The Secret Daughter

by Catherine Spencer

  “Thank you!” Pulling her to her feet, he wrapped her in a bear hug. “It’ll take me the better part of the summer to make the place habitable but I’ll have us settled in before school starts in September, I promise.”

  “Right now,” Imogen said, so ticked off at him that she was ready to spit, “I think we should let Mona get to bed. It’s after ten, and we’ve got a three-hour drive in front of us.”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he asked blithely. “We’re staying here overnight. I’ve got papers to sign at the realtor’s office first thing in the morning, and once that’s taken care of, I thought we’d all take a run out to the farm and see just what it is I’ve bought, so I’ve booked us into a hotel in the village.”

  “Without so much as a toothbrush?” she asked indignantly. “Honestly, Joe Donnelly, did it ever occur to you I might have liked a little warning? Or is what you want and how you feel and what you think all that matters?”

  “Quit fussing about nothing,” he said, taking her elbow and steering her firmly toward the front door. “I’m sure the hotel can provide you with a toothbrush.”

  “And a hairbrush and nightgown as well, no doubt!” she wailed, yanking herself free. She knew she was making a fuss over trivialities, that compared to discovering her daughter was alive and well and accessible, being unprepared to spend the night in a hotel was nothing more than a minor blip in the cosmic scheme of things. But so help her, if he didn’t wipe that condescending smile off his face...

  Mona pursed her lips and cocked her head. “I’d offer to put you up here, but it’s perhaps as well that I don’t have the room. The two of you need to sit down and talk things out in private. And, lovey, I can lend you what you need for the night, so don’t fret about a little thing like that.”

  He’d reserved adjoining rooms at the Norbury, a quaint old inn situated just above a waterfall on the river that ran through the village. She’d barely climbed out of the bath and into the voluminous nightgown Mona had found for her before he rapped on the connecting door.

  “I’ve brought us a nightcap,” he said, when she opened it. “I thought we could use one.”

  Uninvited, he marched into her room with two brandy snifters and parked himself in the armchair drawn up beside the tiny fireplace.

  “And what if I don’t want one?” she snapped.

  He pinned her with a weary gaze. “Stop acting like a spoiled brat, Imogen, and drink the goddamned brandy. We need to fine-tune a few details.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered you’ve finally seen fit to include me in your schemes,” she said, flouncing to the bed and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the mattress with the nightgown tucked securely around her feet.

  “Uh-oh.” He contemplated his brandy, holding it to the firelight so it glowed in the glass like burning amber. “What, specifically, have I done that has you puckering up as if you accidentally bit into a lemon?”

  “I think you had an obligation to invite my opinion before you rushed out and bought a farm, sight unseen, with a view to coercing Mona and Cassie- into living there with you. I don’t appreciate being left out of decisions that materially affect my daughter’s future.”

  “The way you left me out when you decided to keep the news of your pregnancy to yourself, you mean? Or the way your mother left both of us out when she decided it was best for everybody to believe the baby had died?”

  “Is that what this is all about, Joe? Getting even? Because if it is, let me tell you—”

  “It isn’t,” he said flatly. “But one thing I can promise you is that I’ll never again allow your mother to stick her interfering nose in my daughter’s welfare. From now on, the dragon lady will have to go through me before she so much as drops Cassie a postcard.”

  “And where do I fit into the equation—or don’t I?”

  “Of course you do, Imogen. You’re the other half of the two-parent package deal I’m offering Cassie. That being so, you and I are, to use one of your phrases, going to have to get married.”

  Even though she’d expressed more or less the same thought to Mona earlier, she was taken aback to hear it from him. “Who are you trying to impress, Joe? You’re no more interested in marrying me than I am in having you for a husband.”

  “Oh, really? And are you willing to tell our daughter that she’s finally found her real mother and father but since they never bothered getting married and are too self-absorbed to place her interests ahead of their own, she’ll have to make do with living with her father and seeing her mother only occasionally?”

  Imogen sprang up on the bed, rage and a terrible fear coursing through her. “Forget it, Joe Donnelly! I won’t let you or anyone else separate me from my child ever again.”

  “And neither will I,” he said implacably. “So let’s set a date to tie the knot, princess.”

  She did not see him at all during the ten days prior to the wedding. The morning after their stay at the inn, Joe completed all the legal work entailed in the purchase of the farm. Then, as promised, he took her, Cassie and Mona to see the property and with a sensitivity that touched Imogen despite herself, introduced their daughter to the idea of the four of them living together.

  “This is it,” he said, interrupting his discourse on the pleasures of country living and pulling up in a gravel parking area at the end of a rutted, tree-lined lane. “Why don’t you go and explore, then tell us what you think of the place?”

  Cassie didn’t wait to be asked twice. With a squeal of exuberant glee, she raced through the long grass of the nearest paddock like a young deer.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her while the two of you have a look around inside the house,” Mona offered, climbing out of the car.

  The silence she left behind hung in the air, as oppressive as a storm about to break. His lighthearted optimism dissipating, Joe leaned forward, crossed his forearms on the steering wheel and stared through the windshield.

  His sigh told Imogen what he saw—the swaybacked roof of one of the outbuildings, the weeds choking the vegetable garden, the gate hanging off its hinges at the entrance to the nearest paddock, the paint peeling off the side of the house.

  “Well, this is it, princess,” he finally said. “Butternut Farm. Not quite what you’re used to, I’m afraid, but it’s the best I can do for now.”

  She was aware that he was waiting for her to throw up her hands in horror and declare she couldn’t possibly make do with such a dump. But her vision was not his, and she could not speak. She was too entranced by the house and the way it sat on a little rise so that, morning and evening, its rooms would be flooded with sunshine.

  Square-paned casement windows flanked a central front entrance accessed by a flight of steps. Four tall chimneys rose from the gabled roof. A covered porch ran around three walls of the building, with a purple clematis climbing one of the corner posts and clinging to the gingerbread fretwork below the gutters.

  Old and neglected it might be, but this was a house whose timeless beauty relied less on cosmetic care than classic elegance of design. Long and low, it flowed into the landscape as if, like the old-fashioned rambling rose running riot along the picket fence, it, too, had sprung from deep and enduring roots.

  “If you think your sitting there gaping is going to work some sort of miracle, be my guest,” Joe said tersely, swinging open the driver’s door and climbing out of the car, “but I’m going to check out the stables. If you’re interested in seeing where you’re going to be living, here are the keys to the house.”

  Imogen wasted no time embarking on her tour of inspection. The inside of the house bore out the promise of the exterior. She discovered oak floors, ten-foot ceilings, crown molding, wood-burning fireplaces, marvelous built-in, glass-fronted china cabinets in the dining room and a huge claw-footed cast-iron tub in the main upstairs bathroom.

  Oh, she could make a home from such treasures! A place a man would be glad to return to at the end of a long, hard day. A place a little girl c
ould learn to love.

  Never mind the layer of dust covering everything, the wallpaper hanging off the dining room wall, the water stain on the ceiling of the master bedroom. They were surface flaws, easily remedied.

  It didn’t take much on the drive to Norbury to convince Cassie that living on a farm was the best idea in the world, especially not with Mona voicing her relief at having other people around to help her out when her arthritis acted up. “Because you know how my hips and knees bother me in the winter, Cassie,” she said, adding as a final inducement, “and I daresay you’ll be allowed to have that puppy you’ve always wanted because there’s plenty of space for a dog to run around.”

  “Or even two,” Joe said. “And, of course, there’ll be horses, as well.” The smile he turned on his daughter would have melted the polar ice cap. “You are still interested in having your own pony, aren’t you?”

  “That was nothing short of blatant bribery!” Imogen accused him, after they’d dropped Mona and Cassie at home and were on their way to Rosemont. “Cassie was so excited by your blandishments, she’d have agreed to live with the devil himself if you’d asked her.”

  “Let’s hope she’ll be content to settle for a mother and father when she learns they’re also part of the deal,” he said. “I don’t know why you refused to lay it all out for her and have done with. What you do hope to gain by putting off the truth?”

  “Time to win her love and trust.” She chanced another look at him. “And time for us to ease into this marriage we’re contemplating.”

  That night, she told her mother her plans, knowing that, across town in Lister’s Meadows, Joe was telling his family all that had transpired in the last two days.

  “That man my son-in-law?” Suzanne gasped. “Dear heaven, I pray he isn’t planning to call me ‘mother’!”

  The next morning, Imogen flew to Vancouver to close up her apartment and clean out her office. “It seems awfully sudden,” the firm’s senior partner joked when she said she was leaving to get married. “How do you know this man deserves you?”

  But once she’d heard the whole story and had recovered from the shock of learning that Cassie was alive, Tanya hadn’t been able to keep the smirk off her face. “See what a good friend I am, pushing you into going home?” she crowed delightedly. “I always believed there was unfinished business between you and Joe and, oh brother, was I right! Everything’s going to work out for you now, you’ll see.”

  Imogen wished she shared her friend’s optimism. But to her, the future looked anything but certain. The miracle of finding her daughter alive was counterbalanced by a marriage made anywhere but in heaven.

  “So what if ours isn’t the ideal arrangement?” Joe had argued, when she pointed out that they weren’t in love. “We’re not doing this for us, we’re doing it for Cassie, which means that, from the day we all start living under one roof, we’re going to present an unblemished portrait of wedded bliss and family unity, right down to apple pie on Sundays and Mom and Dad reading bedtime stories.”

  “What if we can’t?”

  “We will,” he said flatly. “And I fail to see why you should even doubt it, given that you’ve been keeping up appearances from the day you were born. So get used to the idea, princess, because although I can’t make up for what she’s missed so far, I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure Cassie never again has reason to question why her life is different from other kids’.”

  “And how far are you prepared to go with this charade?” Imogen had retorted, when what she really wanted to know was how he planned to behave toward her in private. Did the semblance of one big happy family end when they were alone, or was he prepared to be as devoted a husband as he was a father?

  “Right down to the wire, princess,” he said. “So if you’re asking if we’ll be sharing a bedroom, yes, we will. That’s the way parents live, in case you hadn’t noticed. But if you’re worrying I’m going to demand my husbandly rights behind closed doors, don’t. If it weren’t for my boss in California helping me out, I’d never have been able to afford the farm. As it is, I’ve mortgaged my soul to buy the place, and it’s going to take long days of hard labor to make it turn a profit I don’t anticipate having the energy to romp around in bed every night.”

  An icy fist had seemed to close around her heart at that. When she was eighteen, the thought of being married to Joe Donnelly would have enthralled her. At twenty-three, he’d been carefree and excitingly dangerous. Now, he was just dangerous. There was a cold determination in him that amounted almost to anger. He would not rush out, a knight on a Harley, to save a damsel in distress—unless she happened to be his daughter. And for Cassie, he’d made it plain enough, he would sacrifice anyone, including the woman he married.

  Once her affairs were settled in Vancouver, she hitched a trailer of possessions to her car and drove across the country to Ontario, arriving at the farm the evening before the wedding. The California license plates on the pickup truck outside the barn told her Joe already was there.

  “For crying out loud, Imogen,” he said, coming upon her lugging one of her trunks through the front door, “why didn’t you get me to carry that in?”

  No, “Hi, honey, glad you made the trip safely.” No embrace. She supposed she should be glad he offered to help her unload the trailer.

  “Where do you want me to put this?” he asked, bringing in the last of the crates as she carried in her suitcases.

  “Upstairs,” she panted, blowing a wisp of hair from her damp forehead. It was a typical July night in Ontario, hot and humid. She’d been on the road for four days, she was ready to drop from exhaustion and nervous tension, and tomorrow was her wedding day.

  More than anything she would have liked to take a long, cool bath, give herself a manicure, then slip into a robe and spend a quiet evening sharing a bottle of wine and a few dreams with her fiancé. But Joe had other ideas.

  “I had cleaners in while you were gone,” he said, “and bought new kitchen appliances, but I’m waiting for the electrician to finish rewiring before I can get the kitchen up and running. He’s promised he’ll stop by on his way home so, since there’s not much more that can be done tonight, you might as well drive into the village and hit the sack. I booked you into the Norbury for the next few days.”

  She’d noticed the sleeping bag on the floor in the master bedroom and the clothes hanging in the closet. “I gather you’ve been staying here?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m here working all day, anyway.”

  “I can see that.” The roof on the house and the big barn had been replaced and sections of broken fence repaired. Whatever his faults, Joe wasn’t afraid of hard work. “But wouldn’t you be more comfortable sleeping in the hotel?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind the floor. I’ve slept on worse, and at least this is clean and dry. I’d have bought some furniture but I thought you’d probably prefer to choose it yourself, though I warn you now, Imogen, I don’t have much cash to spare.”

  “I do,” she said, daring to broach a subject they’d discussed only once, the night he’d taken her to dinner. “I know how you feel about accepting financial help from a woman, but there’s no reason we have to scrimp and save on turning this house into a home. In fact, there’s no reason you have to carry a mortgage on the property. Once we’re married, what’s mine is yours, and you’ll be able to pay off the loan and still have money in the bank.”

  She hadn’t expected him to leap at her offer. Even so, she was taken aback by the vehemence of his rejection. “Don’t even start on that theme!” he raged. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I use Palmer money to meet the bills. I might not have much by your standards, but at least I have my pride, and I’m damned if I’m going to let you strip me of it.”

  “What are you talking about?” she cried. “I thought we were in this together, that we were trying to make a good home for our daughter, and plenty of couples need a double income to live on these days. Why can’t I do my
part?”

  “You can,” he said sullenly. “You just can’t buy it.”

  She sighed, her weariness as much of the heart and soul as of the body, and headed for the front door. “That’s not what I’m doing, and if you really want this marriage to hold together, you’re going to have to get rid of that monumental chip on your shoulder. I’m not the enemy here, Joe, and if I’m willing to trust your motivation, the least you can do is return the favor and show a little faith in mine.”

  She was almost at her car when he came out of the house and called after her. “Wait a minute!”

  She watched warily as he loped down the porch steps. “You’re right,” he said, coming to a stop beside her.

  “At least, on this matter of trust. So, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re trying to buy your place in this marriage. But please understand that making the money end of it work has to be my responsibility.”

  They were married in a civil ceremony at nine-thirty the next morning. There was no confetti, no champagne, no idyllic honeymoon suite in one of the many charming inns on the Niagara peninsula that catered to newlyweds. Nor were there any guests. Two strangers acted as witnesses.

  Imogen did not wear white or carry a bouquet. She made do with a simple cotton shift dress the color of ripe wheat. It was more than sufficient, given that the groom showed up in blue jeans. And when the officiating clerk pronounced them husband and wife, Joe did not sweep her into a crushing embrace and tell her he loved her. Instead, before the plain gold wedding ring had had time to warm up on her finger, he said, “I’m meeting a contractor at the house in an hour. Let’s get going.”