by Janet Dailey
“Angie! I didn’t expect you to call tonight!” But his delight was evident. “How’s Corpus Christi?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t make it that far.” She tried to make it a joke, but her voice sounded very brittle and strained.
There was a slight pause before Ted spoke, his interest sharpened. “What happened? Did you have car trouble?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Angie hesitated because she didn’t know how to lead the conversation around to the topic she wanted to discuss. She began to question why she’d called him in the first place.
“Where are you?” It was not a completely idle question. He seemed to sense that all was not well.
“Rockport,” she admitted. “It’s just north of Corpus Christ! on the Gulf. I made it this far and decided to stop.”
“What’s in Rockport?”
Angie could have told him but she stalled the moment of truth. “An aunt of mine lived here a few years ago. I remembered visiting her one summer and . . . thought I’d look around.”
“You never mentioned you had any relation in Texas,” Ted said with some surprise.
“I don’t—not anymore.” It was a quick lie. She was suddenly frightened, wondering if she had called him to seek personal advice—or professional? Angie reached for another cigarette to soothe her shattered nerves.
“What was that?” Ted demanded.
“What?” Angie frowned at the question.
“The noise on the phone.”
“That was me.” She realized she had been holding the matchbook next to the receiver’s mouthpiece when she struck the match to light her cigarette. “I was just lighting a cigarette.”
There was another pause before Ted replied in a troubled voice, “I’ve never seen you smoke.”
“I don’t as a rule—just every now and then.” That sounded feeble.
“Angie, what’s wrong?” he questioned with concern. “Something’s bothering you. I can hear it in your voice.”
“That’s nonsense.” She heard herself deny it and realized that she wasn’t going to be able to confide in him.
“No, it isn’t,” Ted refused to believe her. “You’re upset. I can tell. Why did you call me, Angie?”
“I didn’t really have a reason,” she lied. “I just thought I’d let you know about my change of plans.” But that was out of character, too. It indicated that their relationship was a close one, otherwise she wouldn’t feel the need to account for where she was. They were on very friendly terms, but certainly not intimate.
“What’s this?” There was a smile in his tone, as well as some confusion. “Has ’absence made the heart grow fonder’?”
It seemed easier to agree than to be cross-examined. “Maybe so.”
“That’s encouraging.” Ted sounded pleased. “How long are you planning to stay in Rockport?”
“I’m not sure.” She groped for a more definite answer, agitated and on edge. “Maybe for a couple more days. It depends.”
There was another pause. “Are you sure you’re all right, Angie? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I’m fine. Really,” she insisted, but she felt close to tears. Her voice was threatening to break. “I’d better let you go, Ted.”
“I’m glad you called, Angie,” he said and meant it.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Bye.”
Before he could say anything to detain her, Angie hung up the phone breaking the connection. It had been wrong to try to involve someone else in her problems. They were hers to solve—no one else’s. So what did she intend to do about them? She had always been so realistic. What did she want to do? She rubbed her forehead, trying to silence the pounding.
A hard rap on the door seemed to explode inside her head. With a burst of impatience, Angie sprang to her feet and stalked to the door. She didn’t think to use the security chain as she yanked the door open.
All motion ceased the instant she saw Deke standing outside. The intervening years since she’d last seen him had hardened his male features into implacable lines. The curve of his cheekbone was harsh; his jaw unyielding. He seemed bigger than she remembered—not so much taller as broader. His chest and shoulders had muscled out, although there was still the leanness of a predatory beast about him. The brim of his hat shadowed his eyes, giving him a hooded look. Angie caught their glitter, but it wasn’t the silver brilliance that used to excite her. When he took a step forward, she saw they held the glitter of polished steel, sharp and cutting.
Paralysis gripped her throat, preventing her from speaking. Her hand was holding the door ajar. The flat of his hand pushed it the rest of the way open as Deke walked in, uninvited, and Angie hastily backed out of his way. He closed it behind him with a deliberateness that started her pulse racing. His gaze never left her, not for a second. He despised her. Angie could see it in his eyes, and inwardly cringed.
“How—” Her voice cracked on the attempted question and she stopped to gather her wits and her courage.
“Kelly.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a nasty imitation of a smile. A certain dullness crept into her senses. The flatness of his voice reminded her of a cracking whip. “He recognized you and called out to the ranch when he couldn’t remember your name,”
It was exactly what she had feared. She lowered her chin, turning her head slightly away from him to avoid the condemnation of his eyes. How would she ever make him understand? It seemed totally hopeless.
“You were at the school today, too, weren’t, you?” Deke accused in the same deadly flat tone.
All Angie could do was nod her head slightly in silent admission. If there had been any hint of gentleness or compassion in his expression, she would have thrown herself into his arms and cried out her anguish. But there was none.
“Why the hell are you here, Angie?” The air around her seemed to seethe with the contained fury in his demand.
It snapped her chin up and brought her gaze back to him. Meekness was alien to her nature. Defiance shimmered in her blue eyes. “You know why I came back, Deke.”
“You have no right to be here,” he reminded her brutally. “You gave it up almost seven years ago.”
“Maybe I have no legal right,” she conceded as hot tears of anger and pain rose in her eyes. “But she’s still my child, too!”
“Lindy is my daughter.” There was no mistaking the emphasis of possession. “You didn’t want her. You didn’t even want to know whether you gave birth to a boy or a girl!”
Angie stiffened at his deliberately cruel reminder. “Why do you think I’m here?” she retaliated. “I couldn’t stand not knowing. I tried to forget! I tried to pretend that I didn’t care! But I had to find out. I wanted to see my baby!”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” Deke jeered. “You never displayed any curiosity before now. Not in seven years.”
“How do you know?” she flared. “How do you know what I’ve thought or felt all this time?” She was losing her temper fast, giving into the storm of emotions that raged within her. Pivoting, she took a couple of quick steps to put some distance between them before she gave into the childish temptation to assault him physically. She stopped in front of the chest of drawers, grabbing hold of its carved edge. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been thinking and feeling all these years —wondering if my baby is healthy or—”
“You can stop wondering,” Deke inserted harshly. “She’s fine, if you ever really cared.”
She whirled to glare at him. “I care. That’s a rotten thing to say, Deke Blackwood,” she accused huskily. “I cared enough to make certain she had a good home and someone to love her. What could I have given her? I was only seventeen! I didn’t have the means to take care of myself, let alone a baby! How could I have gotten an education, worked and raised a child, too? I had no choice!” Angie cried. “I had to give her up.”
His jaw hardened into a cold line, his mouth thinning. “You had a choice. I gave you one.”
Sh
e looked away. “Yes, you did. Marriage.” Bitterness laced her words. “That convinced me quicker than anything that I wasn’t ready to be a parent. It was bad enough being a seventeen-year-old bride. But don’t worry—” she laughed shortly and harshly, “—no one can ever say that a Blackwood didn’t do the honorable thing. It was a mistake from the start and you know it.”
“Yes.” His voice was once again flat. “You made your feelings about our marriage very clear. And your feelings for our child.”
Facing him again, Angie made an appeal for his understanding. “Do you think it was an easy decision to give up my baby? Why do you think I insisted on not being told whether it was a boy or a girl? Why do you think I refused to see it?” No emotion was revealed by his hard, masculine features, nothing to indicate her anguished voice was touching him. “I knew,” Angie continued, choking a little, “I knew if I saw it—if I held my baby, I’d never be able to let it go!”
“I’m not particularly interested in the past, Angie.” Deke wasn’t moved by her confession. “All that matters is that you relinquished all claims to your daughter and gave me absolute custody.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m her mother,” she argued.
“You were her mother.” He stressed the past tense.
“I still am,” Angie insisted. “A piece of paper doesn’t change that. Any more than it could change that you are Lindy’s father.”
“I’m glad you recognize that I am her father,” he stated grimly.
“I never denied it,” she retorted. “And I never blamed you for getting me pregnant either. It was equally my fault. I knew what I was doing.” She turned back to the chest of drawers, her eyes closing to allow images of that summer to flash through her mind. “I was so lonely.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I’d just lost my parents and I was desperate for someone to love. You came along at a time when I needed someone—someone to show me a little affection. I wanted to belong to someone—anyone. I often think that it didn’t matter who.”
For awhile, it had been absolute bliss. Then she had discovered she was pregnant. She was seventeen and terrified. Morning sickness had made it impossible to hide her condition from her aunt. Even after all this time, Angie could still remember the awful humiliation she’d gone through when her aunt had summoned Deke and his parents to her house. For the sake of the Blackwood family name and the legitimacy of the unborn child, it was understood that Deke would naturally marry her. But he had suddenly seemed like a stranger to her.
The day after his parents and her aunt agreed the young couple would marry, Angie had boarded a bus and ran away to an uncle in Phoenix. Unbeknownst to her, he called her aunt when she arrived at his home. The next thing she knew Deke and his parents showed up at her uncle’s. Family pressure forced her into marrying him, but she couldn’t stop herself from seeing a stranger each time she looked at him. She wasn’t frightened of him; it was simply that she didn’t know him except in the most intimate sense. How could she spend the rest of her life with a man she didn’t even know if she liked?
When she refused to return to Texas with him, Deke had agreed to get an apartment in Phoenix. They were to stay there until after the baby was born. While he looked for a suitable one, Angie continued to live with her uncle and his family. Eventually, Deke had realized that she was never going to like any apartment he showed her since it meant living with him.
They quarreled, but Angie rebelled at the thought of living with a stranger as his wife. More than that, she began to realize that she couldn’t raise the baby by herself. There was so much more she wanted to do with her life. Without a high school education, she didn’t have a chance of obtaining a job to earn enough for herself and a baby. And she’d always dreamed of going on to college which was out of the question.
If she’d simply been an unwed mother, she could have given her baby up for adoption. But she was married. A month before the baby was born, Angie had confronted Deke with her proposition. He would give her an annulment, after all, he had only married her out of a sense of duty. And she would give him custody of their unborn baby. It hadn’t been an easy decision, but she was confident that her baby would have a loving home. Deke’s parents had been anxious for their first grandchild, showering Angie with baby gifts in eager anticipation.
She had thought it all through. Her decision had been the only logical, sensible, practical one she could reach. Deke had accepted her offer and walked out. Angie hadn’t seen him again until she went to the hospital. He’d come into her room after the baby was born and asked her if she wanted to change her mind. When she said ’no,’ he’d produced papers for her to sign with a nurse as a witness. Deke hadn’t said another word to her and walked out of the room—and her life. She had cried for a week.
The tears had eventually stopped, but not the torment—the torment of knowing she’d given birth to a child. She had thought she would get over it, but she’d never stopped thinking about her baby. She had never stopped thinking and wondering. Had it been a son or a daughter? Was it well? Was it happy?
Just thinking it all through again gave Angie a measure of release. There was less tension in her expression when she turned to look at Deke. He was quietly studying her. She softened at the absence of hostility in his eyes.
“Don’t you see, Deke?” Angie reasoned. “I had to come. I had to see Lindy.” She wanted to tell him how exciting it was just to know the name of her child. “I had to know she was happy and healthy.”
But his look became hard and measuring. “You’ve seen her. She’s doing just fine, you accomplished what you set out to do.” There was a slight pause. “What time are you leaving in the morning?”
Angie caught her lower lip between her teeth and turned back to the chest of drawers. She stared at her hands, holding onto the carved ledge around it.
“I’m not leaving, Deke,” she replied quietly.
“Like hell you’re not.” His low voice broke over her like distant thunder, threatening and angry. In the next second, his hand was gripping her upper arm in a talon-hard hold and swinging her around to face him. He caught the other arm in a matching grip.
“I can’t go, Deke,” Angie exhorted him to understand. “I thought I could. I thought if I saw her, it would be enough, but it isn’t. I want to see her again—all the time. I want her back, Deke.”
His fingers bit into her flesh, cutting off the circulation. “Do you think you can walk back into her life as easily as you walked out of it?” he charged. “Do you honestly believe I would allow it?”
“Is it asking so much to let me see her sometimes? You’ve had her all to yourself all this time,” she appealed. “Can’t you share her with me now?”
His hands tightened for a fraction of a second before Deke pushed her away from him as if he was revolted by the physical contact with her. “No.”
As he started to walk away, Angie realized he was intending to leave. She ran after him, catching him by the arm, but he shrugged her off. She finally pushed in front of him to block the way, pressing her back against the closed door.
“Why can’t you listen to me?” she demanded indignantly,” angered by the way he was autocratically brushing aside her pleas.
“I’ve listened to you,” he returned evenly. “You should have considered this possibility when you gave up all rights to your daughter. Now you want them back, or at least partially. I suppose you expect me to feel sorry for you. Well, I don’t.”
“What about Lindy?” Angie retorted, stung by his complete lack of sympathy. “Don’t you think she needs a mother’s love?”
“Lindy is a happy, well-adjusted child. As far as she’s concerned, and everyone else in town, her mother is dead. It seemed kinder than telling her that her mother simply didn’t want her.”
“I—” Angie attempted to protest.
“Can you imagine how confused she’d be if I brought you home and said, ’Lindy, this is your mother. I guess she didn’t die a
fter all.’” Deke mocked, but there was a very definite logic.
Angie relented slightly. “It isn’t necessary for you to tell her who I am. You could introduce me as a distant relative. Deke, I only want to be with her—to have her spend an afternoon or a day with me now and again,” she pleaded.
“For how long?” He eyed her coldly. “How long before you got tired of playing mother? Suppose Lindy grows to love you and a few months down the road, you leave and simply forget to come back. Do you think she’ll understand if seven years go by before she sees you again?” His challenge was coolly sarcastic, meant to hurt.
“That won’t happen,” Angie stated.
“It will. That’s your pattern.” His gaze ran over her face, taking in the delicate features and missing their underlying strengths. “I’m not going to let you hurt Lindy. You use people, Angie. You use them and toss them aside when the grass looks greener somewhere else. That isn’t going to happen to my daughter.”
“You’re wrong,” she protested. “I’m not like that at all.” But Angie could tell by his cynical look that he wasn’t convinced. It became imperative that she make him understand. She took a step toward him, her hands coming up in a gesture of earnestness. “I’ve grown up, Deke. Wanting to know my own daughter isn’t a passing fad to me.” Unconsciously she curved her fingers over the leather lapels of his jacket. His gray eyes were wary, studying her closely. “It isn’t easy for me to admit that I made a mistake in giving her up, but I thought I could handle it. I thought the pain would eventually go away. But she’s a part of me. I’ll always want to be with her—the same as you do.”
Her head was tipped back so she could look fully into his eyes and see if her words were making any impression on him at all. Something flickered in iron depths. For a second, Angie thought she had finally reached him. Then his glance drifted to the parted curve of her lips.
A potent sensation of deja vu washed through her and she swayed slightly under its dizzying effect. His hands moved to rest on the soft points of her hipbones, lightly holding her. This had all happened before, so many times that she couldn’t recall the number. It was a repetitive pattern with its own set of signals.