April's Promise (Forever Love Series)

by Smith, Karen Rose

  Gabe remembered that time. He remembered when Vanessa had been amorous, and he'd felt that somehow they'd renewed their commitment to each other. How stupid he'd been. She'd just been laying the groundwork. Stephie hadn't been three weeks premature. At seven pounds, she'd been her perfect weight and right on time.

  What kind of woman had Vanessa been?

  What kind of man had Larry Powell been?

  But that answer was soon evident enough in one of the last e-mails. Vanessa had written—I can't live a lie. I have to tell Gabe. But Larry had written back—Don't be foolish. I'm not daddy material. I don't want the responsibility of a kid and you know it. We're fun and games, Vanessa, not picket fences and castles in the air.

  Had Vanessa and Larry argued the night of the accident? Had an argument caused the accident?

  One thought played in Gabe's head above all the rest. Stephie's not my daughter.

  Yet as soon as he had the thought, memories contradicted it. He'd fed her as a newborn. He'd changed diapers in the middle of the night. He'd witnessed her first smile and her first step. He'd rocked her when she'd had bad dreams. He'd given her unconditional love that he hadn't even known existed before she was born. She was his daughter, no matter what any scientific test said.

  He sat there for a long while, examining his marriage to Vanessa with a fine-tooth comb. Apparently there were more flaws than he'd ever imagined. What had she told him the night of the accident? "I can't get out of this meeting. I have a complicated problem to deal with. I might be late getting home."

  Had her eyes looked a little haunted that night? Why? Because she was going to try to convince Larry Powell they should be together? When she knew deep down in her heart that wasn't what he wanted? Or because she knew in the long run, she was going to have to hurt Gabe irrevocably?

  He remembered the police officer coming to his door. He remembered calling April, bundling up Stephie, meeting April at the hospital. She'd watched Stephie while he'd gone in with Vanessa, and then he'd taken Stephie so she could sit with her sister. One of the nurses had said she was on a break and could watch Stephie if he wanted to go in, too. He'd overheard April whisper, "I promise" to her sister.

  What had she promised Vanessa? At the time, he'd thought she'd promised to watch over Stephie. But what if she'd promised something else? What if she knew?

  That thought drove him to his feet. It caused him to throw the e-mails into the box and charge down the stairs.

  April must have heard his feet pounding in the hall because she was already sitting up in the bed when he rushed into the room.

  "What's wrong?" she asked groggily.

  He studied her for a long moment before he answered, hardening his heart, erecting those walls around it again for self-preservation.

  "Stephie's not my daughter."

  To his dismay, he didn't see surprise in her eyes. In fact, he saw resignation. When April was silent, Gabe accused her of her lie of omission. "You knew, didn't you?"

  She looked shaken now as if she didn't know what to do, as if she didn't know whether she should get out of bed and get dressed, cover up with a sheet, go to him, or stay where she was. She covered with the sheet. "Not all along. The night of the accident, Vanessa confided in me."

  "I'm supposed to believe you, her sister, didn't know about the affair she was having behind my back? I have all the e-mails to document it."

  "Vanessa and I were close once, but after the two of you married, we weren't. I didn't know about the affair, Gabe. Honest, I didn't."

  "So what exactly did she tell you?" He wanted to know it all now, the whole truth and nothing but.

  April looked as if she'd rather be any place else but in his bed, and he certainly understood that. But he wasn't going to make her feel better, not when his world had just come apart at the seams.

  Apparently she recognized his dogged determination to ferret out every detail because she said in a low voice, "Vanessa knew she was dying. She knew she wasn't going to make it. She made me promise so many things. The first was, of course, to take care of Stephie...to help you take care of Stephie."

  If he felt any softening toward Vanessa at all, it was over this point. "What else?" he demanded to know.

  April looked haunted. "She told me the whole story before she died." She hesitated, then went on. "After Stephie was born, she wasn't sure if you were the father."

  He and Vanessa had had a sex life, though it obviously wasn't anything like she'd enjoyed with Larry Powell.

  "And then?" Gabe prodded.

  "She told me that about a month before the night of the accident, she had a DNA test done. Larry wanted to know for sure."

  "And the results came back that with all likelihood, he was Stephie's dad."

  "The test determined he was her biological father, Gabe, not her real father. Don't you see that?"

  His heart felt as if it were ripping in two. "No. What I see is a woman who lied to me over and over again. Do you know what happened the night she died?"

  Now April did reach for her clothes. Hurriedly, she pulled her sweater over her head, forgetting about the bra that lay on the floor. She stepped into her panties, pulled on her jeans, and stood before him, looking bedraggled, miserable, and upset.

  "Why is this necessary, Gabe? Why do you have to know every detail?"

  "Because I do."

  She took a deep breath, avoided looking at his naked chest, at his mouth, and kept her gaze on his.

  "Vanessa and Larry were arguing when they had the accident. Larry wanted things to stay the same. She wanted to give you custody of Stephie, ask for a divorce, and run off with him."

  Gabe thought he actually might stop breathing. This was the woman he'd married? This was the woman he'd thought he loved? He asked in a gravelly voice, "She was willing to toss away Stephie as if she didn't matter?"

  April was already shaking her head. "No. She knew how much you loved Stephie. She felt you were a good dad. Actually, I don't think she felt fit to be a mother. It was a solution, but one Larry didn't want any part of."

  Gabe could hardly wrap his mind around it.

  "You said she made you make promises. What other promises besides watching over Stephie?" But before he asked, he suspected he already knew the answer.

  "She wanted me to keep it all a secret. She didn't want your feelings for Stephie to ever change. Gabe, I've been torn apart by this, not knowing the right thing to do. Of course, I made those promises that night. That's what she needed to hear. But afterward...but afterward, I didn't know what was worse—you living a lie or you finding out Stephie wasn't your daughter and feeling differently about her. I was trying to protect you and your relationship with Stephie. It wasn't about Vanessa at all any more. But then, after you and I…" She trailed off. "After you and I made love, I knew I had to tell you the truth. I've been trying to figure out how to do it. I was going to tell you tonight. But then Mother called, and when I got home…" She stopped. "You wanted me."

  Yes, he had. But other emotions were overtaking his desire for her. "You betrayed me. You should have told me. You didn't trust me to love Stephie enough to cherish her, to always act as her father, whether it was a biological fact or not. You know what that means? That means you didn't trust me now any more than you did five years ago. That means if we don't have trust, we have nothing between us."

  "You can't deny what we have between us," she protested, her voice trembling. "Look what happened tonight. Unless..." She stopped and put her hand over her mouth. Her gaze searched his and then she shakily asked, "Unless…what did you find in that box in the attic before I came home?"

  He felt uncomfortable with that question and wasn't sure why. "Nothing specific. I just found some receipts. She'd bought a couple of men's things, things I never received. I thought maybe she'd purchased them for work."

  Now April's eyes accused him. "Did you, Gabe? Or deep down did you know about this? Did you guess what she had done?" April took a step back away from h
im. "Did you have all that desire for me tonight to get back at Vanessa? Did you come on to me like that because you wanted me to be hungry for you in a way Vanessa never was? Is that what the past few days have been all about?"

  He felt himself go as pale as April, yet he couldn't accept what she was saying had driven him into bed with her. So he went on the defensive. "You kept a secret you had no right to keep. You made a promise that you knew would hurt everyone in the long run."

  "I made a promise to watch over Stephie, and I've kept it," she reminded him, her voice rising.

  "You've chosen a hell of a way to watch over her, and I have to wonder if I hadn't found those e-mails upstairs, if you would ever have told me."

  Tears came to April's eyes now, and he hardened himself against them.

  She said, "You're not going to believe anything I say now, are you?"

  "No."

  That word was like a cannonball hitting the wall. The reverberation ended in a silence that was dark and almost suffocating.

  He could see that as April picked up her socks and her sneakers. He could feel it as she went to the door, turned around, and said, "I'm going to stay in a motel tonight. Tomorrow, I'll figure out what to do next. But no matter what you think of me, Gabe, no matter what you think about Vanessa, Stephie is your daughter in every way that matters."

  After April left his room, Gabe closed the door. Then he sat on the bed and dropped his head into his hands.

  ****

  The following day, April knew she had to get out of the motel room bed or she'd stay there forever. Desolate last night when she'd left Gabe, she'd checked into this motel, not really caring where she was or what she was doing. She'd sat for hours in the dark in her room, thinking, trying to figure out what she could have done differently. Hurting Gabe had been the only option, and she hadn't wanted to hurt him. Maybe she hadn't trusted him as much as she should have where Stephie was concerned. Maybe she should have trusted his feelings for Stephie wouldn't change. But she'd been afraid to take that chance.

  That had been the problem. She'd been afraid too much all along with anything that concerned Gabe.

  Not knowing what else to do, she called her mother. If ever there was a time she needed her—

  Winnifred answered her cell phone with, "It's barely nine o'clock."

  April hadn't even known what time it was. She just knew the sun was up, she'd been lying there too long, and she had to do something.

  "I need to see you," April said.

  "April, what's wrong? I haven't had my first morning coffee. I can douse some cold water on my face if you need me to."

  "Stephie isn't Gabe's daughter."

  There was stark silence, and April guessed that surprise had awakened her mother more than any splash of cold water.

  "Oh my." Somehow, her mother put a whole world of feeling in those two words. "Where are you?"

  "I'm in a motel."

  "That's ridiculous. I'll ask Clarice if you can come stay here."

  "I'm fine here, Mother. I just need to figure out what to do next. Gabe hates me. We were getting close and then he found papers in the attic, and now…he hates me."

  "I doubt that very much," Winnifred said. "Oh, you might think he does. He might think he does. Tell me what happened."

  So April did.

  "Vanessa needed to confess and you were her confessor. Of course, you had to keep her secret."

  "There's no 'of course' about it. And Gabe certainly doesn't see it that way."

  "Give him a little time. You and Vanessa were sisters, for goodness sake. That's a bond that can't be broken, even over lost love."

  April kept silent.

  "Don't think I didn't know you still loved Gabe when you left. A mother knows these things. But you weren't ready for what he had to offer, and nothing I said could have stopped you."

  That was probably true.

  "Honey, I was a poor example for both you and Vanessa. Sure, what Vanessa did was awful and mostly her fault. But if she had seen better at home, maybe she would have done better."

  "I could never do that to anyone."

  "That's you." Winnifred sighed. "Your sister put you in an untenable situation."

  "Gabe will never forgive me."

  "Never is a long time, April. Why don't you come over here? We'll have tea and try to figure out what we can do about this."

  There was nothing else April could do right now, so she agreed. "I'll be there in about half an hour."

  ****

  Nicholas never called before he came over, and Gabe supposed that was probably a good thing because he would have told him not to come.

  Unable to concentrate on anything except what had happened last night, Gabe hadn't gone into work today. Unlike yesterday, Stephie had been quiet, almost apathetic. Gabe attributed that to April being gone because Stephie missed her already.

  He wasn't going there.

  Nicholas took one look at Gabe and said, "I should have brought my best bottle of brandy. I thought we could play basketball."

  "I can't."

  Nicholas looked around, saw Stephie in the living room watching a DVD.

  "Is April not here?"

  "April left." There must have been a little too much vehemence in that last word because Nicholas arched his brows.

  "Left to go back to Boston?"

  "I don't know."

  "Shake it loose, Gabe, because you're not making sense. Tell me what's going on."

  So after a lowered voice and saying, "Stephie's not my daughter...I found e-mails...April knew it all along," Nicholas got the gist of exactly what was happening.

  He went to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee from the second pot Gabe had brewed that day, poured another mug for Gabe and took them both to the table. Then he pointed to the chair. Both of them sat and Gabe just turned the mug around and around, staring into it, unable to find any answers.

  Nicholas blew on his coffee, sipped it, and set down the mug. "You do see, don't you, that April was caught in a trap?"

  "No, I don't. She could have told me."

  "Let's see. When would have been a good time to tell you? Right after Vanessa died? Those first months when you were a grieving husband?"

  "I wouldn't have been a grieving husband if I had known what had happened."

  "That's bull. I don't know exactly how much you felt for Vanessa, but you felt something, and you would have grieved. When someone dies, no matter what they've done, you still miss them."

  When Gabe didn't respond, Nicholas went on. "Or maybe April should have told you when she was home for Stephie's birthday party, or maybe when you were having a hard time finding someone to watch her, or maybe—"

  "I get it. No time was good, and that's the point. She should have just told me."

  "And if she had, would you have lumped her in the same category as Vanessa? After all, Vanessa confided in her, not you. You know, from what you tell me, for once in her life, maybe Vanessa was being selfless. Maybe Vanessa was actually thinking about what was best for her daughter."

  "She was ready to give her up."

  "Maybe because she thought Stephie would have a better life if she did, a better life with you. She wanted you to be Stephie's dad, no matter what she wanted, or who she wanted to be with."

  Gabe just shook his head. "Don't weave this into something it isn't."

  "I'm trying to give your dead wife the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you should do the same. Maybe you should give April the benefit of the doubt."

  "April should have told me," he said again. "When we—"

  "When you what?" Nicholas asked, but his tone said he might already know.

  "We got closer again."

  "You had sex."

  Gabe inhaled deeply and exhaled it just as deeply.

  All of a sudden, he heard crying coming from the living room. That crying he knew. It wasn't on the DVD. Standing, he went to the sofa and saw Stephie curled in a ball, tears running down her cheeks.<
br />
  "What's wrong, baby?"

  He almost expected her to say "I miss April", but she didn't. She said, "I hurt all over, Daddy."

  Fear like nothing he'd ever experienced lanced through Gabe. He felt her forehead and it was hot, much too hot.

  "I have to call the doctor," he said, plucking his phone from his belt.

  "You might want to take her temperature first," Nicholas said practically, "Especially if you want a doctor to help."

  "That hurting all over. I've heard about kids coming down with meningitis. She could have that. She could have—"

  "Gabe, get a grip. Where's the thermometer? I'll get it."

  "In the upstairs bathroom. The drawer in the vanity." He took Stephie into his arms and held her. Nothing could happen to his little girl. Nothing. He wouldn't let it. He'd protect her until he couldn't any longer, and then he'd find somebody else who could.

  ****

  Chapter Ten

  A tech escorted April to a cubicle in the ER. Nicholas had called her to tell her what was happening. Not Gabe. And Gabe didn't know Nicholas had called her. What a mess.

  At first she'd wondered if she should come, but her instincts told her she should. Her love for Stephie told her she should. Her mother and Nicholas told her she should.

  At the doorway to the room, she stopped. Stephie looked so small lying in the bed, her blond hair spread on the pillow, her eyes closed. She was hooked up to an IV and a monitor. Gabe was sitting by her bedside, his large hands holding one of her little ones.

  "How is she?" April asked softly, only stepping a few paces into the room.

  Gabe raised his head and his gaze met hers. "She has a strep infection. They're pumping fluids and antibiotics into her, and I think they're going to keep her overnight."

  "Do you mind if I come in?"

  He didn't look as if he wanted her there. Also, he looked as if he needed a hug. But she knew she couldn't touch him. She knew he wouldn't let her touch him.

  Going to the other side of the bed, April pulled a chair up to it and sat. After stroking Stephie's hair back from her brow, she kissed her on the cheek.