Читать книгу Secret Baby, Second Chance - Jane Godman - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThe shock of seeing Vincente on her doorstep robbed Beth of the power to do anything. Thought, speech, movement—those basic functions deserted her just when she needed them most. The only thing she seemed capable of doing with any degree of competence was stare at him. Just stare...and maybe, deep down inside, feel the old longing to throw herself into his arms. But those days were gone. She wasn’t that person anymore. She didn’t have the luxury of acting on impulse where he was concerned. Where anything was concerned.
“What’s her name?” Vincente threw her off balance with the question. Like I was well-balanced before he asked.
“Lia.” It was surreal. She had pictured seeing him again so many times, but it had never been like this. She had imagined she would be cool and collected. Not that he would take away the ability to think of anything except how wonderful it was to see him again.
“You gave our daughter an Italian name?”
“No, my mother’s name was Amelia.” Even as she said the words, Beth realized her mistake. Vincente had said “our daughter,” and she hadn’t denied it. She lifted an impatient shoulder at the thought. Why would she deny it? Lia was his daughter. He only had to look at her to know that.
“Can I hold her?” Beth was amazed at the humble note in Vincente’s voice. It was something she had never heard before, had never imagined he was capable of.
“She’s not great with strangers.” She issued the warning just as Lia decided to take matters into her own hands.
Holding her plump little arms up to Vincente, she wriggled her body away from her mother and toward him. Beth was so surprised at this phenomenon that she could only stare in astonishment as she handed Lia over. Vincente gazed into his daughter’s big brown eyes with an expression of wonderment. In that instant, something inside Beth’s chest lurched.
“Woof,” Lia commented solemnly.
“It’s her only real word,” Beth explained. “She copies the dog.”
“Is that good or bad?” Vincente couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from Lia’s face. “I don’t know anything about these things.”
“Well, she’s only eleven months, so she makes lots of sounds, but actual words aren’t really her thing.” For the second time that morning, she became conscious that she was keeping a visitor standing on the doorstep. But this wasn’t just any visitor. It was Vincente. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Fire blazed in the dark depths of his eyes. She could see him fighting to keep his anger under control for Lia’s sake. When he spoke, his jaw muscles were rigid. “I agree. Finding out I have an eleven-month-old daughter that you didn’t have the decency to tell me about is the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.”
Vincente’s moods had no gray areas, only extremes, but his anger had never scared Beth. Now, it terrified her. Not because she feared he would hurt her. This was Vincente. She knew he was incapable of doing her any physical harm. It wasn’t fear of him that had made her flee Stillwater. But his gaze was a knife in her ribs, digging deeper with each passing second. Where once there had been warmth, there was now only contempt.
A fierce longing to tell him the truth swept over her, and she thrust it aside. Annoyance bubbled up in its place, and she hugged that emotion to her. It was typical of Vincente to do it this way. To confront her, invade her space, then become judge and jury and deliver his verdict all within the space of a few minutes.
“I’ve moved on with my life.” She tried for a hard tone as she delivered the words. It wasn’t true, but she needed to convince Vincente it was.
“Fine.” The disdain left his eyes as they moved from Beth’s face to Lia’s. “Maybe we could continue this inside, since I’m not walking away now I know I have a daughter?”
Inviting him in would make a huge statement. But what would she gain by keeping him standing here? She knew Vincente’s stubbornness only too well. When he said he wasn’t going anywhere, he meant it. The thunderstorm was coming. Where it took place was irrelevant. She led Vincente into the family room, and he sat on one of the sofas. Lia commenced an exploration of his face, pulling at his neatly trimmed beard and trying to poke him in the eye. Her delighted squeals broke the ice, and Beth found herself smiling at Vincente’s efforts to hold on to the squirming little bundle. Conscious of the untidy room, her shirt with its missing button and the stain on the front where Lia had spilled milk that morning at breakfast, Beth made a hurried movement to pick up some of the abandoned toys that littered the floor.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Even though it was the obvious question, it stopped her in her tracks. Since she had no idea where to begin with an answer, the series of increasingly anguished howls that rent the air provided a welcome reprieve.
“What the hell is that?” Vincente looked horrified.
“It’s my dog, Melon. He wants to come in.” Beth went through to the back of the house and opened the door.
When Melon reached the door of the family room, he paused, his ears flattening and his tail drooping. Beth could almost read the dog’s mind. Visitors were a rarity, but Melon was a sociable creature, and, on the whole, he liked them. This one, however, had the audacity to place his hands on Melon’s beloved baby. That couldn’t be tolerated.
Crouching low, Melon bared his teeth and growled at Vincente. Since aggression toward humans wasn’t in his nature, he mitigated the threat by wagging his tail.
“Sit!” Vincente’s voice was stern. Beth recalled that he always did have a way with animals.
Melon, clearly realizing the error of his ways, dashed over to him, and attempted to lick his hand. “I said ‘sit.’”
To Beth’s amazement, Melon sat.
“He doesn’t do that for me.” She couldn’t keep the aggrieved note out of her voice.
“You have to show him who’s boss.” Vincente snapped his fingers. Melon sidled forward, resting his head on Vincente’s knee and gazing up at him with adoring eyes.
Beth took a deep breath. “Look, I’m not trying to avoid this conversation, but I have a huge amount of work to do and the deadline is tomorrow. And I need to get Lia’s lunch ready...”
“You look tired.” Vincente’s eyes probed her face. Although it felt strange to have him here, a comment such as that was oddly comforting. It reminded her how well he knew her. He was the only person who really did. “More than tired. You look done in, Beth.”
“You have no idea.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Lia is teething, so she’s not sleeping too well right now. I’m trying to fit work around her schedule, but since she doesn’t really have a schedule—”
“Why don’t you get some rest while I look after her?” The blunt words cut across her floundering and the hard look in his eyes had softened slightly, but the tension level between them remained high.
This was classic Vincente. Like a seasoned boxer, he knew how to cause a distraction before delivering the knockout blow. “I thought you wanted to talk?”
There was a razor edge to his smile. “Okay. Go. Tell me why I wasn’t even worth a call or a message.”
Beth wanted to go to him. To take his face in her hands and tell him how much he meant to her, how much their time together had meant. But although he looked like Vincente, he was a stranger. A hard, cold man who had put up a barrier between them. And she knew that, no matter what she said, it would only push him further behind that barricade.
“There is nothing I can say to make this right.”
Even behind the anger, she could see Vincente’s pain. In the past, she’d have known how to take the hurt away. This time, she was the cause. The knowledge caused tiny shards of ice to pierce her heart.
“You don’t get off that lightly, Beth.” She could see his muscles bunched tight beneath his T-shirt as he held his fists clenched. “This isn’t like that time you drove my car into the wall and forgot to tell me. Or when I smashed that old china cat.”
That was it. Vincente had always known how to get to her. Despite her determination to stay calm, Beth felt anger crashing through her. How dare he bring up past hurts at a time like this?
“You mean the antique figurine my grandmother left me? The one you broke and didn’t tell me? The one I found in pieces in the trash?”
“Exactly.” There was triumph in his eyes. “This isn’t anything so trivial. This is about how we made another person and you didn’t even bother to call me.”
To her horror, Beth felt tears burn the back of her eyelids. When she tried to speak again, her lips trembled and her voice refused to work. Vincente started to speak again, but she held up a hand.
“No more.” The word was little more than a croak and she struggled to get her voice back under control. Pointing to Lia, she shook her head. “Not in front of her.” She took a deep breath. “And you’re right. I’m tired.”
His expression was grim, but she saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. “So do what I suggested. Get some rest.” The inflexible note was still there. “Because we are having this conversation, Beth. Whether you want it or not.”
Flustered, she tried to hit on a reason to refuse that didn’t involve going straight to ordering him out of her house. “She doesn’t settle easily with people she doesn’t know.” Since Lia was curled comfortably into the crook of his arm, that excuse wasn’t going to work. “You’re not used to children.”
“No, I’m not, but you’ll only be upstairs. You’re dead on your feet, Beth. I’m worried about you.” In place of the continuing tempest, the unexpectedly gentle note in his voice shook her equilibrium even further.
She remembered that knack he had of catching her off guard. He was right. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than an hour or two at a stretch. If she didn’t get some rest soon, she would fall down. And what use would she be if she was exhausted? If she didn’t meet tomorrow’s deadline, she would lose her job. She was already behind with the rent...
The situation was ridiculous. How many times had she pictured meeting Vincente again? Not once had the imaginary conversations she had conducted in her head included him offering to babysit. And behind the concern, she knew—because who knew him better than she did?—that his anger that was still waiting to be unleashed.
“Let me do this, Beth.” A persuasive note in his voice, the one she hated because he used it to get her to do just about anything he wanted, made an appearance. “For old times’ sake.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.” She rolled her eyes.
He laughed. “Nor can I. The shock must have gone to my head.”
“Okay.” She had never thought of Vincente Delaney as an angel in disguise—the thought caused her to smile inwardly, since she had occasionally thought of him as a devil in disguise—but there had to be a first time for everything.
“All Lia’s toys are in the box over there. There is pasta in the fridge for her lunch and she likes banana after it. She’ll drink plain water from her own special cup. Oh, and her diapers and wipes are in this bag.”
Vincente’s calm deserted him slightly at those words. “I can come and get you if we have a diaper situation, right? That’s something I’m going to need to do under supervision the first time.” First time? The words had a confidence about them that unsettled her.
“Wake me if there’s a problem.”
She went to the door, turning back to look at him as he bent to talk to Lia. Although seeing Vincente here had tilted her world off course, the effect he was exerting over her pulse was not entirely due to the shock. He always did have the power to knock her sideways with his presence. Even though she had spent a lot of time over the last sixteen months dwelling on her memories of him, she had underestimated his magnetism.
What was she thinking? Every rational thought screamed at her to get him out of here. She had broken all her ties with Stillwater for a reason. A dangerous, life-threatening reason. Leaving had hurt more than she’d believed possible. Leaving Vincente? That had been its own kind of hell. She’d never known if they’d last forever. The longest they’d ever managed was a few months. Not because they didn’t care. We cared too much. That had always been their problem. Everything between them was too much. Too passionate. Too intense. Too raw. Too hungry. It was like they burned each other up whenever they were together. But Beth had never imagined being with anyone else. Had never imagined her life without Vincente in it, even if it was only in their own, unique, on-off, tempestuous way. Until the letter and the photographs. They had changed everything.
“Get some sleep, Beth.” Vincente’s dark eyes seemed to read her thoughts. “Then we’ll talk some more.”
Just this one time, she told herself sternly, and only because I’m so tired. Then we’ll talk some more.
Those words had an ominous ring to them.
* * *
Vincente’s mind wanted to dwell on the shock to his system. He was struggling to know what to feel, although anger was making a strong case for being his most powerful emotion. How could Beth keep something like this from him? If Lia was eleven months old, that meant Beth had to have been four months pregnant when she left Stillwater. Vincente thought back to the roller-coaster ride that was their relationship. Yes, four months before Beth left, they’d been right in the middle of one of the most intense “on” times of their on-off periods. Soon after, they’d split up following a fight over something or other. He couldn’t recall the reason, but he did remember Beth calling him arrogant and conceited before she slammed out the door.
Anger continued to bubble deep inside him, as hot and destructive as lava. It churned and boiled, desperate for release, and he knew there was a real danger of becoming too much for him to handle. He wanted to find a release. Slam his hand down on a table, kick a door, shout at the person responsible...
Four months and she didn’t tell me? She came to my apartment the night she left Stillwater and she didn’t mention that she was carrying my child? She left me sleeping and walked out of my life, prepared for me to never know about this person who shares my DNA?
He couldn’t reconcile those thoughts with the Beth he knew. They’d always been honest with each other. From the moment they got together that first time they’d known what they had was different. Unique. Mind-blowing. But Beth had always known the truth about Vincente. He couldn’t commit to a normal relationship. Hearts, flowers and promises of forever weren’t for him. It didn’t take much soul-searching to find the reasons why.
Even within his own family, Vincente had always felt like an outsider. The only unpredictable thing his rancher father ever did was fall in love with a beautiful Italian socialite. When Kane Delaney brought Giovanna Alberti home to Stillwater, she had batted her long eyelashes at him and declared that Wyoming was too boring to be her home. By the time Vincente was born, the marriage was in its death throes.
Even their son’s name had been a cause for disagreement. Giovanna had wanted a full-on Italian name, while Kane had held out for something more American. In the end, they had compromised. Instead of the Italian “Vicente” or the American “Vincent,” they had named him “Vincente.” It was a metaphor for his life. With a foot in each world, he belonged in neither.
The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers before Vincente’s mother had reverted to her maiden name and returned to Florence. Although he saw her occasionally, her aristocratic world might as well have been a million miles away from his Stillwater home.
Vincente knew Beth wasn’t like his mother. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that she would walk out on him and break his heart the way Giovanna had done to Kane. No, he was more afraid that he would be the one to hurt her. All he knew for sure was, however much he wanted Beth—and Vincente had never wanted anything in his life as much as he’d wanted Beth—there was something missing in his psyche. Call it the Alberti gene. We don’t do long-term. His mother was on her fifth marriage. He was not going to put Beth through the same sort of torture.
And Beth had understood. She had always accepted him for what he was. Their relationship hadn’t been one-sided. It hadn’t been about her trying to get a ring on her finger and him resisting. It had always just been them. Doing it their own way.
Of course, a baby would have changed things. How? He couldn’t answer that because the knowledge that Lia even existed had only just hit him. Had Beth run out on him because she thought he wouldn’t be able to cope with the commitment? A wave of shame washed over him at the thought. She must have known him better than that. Surely, she must. If she thought he would leave her to cope with their child on her own, then she hadn’t known him at all.
That brought another emotion to sit alongside the anger. As he looked down at Lia’s perfect features, he felt an overwhelming sadness.
He hadn’t wanted a child. If anyone had asked him why, he’d have said he’d be the world’s worst dad. He was selfish, impatient, untidy, and he didn’t like responsibility. Also, no sleep, no free time, no social life? No, thank you.
Now, he was in shock as his feelings on the subject had sharply reversed. Because how could he not want this beautiful little being? And how much of her life had he already missed? He hadn’t been there when she was born. Hadn’t heard that first cry or seen her first smile. She was crawling, pulling herself upright and making noises. Some of them almost sounded like words. She had a personality all her own...quite a strong one from what he’d seen so far. She looks like me. This little person has been growing up without me. The mingled feelings of joy and loss tugged at something deep within him.
Other than telling her Giovanna had left when he was a baby, he’d never talked to Beth about his mother, but she must have known there was a twisted branch in the Delaney family tree. It didn’t take much imagination to work out that Giovanna’s abandonment was at the root of Vincente’s issues. The loss of a parent had impacted his whole life. Yet Beth had repeated the pattern with Lia?
He wanted to storm and rage at Beth for what she’d done, but he also needed to find out why she’d done it. This was Beth. Beth, to whom he had been closer than any other person in his whole life. There had to be a reason why she had deprived him of almost a year of his daughter’s life. He had to get this right, for all they’d once been to each other, but also for the innocent child who was caught up in the middle of this.
The innocent child who was sliding from his knee with a purposeful glint in her eye. Vincente had never realized it was possible to move so fast at a crawl. Before he knew it, she had reached a vase of flowers and toppled it onto the floor. As he stooped to pick them up, she launched herself at the dog, grabbing him by the tail. Melon let out a yowl and ran for the door. That was the moment when Vincente decided it was probably a good idea to postpone the soul-searching and concentrate on the babysitting.
As he watched Lia and tried to keep up with her, some of the negative emotion coursing through him melted away. It was replaced by a new warmth as he felt an immediate connection to his daughter.
She was his. As well as the physical similarities, he could see other traits they had in common. When he tried to take something from her, a militant light entered her eye and she thrust out her chin, mirroring his own stubbornness. As he sat with her and tried to help her stack her blocks, she brushed his hand away, determined to try it for herself.
Although he’d been consumed by rage and shock as he’d crossed the threshold of this house, he’d resolved to do his duty. He had a child and he would take care of her. What he hadn’t expected was this rush of pure joy he felt every time he looked at her.
Lia might look like him, but her smile was all Beth...or the Beth he’d once known.
He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Beth he was worried about her. Physically, she had barely changed, but there were other differences that became more apparent the longer he was with her. She was wound as tight as a coiled spring, tension apparent in every part of her slender body. The way she held herself taut as though poised for flight, the tilt of her head as if she was listening for a subtle sound and the way those glorious denim-blue eyes refused to settle on one thing. He had thought at first it was because she was unable to make eye contact with him. Gradually, he realized her gaze was constantly moving, checking her territory, seeking reassurance that everything was normal.
She was exhausted. That had been apparent the moment he set eyes on her. And he had used it to his advantage. By offering to look after Lia while she got some rest, he supposed he had been manipulative, but wasn’t he entitled to be devious in the circumstances? He had just come face-to-face with the daughter he didn’t know he had. And he hadn’t been entirely underhanded. Although, after the initial shock had worn off, his first emotion had been simmering rage, he could sense Beth’s turmoil. Offering to look after Lia while she got some rest served a number of purposes. He got the chance to spend precious time with his daughter—a tiny fraction of the eleven months I’ve lost—Beth could recoup some of her strength for what promised to be the ordeal of the conversation they needed to have and Vincente could catch his breath.
He suspected he and Laurie were the only visitors this house had seen in a long time. Lia was immaculately dressed, but, like Beth herself, the house was clean without being exactly cared for. It was far from being a hovel, but her nervousness, together with the way she fussed around, picking up toys and plucking at the stain on her shirt, drew his attention to the details. She was clearly focused on appearances and finding them lacking. What had happened to the happy, sociable woman he’d known in Stillwater? Yes, Beth had a baby now, but would that turn her into a recluse? He didn’t know enough about these things. Maybe it would.
But what worried him more than anything was the feeling he got that all this was about more than being protective of her child. No, it wasn’t a feeling. He knew her too well. It was a certainty. Beth was scared. More than scared. She was terrified.
* * *
Beth woke abruptly with a rising sense of panic. She was fully dressed, lying on top of the bedclothes. How could she be asleep during the day? What about Lia? Gradually, the events of the morning came back to her and she heaved a sigh of relief. The sensation of contentment soon dissipated when she realized what she had done. I left Lia with Vincente. Today might be the day I actually took leave of my senses. She sat up abruptly. After sixteen months in hiding, she had not only opened her door to the man she had decided never to see again, she had blithely handed her daughter over to him.
Our daughter, she reminded herself. Lia would be safe with Vincente; there was no question about that. The problem was, now Vincente knew he had a daughter, there could be no going back. He would want to be involved in her life. That was a conversation that was going to take every ounce of Beth’s considerably depleted energy.
Pausing only to run a brush through her hair, drag it back into its ponytail and slip her ballet flats back on, she made her way back down the stairs. When she reached the family room, a scene of total devastation greeted her. Vincente was seated on the floor, half reclining against the sofa. His shirt was pulled out of his jeans and his hair and beard were smeared with something that looked suspiciously like dried banana. Lia was asleep with her head on his shoulder.
“She trashed the place,” he whispered. His expression was stunned. “As soon as you left the room, she just went for it.”
Every toy Lia owned was scattered across the floor. The wildflowers Beth had picked the day before were shredded into tiny pieces. The vase they had been in lay on its side and water formed a pool on the carpet around it. Cushions and throws had been dragged from the sofas and piled in a heap on the floor. It looked like a whirlwind had been through the room. And it had. Beth knew what Whirlwind Lia at full force could do. Vincente would not have stood a chance.
“I think she wore herself out.” Vincente smiled ruefully as he indicated the sleeping figure in his arms.
Although she had only just woken up, Beth felt weariness crowding in on her once more. Stooping, she lifted her slumbering daughter into her arms. “I’ll take her upstairs.”
As she carried Lia from the room, she was aware of Vincente watching her intently. Once upstairs, she settled the warm, sleeping bundle into her crib, pulling a blanket over her. There was a draft coming through the open window, which she closed before returning to the crib. Bending to kiss Lia’s soft cheek, she studied her face for a moment or two. Sleeping or waking, she could watch her forever. Right now, she supposed she should go and get the less attractive task of talking to Vincente over with.
When she reached the den, Vincente had picked up the throws and cushions and placed them back on the sofas. He paused in the act of placing Lia’s toys back in their box. “No wonder you look tired.”
“Laurie said she wouldn’t tell you where I lived.”
“She didn’t.” His expression was half wary, half apologetic. “I followed her without her knowledge.” He ran a hand over his face and, feeling the residue of the banana, grimaced. “Is there somewhere I can clean up?”
Beth directed him to the bathroom and went into the kitchen to fix coffee, shaking her head at the normality of the situation. This was Vincente. The thought was on a loop inside her head. They didn’t do polite conversation. They’d never needed words. The last time she’d seen him, she had kicked his apartment door shut and torn his shirt off. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few sentences that night. It had almost killed her to sneak out of his apartment without saying goodbye. She had left his apartment, gotten into the car that was already loaded with her luggage and driven out of Stillwater for good. The ultimate irony had come two weeks later, when she realized that the recurring stomach bug that had been bothering her was actually a four-month pregnancy.
Vincente reappeared with his shirt tucked in and the banana removed. As Beth poured the coffee, she was conscious of those melting dark eyes watching her face. “When were you planning on eating lunch?”
“Don’t do this, Vincente.” She handed him his coffee and took her own to the table, grimacing as she viewed the paperwork that she still hadn’t touched. If she pulled another all-nighter, she might just meet the deadline.
“Do what?” He came to sit opposite her.
“I know these tactics. This is where you soften me up before you go for the kill.” She took a deep breath. “I know how angry you are. Just say what you have to say.”
He didn’t speak for a moment or two and she took in the tight set of his jaw, the glitter in the dark depths of his eyes and the way his clenched fist rested on his muscled thigh. “You think angry comes close to describing what I’m feeling right now? I’m so far beyond that it’s not true. But I want to understand why you cheated me out of almost a year of Lia’s life. I’m trying to contain my feelings so we can have some sort of rational dialogue for the sake of that little girl upstairs, and because I’m concerned about you—”
“Oh, no.” Beth sprang to her feet. “I see where this is going. You think you can walk in here and pull a stunt like that?”
“What the hell are you talking about? What stunt?” Vincente looked up at her, his expression bemused.
“Get some rest, Beth. Let me do this for you, Beth. For old times’ sake?” Her voice quivered as she mimicked his concerned tone. “What will you tell the judge when you try to take my daughter away? You turned up here and found I was incapable of looking after her? Depressed? Unstable? An unfit mother?”
Vincente got to his feet, facing her across the width of the table. “Is that what you think?” His voice was harsh. “That I’ve changed so much I would do that to you?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that losing her...it’s my worst nightmare.” He didn’t know—couldn’t know—what she’d been through. The debilitating anxiety and isolation of post-partum depression was something she still found hard to come to terms with, even now she was over the worst of it. At times like this, when she felt under pressure, some of the symptoms resurfaced. She no longer needed medication, but she did occasionally keep in touch with her counselor. Right now, she focused on regulating her breathing. It was one of the techniques she had learned for coping with stress.
“Beth, no matter what I’m feeling, I would never try to take Lia from you.”
Beth knew Vincente well enough to sense when she could trust him. He couldn’t be trusted to turn up on time to a date. She couldn’t trust him to remember birthdays and anniversaries. No matter how many times she told him, trusting him to remember that she hated anchovies on her pizza never worked. But when it came to the big things? She knew he would never lie to her. This was one of those times. There was nothing but truth in those dark eyes.
“I still want an answer to my question. Why did you leave Stillwater without telling me you were pregnant?”
She took her seat again, making an effort to relax the tension in her limbs. Following her lead, Vincente sat down, as well. How could she tell this story without telling him all of it? Vincente wasn’t a fool. He was the smartest person she knew. Not only was he the most quick-witted, well-read, articulate person to have made her acquaintance, but he was also the most perceptive. And where Beth was concerned, he was incredibly intuitive. He had always been able to tell when she was lying.
“It wasn’t like that.” She took a sip of her coffee, buying a little time. “I didn’t know I was expecting a baby when I left Stillwater.”
“Math is my job, Beth. I’ve already done the calculations. Lia is eleven months old. That means you must have been four months pregnant when you ran away—” she nodded in confirmation “—yet you didn’t know?” His voice said it all. She hadn’t been some kid who didn’t know her own body. She had been a twenty-seven-year-old attorney with a promising career.
“I had a lot on my mind.” God, those words sounded so lame. But it was true. The newspaper report had arrived two months before she left Stillwater. She hadn’t known that Lia had already been growing inside her, hadn’t noticed the missed periods and the changes in her body. Her whole focus had been on the nagging worry at the back of her mind. The worry that had ratcheted up to a whole new level a month later with the arrival of the letter and the first photograph. By the time the next one turned up in her mailbox a week before she left Stillwater, she had been half-crazy with worry. Any physical symptoms her body had been displaying had come second to the turmoil of her emotions.
Receiving anonymous threats had been bad enough. When those warnings became directed at anyone close to her, she had panicked. Because there was only one person close to her. Whether he liked it or not, Vincente had been the one who meant the most to her. Even though it had broken her heart to leave, even though missing him had been a constant ache ever since, it had seemed like the only way she could protect him.
Now he was here, and she couldn’t tell him the truth. I’ll come after the ones you love... Even the thought of those words made her shiver.
Vincente frowned. Clearly, he wasn’t buying her explanation. Beth didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t herself if she was the one listening to it. A lot on my mind. It was a classic fobbing-off phrase. His lips parted in preparation to ask more just as a cry from the baby monitor, for the second time that day, provided an interruption.
This cry was different. This wasn’t one of Lia’s usual noises. It was a high-pitched scream that brought Beth straight to her feet and had her running for the door. At the same time, out in the yard, Melon went into a frenzy of barking.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Picking up on her panic, Vincente was right behind her as she dashed up the stairs.
“Someone is in Lia’s room.”
