“That looks like Grandpa Stringfellow’s car!” Christine exclaimed, pointing toward the approaching vehicle.
Dillon felt a chill of dread destroy the warmth of the afternoon. If the Stringfellows had come all the way from California, it could only mean trouble. He was relieved when a man he didn’t recognize stepped out of the car.
“Dad!” Angie called.
Angie sprinted away, and Dillon found himself feeling jealous. He thought of Angie’s affection as belonging solely to him and Christine. It was clear that her love for her stepfather was even greater than anything that had yet had time to develop between them.
“Is that Angie’s daddy?” Christine asked.
“It seems so,” Dillon replied.
“He looks like you.”
Dillon paid no attention to Christine’s comment. He was too caught up in the way he had overreacted to the situation.
“Is he going to take Angie away?” Christine asked.
“I don’t know,” Dillon replied. They were coming this way, Angie holding on to the man’s arm. “I guess we’ll know soon.”
AS SOON AS TRENT laid eyes on the strapping young man with his hair and his eyes and his chin—maybe even the same chip on his shoulder—he knew he’d made a mistake.
Angie slipped her arm around his waist and returned his squeeze. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
She was leading him to the gate, where the young man and a little girl on a horse waited. Trent’s resolve faltered.
He stopped. “Come with me, Angie. We need to talk.”
Angie slipped from beneath his arm and looked at him, puzzled. “Can’t it wait? I want you to meet Harper and her family.”
Trent stared into the smiling face of the young woman who had trusted him with her happiness for so long and knew an added anguish. How could he ever explain his willingness to use her in his petty little scheme?
“Later, Angie. We can do that later. First—”
“Angie!” An impatient child’s voice interrupted them.
Angie laughed. “I was just telling Christine how well she’s riding. You’re the one who’ll have to wait.” Then she took him by the hand and dragged him with her.
What had he done?
“Dad, this is Christine Winthrop, soon to be one of the premiere horsewomen in these parts.”
Trent looked into the tiny, heart-shaped face of the little girl sitting on the fence. She smiled proudly at Angie’s words, revealing one missing tooth and a dimple that was destined to be a heartbreaker. This child was his own flesh and blood. Feelings he’d never expected overwhelmed him. He ached with the longing to put his arms out and have her fling herself into them, the way Angie had at that age. He had to swallow hard to ease the lump in his throat.
Christine. His granddaughter.
He put his hand out to shake hers, and she hesitated only a minute before leaning across the fence and taking it shyly and quickly.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet a soon-to-be premiere horsewoman. If anyone would know, it’s Angie.”
“She’s teaching me to jump. I didn’t fall once. Wanna see?”
“I expect he wants to talk to Angie, Christine. Why don’t you take Eddie back to the barn?”
Christine didn’t move, but the stern voice commanded Trent’s attention. He looked into the eyes of his son.
The young man radiated power, from the work-roughened fists on his hips to his sun-bronzed face and the hard glare in his eyes. He looked sure of himself, and protective of everything within his reach. Christine, Weddington Farms and, yes, even Angie.
Trent wondered how much he knew.
“And this is Dillon Winthrop. Dillon, my stepfather, G. E. Trent. I can’t get over this wonderful surprise!”
After glancing at Angie, Dillon also thrust out his hand. “Welcome to Weddington Farms.”
Some part of Trent wanted to laugh at the brusqueness of the welcome. The young man had obviously also inherited his manner from his father. Drawing a deep breath, Trent accepted the handshake. It was, as he would have guessed, firm. A challenge, man to man.
Angie is mine now, the handshake seemed to say. What do you have to say about that?
Oh, what a mess to straighten out. He thought for the moment the only thing to do was walk away from it, trust that he and Harper could keep this secret another thirty years.
“Thanks,” he said, surprised he could find his voice. “Thanks for…taking care of Angie.”
“Mr. G. E., why do you look like my daddy?”
The words shot through Trent, leaving him feeling naked and unprotected. He expected to look around and see horror in the eyes of his stepdaughter, his son. But Angie merely laughed.
“Don’t be silly, Christine,” Dillon said. “It’s just that we’re about the same size, that’s all.”
“Why don’t we go in,” Angie said. “I want you to meet Harper.”
“We’ve met,” Trent said without thinking.
“When?” Angie sounded astonished.
“You know my mother?” Dillon sounded not the least bit pleased by the revelation.
“Yes,” Trent said, knowing he’d made a mistake and not knowing how to get out of it. “A long time ago.
“You never told me that.”
“Well, I—”
“Grandma says I have a dimple in my chin just like Daddy,” Christine interrupted with the obstinacy of a child who won’t let go of an idea until her curiosity is satisfied. “She says that makes me Daddy’s little girl. You have one, too. Does that make Daddy your little boy?”
Trent looked from Christine to Angie to Dillon. He saw the naive certainty in the little girl’s eyes. He saw the confusion sweep into Angie’s eyes as she studied his face, then Dillon’s. And he saw the challenge in his son’s eyes deepen to mistrust.
“Christine, take Eddie back to the barn.”
“I only asked. Grandma says it’s not rude if you ask politely.”
“Now!”
Trent’s heart pounded painfully. His palms were sweaty, his throat dry. He had to get out of here. He cast about for the words that would dispel Angie’s doubt, Dillon’s anger. But as his gaze locked with Dillon’s, he knew his son could read the truth Trent didn’t know how to hide.
“Dad, I don’t understand,” Angie whispered.
“I want you to tell me what the hell’s going on here,” Dillon said, taking a step forward.
Trent expected a flying fist to follow at any moment. “I think you’d better talk to…” He held a hand out to Angie. “Angie, come with me?”
“But Dad…” She didn’t move. Her voice trembled with uncertainty.
Everything was closing in. Trent didn’t know what to do, what to say. He’d never intended this to happen. All he’d wanted—needed—was to see his son.
“I’d better go,” he said.
He backed away, watching his son’s stunned reaction as Angie took her stepfather’s hand.
DILLON GAPED AT THE MAN as though he were a raving maniac. But even as his brain told him there must be some reason why Mr. G. E. Trent didn’t simply tell Christine she was wrong, his brain registered the similarities Christine and Angie had already seen. It was almost like looking into the mirror and seeing an older version of himself.
“It can’t be true.”
Dillon heard himself speak the words, but they seemed to come from someone else. He was locked into immobility, staring at a suspicion so shocking his brain wouldn’t accept it. It was as though everything in his life shifted. Everything was out of place, out of focus, out of the realm of possibility.
The full implication of Christine’s words sank into Dillon’s benumbed brain, and hot rage exploded all through him. He uttered a blistering oath and headed for the house.
ANGIE COULDN’T TAKE her eyes off her stepfather’s face.
“Dillon isn’t your son, is he?” Angie asked as she walked alongside Trent toward his car. “You aren’t related. He just ha
ppens to look like you.”
Trent stopped and faced his stepdaughter. “I’m sorry, Angie. Dillon is my son.”
Angie didn’t want to believe the words.
“How?” It was a stupid question, but it was the only word that came to mind. “That would mean… You’d have to…I didn’t know you’d ever been to Collins.”
“I talked to Harper yesterday. She told me then.”
“You mean you didn’t know?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t care. I want to hear it.”
Trent gestured toward his car. “Can we go, Angle? We can talk while I drive.”
She shook her head. “No. I…Just tell me.”
He sighed. “I worked here. We were kids. We weren’t supposed to fall in love, but we did. We had a misunderstanding. I left town.”
“You never came back?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t know about Dillon?”
“No.”
Things began to fall into place in Angie’s mind. Her father’s interest in the farm, his insistence that she buy it. She felt a stab of pain followed by a flash of anger. Was Harper the reason Trent had never wholeheartedly loved her mother? She had always felt guilty for receiving so much more affection from her stepfather. And all the time it was because there had been someone else. Harper Weddington.
“Did Mother know?”
“There was nothing to tell. At least, that’s what I thought.”
Angie could hardly believe it. She certainly couldn’t understand it. “Why did you marry my mother?”
“For all the wrong reasons. You know that,” Trent said. “But I came to love her. And I always loved you. From the very beginning.”
He reached out and caressed her cheek. Angie fought the impulse to pull away.
“You were scared of your own shadow after your mom died. But whenever I was around, you seemed to feel the whole world was right again.” He looked tired and defeated in a way she’d never seen before. “I latched on to you just as desperately. I wanted to be everything you wanted me to be.”
“I thought you were,” Angie said. “Now I don’t know.”
DILLON FACED HIS MOTHER, who was sitting on the side porch, quietly talking to Floretha, as if she’d been waiting for him. For the second time in his life, he felt as if he were seeing a stranger. “I just met Angie’s stepfather.”
Floretha looked from mother to son. “I think I have potatoes to peel.”
“There’s no need.” Harper sounded tired. “You’ll hear it all sooner or later.”
“Later suits me just fine,” Floretha said.
“Who else knows?” Dillon demanded as Floretha departed.
“No one.”
He’d always wondered about his father, but he’d never wanted to know who the man was. He’d never wanted to meet him. His anger had been too deep.
It still was.
“Why did he show up now?” Dillon asked.
“He came yesterday, looking for Angie,” Harper said. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes looked a hundred years old. “When he saw your picture, he was so shocked I…I wasn’t sure he would ever come back.”
“I wish he hadn’t. He hasn’t been interested in me before. I can damned well do without him now.”
“Be fair to him, Dillon. Trent didn’t know.”
“He didn’t know?”
“No. We don’t know what he would have done if he had.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I tried to explain all this before, but you wouldn’t listen. Are you sure you want to hear it now?”
“I don’t want to, but I suppose I must.”
Not so he could understand Trent better. He wanted as much ammunition as possible to drive him out of their lives forever.
Then his mother told him a story that sounded like something out of a bad movie. A story about a seventeen-year-old girl and the boy who worked for her father. About a scheme to trick that boy into marrying her.
“Actually, it didn’t take much tricking. He wanted to marry me.”
“I’ll just bet he did. Marrying the boss’s daughter came with a lot of perks.”
“But I didn’t think Trent was your father.”
“You mean there was someone else?”
A shadow crossed her face, but she didn’t respond. “I knew it was wrong not to tell him, but I was in love and desperate to get away. When Trent found out I was trying to foist what I thought was another man’s baby on him, he left town in a rage. Who could blame him? Then, when I realized Trent really was your father…I spent a year looking for him. He was gone.”
He had had a father who might have wanted him, who might have loved him. “So you made up Kenneth Winthrop.” He tried to hide the bitterness in his voice.
Harper nodded. “Some people didn’t believe me. But after a while, they seemed to forget all about it.”
No, they hadn’t. Dillon could remember a thousand little looks and whispers that had stung him like pinpricks. As long as Harper had stuck to her story, he’d put it down to jealousy of his grandfather’s wealth and position. When his own unplanned fatherhood had prompted her to tell him the truth, he had understood.
Now it all felt freshly painful again.
“What does he want?” Dillon asked. “Is he still after your money?”
Harper’s laugh was harsh. “He’s got enough money to buy and sell me several times over.”
Dillon couldn’t see any way out of the net that was closing around him. This man was his father whether he liked it or not. Dillon wouldn’t put it past the man to threaten to tell everybody in Collins if they didn’t sell him the farm.
Well, he could confess and be damned. Dillon had lived with whispers about being a bastard. He could certainly live with knowledge that his father was a rich banker.
But what about his mother? And Christine?
Equally disturbing, what about Angie?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DILLON LEFT THE HOUSE in a daze. He ran into Angie perched on the edge of the dilapidated gazebo, knees pulled to her chest. Her presence stirred him from numbness to anger, until he realized that she looked as shell-shocked as he felt.
“You didn’t know, either, did you?” he asked.
She shook her head. She seemed preoccupied, hardly aware of him.
“Where’s your stepfather?”
“He left.”
“Damn him! What makes him think he can just walk in here, drop his bomb and waltz out again like it didn’t make any difference?”
“So Harper says it’s true. He is your father.”
Dillon cursed again. “I know you love him, but if he comes around here again, I’ll break his neck. You can’t think I’m going to welcome him with open arms.”
“Nobody’s asked you to welcome him,” she snapped. “Nobody’s asked you to do anything at all.”
But Dillon was in no mood to be reasonable. For the first time in his life, he had a name, a face he could hate. He finally had a living breathing human being on whom he could pour out his anger and frustration at all the injustices in his life. And he wasn’t about to be denied the pleasure of doing so just because it wasn’t fair.
“I don’t see why it’s such a problem,” Angie said. “You’ve always known you had a father. Count yourself lucky. He’s a rich man.”
“I don’t want his damned money.” Dillon glared at her. “Why did he send you here if he didn’t know about me?”
“I don’t know. I never got around to asking him.”
“He came to make sure you bought the farm, didn’t he?”
Angie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Why does he want it so much?”
Angie stood up. She folded her arms across her chest as she moved restlessly around the small enclosure. “I don’t know that, either.”
A fearful idea launched itself at the edge of his conscious thoughts. He fought against acknowledging it, but h
e couldn’t shake its hold. Anger and bitterness were fertile ground for suspicion and doubt. He could see the hurt in Angie’s eyes, he could feel her pain. But the ugly suspicion wouldn’t let go.
What if Angie’s falling in love with him had been a pretense, her offer to make him her farm manager a subterfuge, all to get him to agree to the sale of the farm? What if her sympathy for Christine was false, as well?
“Did you do all of this just so you could get the farm?”
“All of what?” she asked, her voice choked with emotion.
“Me, Christine, everything.”
Angie looked as though he had slapped her. “You think I’d pretend to be in love with you just so. I could buy your farm?”
“Like you said, I’m as changeable as the weather. Falling in love in two days isn’t something a methodical, rational woman like you would do.”
Angie walked over to him and slapped him, hard. She would have slapped him a second time if he hadn’t caught her wrist. “How could you say you loved me and think such a thing?” she demanded. “Were you pretending, too?”
The shock and anguish in her eyes brought him to his senses.
“I didn’t mean to say that. I’m not thinking straight. I’ve always hated my father for leaving me. Now I find he’s your stepfather, that he wants to take you and my farm from me! It makes me crazy.” He clenched his fists so hard every muscle in his body grew rigid. “I want to smash my hand into his face so bad I don’t know what I’m saying!”
“Then I think you’d better figure it out before you say something that can’t be forgiven.”
Dillon had the feeling he’d already done that. “I’m sorry. Angie…”
“I’m going for a drive. I’ve got to think.” She started back toward the house.
“When will you be back?”
She turned around. “How can you ask me such a question after what you said?”
“Because I love you. I don’t think I can live without you.”
“Then you’d better start learning.”
HARPER TOOK CELERY and carrots and green peppers out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter, telling herself her stomach wasn’t quivering.
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