Her Secret Daughter

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “Oh, she is.” The third woman offered her hand. “I’m Cissy’s sister, Jillian. And I want to congratulate you on the success of your opening. We’re quite excited about the opportunities the Eastern Shore Inn will afford to folks around here. A job well done.”

  “Thank you.” He turned toward Josie’s mother. “Did Josie head back to work?”

  “Yes.” She gazed up at him with a frank look, as if she wanted to say more, but didn’t. “A busy day, she said.”

  “Our first Sunday, so yes. I expect it will be cranking. Ladies, a pleasure meeting you.” He tucked Addie’s hand in his and moved on.

  Folks waved to him as he passed. The pastor stopped him and they chatted briefly. Around him, summer flowers bloomed, boughs of thick, green leaves offered welcome shade, and a sky so blue it seemed unreal provided the perfect backdrop.

  He could live here, he realized.

  He could make this their home, and maybe, if things went right, it wouldn’t be just a home for him and Addie.

  The thought of a home with Josie made him walk faster. He dropped Addie off at his parents’ rental cottage and headed to the resort.

  People milled about the beach.

  Bright umbrellas dotted the sandy shore, and folks were docking boats where Josie’s restaurant used to be, a few hundred feet up the shore.

  Kids ran in the sand, and there were two lifeguards stationed on either side of the beach, a picturesque summer scene.

  As he slipped into the office wing through a side door, he thought about his choices and a new to-do list.

  Take the job here in Central New York. Buy a house. Get him and Addie moved in before school started. Court the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  He grinned.

  He had a good offer on the table. If it wasn’t perfect, he could look for other options, but it was a start and it bought him time. He had a decent bank account balance and the luxury of time, at least a summer’s worth. He’d take the job, stay right here and woo the fair lady.

  Josie was contracted. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  He had every choice in the world, but whenever he pictured that gorgeous long hair and those luminescent eyes, the choices narrowed to here. Right here.

  The day raced by. He had a few small fires to put out, unforeseen systems snags, but by the end of the day, nothing major had occurred and the online reviews of the Eastern Shore Inn were stellar. Those solid reviews would keep the entire Carrington business machine happy.

  * * *

  Josie went to work on Monday, fairly sure her heart might not make it through the day.

  Jacob was nowhere to be found, which made sense because he’d been working long, rugged hours, just like her.

  Should she make an appointment to see him? Stop into his office? Text him?

  She decided the text was easiest and least volatile. Can we meet later today for that talk?

  Short and sweet, following up on his suggestion. His text came back quickly. Yes. This afternoon, after four? Coffee someplace quiet?

  She’d love that, but she couldn’t risk telling him the truth in a public place. Plus, any place quiet probably wouldn’t stay quiet for long after what she had to tell him. Too many people. My apartment? Five o’clock?

  In that case, I’ll bring the coffee.

  Kind and considerate. And sure to dislike her by the end of the day. Great. See you then.

  She put away the phone and layered the smoker while the kitchen staff worked with yesterday’s meat selection. They’d prepped the soups, and already the restaurant was filled with the enticing scents of good, solid food.

  Gabby Gallagher’s bakery supplied her with homemade pies and hummingbird cake each day. Her signature French toast and bread puddings filled out the dessert menu, along with the ever-popular crème brûlée.

  And Robert Weatherly had raved about her barbecue at first bite.

  He wouldn’t be raving once the truth was known, but she couldn’t help that.

  She prayed.

  She prayed for courage as she tended the smoker, for strength as she oversaw the making of salads and, as she grated robust Vermont cheddar for the Cajun rice and broccoli, mostly she prayed for understanding.

  The last one was the least likely. Josie knew that, because she didn’t pretend to understand any of this. Right now it wasn’t about blame. There was plenty of that to go around.

  It was about love, and if you loved something enough, you set it free. And that’s what she had to do later this afternoon.

  * * *

  Jacob spotted the unfamiliar Georgia number and took the call on his Bluetooth as he drove toward the resort. “Jacob Weatherly, Carrington Hotels, how can I help you?”

  “Mr. Weatherly, I’m James Sinclair of Sinclair Associates in Atlanta. We represent Sweet Hope Adoption Agency.”

  Sweet Hope Adoption? Jacob’s interest switched to high gear. “The adoption agency that handled my daughter’s original adoption to my sister.”

  “And her husband.”

  Jacob let that slide because he knew—they all knew—that Adam had no intention of staying in his marriage to Ginger. It had been the talk of the family for months. But that was neither here nor there now. “Have you uncovered something in Addie’s family history, some medical thing? Why are you calling?”

  “No, there is no bad medical news to report, and that’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

  Jacob was losing his patience and his focus. He pulled off onto one of the graveled overlooks because a conversation with a lawyer about Addie hadn’t made his list of probabilities that day. “Mr. Sinclair, what’s going on? Why the phone call? What’s happened?”

  “Adeline’s birth mother has hired an attorney.”

  His heart didn’t pause. It stopped. “She what?”

  “In fact, she hired a highly regarded Manhattan attorney who has been looking into the incidentals of Adeline’s adoption.”

  His phrasing irritated Jacob further, which is why Carrington tended to put him on diplomatic issues in place of their legal team. Most lawyers didn’t do diplomacy well. “There are no incidentals in adoption. It’s a straightforward process, bound by courts. For goodness’ sake, Addie is six years old!” He raked a hand through his short hair. “Why would her mother come looking for her now?”

  “Questions have been raised about the original home studies.”

  That made no sense, none whatsoever. “They had a lovely home. I don’t understand.”

  “The lawyer is contesting that your brother-in-law was not invested in the marriage.”

  That was certainly true enough. “He wasn’t. He hadn’t been in some time, and we all wondered why my sister thought it was a good time to adopt a child, but she’d miscarried several times and we knew how much she wanted to be a mother. And she was a good mother.”

  “Mr. Weatherly, technically I’m not advising you to keep that information to yourself, but insinuating that the poor condition of your sister’s marriage was widespread knowledge could be detrimental to our cause.”

  “Our cause?” The collar of his shirt rose slightly. The palms of his hands went damp. “What is our cause?”

  “To hopefully offer this woman a satisfactory settlement and tuck this inquiry quietly away.”

  “Buy her off?” Anger didn’t simply roll up his spine, it raced. “The agency is thinking of buying off a drug-using mother because she brings some lame claim six years later? I—” He couldn’t have this conversation sitting in the car. He climbed out, took the phone and began pacing. “This is preposterous.”

  “I wish it were, but it is not, Mr. Weatherly. Adeline’s specific adoption had a clause written in at the request of the birth mother. Sweet Hope pledged to honor that clause and offer only happily married couples as options. Your sister’s portfolio portrayed a l
oving couple in a barren state, offering all kinds of enticements for the betterment of the child.”

  “And money? Money for the birth mother? Does it mention that?” He spat out the words. Ginger had procured a substantial sum from his parents to cover the birth mother’s medical costs, and they’d given it willingly.

  The attorney hesitated. He could hear the man breathing on the other end of the phone, and the soft rustle of papers moving. Then he spoke again, and his careful words sent Jacob’s heart into a kind of free fall. “The birth mother accepted no money from anyone in this adoption, Mr. Weatherly. I’m not sure where you got that information, but there was no exchange of funds. She had medical insurance and self-funded her prenatal care. Your sister did pay the stated agency fees that covered standard administrative expenses.”

  No payout?

  He ran his brain around that quickly, because he was sure Ginger had referenced that. And it made her decision to name him as guardian harder, because his parents had handed over nearly thirty thousand dollars to ensure Addie’s adoption. Who’d have thought then that he needed to recall details of the adoption six years later? “Walk me back, here. You said the birth mother contacted you now.”

  “A lawyer representing her interests contacted the agency for protocol and ran an independent investigation into the legality of the original adoption. And that’s why I’m calling you.”

  Legality of the original adoption?

  Jacob had been around legal beagles long enough to understand the nuances of a contract. If the original contract was not binding, then follow-up contracts could be declared null and void. “Are you telling me that my adoption of Addie might not hold up in court?”

  He couldn’t swallow.

  He could barely breathe.

  The bright July sun disappeared from the sky, and the warm summer air seemed cold—suddenly very cold. Or was that just the chills running up and down his spine?

  “We don’t want this to go to court, Mr. Weatherly.” The firm tenor of the other man’s voice indicated that court wouldn’t be a good idea. “We want to settle out of court at the agency’s full expense, of course. They keep insurance for these sorts of things.”

  “These sorts of things?” Had he just heard the man correctly? Was he implying that mistakes in adoptions weren’t a major exception? And that an error in judgment six years ago could mess up a child’s life now? “This can’t be happening. No, wait, let me rephrase that. This will not happen. The day I took that little girl into my care I promised her and God that I would do everything in my power to give her the life she finally deserved. Free from cancer, free from grief and sorrow, to the best of my ability. Her birth mother can’t simply waltz in, six years later, and declare herself wronged. There must be a statute of limitations in effect. This can’t possibly be legal.”

  “There is a statute, of course. But this goes beyond criminal proceedings—”

  Criminal proceedings?

  “And straight to a civil suit that could cite the agency and your late sister and her former husband with fraud. And because that was only discovered recently, the statute of limitations isn’t called into play.”

  A lawsuit against his deceased sister. A lawsuit that could twist Addie’s sweet life into a pretzeled mess. “No.”

  “Mr. Weatherly—”

  “How did she get this information? How did this woman, with her scandalous past, ferret out information about my sister, her husband and Addie? Something had to set this into motion, Mr. Sinclair. People don’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to look into something that happened six years before.’ Do they?”

  A long stretch of silence marked the other end of the phone. And then James Sinclair said words that made both no sense and absolute sense, all at once. “She saw you there, in Grace Haven. With her daughter. And she wanted to know what happened to Ginger and Adam O’Neill.”

  She saw him here? In Grace Haven?

  His mind raced, and it raced in multiple directions, but he knew... He knew right off, because he’d seen the look on Josie’s face. He hadn’t understood it, but he’d seen it, and Addie had noticed it, too.

  The hidden sadness. The sudden turnaround to take the Carrington lease offer. The kindnesses to Addie. The resemblance to Cissy Gallagher...

  They’d known.

  They’d known all this time and they’d played him like a fine-tuned Southern fiddle, weaving their ways around him, weaseling into his life. Into Addie’s life.

  Josie.

  Wild child.

  That’s what Carly Moore had called her, and he could see it now, plain as day.

  He wanted to throw up. He wanted this phone call to end. No, wait—he wanted it to never have occurred, because she’d not only fooled him, she’d made him care about her, care so much that he’d stupidly considered changing his life to suit hers. To woo her. To be part of her life.

  His gut gripped tight. His hand shook.

  She wanted to talk to him this afternoon, but that wasn’t going to happen. Josie Gallagher and her little scheme to win the heart of an innocent child, then wrench her from the only home she’d known for years, wasn’t going to get the respite of meeting on her terms.

  “This is a lot to digest, Mr. Sinclair.”

  “I understand, and we deeply regret that, Mr. Weatherly. Of course, we don’t want you to approach the birth mother. We need to keep the lines cleanly drawn for legal purposes.”

  Not approach her? He almost snorted. “So she can launch an investigation but I can’t talk to her about it? I’m assuming we’re talking about Josie Gallagher, correct?”

  Mr. Sinclair refused to confirm the name, but that was all right. He didn’t need to. “We’ll simply refer to her as the birth mother at this point until a suit is officially filed. And I caution you, Mr. Weatherly, not to do anything that would negatively affect your standing as Addie’s guardian.”

  “Father.” Firm and cold, he let the solicitor know that his role wasn’t and would never be reduced to that of a simple guardian. “I am her father. And don’t you forget it.”

  “Of course, of course. A bad choice of words on my part, and a reality we’d like to help you maintain.”

  He couldn’t mean that like it sounded. That somehow, someway, Josie could take Addie away from him. Who would do that? Who would tear a child apart like that for their own selfish gain?

  Wild child...

  The phrase gut-slammed him again.

  Maybe he’d been stupid. Perhaps she’d fooled him completely, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that she needed to know in no uncertain terms that Addie was his daughter. Random genetics didn’t dictate a child’s heritage. At some point, the basic science of the matter hit Pause and tender, loving care stepped in.

  He hung up the call and didn’t stop to pray or think or do any of those rational things he’d been taught as a major development negotiator. He climbed behind the wheel, grabbed hold and drove toward the resort, fuming.

  She thought she could upset Addie’s life? She thought she could mess up the years he’d invested, giving his amazing daughter the faith, hope and love every child deserved?

  She was wrong. And he was about to let her know it, and no amount of wringing hands and tears would make him see it any other way.

  * * *

  He knew.

  The moment Josie turned from the walk-in cooler and saw Jacob standing inside the barbecue kitchen, she knew the hour had come.

  “I need to see you outside.”

  The gruff tone of his voice made Terry turn, surprised. “Something wrong?”

  Oh, there was something wrong, all right. Something so very wrong that words could never put it right. She saw that in Jacob’s face, read it in his eyes. She slipped her apron off, left Terry to listen for timers and moved toward the door. “I�
�ll be at the smoker, Terry.”

  “All right.” He shot her a look as she glanced back, and she shook her head slightly. Terry was a good guy, and he was reacting to the cold steel in Jacob’s voice, but this wasn’t his fight. It wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s fight, but that had been taken out of her hands a long time ago.

  She moved into the smoker “cave,” turned and folded her hands across her middle. She gazed up at him, letting him take the lead.

  “You’re Addie’s birth mother.”

  Oh, the cruel irony of words, the sharp-edged sword. How the sacrificial act of giving her child up had turned her into the bad guy here, she didn’t know, but suddenly the words “birth mother” annoyed her. “I am her mother. Yes.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  She waited, wishing this was over, wishing it had never gotten started. But then there would be no Addie, would there?

  “Don’t make the mere accident of genetics let you think you have rights, because you don’t. You lied to me. You lied to my daughter. You lied to my parents, and to everyone around here, letting folks think you were an honorable person. All the while you were going behind my back, putting your tangled web of deceit into motion.”

  “I did nothing of the kind. Ever.”

  She hadn’t thought he could look angrier. She was wrong. “You deny that you’ve got a lawyer looking into the original adoption? A closed adoption, according to the paperwork I was given, so how could you have known who Addie was unless you stalked her? Stalked them? What kind of person are you really, Josie? Because you fooled me.” He crossed his arms, too. “And I didn’t think I fooled easily. So shame on me for letting myself and my daughter get sucked into your ruse. But as of now, this moment, consider it over. My work is nearly complete here, and until it is, stay away from me, my family and especially my child. Do you hear me?”

  Kind? Compassionate?

  The man before her bore neither of those qualities, but she recognized his fear and pain because she’d lived it. “I’d already decided to have no further contact with Addie once you’re gone.”