Читать книгу The Seven Year Secret - Roz Fox Denny - Страница 7

MALLORY HAD THOUGHT SHE’D steeled herself for this encounter with her child’s father. The only man who’d ever touched her heart. In reality, being closeted in a small room with him, knowing he was on the brink of marrying another woman, was Mallory’s worst nightmare. Or perhaps it was watching him pace the perimeter of his study, gazing in outrage and denial at Liddy’s photo, that broke Mallory’s heart and turned her stomach inside out.

Why didn’t he say something? Anything? Although, Connor O’Rourke had never been a wordy man. In the past she’d been content to spend hours with him, often without a single comment passing between them. Now, as she tracked his tense, jerky movements, she found his silence hell on her nerves.

It was only after Connor stopped in front of an oak desk in the center of the room to examine Liddy’s baby picture under the light that Mallory’s rubbery legs felt strong enough to let her join him. She’d carefully selected pictures of Liddy taken at birth, two years, four and six. “I named her Lydia Beatrice,” Mallory ventured as Connor glanced at the new offerings. “I, uh, everyone calls her Liddy Bea.”

“This isn’t some practical joke Paul and Greg conjured up, is it? This child really exists. And she’s mine.” Connor’s shell-shocked eyes lifted at last from the photo he tenderly caressed. He stared at Mallory, who had once again retreated into the shadows.

Something moved deep inside her. Finally, mercifully, she was able to do as Dr. Dahl suggested earlier—place herself in Connor’s shoes. “I shouldn’t have sprung this on you with no advance warning. I’m sorry.” Her hand fluttered. “Liddy Bea is ill, Connor. Her kidneys have stopped functioning.”

Fumbling, Mallory extracted a manila envelope from her handbag. “Her doctor’s office prepared a report for you. It explains her condition more clearly than I can.”

She thought he wasn’t going to take the envelope, but eventually he did “Considering the shock I’ve given you…” Mallory tossed back a lock of hair. “I’m sure you’ll want to study the facts and probably ask Dr. Dahl some questions before you agree to be tested. I’ve attached his card with office and home numbers. Meanwhile, I won’t intrude on your evening any longer. I have a car waiting.” She slipped by him and began collecting the photos.

“Leave them.” Connor’s hand collided with hers as they both attempted to rake in the pictures. He’d already skimmed the doctor’s report and found it difficult to comprehend. He rubbed his temple with his free hand.

She backed away slowly. The pictures had been removed from her album. But Connor deserved to have a set. With the exception of the recent school photo, all had been taken by a Tallahassee studio. She could get copies. Feeling the doorknob press into her back, Mallory reached behind her and twisted it. The outer room, which had bubbled with sound, now lay quiet as a tomb.

“Where are you going?” Connor’s ragged voice halted her retreat. “Lord, Mallory. What in hell am I supposed to think—to do—here?”

“The report is self-explanatory, Connor. Read it, think about it, call Dr. Dahl.” She shrugged nervously. “No point in wearing out my welcome. There’s really no need for us to deal with each other again. I imagine you’ll want to meet Liddy Bea. I can leave authorization with the nursing staff at Forrest Memorial if you visit while she’s there. Or…other arrangements can be made. From here on, though, any contact you have will not be with me but with Dr. Dahl or his staff. That should ease your mind a lot.”

“Really?” He stalked toward her, the report in one hand, Liddy Bea’s baby picture in the other. He shook them both under her nose. “You waltz in here after seven years of…of…nothing, announce I fathered a child, and oh, by the way, she needs one of your kidneys, Connor. Then you flit merrily out again. That’s a hell of a monkey wrench to throw in a man’s life, Mallory.” His lips twisted harshly.

She took in each feature of his rugged, anguished face before saying quietly, “You have a right to be angry with me, Connor. But it won’t change the fact that we had a child together. Nor will it alter Liddy’s situation. I’m not going to fight with you. I will get down on my knees and apologize if that’s what you need from me. There’s nothing I won’t do for Liddy Bea. Nothing.” Her quavery voice broke.

A muscle in Connor’s jaw jumped twice, and his face contorted in pain. He turned away from Mallory and made his way back to the desk, where he dropped the items he held. Flattening both palms on his desk, he braced himself with his back toward her. “I have arrangements to make, people to consult before I can go to Tallahassee,” he said, sounding raw.

Mallory noted how the muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath his knit shirt. She resisted a strong impulse to cross to him and massage away his tension. The feeling came as a shock, considering he’d gone off seven years ago and never looked back once to see how she’d survived the breakup. Or even if she’d survived.

But she no longer had the right to console him in any fashion. The right now belonged to his fiancée. Merely thinking about Connor’s engagement almost crushed the breath from Mallory’s lungs.

Whirling, she ran from the room, damned if she’d let him see a single one of the tears that blinded her.

CONNOR SENSED THE MOMENT Mallory left. It was more than an absence of a perfume called Desire, a scent he never failed to associate with her. One he’d missed so terribly that first year he’d been stuck on a solitary outpost, he’d wandered up to a department store perfume counter on his first R and R to Honolulu, just for a whiff of the bergamot-and-magnolia mixture. A whiff he’d never, ever assumed would lodge in his nostrils for so many years.

He lifted his hands then slammed them down on the desktop, hoping the subsequent pain would eject him from this pointless reverie. Needless to say, it didn’t.

“Dammit to hell!” He’d finally made a new life for himself. One that didn’t include lingering memories of Mallory Forrest. He had found a new love. Claire Dupree, who was at home with her best friends in the midst of a bridal shower.

Claire’s shower. For their wedding, scheduled the day after tomorrow!

“Lord.” Groaning, Connor lifted the picture of a child fashioned in his image. “How in hell does a guy break this kind of news to his fiancée?”

Staggering around the desk, he dropped into a swivel chair. Pulling the most recent of the photos toward him, he traced dark-lashed gray eyes, an off-kilter smile and a slightly narrow yet stubborn jaw. The O’Rourke jaw. Connor couldn’t refute the evidence staring him in the face. And Lord help him, deep down, unmistakable pleasure seeped upward until it squeezed his heart.

He had a child. A daughter Mallory had named after his mother. Why had she done that? It seemed out of character for someone who hadn’t seen fit to answer any of his damned letters, who’d ignored every one of his pleas for forgiveness.

Connor rocked gently in his chair as the anguish surfaced, displacing even his outrage at Mallory. His mom, Lydia O’Rourke, had lost her life in a storm the folks in the weather-reporting business had failed to class as a hurricane. She would never experience the joy of meeting her first grandchild.

The telephone sitting near Connor’s right hand jingled loudly, making him jump. He fumbled it to his ear, scrabbling to gather up the baby pictures the cord had knocked askew.

He shut his eyes. Claire. He wished he could ward off the questions that would undoubtedly come.

“Hi,” she said cheerily. “I know you didn’t expect to hear from me until we met at the church on Sunday. But Paul just came by the house to pick up Lauren. He acted really odd. He said your bachelor party broke up early, but he wouldn’t say why. In fact, he was so insistent I ask you, it frightened me. Of course, I realize I’m suffering prewedding nerves.” She gave a short laugh. “Janine and my other bridesmaids said I wouldn’t feel better until I phoned you. So here I am.”

Connor felt the pressure of her unspoken need to have him alleviate her fears. He ran a hand through his hair, not having a clue where to begin. He’d known Claire for almost a year. In their early, getting-to-know-you phase, he’d mentioned that there’d once been someone special in his past. Hadn’t he? Still silent, he tried to recall those initial conversations.

“Connor? Say something. You’re really frightening me.”

“We have to talk,” he said abruptly. “But not over the phone. Can you get away if I come by in…say, twenty minutes?”

“I guess so,” Claire said a little shakily. “It’ll be after nine o’clock, though. You have to have me home by midnight. Not that I’ll turn into a pumpkin,” she murmured, stabbing weakly at humor. “But if the groom sees the bride the day before the wedding, it’s supposed to be bad luck for a marriage….” Her voice trailed off.

“We’ll go for coffee at that burger place just off Twenty-seventh, okay? I could use a cup of strong Cajun coffee about now.”

“Did you overindulge tonight? I know you didn’t really want a bachelor party.”

“No,” he said stiffly. “But I’ll admit we made a fair dent in the keg Paul brought. If you’d rather not go for coffee, Claire, I can do without.”

“Coffee’s fine. And twenty minutes will give me time to tell the hangers-on goodbye, and hide away all the lacy lingerie I received at the shower,” she said, giving a feeble rendition of a sultry growl.

“That’s right. I forgot you had a—what did you call it?—personal shower.”

The woman at the other end of the line sighed. “Honestly, Connor, aren’t you intrigued enough to sound at least a little excited about the lingerie I got?”

“Sorry, I guess my mind’s not the sharpest it’s ever been. Knowing Janine, Lauren and Abby, I suspect what they bought won’t leave much to a man’s imagination.” This time, his drawl could be considered closer to normal.

“No. My friends aren’t what you’d describe as conventional.”

“That’s a fact.”

“You sound as if you disapprove of them.”

“Because I agreed with you? Look, Claire, I’ve explained that I’m not myself tonight. And for whatever reason, you seem oversensitive. Perhaps it’d be best if we saved the rest of this conversation for when we’re sitting face-to-face.”

“One question first,” she said abruptly. “Connor, why haven’t we slept together yet?”

“What?” he said too loudly as a strange wave of guilt washed over him. If Claire had asked that question even last week, he wouldn’t have known why he’d continued to resist their spending an entire night together. Unfortunately, it was no longer a mystery. Miami, and indeed all of Florida, was tied to his prior history with Mallory Forrest. Plain and simple, his memories of her in and around this city held him back from making love with Claire.

Unable to see Connor’s guilty look of alarm, his fiancée charged ahead. “I don’t consider myself promiscuous by any means. But during the shower, when it was only us girls talking, the subject of sexual compatibility surfaced. I didn’t tell anyone we haven’t…ah…done the deed. They’d never believe it. So…I’m willing to toss out my superstitions if you’ll forgo convention. Let’s be wicked and book into one of the beach hotels tonight. Janine said couples who do are more relaxed at the wedding ceremony. They aren’t so anxious to dash off to start their honeymoon. What do you say, Connor?”

He couldn’t say anything. His conscience played havoc with his mind. In the end, he didn’t have to make lame excuses. Claire, typically accommodating, let him off the hook. “Okay. I won’t ask you to sacrifice your principles because I let Janine and the others override my good sense. I’ll be waiting on the porch in twenty minutes. I can tell something’s really bugging you. Just one last thing. Remember—together, we can overcome anything. That’s what people in love do.” She blew kisses into the phone, as had been her habit since he’d given her an engagement ring three months ago.

Connor heard the soft click when Claire replaced the receiver. Still, he continued to hold the buzzing instrument to his ear.

Had he ever believed that a nebulous emotion like love could conquer any and all adversity? No. He placed his faith in the logic of science. Yet he did love Claire, didn’t he?

Throughout his five-and-a-half-year hiatus on an atoll in the Pacific, he’d been too engrossed in his work to want a substitute for Mallory. The restlessness, the feeling that something was missing in his life, didn’t emerge until after he returned to Florida. Co-workers said that since he’d been out of the social circuit for so long, he needed a woman. He’d decided they were right.

Not counting the years he’d been with Mallory—for two of those they’d even lived together—he’d been pretty much a loner. Maybe that was why on the day he flipped the calendar and turned up his thirty-third birthday, he’d judged it was high time he settled down and started a family.

In areas where there were major weather centers, meteorologists formed tight-knit communities. Claire, an operational weather-support person and part-time forecaster, fit in his world. Short and blond, she looked nothing like Mallory Forrest, who was tall, willowy and brunette. Somehow, he and Claire hit it off. For eight months, they’d dated exclusively. And why not? From day one, she’d bent over backward to please him.

In that aspect, Connor realized, Claire was like Mallory. Was that why he’d proposed marriage so fast? Hanging up the phone, he planted his elbows on the desk, buried his face in his hands and rubbed away a fine tension that tightened the skin around his mouth. Damn, if he didn’t love Claire for herself, he was a class-A asshole.

Figuring he’d better leave if he was meeting Claire in twenty minutes, he tucked the pictures of his daughter and the report about her condition into an envelope to take along, then dug out his car keys. He would lay this newest development in his life on the table and let Claire decide if she still wanted to hook up with a guy who had a shady past.

As usual, Claire was ready. And, also as usual, she looked immaculate. That always amazed Connor about her. Her pale hair never had a strand out of place. Her blouses matched whatever else she wore, whether skirt or pants. Her makeup and nail polish were perfectly applied.

Connor complimented her appearance as he helped her into the front seat. She linked her hands tightly atop her purse, frowning worriedly.

He hauled in a deep breath, walked around the car and climbed back into the driver’s seat. Guessing it was going to be a silent ride, Connor selected one of Claire’s favorite tapes, popping it into the player before entering into traffic. The soft piano strains of “On My Own,” a tune from Les Miserables, floated from the back speakers.

“Balmy night,” Connor remarked, thinking the weather a safe topic.

Claire nodded but kept her eyes ahead as she twisted her engagement ring around and around her finger.

“Sorry I was a few minutes late. I didn’t allow for weekend traffic.”

“Connor, if you aren’t going to tell me why we need this impromptu talk, just hush. Please.” Claire unclasped her hands and massaged her neck. “If I’d known we were going to do this, I wouldn’t have had so much of the champagne Lauren brought.”

“If you hadn’t phoned me, Claire, I wouldn’t have bothered you until morning.”

“No. No.” She let her hands fall. “I have a hunch it’s something we need to settle tonight.”

Connor battled a sick feeling in his stomach. He probably should’ve asked Mallory more questions, particularly as he didn’t have any idea why she’d never informed him she was pregnant in the first place. But maybe the details didn’t matter. Claire was right; they needed to hash out the primary issue tonight.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the neon sign of the café looming up on his right. Connor parked in a lot behind the building, glad to see it was sparsely populated. By ten-thirty or so, after the movie houses let out, his favorite local hangout would get crowded. He’d counted on business being slow at this hour.

“If the back-corner booth is available, let’s take it,” he said, locking the car after helping Claire out. “Or any booth that offers privacy.”

Again she said nothing. Not that Connor blamed her. Paul shouldn’t have shot his mouth off. And yet it certainly saved him having to dive headlong into deep water.

The back booth was vacant. Connor waited until the waitress had delivered water and two cups of black coffee before he eased the envelope from his jacket. He set it unopened on the table between them, studying Claire with a troubled expression.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” she finally whispered.

He shook his head, his own pain rising. “I don’t even know where to begin,” he said, turning his coffee cup around in its saucer several times.

Claire ran a forefinger along the rim of hers. Neither of them seemed inclined to test the dark, steamy brew, although both of them loved chicory coffee. “At the beginning is probably best,” she said reluctantly.

Connor shifted one hip, slumping sideways a little. “There’s this woman I used to be best friends with. Mallory Forrest. She, uh, we met here in Miami at a science camp when I was a junior and she was a sophomore in high school. We both lived in Tallahassee. She attended an exclusive private school. I went to public.” His voice faded, as Connor recollected that long-ago first encounter. Mallory, the beautiful dynamo who outclassed everyone at that camp, and forever after.

Noting Claire’s stony expression, Connor cleared his throat. “Given the disparity in our backgrounds, that camp should have been the beginning and end of our friendship. Her dad was a prominent attorney. A year or so later, Bradford Forrest was elected to the state senate. He’s still there. Mallory’s mom headed the state’s volunteer hurricane-relief program. It was through Mallory that I got involved in relief work. I told you my mother died, and we lost most of what we owned in a hurricane the year I was a senior. Disaster insurance on mobile homes was too expensive, and after the hurricane, my application for government relief got bogged down in the system. Mallory found out. She tracked me down in the aftermath. I don’t really know how she did everything she did. Like helping me arrange a funeral. Wangling me a place to stay, and later, a full-tuition scholarship to FSU. At the time, Mallory believed in me more than I did. She was convinced I could invent a system for early detection of hurricanes even though I wasn’t nearly as sure about my abilities. I…uh…always felt in awe of her, but one step behind, too, if you know what I mean.”

Connor saw the light dawn in Claire’s eyes.

“You’re going to tell me this woman suddenly appeared again, aren’t you? That she…she…wants you back.”

Wanting to save Claire as much pain as possible, he decided to bypass everything that had happened between him and Mallory at college and during his grad-school years. Though his hands were far from steady, he pulled open the envelope flap and dumped out the pictures and the report Mallory had brought him. “She doesn’t want me back, Claire. She came to tell me I’d fathered a child. Her child.”

Claire turned chalk-white. “Obviously she’s lying. Why, you spent almost six years alone, for all intents and purpose, on a remote island.”

He nodded miserably. “My rationale, exactly. But this little girl—named Lydia after my mother, by the way—is six now. There’s no mistaking she’s mine, Claire. These baby pictures could be me at the same age.”

Claire pressed her lips together tight, then poked gingerly through the photos until she came to the report. “What’s this? Proof of some kind? A demand for child support? What precisely does this woman want from you, Connor?”

“A kidney,” he said, straightening again. He lifted the cup of now-cold coffee to his lips and took a healthy swig, grimacing as he did so.

“This is hardly the time to crack jokes,” Claire snapped.

“I’m not joking. Read the paper. It’s from a Tallahassee doctor. A detailed explanation of my daughter’s condition, and the subsequent need for me to be tested as a possible organ donor.”

“Why you, Connor? Why can’t her mother give her a kidney?”

Connor rolled his head around his shoulders, failing to relieve the tight muscles in his neck and back. “The report says Mallory did give one of her kidneys eight months ago. Lydia’s body started rejecting the organ last month. Recently that kidney had to be removed.”

Claire picked up and read the report. Once she reached the end, she folded it neatly and glanced past him, fiddling with her cup. “It’s a unique way to get a man back, I have to admit.”

Connor stirred, angry at Claire for the first time since they’d met. It was the most cutting thing he’d ever heard her say. “This isn’t about my renewing a relationship with Mallory. In fact, the last thing she said before she left was that I’d deal exclusively with Dr. Dahl, who wrote the report. Mallory said there’d be no reason for my path and hers to cross again. For all I know, she may be married.”

Claire stared at him. “You didn’t ask? Come on, Connor, what did you talk about after she broke up your bachelor party? She did, didn’t she? Break it up? That’s why Paul was so rattled.”

“Yes. Although Paul was already rattled because he mistook Mallory for an exotic dancer he and Greg hired to perform at the party.”

“A stripper?”

Connor shrugged. “I can’t say. The party didn’t progress that far. The dancer showed up as I was trying to throw Mallory out.”

“Really? You were going to throw her out?”

“Yes. Before she shoved one of those baby pictures into my hands and announced in front of everyone that she and I had a child together.”

Claire fingered the report. “According to this, the mother’s dad and brother have been ruled out as potential donors. It doesn’t mention her mom. You said she headed up the state’s hurricane-relief volunteers.”

“Beatrice. Yeah. There was never any love lost between us. She wanted Mallory to marry an up-and-coming lawyer. She referred to me as that storm-chaser. Bea looked on me as a stray her daughter had rescued from the slums. I can’t tell you why she’s not a candidate. Her name only came up in passing today, when Mallory told me she named Lydia after both our mothers. Lydia Beatrice. She said everyone calls her Liddy Bea.”

“This is really happening, isn’t it,” Claire declared unhappily. “You have a child with another woman.”

Connor reached across the table and tried to take her hand, but she deflected him so fast, she bumped her cup and spilled coffee all over. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, using his napkin to soak it up while he moved Lydia’s pictures out of harm’s way. “I’d give anything for us not to be having this conversation. But, frankly, I doubt the news comes as any greater shock to you than it did to me. I haven’t seen or heard from Mallory Forrest since the night before I left Florida, headed for that remote island.” He thought it was probably wisest not to mention that he’d tried desperately—and unsuccessfully—to contact Mallory.

“Did you fight over your going away? Is that why you split up?”

A perplexed frown settled between his eyebrows. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. She seemed happy I’d gotten the grant. Honestly, Claire, seven years is a long time to recall a specific conversation.” Connor didn’t see any need to describe his and Mallory’s final parting. She’d cooked his favorite meal to celebrate the fact that he’d received his master’s. At the ceremony, a courier had brought him news of the grant.

What he hadn’t told Claire was that Mallory had wanted to go live in Hawaii. He informed her it’d be a bad idea to pack in what she had in Florida and trek halfway around the world on the off chance he’d see her a couple of times a year when or if he got breaks. She’d burst into tears and stormed out. A week later, after he realized how terribly he missed her, he’d written Mallory a letter, telling her he’d changed his mind. But she didn’t write back. In fact, she didn’t answer a single one of his letters. He’d poured out his heart in them, talking about love and marriage and the future. It was plain to see she hadn’t spent any time pining away for him.

“I don’t know, Connor. This all seems so ludicrous. So unreal. Like something out of a daytime soap.”

The waitress came by with a pot of hot coffee. “Oh, my. Didn’t your coffee taste right?” she asked.

“I’m afraid we let it get cold.” Connor slid their cups to the edge of the table. “Would it be an imposition to have you dump these and pour fresh?”

“Not at all. I would’ve come by earlier, but you two seemed engrossed.”

“Thank you” was Connor’s only comment. Claire said nothing. However, she was the first to sip from the new coffee when it arrived.

“What are your intentions toward this child?” she ventured, during a moment when Connor seemed content to let silence reign.

“Intentions? What do you mean? This is all brand-new to me, Claire. I haven’t made any concrete plans. But I don’t see how I can ignore the situation, do you?”

“No. No, of course not. She’s an innocent, regardless of what went on between you and her mother.”

“Nothing went on between us—not what you’re implying when you use that tone, Claire. We were best friends who drifted into a…a…well, when I began work on my master’s, Mallory got a job at a PR firm near the campus. We shared an apartment. In the beginning, it was to save money….”

“You lived with that woman?” Claire’s voice rose. “And we’re engaged, yet we’ve never spent a whole night together? Boy, do I feel like a fool, bragging to my friends about what a perfect gentleman you are.”

Connor swore under his breath. “I like to think I am a gentleman, Claire. I asked you to be my wife. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t know anymore. Right now I’m confused, Connor. I’ve built this image of you in my mind. Now I find out you’re not that person.”

“I’m exactly the same man you’ve been dating since we met. This all happened in another life. Which doesn’t alter the fact that I have obligations toward a child I unknowingly helped bring into this world.”

Claire looked completely unhappy as she murmured, “You make it sound so logical. I don’t want to lose you, Connor. But neither am I ready to go into marriage with this hanging over our heads.”

He forced her to connect with his eyes. “What’s your solution, then?”

“I think we should postpone the wedding.”

“All right. That shouldn’t be a monumental task, since we planned such a small gathering. I’ll phone half our guest list tomorrow. What excuse shall we give people?”

“Much as I dislike being the subject of gossip, Paul and Greg and half the guys we work with were at your bachelor party and heard this woman… Mallory,” she said, choking out the name. “Don’t you figure we owe our friends the truth?”

“I do, yes. But I’ll say whatever you want, to save you embarrassment.”

“It’s too late for that, Connor. I do have one request, however.”

“If I can grant it, you know I will.”

“Like I said, at the moment I’m not sure of anything where you’re concerned. What I’d like to do is go with you to Tallahassee. You’re planning to consult this doctor in person, I assume.”

“I…uh…yes. I’ll take the tests. Mallory indicated she’d arrange with the hospital for me to visit Liddy. I have to see her, Claire.”

“Am I welcome?”

Connor felt the tension shrouding her question. He shouldn’t have hesitated, but he felt caught in a vise without fully knowing why. “Sure. No problem. We’ll ask this Dr. Dahl whether or not we should both visit Lydia. I’ll need a few days to set up an appointment.”

“Will you make the flight arrangements, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it. This is my—” he didn’t want to call his daughter a problem or a mistake, so he settled on a more neutral word “—my responsibility.”

“All right. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home now. You can come over around eleven tomorrow. That’ll give me a chance to warn my parents and also the minister before we begin phoning guests.”

“I repeat, I’m so sorry, Claire.”

She rose without a word. While he paid the bill, she walked out to the car.

If possible, the ride back to her cottage was more strained than the trip to the café had been. Both of them remained locked in private misery. Neither took the initiative of switching on the music that had previously softened the strain.

“Don’t bother getting out,” Claire said, when Connor stopped in front of her house. He did, anyway, and walked her to the door as was his habit. He bent to kiss her good-night, but she turned her head so that his lips only grazed her hair. Claire hurried inside, leaving him standing on a pitch-black porch.

Burying his hands in his pants pockets, Connor wandered slowly back to his car. He couldn’t blame Claire for how she felt. He’d hit her with a hell of a mess. But he’d told the truth when he said it was as great a shock to him.