Best-Kept Secrets. Dani Sinclair
She’d better call the police. Chief Hepplewhite only lived a few doors down. That fact alone would practically guarantee her an instant response.
She headed for the kitchen.
Her mother kept a small night-light plugged into the wall near the stove. The light offered enough illumination to show a shadow at the back door.
Her breath caught in her chest. Someone was on the back porch.
But they hadn’t knocked.
Fear gripped her as she realized the person was using a knife to cut open the screen door. Someone was trying to break in.
Fear and anger swept her in equal measure. Her family didn’t need this! She hit the switch, flooding the kitchen with light. The shadow fled, footsteps racing across the old wooden porch. As the person disappeared from view, Amy reached for the telephone hanging on the wall.
Before her shaking hand could punch in the first number, she heard heavy footsteps on the porch. He’d returned!
She choked off her scream as a fist pounded loudly on the back door.
“Amy! Let me in.”
She nearly dropped the telephone. “Jake?”
Her knees were weak with reaction and her hand shook so bad she could barely unbolt the door. “What do you mean by scaring me half to death that way? Who do—”
Without warning, he enfolded her in his arms. Strong arms that had always offered safety and comfort—and unbelievable pleasure.
“Shh. It’s okay. He took off. You’re all right now. We need to call the police.”
Amy pulled back. She’d allowed herself to snuggle into the familiar scent and feel that only Jake had ever evoked for her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you realize? Someone just tried to break into the house.”
“That wasn’t you out there?”
In the blink of an eye she glimpsed his hurt before his rigid mask returned.
“I was coming to talk to you when I saw someone sneak around the corner of your house. I wasn’t sure what was going on so I followed. The person saw me when you turned on the light and took off. I was going to give chase until I saw you standing in the kitchen.”
He hesitated. Once more she glimpsed pain behind his expression.
“I decided to make sure you were okay,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there were two people out there. I only saw one.”
“So did I.” Jake regarded her without expression. “Do you want to call the police or shall I?”
“Is there any point? Whoever it was is long gone by now.”
“You should still report the incident.” His mask was back in place, his manner coolly aloof once more. “He might try breaking into someone else’s house next.”
“Yes. You’re right. Okay. I just don’t want my mother disturbed. She and Dad are pretty heavy sleepers but she isn’t feeling well.”
“She wasn’t hurt this afternoon, was she?”
“No. Nothing like that. She’s just tired.”
Her gaze riveted on Jake’s once dear face. This close, she saw that the years hadn’t been kind. Deep lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. The sadness behind his dark, watchful eyes called to something in her soul.
“What are you doing here, Jake?”
“I came to ask you a question.”
“I meant here in Fools Point.”
His expression didn’t change. “I decided to make my home here now.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
No emotions showed at all. She wanted to tell him that it did matter, but then he’d want to know why. Amy wasn’t sure she had an answer for that particular question.
“What did you want to ask me?” she asked instead.
He moved close enough that she could reach out and touch him. Her heart sped up and her stomach muscles contracted in expectation.
“Is Kelsey my daughter?”
The world dissolved in icy shock to reform in blazing anger. “How dare you ask me that?”
“Is she?”
Hands gripped her shoulders, pinning her beneath his steady stare.
“You bastard. You never even read my letters, did you?”
Jake blinked. “What letters?”
She tugged free, moving away from him, wrapping her arms around her suddenly chilled body. How could he stand there and ask her that?
“I never got any letters from you, Amy.”
“Right.”
“I never lie, Amy.”
She rounded on him angrily. “Well, if you didn’t get them, then your brother-in-law is a bigger bastard than you are.”
Jake flinched, but his gaze didn’t waver.
“Ask him,” she insisted. “I wrote you twice. Once when I found out I was pregnant, and once after Kelsey was born. I almost didn’t send you the second letter since you never responded to the first one, but I figured you’d at least want to know if you had a daughter or a son.”
Jake tried to quell the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could only stare at her while her words flayed him with a pain much deeper than any physical wound.
“My brother-in-law is dead,” he said softly. “He and my sister were killed in a plane crash almost eight years ago.”
He watched her face crumple in consternation.
“I didn’t know.” Her hand lifted as if to offer him comfort, then abruptly fell to her side.
He rubbed his chin, trying to make sense of what she’d told him. “You gave Ronnie the letters to send to me? Why didn’t you give them to Carrie?”
“Your sister wouldn’t take my calls after you left. I wanted your address, but Ronnie wouldn’t give it to me.”
She tried to conceal her remembered hurt, but he knew. One more snippet of guilt to live with.
“Ronnie wasn’t friendly, either,” she went on more stoically. “I figured he and Carrie knew we’d broken up and they didn’t want to get involved. While Ronnie wouldn’t give me an address to write to you, he agreed I could send you a letter through him.”
Jake’s pain bit a little deeper. Jake had told Ronnie and Carrie he didn’t want to talk to Amy. He’d never thought about the position he’d put them in. He hadn’t told Amy how to reach him because he’d wanted to keep the breakup simple and as painless as possible. Amy wouldn’t understand that he’d done it to spare her. He didn’t understand it himself anymore. He could see Ronnie tossing out her letters thinking she was trying to cling to a dead relationship.
“You didn’t tell Ronnie about the baby.”
Her eyes snapped green fire. “It wasn’t any of his business. Are you telling me he never sent you my letters?”
“I’m telling you I never got any letters from you, Amy,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if Ronnie didn’t send them, or if they never caught up with me. I moved around a lot on my assignments overseas. Some-times…well, mail didn’t always catch up with me. I didn’t learn about the plane crash until months after it happened. I swear to you, I never knew about Kelsey.”