She hadn’t come looking for Addie. He and Addie had stumbled onto Josie because of his job, nothing more sinister than that.
His parents needed to know the truth.
He hated that reality. But to keep it from them would be wrong, especially now that others knew what Ginger had done.
And Josie...
He pinched the bridge of his nose, because he owed her an apology. Maybe she’d talk to him. Maybe she wouldn’t. That would be her choice. But he couldn’t leave without apologizing, because if this woman hadn’t been willing to save Addie’s life twice, then he’d have no daughter. A gentleman owned his blame and his shame, and in this case, Jacob claimed both. But first, he’d face his parents.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday would be Jacob’s last day at the inn. Josie had seen the internal memo thanking him for his service and wishing him well in future endeavors.
He’d be gone. And Addie would be gone.
She couldn’t think about it, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it, either, wishing she could have one more moment. One more glimpse. But she’d made a promise, and if there was one thing Josie had learned to do, it was to keep her promises.
Terry stepped in to take over at four on Thursday. Josie shed her sauce-splattered work apron and ducked out the back. She ran straight into Jacob’s parents and Addie, coming toward her as they aimed for the beach. “Young lady, I was hoping to run into you again!” Bob Weatherly moved her way, smiling.
Josie had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. She’d promised Jacob she’d stay away from Addie, but she drank in the sight of her as Sheila and Addie approached. “You guys must have had a fun day.”
“Amazing!” Addie laughed, and then she did it. She surged forward and grabbed Josie around the middle and wouldn’t let go, a hug Josie wished could go on forever. “Oh, Josie, it was so much fun! We went down to the fish hatchy place where they have so many teeny, tiny little fishies and they’re all just babies! And then they take them and they let them go in the—” Her forehead knit as she searched for the word.
“Creek,” Josie supplied.
“Yes, you know this stuff!” Addie had loosened her grip, but then hugged her again, the best present ever. “So they let them go into the creek and they all go—” She let go of Josie and frowned at Bob. “Where do they go, Pawpaw?”
“The lake. And they grow up in the lake and when they want to have baby fish, they swim back up the very same stream they came from.”
“No way! Really?” Josie couldn’t help it. She feigned surprise as she lifted a brow. “They know which one to go to?”
“Yes! This is the coolest part! They go to that very stream and swim up and then the fish hatchy place knows they’re doing a good job.”
Sheila put a hand on her shoulder. “Hatchery,” she corrected in a soft, Southern drawl. And Addie beamed up at her and recreated the word with all the Yankee twang she’d been using for months. “Hatchery.”
Sheila sighed, but smiled, too.
“A fine summation,” Bob told her, laughing. “So Josie, I was looking around this area, and it seems there have been a bunch of barbecue places scattered around, but not much longevity in them. Why is that?”
“You know the truth in this business better than anyone,” she replied. “It’s hard to get a restaurant up and running and make enough money to keep it running unless you’ve got really low overhead. And that’s how I started out, with a no-rent, I’ll-fix-it-up sweat equity deal. Start-up costs can be a crusher.”
“And yet you thrived when others failed.”
She started to protest, but she didn’t dare carry this chance meeting longer. She made a promise to Jacob, and she didn’t want to break it. “Good timing, perhaps.”
“Good food,” he shot back. “Listen, I’d—”
Her cell phone indicated an incoming text, and she used that as an excuse to break away. She’d made a pledge to leave Addie alone. Jacob already mistrusted her. She’d gotten her wish of seeing Addie one last time. And that would have to do. She lifted the phone. “I have to tend to this, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just be proud of what you’ve done here,” Bob told her. “It’s commendable.”
Jacob hadn’t told them. If they knew they wouldn’t be treating her like this. Would he tell them eventually?
Perhaps, once they were all safe and sound down south. She pulled out her phone, saw the picture Kimberly had sent of baby Elizabeth and sent a smiling emoji in return.
She’d wanted what Kimberly now had. A loving husband, a home and a family. For a little while, the thought of doing that with Jacob and Addie had put her pulse into high gear, but now reality lay at her doorstep. In two days they’d be gone, out of her life.
But not out of her heart.
She was experienced enough to know that wouldn’t happen. But with faith and family, she’d ride out this newest wave of sadness. She sent back the picture message to Kimberly with one single word: Amazing, knowing her cousin would understand. She drove back to town, parked alongside the carriage house drive and took a walk. She didn’t look at Stan’s, remembering Addie’s love for frozen custard. And she didn’t hit the beach where the local kids loved to gather, splash and play.
She walked by the arching stone walls of Grace Haven Community and saw the door standing open. Sweet voices melded with dancing notes from the keyboardist, drifting up the wide stairway leading to the basement-level classrooms. Thursday night choir practice was in full swing.
She took a place on a pew in the still of the summer’s evening. The bank of votives flickered to her right, and to her left, stained glass windows depicted teachings from the New Testament. Children, gathering around Jesus. A shepherd, seeking a lost lamb. A father, embracing two sons. And then one of the condemned woman, in the sand at Jesus’s feet. One hand stretched toward her, and the other indicated the empty street around them.
Her accusers had gone, every single one. And there she was, with Christ, an audience of one, needing only God’s forgiveness.
Outside, sweet sounds of summer collided in the night. Laughter, shouts and the subtle swish of bike tires on old, village sidewalks.
She’d seen Addie one last time. She’d gotten two final hugs, and that in itself was a treasure. Most important, she knew her child, her most precious gift from God, was in good hands.
All she’d ever wanted was Addie safe and sound and happy. Her wish had been granted, although not by ordinary means.
She tried not to think of Jacob. His gentle eyes, his honest smile, the touch of his hand, the grasp of his fingers, his kiss...
She blinked back emotion and stood.
She’d wished for a chance to say goodbye to Addie. To see her one final time. To realize how perfectly content she was.
That wish had been granted today. Asking for anything more would be just plain greedy, but if she had her way?
She sighed and slipped her purse strap up over her shoulder.
She’d be greedy enough to want it all.
* * *
Jacob gestured for his parents to follow him outside. Addie was curled up in the air-conditioned living room of the cottage, watching a favorite show. His mother slid the screen door shut and followed the men to the shaded gazebo overlooking the water. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“You look serious. Should we sit?”
He grimaced. “Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” They sat and he did, too, trying to figure out the best way to approaching this. In the end, he just told them, straight out. “It’s about Ginger, and you’re not going to like it.”
His father’s jaw tightened, but he looked more sad than surprised. He reached out and took his wife’s right hand in his left one. “Go on.”
“She committed fraud to adopt Addie.”
“Tell me you’re jok
ing.” His father sat more upright. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t the truth Jacob just laid out for them.
“Jacob. How do you know this?” Quick tears filled his mother’s eyes, but she blinked them back and clung to her husband’s hand.
Jacob told them the story, detail by detail. The web of lies, the deceit, the double cross of the agency and the birth mother. The mother, he corrected himself. And when he was done, his parents weren’t as shocked as he thought they’d be. Disappointed, yes. But not blown away by Ginger’s illicit choices.
“How did this all come up, son? What made you go digging?”
And now the hard part. But not so hard, either, when he considered Josie’s heroic actions to save Addie’s life. “Her birth mother lives here. She saw Addie with me and recognized her because Ginger had shown her a picture of Addie at age three, when Addie had the liver transplant. Actually, Addie’s biological mother was the living donor for Addie’s transplant.”
“She was?” Now Sheila put a hand to her chest. “But Ginger said—”
“I know. She told us that Addie’s mother was a drug user and that Addie’s liver came from someone on the transplant match list who requested anonymity. That part was true, because Addie’s mother didn’t want to mess up Addie’s life. But she was no drug user. She’d experimented with a few things in college, years before, but Ginger made it seem like she’d deliberately saved Addie from life with an addict.”
“Yes, she did. Why, I wonder?”
“Because it made her feel nobler?” Jacob had spent a lot of time trying to reason this out, too. “Or less guilty for bilking you guys out of that thirty thousand she claimed was for the birth mother? Because the file firmly states that the mother refused any payment for her role in carrying the child, and that all medical costs were paid for by the mother’s insurance and her own funds. When Addie’s mother came to Atlanta to save Addie’s life, Ginger pretended that she and Adam were still together. She claimed Adam was too overcome with worry about Addie to do anything more than send a note. And here it is.” He handed them the forged note. “For some reason the agency had a copy in the file. They faxed it to me.”
“Not Adam’s handwriting,” his mother pointed out.
“And almost three years after he’d left the family.”
“Wait.” His father looked at the note more closely, then swallowed hard. “This note is thanking Josie...” He studied Jacob. “Is Josie Gallagher Addie’s real mother?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, that poor woman.” Sheila grabbed hold of Jacob’s arm. “She’s had her daughter here all this time, under her nose, and couldn’t acknowledge her?”
Jacob hadn’t thought he could feel worse. “Yes.”
“And her mother must know. The resemblance between Cissy and Addie is so clear now. Jacob, what are we going to do? How can we fix this?”
A question he’d been asking himself for hours now. “I don’t know. I’m going to go see her, but I need Addie to stay here overnight. If that’s all right.”
“It’s more than all right, it’s fine, I just...” Sheila wrung her hands, but she didn’t fall apart. If anything, this information seemed to make her stronger. “Jacob, if there’s anything we can do, just let us know.” She frowned, distraught. “I wasn’t overtly aware that Ginger was up to anything during the adoption proceedings, but I sensed it. And yet, I so desperately wanted her happy. She wasn’t like you, son.” She reached out and hugged him as she had the other night. “She was never happy and never satisfied, always wanting more. But I never imagined she’d go so far as to lie about something as important and special as an adoption.”
“Are you going to see Josie tonight?” his father asked.
He had little choice. She’d be busy all day tomorrow and Saturday, the crazy, pumped-up hours of running a beachside restaurant midsummer. “Yes. And I wouldn’t mind a few prayers coming my way.”
His father clapped a hand onto his shoulder, firm and strong. “I think we can manage that.”
“And please, Jacob, please...” His mother grasped his two hands in hers. “Tell her how very sorry we are for all of her pain. My heart truly goes out to her.”
His mother hadn’t jumped to conclusions as he had. His father was willing to pray for him to find some way to make peace with Josie, and he couldn’t remember the last time Bob Weatherly prayed and meant it.
He kissed Addie good-night and hurried to his car.
Would she be at the carriage house apartment? Or with family? Should he message her or just show up?
He didn’t want to give her the chance to reject his visit before he got there, so surprise won. He drove into the village, parked on the street and walked up the Gallagher driveway. Evening sun brightened the twin dormered windows facing the drive over the three-car garage. He stared up at them, then strode forward, determined, but then ground to a complete stop when a voice—her voice—came from behind.
“What are you doing here, Jacob?”
He turned.
She stood straight and tall, facing him. She kept her arms at her sides, and the loose, lacy top flowed over her hips while the sleeves did the same thing over her slim, tanned hands.
“I need to talk to you.”
She didn’t move closer. She didn’t look angry. She looked bereft. And that made his heart ache harder. “You’ve had your say. Please go.”
He couldn’t, so he shook his head. “It’s not that easy.”
“Easy?” Her gold-green eyes flashed fire his way. “Trust me, there is not one moment of this entire thing that could possibly be construed as easy, Jacob. Not from where I’m standing.”
“Can we talk? Please?” He needed to talk to her. Explain what he knew. And perhaps more important, he needed to listen for a change, and not assume he had all the answers. “Can we walk down by the water?”
“It’s too busy there, and I don’t need the entire town talking about me again. I’ve had my share of that, thank you.”
“Josie, I—”
“This way.” Abrupt, she led him through the garage and up the stairs. Cool air greeted them when she opened the upper door, and she led the way through a galley kitchen, into a cozy living room beyond. She held up her watch. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Josie.”
“Clock’s ticking.”
He sat, hoping she’d sit, too, and when he swiped his damp hands against his trousers, she noticed, but it wasn’t sympathy that deepened her gaze. She sat on the love seat opposite him, unhappy and untrusting. His fault, he knew. “Cruz Maldonado came to see me.”
She breathed deeply and said nothing, but she brought her hands together in her lap and held them there.
“He explained what he’d found. What the agency revealed, and how my sister lied to get what she wanted, which turned out to be your daughter.” He paused, then shook his head. “I don’t get it, Josie. What my sister did. It’s incomprehensible to me. We were raised by the same parents, but I could never do what she did. I don’t lie. I don’t take advantage. Ginger did, every chance she got, but I don’t think any of us ever expected it to go to this level. To lie and then further confirm that lie to gain what she wanted. To deceive a mother.” He leaned forward and wished she’d look at him, but she kept her eyes down. “I’m sorry, Josie. So very sorry. My parents feel the same way. Shocked and ashamed.”
“They know?”
Now her eyes came to his.
He nodded. “I had to tell them. If we’re going to work this thing out, they need to know everything.”
“There’s nothing to work out.” Calm and steadfast, she held his attention. “You’re leaving. Addie is wonderfully happy with you, and that’s all I ever wanted, Jacob. I didn’t go into the adoption agency with thoughts of control. I just wanted the decisions I made, the requirements I wanted for her, to be resp
ected.”
“And they weren’t.”
“No. But one thing I’ve learned from this whole thing is to stop looking back. I made mistakes, sure. I did stupid things in college and paid the price by shaming my mother and my brothers. But that’s behind me now. God forgave me. And after a long time and a lot of self-shaming, I learned to forgive myself.” She glanced at her watch, implying his time was nearly up. “Addie’s in good hands. No, wait.” She drew a breath and indicated him with a wave. “She’s in great hands. I could never mess that up. What kind of selfish person wrenches a child away from someone who loves her unconditionally?” She shrugged. “Not me.”
“And Addie’s father wanted nothing to do with her?” He laid the words out gently, watching. Would she talk to him? Share her story? Or block him out? He wouldn’t blame her if she did, not after he’d ranted and raved.
She didn’t look up this time. Eyes down, he saw a tear slip and fall, onto her hand. And then another.
Help her, Lord. Help her to see I’m not the enemy. That I seek her forgiveness and understanding and maybe more... Help her to trust me. Please.
“You should go.” Soft words in a small voice.
He got up, but he didn’t go. He changed seats and sat down beside her, close enough to feel her breath, but not touching. “What happened, Josie?” That, just that, an invitation to trust. Would she take it?
She shouldn’t after what he’d said and done, but he wanted her to. He longed for her to. She breathed softly, then lifted one pretty, tanned shoulder. “I trusted the wrong man, Jacob. After years of being so careful and prim and proper in a city where that’s not exactly easy, I believed a man who carried date-rape drugs in his pocket. A foolish mistake from a woman who had promised her family nothing would go wrong in New Orleans. And there I was, hating myself all over again, but pregnant this time. All I wanted, Jacob—” she turned and faced him now, twin tear tracks running down her pretty cheeks “—was for my child to have the best possible start I could give her. A loving family, parents who cherished her and a normal future. So when I signed those papers in good faith, I expected the same in return. To discover it was all built on lies made me angry. So angry. Not at you.”
Her Secret Daughter Page 16