Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  She sees the honesty in his eyes, but still she says, "Don't say things like that unless you mean them."

  He kisses a tear away. "I mean every word."

  It’s all she needed to hear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  HE SMELLS THE scent.

  It's happened before. The first time, when he and Claire cut through the cosmetics department at the mall, his heartbeat soared with such trepidation that he clutched at his chest, startling Claire. Another time, alone in line at a coffee shop near their house, it came up behind him like a wind on a blustery day.

  Both times he experienced the same physical sensation, the fleeting but intense pounding of his heart. It ended as soon as it began, after the mistake in his assumption quickly (and with much relief) became apparent.

  Those other times, no touch came on the heels of the scent. Neither the girl at the cosmetics counter nor the woman who stood behind him in line at the coffee shop knew him intimately enough to touch him.

  This time is different. This time the scent wakes him. He opens his eyes and takes in his surroundings. The four posts at each corner of the bed, the tall casement windows cracked open to let in the fresh air, the gentle flutter of the sheers. He hears a dog bark in the park across the street. He dares to roll over and make sure she’s lying there next to him.

  This time the scent calms him.

  She faces the windows. The white sheet bunched at her waist exposes her bare back to him. Her hair spills like strips of black satin across the pillow. He thinks of the morning, now almost five years ago, when he woke in the same spot to find a different woman in the bed with him.

  Safe in his belief that no surprises await him this time, he scoots closer and molds his body against hers. She reinforces this belief when, with a sleepy moan, she gropes for his arm and pulls it tighter around her.

  He inhales the scent and falls back asleep.

  She wakes him with coffee and warm gooey butter cake. She wears only his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and one button fastened in the middle.

  "Wow." He’ll let her decide what motivated the comment.

  "Don’t get too excited. It's store bought. I simply warmed it for a moment in the oven."

  She sits at the edge of the bed and places a hand on his. Her expression is serious. Too serious. "Is there anywhere you need to be today?" she asks.

  The question causes a bittersweet tightening in his chest. Weekends used to mean Claire, and kids. Now they mean only kids, and only half the time. This weekend is an empty half.

  He shakes his head.

  "I'd like you to take a drive with me."

  "Where?"

  "Up to Champaign. There’s something I need to show you before . . ."

  "Before what?"

  Her eyes fill, and he sits up. "Hey, hey.

  What's going on, Jen? What's the

  matter?"

  She lowers her head and her hair falls forward. He reaches over and tucks each side behind her ears. He doesn't think he'll ever grow tired of touching her hair.

  "There's something you need to show me before what? Just tell me. There's nothing you can't tell me, okay?" Even as he says it, the old fear returns, the fear that maybe she still hides something.

  Something big.

  "Before you love me, I guess."

  The dread feels like a stone in his throat. Yet, when he lifts her chin to meet her eye, he speaks the truth.

  "I think it's already too late for that."

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  It's a long drive. For almost three hours, they barely talk. In the driver's seat, she appears to be on the verge of tears. She spends the first hour switching the radio from station to station whenever a song comes on she doesn't like. She finally she settles on a classical station and he realizes it wasn't the songs, per se, that she didn't like on the other stations; it was their lyrics. Too many tales of lost loves and broken hearts. He almost offers to drive for her, but he thinks her concentration on the road might be the only thing preventing a full-fledged breakdown.

  When they pull off I-57, he says,

  "We're going to the university?"

  She nods. "To a park near the campus.

  A good friend of mine from Yale teaches at the law school here. I want you to meet her and her family."

  "Okay." He doesn't ask why. He assumes the explanation will come when she's ready to give it.

  A sign on the corner reads Hessel Park.

  The park is several residential blocks long on each side and surrounded by homes of varying sizes and ages. A typical Midwestern university neighborhood. She pulls into a parking lot shaded by trees. A pavilion stands at the back of the lot and he sees tennis courts to the right.

  "We'll meet them at the playground—

  it's down that path," she says, pointing to the left, "but I want to say something first."

  She doesn't look at him. She just sits there with one hand at the top of the steering wheel and the other resting on her thigh as she stares out the front windshield.

  "No matter what you think of me after today, I want you to remember two things."

  She finally turns to him, and he blinks slightly, a slow blink to say, go on.

  "I've always loved you. You've told me more than once that you loved me, but I've never let myself speak those words to you. I thought it was wrong to have those feelings. But it really wasn't the sentiment that was wrong. It was that we acted on it.

  So I'm telling you now, I do love you.

  More than you know."

  A door slams somewhere in the

  parking lot and they both turn to look. A mother, just emerged from her minivan, slides the side door open to release her toddler from a car seat. The child, a red-headed girl in pigtails, waves her arms and kicks her legs in eager anticipation of the afternoon ahead of her. The windows in Jenny's car are up and they can't hear the mother's voice, but they see her smile and they watch her animated pantomime.

  Jack can't help but think of Claire and the many times this scene played out in parks near their home. He glances at Jenny and knows she must suspect the thoughts in his head. If so, she accepts them.

  "The other thing is, I hope you understand why I never told you what I'm about to show you. I hope you're able to put yourself in my shoes and realize I didn't know what else to do."

  " What are you talking about?"

  "Come with me and I'll show you."

  She grips his hand as they follow the path through the trees until it leads to a clearing with a playground and splash pool. Summer's warmth has returned and children screech with delight as they take turns covering the fountain spouts with their feet. Others dart between the swing set and the jungle gym. She leads him to a shaded bench set back far from the playground but within easy view of it. He watches her for some hint of what's happening; she watches the playground as if searching for someone. He knows she found her target when the sides of her mouth lift in a smile. He turns to look just as she lets go of his hand and waves.

  A man and woman near the slide both wave back. Both appear to be of Indian descent. The woman leans over and speaks at the ear of a child at the top of the slide, points in the direction of Jack and Jenny. The little girl breaks into a smile and waves wildly at them. Or rather, at Jenny. She launches herself down the slide and takes off across the mulch.

  If Jack didn't know better, he'd think Jenny's little sister, Andrea, has come back to life. The child coming at them reminds him of the young girl in the photo Jenny used to keep on her dresser, and in the photo albums she showed him after she told him about her family's murders. Her sister was six years old at the time of the murders, and this child is younger, but she shares the same amber hair as Andrea and the same brown skin of both sisters.

  "Ayanna Mausi!" She flings herself into Jenny's arms and the two hug tightly.

  Jenny takes a quick swipe at the corner of her eye while the child's face is against her breast.

&
nbsp; "Hey, little one." Jenny presses a hard kiss onto her small forehead and ends it with an exaggerated smacking sound that causes the child to giggle. "How are you?"

  "Good!" She quickly lifts her dress to display a skinny wisp of a body and a yellow gingham bathing suit with an abundance of ruffles. "Mataji and Pitaji said I can go in the fountain today. Will you come?"

  Jack laughs at her brashness. He

  decides she also shares Jenny's easy confidence.

  Jenny laughs, too, and says, "Well, I'll have to check to see if my bathing suit's still in the car from last time. But first, will you meet my friend?"

  At the mention of meeting someone new, she moves back in close against Jenny and stands between her legs. Her thumb promptly goes into her mouth.

  She nods and for the first time turns her face straight in Jack's direction.

  He reels when he sees his own cobalt blue eyes staring back at him.

  Even as Jenny makes introductions,

  "Jack, this is Andrea, Andrea, this is my friend Jack," even as he forces a smile and reaches out to shake her miniature hand, he starts to do the calculations. If Jenny conceived two weeks after the election, she would have come to term the

  following August, and a baby born then would now be just over four years old.

  The child in front of him—named after Jenny's sister, apparently—easily qualifies.

  He glances across the playground at the putative parents. Without a doubt, both are Indian. It's not impossible, but what are the chances both of them have the blue eye gene?

  "Tell your mom I'll be over in a minute, okay?" he hears Jenny say.

  "Bye, Mr. Jack."

  Numb, he looks back down at the

  child. She's staring up at him warily and he thinks Jesus, I'm scaring my own kid.

  "Bye, Andrea," he manages, but his voice sounds unnatural even to his ears.

  "Is it that obvious?" Jenny asks quietly when she's out of earshot. When his daughter is out of earshot.

  He watches as she skips back to her parents. Who are these people? The woman squats to eye level and listens to whatever Andrea has decided to share. Something about the fountain and Jenny, apparently, because Andrea points in their direction and begins to strip off her dress.

  "Jack, please say something."

  But how does he choose from the

  barrage of words attacking him at that moment? So many words fighting for attention in his head.

  "Please. Please say something.

  Anything."

  He finally plucks two from the ether.

  "She's ours."

  "Yes."

  The girl darts for the fountain and the woman stands straight again, calling for her to take it slow. Who is this woman pretending to be her mother? "But she's not."

  This time, Jenny doesn't answer so quickly. "No."

  "She's theirs."

  "Yes, she's theirs." She barely gets the words out without choking on suppressed tears. He grasps her hand and pulls it onto his lap to tell her what he's unable to speak aloud just yet. I understand.

  He starts thinking of the legal

  arguments he might make to wrestle her away from these people he assumes are her adoptive parents. Just as quickly he dismisses the idea as ridiculous and wrong and hates himself for how easily he went there.

  More collateral damage. All because of one reckless, stupid, selfish decision. He thinks of what it will be like to tell Michael he has a half-sister, even as he questions the oddness of having such a thought just then. Michael, who took so much crap from his father for not using birth control.

  "I'm sorry," Jenny says. "I'm so sorry."

  "Who does she think you are?" He's grateful the words are coming now, although he's still having trouble injecting them with anything other than shock.

  "She calls me her aunt, but it's just a term of endearment. She knows I'm not a sister to either of her parents. I'm a close friend."

  "And are you?"

  "Yes. What I told you in the car is true.

  I went to school with Pari. We were very close, and have continued to be since we graduated. She started dating Rajat in our last year, so I've known him a long time, too. They're good people. But they couldn't have children, which, until I found out I was pregnant, was nothing more to me than an unfortunate fact about two friends. Even then, it was a while before I came up with the idea."

  He looks down at her hand in his, turns it so he can see the scar. He now thinks he understands the why. The when will come in time, he guesses.

  "It's legal?" he asks numbly.

  "Yes. An open adoption, of sorts. I wouldn't have done it without the right to be in her life."

  "Even if she never knows who you are."

  "It wouldn't have been fair to them, Jack." He doesn't disagree; he was simply wrapping his head around the fact of it.

  "There's something else you need to know." He feels dizzy. How much more can there be? "I didn't list you as the father on the birth certificate. I left it blank. I can show you, in the safe deposit box. You'd moved back home by then and—"

  He squeezes her hand. "You don't need to explain. I understand."

  "If you want, I'm sure they'd allow us to do a DNA test—"

  "Jenny, stop. I believe you. I don't doubt for a second she's mine."

  She nods, and he pulls her closer, guides her head onto his shoulder.

  Together they watch Andrea cavort in the plumes of water that shoot from holes in the padded, multicolored ground below her feet. She begins to sing a nonsensical song whose meaning is known only to her, and it makes the adults nearby laugh.

  Her joy is contagious, and before long, other children—those in the fountain and some from the playground—follow her lead. Parents can't help but stare. Like Jenny, she possesses an innate talent for turning heads that goes so far beyond her physical beauty.

  He thinks of what he said to her

  yesterday— I'd consider myself lucky to have a little Jenny running around. He couldn't imagine it would ever happen or, if it did, that it would happen so quickly. But then, he couldn't imagine a lot of things.

  A ladybug lands on Jenny's hair and he reaches up.

  "What is it?"

  "Be still." He lets it crawl onto his finger and then shows it to her. When she looks up at him and searches his face, he gently kisses her. Her lips are soft against his. "Do you want to change into your bathing suit now?"

  She gazes at him. He sees the slow dawning in her eyes.

  "Our bathing suits," she says.

  " Our bathing suits?"

  She shrugs. "I brought one for you, just in case."

  I'd consider myself lucky to have a little Jenny running around. He might not have been able to imagine it, but he meant it nevertheless. He meant it.

  "Let's go change, then."

  He still does.

  THE END

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  You can find Keep No Secrets book discussion questions at Julie's website.

  Thank you for your support.

  Also by Julie Compton

  Tell No Lies

  Rescuing Olivia

  To be notified of future releases, sign up for Julie's mailing list.

  About the author

  JULIE COMPTON was born

  and raised in St. Louis,

  Missouri, where she attended

  Washington University for

  both undergraduate and law

  school. She began her legal

  career in St. Louis, but last

  practiced in Wilmington,

  Delaware as a trial attorney

  for the U.S. Department of

  Justice. When her family

  moved to Florida in 2003, she

  gave up law to pursue writing

  full-time. She lives near

/>   Orlando with her husband

  and two daughters. Keep No

  Secrets is her third novel.

  Julie is available for book

  club meetings and other

  appearances both in-person

  and via Skype. To contact her

  or for more information

  about her other books, please

  visit http://www.julie-

  compton.com.

  Acknowledgments

  ALTHOUGH ONLY MY name appears

  on the front cover of this book, so many generous and supportive people lent a hand along the way and deserve

  recognition.

  Jamie Morris believed in this one from the beginning and encouraged me to follow my heart instead of the market. I'm so fortunate to have met such an amazing writing mentor not long after arriving in Florida (and I gained a great friend to boot).

  Pam Ahearn also believed in this one

  —and in me— despite the fact that I followed my heart instead of the market.

  Agents like Pam don't come along too often.

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Linda Dunlap for her keen editor's eye and tireless attention to detail. She combed through every line of the manuscript and made so many valuable suggestions for improvement. It's a leaner, smoother novel thanks to Linda.

  My first readers—Carla Buckley,

  Margaret Reyes Dempsey, and Melanie Tamsky—gave the early feedback that every writer needs and ignores at her peril. Melanie deserves an additional thanks for once again helping with my medical questions.

  I credit my sisters-in-law Shannon and Wendy Combs for the genesis of the story idea. Their discussion at a family Christmas Eve gathering some years back about "who drives the babysitter home"

  sparked an idea that eventually turned into this Tell No Lies sequel, something I never thought I'd write.

  Alison Hicks and the folks at