacing, Patsy grinned delightedly. “My, that has a real Imogen ring to it!”

“Simply put, it means I help rich women decide what color they should paint their bathrooms.”

“I suspect it involves a lot more than that. You always had a real eye for style. You’re the only girl I ever knew who could make blue jeans and a T-shirt look like high fashion.”

“Probably because the only way I could persuade my mother to let me wear them in the first place was if they had designer labels sewn on them. But what about you, Patsy? Any husband or children in your life?”

“No husband, but there are children. I’m an aunt twice over. Dennis is seven and a half, and Jack will be six in October. And they’re adorable, as you’ll see for yourself.” She raised her wineglass, said, “Cheers! Lovely to see you again,” then went on without a pause. “Joe took the boys fishing for minnows in Flanagan’s Slough, and I met some of the old gang from school for dinner here earlier, but I don’t have a car to get home, so he’s stopping by to give me a lift.”

Imogen sat there like stone, unable to drum up anything resembling a coherent response to the stream of information Patsy directed her way. Whatever else she’d thought herself prepared for, the possibility that Joe had settled down to family life had never once occurred to her. If she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, the shock couldn’t have been more acute. But that’s not fair, she wanted to howl. If he was going to fall in love anyway, why couldn’t it have been with me?

“Did you go into nursing as you planned?” she managed to ask with a semblance of normality when Patsy stopped speaking.

“Oh, yes. Got my degree, took some post-grad training in neonatal care and have worked at Toronto General on the maternity floor ever since, looking after the premature babies. I love it, although it’s heartbreaking at times. But the miracle of birth never ceases to thrill me, especially when a baby survives despite the odds.”

The sun still sparkled on the lake, but Imogen was lost in a sudden darkness. How was it possible for old pain to rise up and consume a person so thoroughly that her vision was clouded by it and a giant fist seemed to be squeezing the life out of her heart? “I have to go,” she said, rising up from her chair almost violently.

“But you only just got here!”

“I know. But I just remembered—”

Too much. Far, far too much!

In her haste, she stumbled against the table and sent the contents of her handbag flying. Her wallet fell out and hit the patio with such a thump that the change purse opened, scattering loose coins under the adjoining table.

As if they’d been waiting for just such a windfall, two small boys appeared out of the lengthening shadows and, like beggars foraging for scraps, scooped up the shiny nickels and dimes with shrieks of glee.

Imogen didn’t need the chill of premonition creeping up her spine to tell her she’d waited too long to make her escape. Who but offshoots of the Donnelly clan could have been blessed with such unruly cowlicks, such thick black hair, such startlingly blue eyes? The boys scrabbling at her feet were miniature replicas of Joe, devils in the making. And if they were here, could he be far behind?

CHAPTER TWO

“GIVE the lady her money, kids.” Smooth and seductive as black satin, his voice practically stroked the back of her neck.

The boys could have robbed her of her last dollar for all Imogen cared. At that precise moment her only concern was that she not make a spectacle of herself. The last time she’d seen Joe Donnelly, she’d been an emotional mess. She would not appear the same way again. If anyone was to be caught at a disadvantage, it would be he.

Exercising an hauteur not even her mother could have matched, Imogen turned her head ever so casually and spared him a brief over-the-shoulder glance. “Oh, hello. It’s Joe, isn’t it?”

The effort was worth what it cost her, if only to witness the way his jaw dropped and his sultry black lashes spiked upward as the famous Donnelly eyes widened in shocked recognition.

“Imogen?” His voice changed, losing its baritone resonance and emerging rusty as a chunk of old metal fished from the depths of the lake.

“That’s right.” Even though her insides were churning, she flashed a cool, impersonal smile and tucked a few retrieved articles inside her bag. “Imogen Palmer. Patsy and I went to school together and were just reminiscing over old times.”

“The hell you say!”

He sounded as if he were being strangled. If she hadn’t been in such pain, she might have enjoyed his discomfiture. Instead, since there was no other way for her to escape unless she chose to vault over the iron railing separating the patio from the park, she steeled herself to turn and face him.

Oh, he was beautiful! Contrary to all she’d told herself, he was as trim and fit a specimen of manhood as any woman could wish for. Despite the intensified gloom under the awning, she could see that his face was more chiseled than it had been when he was twenty-three, defining more fully the character of the man he’d become. He stood tall and proud, the rebel in him controlled but not tamed.

“Well,” she said, turning away before he read the desolation she knew must show in her eyes, “it’s been nice seeing you again, Patsy. Sorry we didn’t have more time to chat.”

Patsy looked from her to Joe, her expressive face betraying utter confusion. “But—”

One of the boys held out a grimy paw. “Here’s your money, lady.”

“Thank you,” Imogen said, avoiding his clear-eyed gaze. She could not bear to look at him or his brother. Stepping past them and the man at their side, she said, “Sorry to rush off like this, Patsy, but we’ll probably see each other again in the next day or so. Goodbye, Joe. You have lovely children.”

She hoped she made a dignified exit. Spine straight, she tried to move with the unhurried grace of a fashion model through the maze of tables which wove an obstacle course between her and the gate. Only when she’d covered a hundred yards or so of her return journey along the shoreline boardwalk and was a safe distance from the restaurant did she allow herself to slump against the promenade wall and draw a shaking hand over her face.

Surprised, she found she was crying. Not with the great, harrowing, painful sobs she’d endured when Joe Donnelly had left her nine summers before. Not with the mourning hopelessness she’d known when she’d walked out of Colthorpe Clinic the following spring, her arms as empty as her heart. But silently, with tears flowing warm and unchecked down her cheeks.

Footsteps intruded on the silence, and again premonition shivered over her, warning her that escape was not to be so easily bought. A second later his voice, in control, bore out the fact. “Not so fast, Imogen.”

Appalled, she fished a tissue out of her bag, swabbed at her tears and tried to blow her nose discreetly. “What is it?” she asked, grateful for the blessed camouflage of twilight. “Did I forget something?”

He touched her, placing his hand on her shoulder as if he were about to arrest her for loitering. “Apparently you did.”

“Really?” Trying to shrug him off, she peered into her bag as intently as if she expected to find a snake hidden there. Anything was preferable to looking him in the eye. “What?”

“Us,” he said, spinning her to face him. “Or did you hope I’d forgotten that Patsy wasn’t the only Donnelly you were familiar with at one time?”

“He is immoral, insolent and socially unacceptable,” her mother had raged when she’d learned Joe had brought Imogen home from her high school graduation dance. “Should he dare to set foot on this property again, I will have him arrested for trespassing.”

But while he undoubtedly possessed more than his share of faults, unflinching honesty had been but one of Joe Donnelly’s strengths, and he’d lost nothing of his penchant for confrontation. Where other men might have gone along with Imogen’s pretense that they were nothing but the most casual of acquaintances, he was determined to challenge her on it.

“I hoped you’d be gentleman enough not to remind me,” she said.

His voice hardened. “But I’m not a gentleman, Imogen. I never was. Surely you hadn’t forgotten that?”

How did she answer? By confessing that simply seeing him again was enough to make her long for the feel of his mouth on hers? That it was suddenly too easy to look at the star-sprinkled sky and remember how, the night he’d loved her, the wash of the summer moon had turned his skin to pale gold? Or that, if she matched his truth with one of her own, she’d have to admit he was the most exciting man she’d ever met and he’d spoiled her for anyone else?

“How could I have forgotten?” she asked, overwhelmed by the vicious ache of memory. “A gentleman would have...”

He heard the unguarded desolation in her tone. “What?” he asked, his gaze scouring her face. “What would a gentleman have done that I didn’t do?”

Found a way to stay in touch, she wanted to reply. He’d have called or written or shown up at the door and refused to go away. He’d have been beside me when I needed him, and to hell with whether or not my mother approved He’d have shared my grief. But you did none of those things because you didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Our...what happened between us that night...”

“Yes, Imogen? Exactly what did happen?”

He was taunting her, daring her to speak as bluntly as he did. Well, why not? Why should she step delicately, afraid to trample on his feelings, while he stomped roughshod over hers?

“We had sex, Joe. A one-night stand. The ice princess needed to learn what ‘it’ was really all about, and who better to teach her than the guy who’d already had every other willing girl in town? Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” he said, his hands falling from her as if he’d found he was touching slime. “I was hoping you’d tell the truth, for a change.”

“You think I’m lying?”

He swung his gaze from her and stared across the darkening lake. “I never deluded myself about why you turned to me that night, Imogen. But even allowing for that, I still believed you came away from our—” he curled his lip scornfully “—encounter feeling better about yourself. So I hope to hell you are lying now.”

“What does it matter either way, Joe? You obviously didn’t lose much sleep over the whole business.”

“Didn’t I?”

A hundred yards or so ahead, the illuminated dome of the hotel reared into the night like a beacon. Why didn’t she run toward the refuge it promised? Why did she let his question provoke her into having the last word and thereby reveal the misery she was feeling? “Well, you’re married, aren’t you?” she said, flinging the rebuke in his face. “You’ve got two children, both already in school, which explains how you’ve been keeping busy since the last time I saw you. I’d call that getting on with your life without wasting too much time on regrets.”

“And that upsets you, Imogen?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said loftily, her bedraggled pride finally coming to the rescue. “Why in the world would it?”

“I can’t imagine,” he said, a suggestion of sly humor in his voice. “Especially since I’m neither married nor the father of those boys you met.”

“But Patsy said she’s their aunt, which makes you—oh, dear!” The laugh she manufactured to try to cover her embarrassment sounded pathetically like the bleating of a distraught sheep. “How very silly of me.”

“Right,” he said, so smugly she could have slapped him. “I’m their uncle.”

“Well, it was a natural enough mistake on my part,” she said, wishing she could disappear in a puff of smoke before she humiliated herself further. “Sean was a year behind me in school. It never occurred to me he’d be the one to settle down and get married so young.”

“Wrong again, Imogen. He tied the knot with his high school sweetheart, Liz Baker, when they were nineteen, and Dennis was born six months later.”

She’d had one shock too many in the past hour. That was the only excuse she could offer for her next incredibly tactless remark. “You mean, they had to get married?”

The look he turned on her, half pity and half disgust, made her cringe. “We mortals who come from Lister’s Meadows tend to make mistakes like that, Imogen. Our animal appetites get the better of us—not that I’d expect someone of your refined sensibilities to understand that.”

Oh, she understood—more than he’d ever know!

But what good would it do to say so at this late date? Casting about for an escape from a situation growing more fraught with tension by the minute, she saw they’d finally drawn level with the Bnarwood’s entrance. Wanting nothing more than to rush up the steps and disappear through the front doors, she forced herself to observe the social niceties ingrained in her from birth. “Well, it was a pleasure seeing you, Joe, and I’ve enjoyed catching up on all your news. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again some time.”

Any other man would have taken the hint, shaken the hand she extended and left. Not Joe Donnelly. He looked first at her hand, then at the floodlit facade of the hotel, before zeroing in on her face with that too-candid, too-observat gaze of his. “Are you telling me you’re staying at the Briarwood or just trying to get rid of me before someone you know sees the kind of company you’re keeping?”

“I’m staying at the hotel.”

“Why? What’s wrong with staying at home?”

“My mother is away for a couple of days, and I didn’t want to put the staff out.”

“Why did she go away when she knew you were coming?”

“Because—” She stopped and drew a frustrated breath. “You ask too many questions, Joe Donnelly.”

“I guess that means you aren’t going to let me buy you a drink while you fill me in on what you’ve been up to since we last saw each other?”

“Thank you, no. It’s been a long day, and I’m rather tired.”

“In other words, your life is none of my business.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t.”

He held her gaze an uncomfortably long time. “Fine. Sorry I bothered you. It won’t happen again.”

Then he did exactly what she’d wanted him to do—turned and strode back the way he’d come. Left her again, without so much as a backward glance. And she, fool that she was, felt her heart splinter a little, as if a piece of glass lodged there for years had suddenly broken loose.

Her strength seemed to drain out through the soles of her feet. She sank to the edge of the hotel lawn, afraid she was going to faint. Apparently, so did a couple who passed her. “Looks as if she’s had one too many,” the woman remarked, giving her a wide berth.

Imogen didn’t care. She had only one thought, to hide herself behind the closed door of her room before she confronted the emotions sweeping through her. Not shock. She was past that. And not the thunderstruck notion that, after all these years, she was still in love with Joe Donnelly. That was so clichéd as to be laughable.

No, what terrified her was the feeling of having her back to the wall as destiny finally caught up with her. She had run for years. But in coming back to Rosemont, she had tempted fate too far, and it was about to demand a reckoning.

The phone was ringing as she let herself into her room. It was Tanya, calling for an update.

“You’re overtired,” she said, when Imogen tried to describe the foreboding gripping her. “It’s a long enough flight from Vancouver to Toronto, never mind the drive you had to face once you landed.”

But Imogen remained unconvinced. She was realizing too late that it wasn’t possible to dig up selective parts of the past. It was an all-or-nothing undertaking, and she hadn’t bargained on that, at all.

Patsy was stretched out on the couch, watching the eleven o’clock news, when Joe got home. “Hi,” she said, turning off the TV. “How was your evening?”

“Just peachy!” He flung himself down beside her and scowled at the blank screen. “Did you get the boys home okay?”

“Of course I got them home okay. What’s put you in such a lousy mood?”

“I’m not in a lousy mood.”

“You could have fooled me,” she said, subjecting him to uncomfortably close scrutiny.

He squirmed under her gaze. “For Pete’s sake, stop looking at me as if I’ve just broken out in spots! I’m not one of your patients.”

She let the silence spin out for a while, then said, “I gather your hot date with Imogen didn’t pan out.”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Gee, you could have fooled me. The way you went racing after her, anyone would think—”

“Can it, Patsy!”

Her voice softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was that important to you.”

“She’s not.” He slouched against the cushions and gazed at the ceiling. “It’s just that some things never change, no matter how much time goes by. I wasn’t good enough for Imogen Palmer in the old days and I should have known better than to think she’d spare me the time of day now. End of story.”

“I think you’re selling both yourself and Imogen short. She was never a snob.”

“Don’t give me that! You’ve only got to look at the way she was brought up by that mother of hers.”

“Dad drinks,” Patsy pointed out, “but that doesn’t make us alcoholics.”

“I know.” He blew out a sigh of frustration. “But let’s face it, Pats, the Imogen Palmers of this world stick to their own breed—corporate giants backed by old money.”

“From everything you’ve told me, you’re not exactly subsisting on a pittance, either, Joe, and women have been falling at your feet ever since you started shaving. So what’s this really all about?”

Guilt, that’s what. And shame. But he wasn’t about to open up that can of worms, not tonight and especially not with Patsy. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Could be that she’s involved with some other guy and not interested in shooting the breeze with—”

“She’s not involved with anyone else. I know that for a fact because she told me so.”

“Well, that proves my point then, doesn’t it? She’d rather be alone than spend any time with someone like me.”

Patsy gave him another of those annoyingly clinical looks. It stretched to a minute before, having finally arrived at some decision, she said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this and I wouldn’t if you weren’t the brother I adore despite his bullheadedness, but I happen to know that this ‘goddess’ of yours has feet of clay just like the rest of us. She didn’t leave town suddenly the summer after we graduated because the air didn’t agree with her—”

“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “She went to some fancy finishing school in Switzerland, which also goes to prove my point.”

“No, she didn’t. She was pregnant, and her mother sent her to live with relatives somewhere down near the U.S. border so no one here would find out.”

When he’d first begun working with horses, a young stallion had kicked him in the ribs, only a glancing blow, fortunately, but at the time Joe thought his chest had caved in. He felt the same way now. “It’s not like you to spread ugly rumors, Pats.”

“It’s no rumor, Joe. To make a bit of extra money, I worked part-time for Dr. Rush and Dr. Stevens all summer, filing medical records, and I saw her chart.”

Sweat prickled the pores of his skin. Patsy had never been a gossip. Was it likely she’d be passing on information if she wasn’t sure of her facts?

Still, he continued to deny it. “You’re mistaken,” he said. “Or else you’re mixing her up with someone else.”

“No, I’m not.”

“What makes you so sure? Plenty of girls get pregnant. Look at Liz.”

“But not girls like Imogen Palmer, Joe. I mean, think about it. She hardly ever even dated, and when she did, the family chauffeur used to drive her and the boy to and from wherever they were going. Ian Lang bragged to everybody that the only reason he asked her out in grade eleven was so he’d get to ride in the back of that big black Mercedes.”

“Ian Lang always was an ass.”

“Yes.” Patsy had that look again, and it was pointing straight at him—again. “I know you won’t repeat what I’ve told you to anybody, Joe.”

Wrong! There was one person he’d definitely be talking to.

“It’s ancient history, after all, and no one else’s business.”

Wrong again, Pats!

“I only told you to rid you of this ridiculous inferiority complex you seem to have developed where Imogen’s concerned.”

“Yeah. Sure. Who gives a damn, anyway?”

He did! But he wasn’t about to let Patsy know.

He made a big production of yawning. “I’m about ready to hit the sack.”

“Me, too. Want anything before we turn in?”

He wanted plenty—answers, mostly, but he’d make do with a stiff belt of bourbon for now. “I’ll pass, thanks. You go to bed, and I’ll let Taffy out for a run before I come up.”

The back porch lay deep in shadow. Moonlight glinted off the bottle of Jack Daniels perched on the railing. Leaning against one of the posts supporting the roof, with Taffy, the dog he’d found abandoned by the side of the road ten years ago, at his feet, Joe stared at the strip of garden and wondered how everything could possibly remain so utterly untouched by the turmoil raging inside him.

The sound of the courthouse clock striking midnight came faintly on the night air. Another nine hours at least before he could get any answers. How in hell was he supposed to fill the time between now and then?

Taffy stirred in her sleep, whimpered groggily and twitched her arthritic old legs at the phantom rabbits chasing through her dreams. He knew all about dreams. They were what had got him through the time he’d served in Pavillion Amargo, the jail he’d been sent to after Coburn’s death.

They’d met when he’d signed on with the crew of a sailboat being brought from Ecuador to San Diego. Like everyone else on board, Joe had recognized Coburn for the brute he was, but the trouble began on Ojo del Diablo, a Caribbean island where they dropped anchor to pick up fresh supplies.

Coburn got in a drunken brawl and just about beat one of the locals to death. Joe stepped in to break things up, and Coburn fell and split his skull. Within minutes, the police were on the scene, he had blood on his hands, and there were two men lying in the gutter, one of them dead.

Justice, he’d soon learned, was pretty basic in little banana republics, especially when one of their own was involved. Before he knew it, he was in the slammer and the rest of the crew had set sail.

He survived the next months on memories of Rosemont Lake’s clear, unpolluted water, on the smell of clean sheets dried in the sun on his mother’s washing line, the taste of her apple pie still warm from the oven. Clichés every one, but they kept him from going mad.

And sometimes, when the moans of other prisoners filled the night, he dreamed of Imogen in a long white dress, and how she clung to him and wept in his arms, and how he’d made her smile again. He’d wondered if she remembered him, if he’d live to see her again, if there would ever be another time when she’d turn to him. But never, in his wildest imaginings, had he thought he might have left her pregnant.

Was that what he’d done? And if so, what had happened to the child?

He drained his glass, grabbed the bottle and stepped quietly to the end of the porch where the old hammock hung. It was going to be a long night. He might as well make himself comfortable.

Imogen was up and on the road by eight, her mind refreshed by sleep, her fears of the previous night washed away. It was seeing Joe Donnelly again that had done it. Being close enough to touch him. Of course she’d been shaken up. Who wouldn’t be?

Still, she wasn’t about to take a chance on running into him again. She read in the local paper of an estate auction at a farm near Baysfield, a small market town about two hours’ drive away, and planned her escape.

She arrived in Rosemont just after four, half a dozen gorgeous quilts on the seat next to her, and went straight to Deepdene. Her mother answered the door. And even after all those years apart, the best she could come up with by way of welcome was to say plaintively, “Oh, it’s you, Imogen.”

Deciding such a tepid reception hardly warranted an offer to kiss her mother’s delicately rouged cheek, Imogen said, “Yes, Mother. How are you?”

“Well, I’m...surprised. When Molly gave me your note, I hardly knew what to think.”

Imogen suppressed a sigh. What had she expected? That the leading light of Rosemont society might have undergone a transformation and become suffused with such an uprush of maternal feeling she’d fling her arms around her only child and call for the fatted calf to be served for dinner? Hardly! On the other hand, the air of poised self-confidence that had been Suzanne’s trademark was missing. She seemed diffident, nervous almost.

“Is it so surprising that, since I’m in town anyway, I should want to see you?” Imogen asked gently.

“But why now, after so many years?”

“Because there are matters to put right between us, Mother, and I’ve...missed you.”

“Well,” Suzanne said doubtfully, “I suppose you’d better come in, then.”

CHAPTER THREE

IMOGEN followed her into the formal drawing room, where Suzanne always received visitors.

“Would you care for some tea, Imogen?”

“I’d love some. Do you still have it served in the sunroom?”

“My daily ritual.” A small smile touched her mother’s face. “How nice that you remember.”

“Of course I do. It was quite a shock yesterday to find you’d broken the habit.”

Suzanne got up and fidgeted with the triple string of pearls around her neck. “Yesterday I had...an appointment.”

Imogen saw suddenly that the years had not been kind to her mother. In fact, she looked positively unwell. “Have you been ill, Mother?”

Affronted, Suzanne straightened her spine and cast Imogen a glare. “Certainly not. Why would you suppose such a thing?”

“You seem a little tired.”

“I have been busy as, I am sure, have you.” She tagged the bellpull hanging beside the fireplace. “I’ll order tea, and you can tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since you moved to the west coast. Are you still an interior decorator?”

“Yes,” Imogen said, following her across the hall and into the huge solarium.

“I’d have thought,” her mother said, perching on the edge of one of the sofas and crossing her still-elegant ankles, “that the trust fund from your father would have precluded the need for you to go out to work.”

Her tone suggested that earning a living ranked only slightly above picking pockets.

“I like to be busy, Mother, and I enjoy the work.”

“Do you own the company, dear?”

“No.”

“How odd. I don’t believe a Palmer has ever worked for someone else. But then, you’ve never behaved quite as I expected.”

“Especially not the summer I graduated from high school.”

The maid wheeled in a brass tea trolley just then, and Imogen knew from Suzanne’s flared nostrils and raised brows that this particular topic of conversation was temporarily off-limits.

She waited until they were alone again before pursuing the one subject she was determined to discuss. “I’m sure you’d prefer that I not bring this up, Mother, but I think you and I need to talk about that time.”

“Why would you want to dig up history best forgotten?”

“Because I lost more than a baby. I lost a mother, too. And you lost a daughter. And it strikes me as a terrible waste that we’ve let so much time go by without repairing the damage to our relationship.” She looked around the vast room. “This used to be my home. It’s part of me, of who I am. But this is the first time I’ve been back since you sent me to live with your cousin Amy.”

“You could have come home again.” Suzanne hesitated before adding, “Afterward.”

“But I stayed away to punish you, Mother, because for a long time I felt you had abandoned me when I needed you the most.”

“I did what I thought was best for you. What would you have had me do? Keep you here, where everyone knew you, and so make it impossible for you to go forward with your life without your past following wherever you went?”

“It followed me anyway. Mother. Or did you think I’d simply forget my little daughter?”

“I certainly hoped you would.”

“Did you forget me, Mother? Does any woman ever forget the child she gave birth to?”

“Really, Imogen!” Suzanne set the sterling teapot on its stand with a decided clatter. “I find this conversation most upsetting and, to be perfectly frank, in very poor taste.”

“Yes,” Imogen said, dismayed to find her mother could still hurt her. “I can see that you do. Perhaps I was wrong to think we could make amends. Perhaps there are things neither one of us can ever really forgive the other for.”

Agitation lent a hectic flush to Suzanne’s cheeks. “That isn’t so, at least not on my part. I’m happy to see you. If it’s possible for us to start over, I’m willing to try. But I warn you now that it won’t happen if you insist on harping on matters best left alone. That whole business is a closed book.”

“But it isn’t for me! How can it be, when I never even saw my baby? One day I was pregnant, could feel her kicking inside me, and the next she was dead and gone, and I was expected to behave as if she’d never existed. Well, that isn’t how it works, Mother. Before you and I can resume any sort of worthwhile relationship, I need to find closure, too.”

“Imogen, I’m begging you!” Ashen-faced, Suzanne put down her cup and saucer and raised ruby-tipped fingers to her temples.

Her mother looked ill, Imogen realized with sudden compunction. The late afternoon sun slanting cruelly across the fine patrician features revealed a pinched unhappiness about the eyes and mouth, the kind brought about by recurrent pain.

Fortunately, the maid came in. “Will there be one more for dinner, madam?”

“I’m afraid not,” Suzanne said. “I feel one of my headaches coming on. I’m sorry, Imogen, but I’m going to have to go and lie down with a cold cloth over my eyes.”

“Of course. Is there anything I can get for you? An aspirin, perhaps?”

“No, thank you. I have special migraine medication to take when this happens. Molly will help me.”

The visit was clearly at an end. Collecting her things, Imogen prepared to leave. “Then I’ll let myself out and call you tomorrow, if I may?”

“Of course.”

Imogen hesitated, again tempted to embrace her mother. But when Suzanne got up from the sofa, she swayed on her feet, and it was obvious she really was in pain. Imogen touched her gently on the hand and said, “I’m sorry if my coming here has brought on this attack, Mother.”

“I’ve brought it on myself, I’m afraid” She twisted the rings on her fingers and knit her finely arched brows as though wrestling with a dilemma. At length, she let out a long, defeated sigh, lifted her head and said in a low voice, “Won’t you stay here while you’re in town, Imogen? I’d really like it very much if you would. I’ve...missed having a daughter all these years.”

It was the last admission Imogen had expected to hear. She could not believe how it moved her, or how, with so few words, so much healing could begin. Overwhelmed, she said, “I don’t want to put you out, and the Briarwood is very comfortable.”

“But it’s not your home, and if we are to find our way back to each other, surely the place to start is here under this roof where things went so terribly wrong to begin with.”

It was so much what she had hoped for that Imogen’s throat ached. “Yes,” she whispered, overcome. “Thank you, Mother.”

She was smiling as she drove from the house and humming by the time she drew up outside the hotel. “I’m checking out,” she told the young man at the front desk. “Please have my bill ready and send someone for my luggage in half an hour.”

The clerk looked anxious. “Nothing’s wrong, I hope, madam? No problem with our service?”

“No,” she said, still all smiles. “Things couldn’t be better.”

But they could deteriorate rapidly, she soon discovered. When a knock came at her door some twenty minutes later, she opened it, expecting it to be the bellhop arriving early. Instead, Joe Donnelly stood there, the light of battle sparking in his eyes.

“I’d invite me in, if I were you,” he said, when she made no move to let him inside the room. “I don’t think you’re going to want the entire floor to know why I’m here.”

If she hadn’t been taken so completely by surprise, Imogen would have told him she wasn’t interested in finding out the reason for his unannounced visit, either, and shut the door in his face. Common sense demanded that, at the very least, she tell him to wait for her downstairs in one of the public rooms. Sheer self-preservation told her to refuse to see him at all. And ordinarily, Imogen listened to her instincts. But one look at Joe’s face told her this was no ordinary occasion.

Last night, dusk had hidden what the clear light of day revealed. He had lost his old devil-may-care expression a long time ago. Any vestige of softness his mouth might once have shown was gone. His eyes, though as vividly blue as ever, possessed a wariness Joe Donnelly at twenty-three hadn’t known.

He had always been ready to take on the world, secure in the belief that he was invincible, but the arrogance of youth had given way to a cynicism ready to flare into anger at the slightest provocation. And somehow, she had provoked him to anger now.

“What do you want?” she asked, backing away from him, allowing him into the room.

He followed, closing the door behind him. “Looks as if I got here just in time,” he said, ignoring her question and jerking his head at the suitcase lying open on the bed. “I see you’re getting set to run away again.”

“I’m not running anywhere, Joe Donnelly. I’m staying with my mother for the rest of the time I’m here—not that I owe you any explanations.”

“Oh, but you do, Imogen,” he said, stalking her across the room until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed and made further retreat impossible. “And you can start by telling me why you skipped town so hurriedly just weeks after we had sex, the year you graduated from high school.”

We had sex. Even though she’d flung the same callous words at him the night before, having them hurled back at her now stung worse than salt in a newly opened wound. On the other hand, given his present mood, what else did she expect? That he’d couch his anger in euphemisms?

“I’m waiting,” he said, looming over her. “Why the rapid exit from Rosemont, Imogen?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He folded his arms across his chest and planted his feet more firmly on the carpet, a statement that he’d allow nothing to deflect his purpose. “As of right now, I’m making it my business.”

She didn’t like the way he seemed to suck the oxygen out of the air. Even less did she like the way he intimidated her. There was something almost sinister in his velvet tone of voice, so at odds with the hard line of his mouth and the absolute coldness in his eyes.

“I’m waiting,” he said, still with chilling softness.

She swallowed, scrambling to find an answer that would satisfy him and put an end to the inquisition. “I went to Switzerland for a year,” she said, stretching the truth by a few months. “To school.”

He moved suddenly, circling her wrists with his long, strong fingers and hauling her to her feet. “Liar! You had a baby. My baby.”

The blood drained from her face, leaving her lightheaded with shock. The Joe Donnelly she’d known and worshipped would never have cornered her so mercilessly, but this man was a stranger.

“Didn’t you?” Imprisoning both her wrists in one hand, he grasped her chin in the other and forced her to meet his scrutiny.

Mutely, she stared at him, her silence an admission of guilt. There was a time she’d have welcomed being held by him, so close she could see the faint stippling of new beard growth on his jaw. But not like this, with his eyesblazing in his face and his mouth twisted with rage. As if his rights as a human being, as a man, had been violated.

Not as if, her conscience scolded. His rights have been violated, pure and simple. He learned from someone else a truth he should have heard from you years ago.

It was true, and looked at from his point of view, she knew her omission was inexcusable. “How did you find out?” she croaked, too dismayed to consider prevaricating-

“By accident.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded as feebleminded as she felt.

“For what?” he bellowed. “For the way I found out I’d fathered a child, or that I found out at all? And don’t try telling me it’s none of my business then try to shoo me away, because it isn’t going to happen, Imogen.”

How he must despise her! “I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” she mumbled.

“You could have prevented it. You could have told me yourself, at the time.”

“I—”

“Let me guess why you didn’t.” The contempt in his tone seared her. “Donnelly genes didn’t measure up to what it takes to be a Palmer heir. It was easier to write the whole thing off as an accident. Erase the mistake before anyone found out about it. How am I doing so far, princess? Batting a hundred?”

Too floored to refute such a ludicrous allegation, she stared at him. She’d opened her Pandora’s box so carefully. How had this secret escaped? Who could have told him, when the only people in town who knew were her mother and the family doctor?

“I always thought your mother was a bitch,” he said savagely, “but I never wanted to believe you were cut from the same cloth. I never thought you capable of cold-blooded murder.”

“Stop it!” She choked the words out, stirred by the unfairness of his accusation and his unjustified attack on Suzanne.

“What else would you call abortion? You curled your aristocratic lip last night when you realized Sean and Liz had to get married, as you so prettily phrased it, but at least they didn’t take the easy way out and flush a child, rather than have it screw up their long-term plans.”

“I didn’t, either!” she cried, hurt beyond measure that he’d leap to such a conclusion. But the ugly fact was, he’d made love to a stranger out of pity. He knew of her—that she belonged to the richest family in town, that she vacationed in the Alps and on the Riviera, had servants to cater to her needs and rode around town in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine. But he’d never known her, the person she was inside. How could he be expected to understand what her reaction to the pregnancy might have been? “I didn’t have an abortion,” she said quietly. “I never even considered it.”

It was his turn to be rendered speechless. Eventually, after a silence that thrummed with tension, he said, “Then what the hell happened to my child?”

“She died, Joe.” The words fell into the room like marbles hitting glass. Their echo seemed to hang in the air forever.

“What?” His horrified gaze burned holes in her. “How?”

“She was stillborn.”

The breath rushed out of him. “Stillborn?” he repeated hollowly, slumping into a chair.

Witnessing his shock was like reliving her own when she’d first been told. The tears welled up, and she felt again that clutching emptiness no amount of sympathy or kindness had been able to fill. How her soul had ached during those terrible days.

And how his was hurting now! “Why?” he asked, in that shell-shocked voice.

“Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that over and over again? Why my baby? Why me?” And because he’d judged her so harshly to begin with, she asked, “And why you? Why not a man who cared enough for me to be by my side, to share the grief?”

If only he’d reach out to her then, how willingly she’d have gone to him. They had lost a child—surely the greatest sorrow any two people could be asked to bear—and should have been able to draw comfort and strength from each other.

But he did not. Instead, he swung his head in a slow arc, and she saw that his eyes had turned a winter-sky blue, the kind that comes after a blizzard, so hard and remote that she wondered if there was a spark of warmth or tenderness left in him.

“If I had known, I would have been there,” he said. “But I did not know. You chose not to let me know.”

“You left town,” she said, “and since you didn’t bother to say goodbye first, I took that as a clear message that you weren’t interested in keeping in touch.”

“So you thought you’d punish me by keeping knowledge of my child from me? Or was it more a case of hushing up the whole business entirely so that no one would know you’d rolled in the hay with a peasant?”

His first question gave her pause. She had been angry with him once the initial hurt of his desertion had subsided. It had been the only way she could cope. But his second accusation made her blush with shame.

She’d couched it in more refined terms, of course, but Suzanne’s assessment had matched his. “Word of this cannot leak out,” she’d declared. “That anyone should learn of a Palmer giving birth to a Donnelly bastard is insupportable. I will not hear of it! It would ruin our fine family name!”

Too heartsick to fight and too afraid of what the future held, Imogen the girl had gone along with her mother’s edict. She’d packed her bags and disappeared without a trace. Why not? Joe Donnelly had long since done the same thing, heading west on his beloved Harley-Davidson and leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust.

Still, Imogen, the woman, had to set the record straight. “I never—”

“Don’t bother denying it,” Joe cut in. “Your face says it all.”

Conscience-stricken, Imogen turned away, knowing she’d left it eight years too late to expect him to believe his being the father would have been reason enough for her to have adored their child.

Her action seemed to infuriate him. Surging to his feet, he let fly with a string of curses and strode to the French window. She held her breath, anticipating another outburst. When one wasn’t forthcoming, she ventured another look at him.

He stood with his back to her, one hand braced against the wall. The sun, half-hidden behind the branches of a tree, haloed his bowed head and the stiff, unyielding line of his shoulders. The atmosphere hummed with anger and suspicion.

Just when Imogen thought she could bear the tension no longer, another knock came at the door. “Bellhop, Ms. Palmer.”

She could not respond. Could not, if her life had depended on it, have navigated the stretch of carpet between her and the door. She was shaking. Shaking and empty and sick with useless regrets.

Finally, Joe went over and opened the door. “Take the bags,” he told the man, passing him a tip, “and have Ms. Palmer’s car brought to the front. She’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

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