Almost Home Part 28

"And what were you going to tell me if you found her?"

"I figured seeing her again would make up for what I did. I'm sorry if I made your pain worse. I thought it was the right thing to do."

"It's not enough to say that you're sorry. It's not enough. d.a.m.n you!" She paced around the room, restless and reckless and wanting to break something. She saw their wedding photo sitting on the dresser, and couldn't stop herself from picking it up and throwing it against the wall. The gla.s.s shattered as it fell to the ground. But it wasn't enough to break just her picture. So she reached for the vase filled with water and flowers and sent it hurtling across the room. She moved on to the other dresser and the bedside tables, sweeping off the lamps and the knickknacks and all the things that filled her life. And when she was done, she collapsed on the bed. "I hate you, Harry. Why did you do this? Why?"

"I wanted to stop the pain."

"Who's Katherine's father?" Claire asked abruptly.

"I don't know."

"More lies? Tell me now or risk losing what little we have left."

Chapter 17.

Mary Jo knew it was both cowardly and undignified to search through J.T.'s things when he wasn't home. But she didn't feel she had any other choice. She had to know for sure if J.T. was Katherine Whitfield's father. If he was, he had to have fathered Katherine in the weeks before their wedding, which meant he was sleeping with someone else at the same time he was vowing to love her forever.

Over the years she'd gotten used to the idea that he might be cheating on her, especially since he hadn't made love to her in a long time. It wasn't difficult to jump to the conclusion that his needs were being met elsewhere. But the thought of those needs being met in the midst of their courtship was more difficult to swallow, and the thought of J.T. having a child, when he obviously couldn't father one with her, made her feel only that much worse about her infertility.

The doctors had never specifically pointed her out as the culprit. Somehow it was the two of them together that just didn't work. But if J.T. had a daughter, then it was obviously her own failure as a woman that had prevented them from conceiving a child.

As Mary Jo paused in the doorway to J.T.'s private sanctum, his study-once her father's study-she considered her options one last time. She'd always respected J.T.'s privacy. Perhaps she was stupid, but she'd never opened his mail and she'd been content to let him handle the checkbook and the bank accounts on his own. Her mother had always left the business to her father. It was the way Mary Jo had been raised, and she'd never thought to change.

But she knew that their business was failing. She had J.T.'s behavior as proof, not to mention the rumors swirling around the horse circles that their farm was on the decline. It broke her heart to think of the ranch leaving the family, but if J.T. was running it into the ground, then she might have to step in and do something with her 51 percent share of the business.

When she'd made her threat to J.T. about selling out to Zach Tyler, it had been just that-an impulsive threat. Now she wondered if she might actually have to do it. If Katherine Whitfield turned out to be J.T.'s daughter, that would place her in line to eventually inherit the farm, and Mary Jo couldn't stand by and let that happen. She'd rather Zach Tyler had it than some b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of her husband.

It was ironic that her father had wanted her to marry J.T. because he didn't believe a woman could run the ranch. She wondered what her father would think if he could see the results of his matchmaking.

If she sold her half to Zach Tyler, J.T. would be forced out. And Zach could save the ranch the way he'd saved Stanton Farms when Harry had had his heart attack. It was an idea that had begun to take hold and grow in her head. She'd stood by and let things roll for far too long. There was no one else who could save the farm but her.

Mary Jo walked into the study and picked up the photograph of her father that still sat proudly on the corner of the desk. J.T. had once told her he'd never admired a man more than he'd admired her father.

But J.T. was letting her father down. His drinking, his womanizing, his gambling, had gotten out of control. She had to put a stop to things. She just needed some proof, something to hold up to J.T. to refute his lies.

J.T. was a pack rat. He'd always saved everything, every sc.r.a.p of paper, every receipt, every birthday card. She just hoped his tendencies would help her discover the truth about an affair that had to have occurred almost twenty-eight years ago.

Mary Jo still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea of J.T. being a father. They'd spent so many years trying to have a baby. Well, she thought, stiffening her spine, if he did have a daughter, then that daughter could keep him company while he found a new job and a new family. Because Mary Jo was washing her hands of him.

She just hoped she could go through with it. She'd never been alone-not once in her entire life. She'd never even left home, only changed bedrooms. Mary Jo glanced away from the large gla.s.s-covered mahogany desk to the closet door that led into a small room filled with filing cabinets. She had a feeling anything from that far back would be in the closet.

Mary Jo walked into the closet and stared at the shelves lining all three walls. There were several two-drawer filing cabinets as well, and she started with those, leafing through file after file with a ruthlessness that built with each pa.s.sing moment. Most of the business records were in the farm office, so these were J.T.'s personal files.

Everything seemed in order, surprisingly in order. Until she hit the credit card files. Sitting down on the floor, she spread the bills from the last year in front of her. Flowers, lingerie, hotel rooms-there were charges for them all, places she'd never been, shops she didn't know existed, many of them near racetracks across the country. Each charge made her blood boil and her resolve grow stronger.

Ruthlessly she pushed the bills back into the folder and moved down to the next drawer. She wasn't interested in the past year. She needed to go further back.

An hour later she was left with the shoe boxes lining the top shelf. She pulled down two, sneezing at the flurry of dust along the lids. J.T. must not have looked at these boxes in a while. She took them down to the floor and opened the first one. Her eyes widened in surprise. Love letters she'd written to J.T. lay in piles in the box. She couldn't believe he'd saved them.

She stopped to read a few lines here and there, not realizing she was crying until her tears smeared the ink on the page. She'd been so young, so foolish, so desperate to have a man in her life. She'd thrown herself at J.T. as if he were the last man on earth. As the letters became too painful to read, Mary Jo set them aside. She didn't want to be reminded that she had once loved her husband.

Shoving the lid back on the first box, she reached for the second one. As she opened it, a lavender scent drifted into the room. It was Margaret's scent, she realized instantly. But why would Margaret's scent linger in a shoe box all these years?

Mary Jo reached for an envelope. With shaky fingers she opened the seal. Inside was a single photograph, a gloriously beautiful color shot of Margaret Stanton lying on a couch completely naked.

Mary Jo's jaw dropped open as she saw Margaret in all her beauty, a s.e.xy, inviting smile on her lips, a beckoning tilt to her head. She tried to breathe, but found it difficult to catch her breath. J.T. and Margaret? She'd thought they were just friends...

"Mary Jo?"

She heard her name being called, but she couldn't respond. She couldn't look anywhere but at the picture in her hands.

"What are you doing?"

Mary Jo looked up at J.T. He stood in the doorway, rage on his bl.u.s.tery red face, fear in his eyes.

"You were in love with Margaret," she said in confusion.

"Those are my private things. You have no business looking at them."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She searched his face for some clue, but J.T., the man she'd lived with for twenty-seven years, seemed like a complete stranger.

"There was nothing to tell."

"Obviously there was." She held up the photograph in her hand.

"I meant to give it back to Margaret after we got married, but she disappeared. I've forgotten I even kept it."

"Really? How convenient."

He seemed taken aback by the harsh tone of her voice. "What do you want me to say? I married you, didn't I? Doesn't that prove something?"

"It proves you wanted my daddy's ranch. Did you take this photo of Margaret? Were you sleeping with her at the same time you were sleeping with me?" Her voice rose with her anger. "Were you whispering in her ear while I was planning our wedding?"

"You're getting hysterical."

She could hear the hysteria in her voice, but she didn't care, and she didn't want to calm down. "How many other women have there been? Or do you even know? I found all the receipts for the flowers, the hotel rooms. You've spent more money on your s.e.x life than-"

"Than we spent on your infertility?" he interrupted.

"My infertility?" She could barely think, she was so angry. "My infertility? What does that mean? Do you have proof that you can father a child?" She rose to her feet. "Tell me that Katherine Whitfield is not your daughter. Tell me again that you never cheated on me before we were married. Obviously there was Margaret. Did you sleep with Leeanne, too? And what about this Evelyn Jones? Who was she? Tell me, J.T. Let me hear the truth finally. You owe me that at the very least."

J.T. turned and walked out of the closet.

"d.a.m.n you, answer me," she screamed, running after him. She'd thought he'd left the room, but stopped abruptly when she saw him sitting in the chair behind his desk clutching his heart, a panicked expression on his face. A terrible fear raced through her body. "Oh, my G.o.d! What's happening?"

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then his eyes went wide and stark and terrified.

Mary Jo picked up the telephone on the desk, dialing 911 as J.T.'s eyes closed and he fell to the side of the chair.

"No," she shrieked. "No!"

But J.T. couldn't hear her or couldn't respond. He was no longer conscious. She could only pray to G.o.d that he wasn't dead.

As Katherine drove toward Stanton Farms late Thursday afternoon, she looked at the pa.s.sing scenery with a new eye. How many times had her mother driven down this road? Had Margaret-she could barely think of her mother by that name-had Margaret skipped along the white fences? Had she stopped to climb, to sit on the top plank of the fence and watch the horses playing in the sunshine as they were doing now?

Had Margaret ridden into the wind, her hair streaming behind her? Had she been happy in Paradise or only biding time until she could leave?

The questions turned over and over in Katherine's mind. She couldn't correlate the woman who'd raised her with this Margaret Stanton, this woman who'd sewn a memory quilt with her mother and ridden horses and lived on a farm and finally run away when she'd become pregnant. It all seemed so reckless, so impulsive, so foolish-all the emotions Katherine had tried to bury within herself. Because recklessness, impulsiveness, foolishness, had not been encouraged in the Whitfield home. So she'd buried them under practicality and logic and restraint. In the end she'd turned into her mother, throwing her job, her relationship with her stepparents, to the wind to chase after the dream of a romantic old hope chest.

Was she just like her mother? She'd never thought so. But come to think of it-her mother had married Mitch.e.l.l on impulse, too, after a very short courtship. And Margaret or Evelyn, as Katherine still thought of her, had changed jobs frequently, always looking for something better, something different, something she must not have had in Paradise.

Katherine searched the tiny corners of her mind where the shadows hid her mother's face, her mother's emotions, trying to remember. Everything seemed so vague now.

Who was Margaret Stanton? Who was Evelyn Whitfield? And most important-who was she?

Was she meant to work as an investment banker, to live in a condo, to grow flowers on her roof, to follow the rules and make lists and never run the yellow light, never cross in the middle of the street, and never pull the d.a.m.n tag off the pillowcase?

Katherine took a deep breath as anger warred with regret and sorrow and confusion, leaving her wanting to cry and wanting to scream and wanting to hit someone.

"Who am I?" she muttered. "Who am I supposed to be?"

The answers didn't come, but the road went on and on toward the one place she'd felt perfectly at home, Margaret's secret garden. Katherine parked alongside the road and climbed the hill with a sense of purpose. She couldn't find her mother in her thoughts, but maybe she could find her here, in the garden.

Katherine walked through the iron gates and sat down on the cement bench. Time pa.s.sed slowly, long, silent minutes, broken only by the sounds of the birds, the cool breeze rustling through the plants and flowers, and an occasional bee buzzing by in search of nectar.

She tried to imagine her mother as a young girl laughing and playing in her secret garden. But she couldn't grasp the memory, for it wasn't hers to take. She'd known her mother only as a mother. The young Margaret Stanton belonged to Claire. The woman who'd left Paradise and made a home for herself and her baby in a small apartment in California wasn't Margaret Stanton; she was Evelyn Jones.

Katherine got up from the bench and squatted down by the lavender plant she'd uncovered a few days earlier. It was already beginning to bloom, the first survivor of the chaos that surrounded it. Her fingers automatically dug into the dark earth. She tugged at the weeds, one after the other, until the sun went down, the air grew cool, and her back ached with exertion.

She didn't mind the weary ache. It kept the pain in her heart at bay. Finally, when she could do no more, she walked out of the garden and down the hill to the car she'd borrowed from Maggie. She meant to drive back to the hotel, but instead she found herself pulling into the parking lot at Stanton Farms.

After rinsing her hands under a nearby hose, she asked for Zach. One of the men pointed to a small house in the distance. It was late and if she had any sense, she would have left him alone, but her feet seemed to have a mind of their own, and within minutes she was knocking on his door.

Zach opened the door and stared at her in surprise. He was barefoot, wearing blue jeans and an unb.u.t.toned shirt that hung loosely around his chest. His hair was wet, his skin glistening from a recent shower. He looked good, so good she felt a need arise from deep down in her soul. This man, this dark, moody, unpredictable man, could make her crazy with one look.

"Katherine?"

She looked into his dark eyes and saw the wariness, the uncertainty, but not even Zach's confusion could mask the desire in his eyes. There was an intimacy to his glance, a shared memory, a connection that couldn't be denied.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"Can I come in anyway?"

Zach hesitated, then stepped back so she could enter the house.

The living room was small, only the bare essentials, a couch, a couple of chairs, a television set. There wasn't one homey touch, no flowers, no knickknacks, no pictures on the wall. It looked like a room that belonged to a person who didn't want to get too settled in case he had to leave quickly.

"What's wrong?" Zach asked. "Has my father been bothering you?"

Katherine shook her head. She didn't know how to tell him, where to begin. The day's events were all jumbled in her mind, s.n.a.t.c.hes of Claire, s.n.a.t.c.hes of her mother, Margaret, Evelyn, whoever she was.

"I know you don't want me here, but I..." She took in a deep breath and let it out. "I didn't know where else to go." She waited, wishing he'd say something, anything, even if it was only to tell her to go.

He braced his hands on his hips. "What happened? What shook you up?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Of course you do. That's why you're here."

"I'm here because I don't want to be alone."

"You found your father, didn't you?"

She shook her head. "No, but what I found out about my mother..." She couldn't go on, not now, not while it was still so fresh in her mind.

"I told you," Zach said sharply. "I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. I take it your mother's name was not Evelyn Jones."

She sighed. Why had she hoped for understanding from this man? "You were right and I was wrong. I hope that makes you feel better, because it doesn't do a d.a.m.n thing for me." Katherine sat down on his couch, folded her arms, and glared at him. "I thought since you're the only friend I have in Paradise, you might have offered a shoulder to lean on."

"That's not what you came here for," he said, his voice deep and rough. As he looked at her, as his gaze traveled across her face from her eyes to her lips to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she saw the familiar glitter of desire that made her stomach turn upside down.

"I don't even know what I came here for," she said, lying through her teeth. "How could you possibly know?"

"Because you're extremely easy to read," he said with a small smile. "You show everything in your eyes, whatever you're feeling. It's right there for the world to see."

She looked at him, barely blinking. "So what am I feeling right now?"

"Lonely."

"I'll give you a point for that."

He took a step closer to the couch. "You want to forget what you learned today." He took another step closer. "You want to lose yourself in someone's arms."

She swallowed, feeling her nerves begin to sharpen at his predatory moves. His actions were slow and deliberate and exciting.

"You want to release some of the tension," Zach continued. "You want to let out all the emotions that you're supposed to be keeping inside behind that brave little face."

"You can see all that in my eyes?"

"Oh, yeah. You want to let your hair down." He reached for the clip in her hair and pulled it out, letting her hair tumble down around her shoulders.