His-and-Hers Family. Helen Lacey
talk.”
“What about?”
He stepped closer. “Perhaps we could go somewhere a little more private.”
Fiona bristled. “This is plenty private.”
He glanced toward the other riders and then back to her. After a moment he drew in a breath. “Okay. Firstly, let me assure you that I’m not any kind of threat to you.”
Fiona didn’t feel threatened. But her curiosity was at an all-time high. Sensing she needed every advantage she could get, she didn’t quite let him off the hook. “I guess I’ll know that when you tell me what you want.” He smiled, and Fiona’s insides gave a silly leap. “So, start talking.”
He nodded. “Like I said, my name is Wyatt Harper.” He pulled a small card from his shirt pocket and held it toward her.
She knew he stood still deliberately, allowing her the chance to move forward so he wouldn’t appear intimidating. Smooth, she thought. And clever. She took a couple of steps, snatched the card and read it as she moved backward again. Sure enough, it said Wyatt Harper in bold print, with the title of managing director of Harper Engineering underneath it.
So, he had an impressive-looking job. It didn’t explain what he wanted with her. “And?”
He met her gaze directly and took his time replying. “I’m here on behalf of Cecily Todd.”
Cecily Todd? Fiona shook her head. “I don’t know who that—”
“Cecily is my niece,” he said quietly, interrupting her, “and the child you gave up for adoption fourteen years ago.” Her world quickly tilted on some invisible axis.
No. I don’t believe it.
Oh, my God … is this happening?
She’d thought about this moment for years. Imagined it. Dreamed it and dreaded it. And her knees, usually rock-solid and strong, weakened like a bowl of jelly. Fiona bowed over fractionally as the air tried to squeeze into her lungs.
Breathe … just breathe …
He stepped forward but she raised a hand to warn him off. “Take deep breaths.”
He was clearly concerned but Fiona wasn’t in any mood to be grateful. “Yeah,” she huffed and cast him a sharp look. “No problem.”
“Perhaps you should sit down,” he suggested and looked around. “There are steps by the house. You could—”
“No,” she said raggedly and gulped in air. “Please … just … stop.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t do that.”
She grabbed her knees for support, took a deep breath and then straightened. He dropped his hand and stepped back. She drew in another steadying breath, trying to rally her strength.
“I’d like to talk with you about my niece,” he said.
“Your niece?” she echoed vaguely, suddenly light-headed. Fiona put a hand to her temple. It was surreal. Dreamlike. As if it was happening to someone else, in some kind of alternate reality. “I feel a little woozy,” she admitted.
He grasped her arm and this time she didn’t ward him off. “Come on, you need to sit down.”
She let him lead her toward the house. There were three steps, and he urged her to sit on the bottom rung. Fiona dropped her head between her knees. “I’m not normally like this.”
“I surprised you,” he said evenly. “I’m sorry.”
“Surprised?” Fiona craned her neck to look at him. “You just shocked the hell out of me.”
“What’s going on here?”
She looked up. Callie stood twenty feet away. Her friend looked suspicious and regarded them seriously.
“It’s all right, Callie,” Fiona said. “I felt a little dizzy for a moment. I’m okay now.”
“Who’s this?” the other woman asked.
Fiona glanced at the man standing near her and saw his masked irritation at being spoken about in the third person. “Wyatt Harper,” he said.
Fiona pulled her head up before her friend had a chance to respond. “Thanks for coming over, Callie, but I’m fine now.”
She didn’t look convinced. “If you’re sure …”
“I’m sure,” Fiona said quickly.
She lingered for a moment, nodded and then walked off in the direction of the stables.
“Friend of yours?” he asked once she was out of earshot.
“Yes,” Fiona replied. “She owns this place.”
He nodded vaguely. “Are you really feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
He nodded. “About Cecily, I wanted to—”
“Are you sure?” she asked, cutting him off. “I mean, are you sure she’s … or that I’m her …”
“Her birth mother?”
She swallowed the heavy emotion in her throat. “Yes.”
“If you’re Fiona Walsh, then yes, I’m sure. I have documentation to support that you gave birth to Cecily.”
She took a deep breath, drawing strength. “And you’re her uncle?”
“That’s right. My sister and her husband adopted Cecily.”
A lovely couple. That’s what she’d been told by the adoption agency. People who would be able to give her daughter everything she couldn’t. Stability. Safety. A perfect home. She’d had fourteen years to imagine what they were like. Fourteen years where she hadn’t known her child’s name. Fourteen years to dream about reconnecting with the baby she’d given up.
But not like this. Not when she was totally unprepared and caught off guard. Whoever he was, and whatever he wanted, Fiona had no intention of falling apart in front of him. She didn’t do vulnerable. Ever.
She stood and crossed her arms. The only words she could form came out. “Why now?”
He waited to respond, taking stretched-out seconds as he looked her over. “Because Cecily wants to meet you.”
She shook her head instinctively. No one was going to turn her world upside down. Not ever again. She wasn’t fifteen and gullible. She was nearly thirty and called the shots in her own life. If Wyatt Harper thought rocking up unannounced was going to give him an advantage, he could think again. If she had this conversation, she’d do it when she was ready, and not before.
“I can’t do this here,” she said and tilted her chin, defiant and with way more strength than she felt. “I won’t. I need time to think. Goodbye, Mr. Harper.”
“Fiona, you need to—”
“Goodbye,” she said again and turned on her boots. She walked in a straight line back to the dressage arena and felt the sear of his gaze right up until she was out of view.
Minutes later she heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires. He was gone.
Fiona spent the following hour in a daze. She attended to Titan, got him untacked, fed and rugged, and headed home before Callie had a chance to question her about Wyatt Harper. She wasn’t in the mood for an interrogation, not even from her closest friend.
Once she opened the door of her small house, dropped her keys on the hall stand and made her way to the living room, she let out an emotional shudder.
My daughter.
She