Читать книгу Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion - Barbara McCauley - Страница 16

Ten

Dear God, how she’d misjudged him! “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wondering how anyone survived losing a child.

“It’s not your fault.”

“And it wasn’t yours. It was an accident,” she said then saw recrimination darken his gaze.

“So I told myself. But if I hadn’t insisted upon taking her…” He scowled. “Look, it happened. Over five years ago. No reason to bring it up now.”

Randi’s heart split. For all of his denials, the pain was fresh in him. “Do you have a picture?”

“What?”

“Of your daughter?”

When he hesitated, she crawled out of the sleeping bag. “I’d like to see.”

“This isn’t a good idea.”

“Not the first,” she said as she crossed the room. Reluctantly he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. Randi’s throat closed as she took the battered leather and gazed at the plastic-encased photograph of a darling little girl. Blond pigtails framed a cherubic face that seemed primed for the camera’s eye. Under apple cheeks, her tiny grin showed off perfect little baby teeth. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yes.” He nodded, his lips thin and tight. “She was.”

“I apologize if I said anything insensitive before. I didn’t know.”

“I don’t talk about it much.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Don’t think so.” He took the wallet from her fingers and snapped it shut.