Cara O'Shea's Return (18 page)

Unfortunately, that was a lie. This relationship between them wouldn’t last. It was time he accepted that truth. He slammed the tailgate on the truck and carried the saw inside.

Cara climbed the steps of the library wearing a sappy smile. Jealous! A warm flame sparked in her belly. Finn had nothing to be jealous about, and she’d explain that to him, but in the meantime, she couldn’t help being thrilled at the possibility he might care more than he let on.

He may not be in love with her, but he cared, and caring could develop into love, with a little time. She was no longer a shy kid, afraid to speak up and cause a scene. She loved Michael Finnegan with all her heart and she wanted more than just a short term affair. It was time she told him.

And if hearing she loved him sent him running? Well, then...she’d just have to kill him.

She hummed as she opened the library doors. The building would be closing for the night in just a few minutes, so she hurried to the romance section to select a book to replace the one she returned. Maybe she’d find something she could read aloud to Finn.

She shook her head and grinned. A month with Finn the Fine and she had turned into a shameless hussy!

Her grin faded when she recognized the quiet voice of a woman two rows away in the young adult aisle. Cara’s fingers gripped the binding of the paperback she pulled from the shelf. Meggy had mentioned Hannah volunteered at the library two afternoons a week, but Cara had forgotten.

“Here it is,” she heard Hannah say. “It’s a true story. I think you’ll find it has some similarities with your own.”

“Have you read it?” a young voice asked.

“Yes, I have. It’s well written and covers some of the struggles and emotions that come with discovering you’re adopted.”

“Were you adopted?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

The girl was quiet for a moment. “Were you a birth mother? I want to meet mine eventually.”

Cara stood paralyzed between the shelves of books. She held her breath, waiting for Hannah to deny the question.

“I gave up a child for adoption, yes. She was placed with a wonderful family, just as you were. I’m sure your birth mother would be thrilled to know how happy you are with your adoptive family.”

Cara couldn’t breathe. Abandoning the book she’d selected, she slipped down the aisle between towering shelves and rushed passed the counter at the front of the library. She shoved open the double glass doors. Gulping air like a landed fish, she staggered out into the early evening sunlight, scrambling down the steps to the parking lot and her vehicle. Her hands shook, and she fumbled with the lock before climbing inside.

Pulling the truck door closed behind her, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Horrifying possibilities thundered in her head. Hannah had given up a child for adoption? Oh God, Daddy! Had the child been his? Did he know about it?

How long Cara sat there, running the possibilities through her head, she didn’t know. The beep of her cell phone, signaling a text message, interrupted the fury of questions scrambling her brain. She glanced through the window, ignoring the message. Her hands clenched on the steering wheel at seeing Hannah exiting the library to walk to her own car. Cara sat forward and fought with the keys until she found the right one. She shoved the key into the ignition and twisted. Shifting the Jeep into drive, she pulled from the parking lot.

A block away, Hannah swung into a parking space in front of her father’s accounting agency and went inside. Cara searched for an empty spot, finding one three doors down. She parked, jumped from her vehicle, and on shaking legs, hurried through the front door of her father’s office.

Tom sat at his big desk, visible through the open door. He glanced up when Cara entered, a surprised smile lighting his face. A moment later, the smile evaporated. He jumped to his feet and walked around his desk.

“What’s happened? Is it Mary?”

“Tom?” Hannah emerged from the back room with a stack of files in her arms. She stumbled to a stop when she spotted Cara.

“What’s the matter, Cara?” Tom repeated, exiting his office.

Cara only had eyes for Hannah. “You had a child?”

Files flew and scattered on the floor at Hannah’s feet. Her hands flew to her mouth to cover the cry she didn’t quite prevent. Her frantic gaze jerked to Tom’s, whose face went as pale as his wife’s.

“Let’s go in my office, Cara.”

Cara ignored him, intent on getting an answer from Hannah. “You had a child you gave up for adoption? I was in the library. I heard you!”

“That’s enough, Cara.” Tom reached for her arm. She stumbled back, avoiding his touch.

“No, it’s not enough, Daddy. You wanted me to know what happened. Well, I’m asking for an explanation now. Did you…” She stopped to catch her sobbing breath. “Oh, God. Did you have a child you put up for adoption or not?”

Tears dripped down Hannah’s cheeks. Cara’s knees buckled. She locked them tight as Tom slipped his arm around Hannah’s shoulders and hugged her protectively to his side. He turned haunted eyes on Cara. “Hannah was pregnant when her family sent her away.”

Cara moaned at the affirmation and shuffled backward until the back of her knees made contact with the waiting room couch. She dropped onto it.

Hannah slumped against the desk with her face in her hands while Tom crouched down in front of Cara.

“They took Hannah away, Cara. And when the baby was born, they took her away, too. She was given to a private adoption lawyer to be placed with a family here in the states.”

“Her?” Cara’s croak was barely audible.

Unshed tears shimmered in his eyes. “We had a daughter, Cara. And they stole her from us.”

She glanced over his shoulder. Hannah’s face was pale and damp with tears. “Why did you come to Palmerton, Hannah?”

Hannah raised her chin. “I came to be near my daughter.”

“She’s here?” Cara cried. “She’s here in Palmerton?” Her eyes flew to Tom. “Why didn’t you tell us? I have a sister? Shan and Erin.” She gulped. “We have a sister somewhere in Palmerton, and you didn’t think we would want to know?”

“And what was I supposed to tell you? We assume she doesn’t know about us, much less you or your sisters. The situation was complicated enough without involving anyone else.”

The adamancy of his claim brought Cara up short. He was right, of course. But, God, she had another sister.

“How did you find her? There are laws surrounding adoption that make it almost impossible for birth parents to find children who haven’t initiated contact.”

He straightened from his crouch and joined Hannah, who answered Cara’s question.

“I never had anything to do with my family after what they did to your father and me. When I reached my twenty-fifth birthday I gained access to my trust fund. I used that money to buy the information.”

“And you never contacted her? You just moved here and skulked around the edges of her life?”

“That’s enough, Cara.” Tom frowned.

Hannah placed a hand on his arm. “She was already seven years old by the time I tracked her down and settled here in Palmerton. Her adoptive parents are good people, and they have done nothing wrong to deserve our interference. There have been enough lives ripped apart because I was too much of a coward to fight my family. I’m content to be able to see her, and to know she’s happy.”

“Who is she?”

“She hasn’t tried to find us, Cara.” Tom shoved a weary hand through his hair. “Contacting her now would cause her and her adoptive parents heartache. Haven’t we all suffered enough already? Let it go.”

The sadness in his voice made Cara’s stomach hurt. Her eyes stung with tears as he clutched Hannah’s hand as though it were a lifeline. Staggered by the revelations, she could only imagine what it must have been like for them to carry their grief for so many years. Suddenly, she was so tired she could barely move. She forced herself to stand. Walking to her father, she kissed his cheek.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

He lifted his free hand to cup her cheekbone. “Cara, mine.”

Her gaze moved to Hannah. Cara didn’t know what to say. So much of her unhappiness had been placed at Hannah’s feet, and while Cara couldn’t completely forgive either of them for what they had done, she also couldn’t blame them or hold on to her anger anymore.

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” she whispered, before turning and leaving them alone in their grief.

****

Finn tossed his keys onto the Queen Anne table in the spacious entryway of his Beacon Hill penthouse. The place smelled of emptiness, despite the efforts of the cleaning crew he knew would have been here this morning.

He stopped at the wet bar and poured a tumbler full of whiskey before sliding open the glass door leading to the balcony. Leaning a hip against the wrought iron railing, he sipped at the burning liquid.

Ten flights below, streetlights began to flicker on. Beyond the skyline in the distance, the sun dipped below the horizon, bringing night to Bean Town.

Jamming his fingers through his hair, which should have been trimmed weeks ago, he tried to understand just when his life got so damned screwed up. The underlying despair and desperation he had been living with for far too long hadn’t begun with Cara O’Shea’s return. His life was a mess long before he walked into Maive’s parlor a month earlier. Nor had it begun with Andrea’s stunning pronouncement that she no longer loved him and was heading on to more exciting adventures.

The DVD down the hall in the media room documented the exact moment when his life had gone to shit. He had watched the recording so often he could run the clip through his mind even now, without aid of modern technology. The moment he’d taken the freak hit to his knee in the second game of his sixth season in Tampa, his charmed life had come crashing down around him.

He’d been a ball player his entire life, and the second he felt the hit, he knew he would never play again. The one thing he had been able to count on was ripped away in the blink of an eye. Without football, what was left?

Not family. He watched his mother fade away while his father clung desperately to her slender fingers. He then watched his father follow her not long afterward. And certainly not marriage—Andrea proved their marriage a fleeting fantasy when she walked out without a backward glance.

He swallowed another sip, welcoming the burning in his throat. If he was honest, he couldn’t even fault Andrea for skipping out the way she did. He’d been so crushed by the loss of his career, so mired in his own broken dreams, he had shut down. Restless, yet uninterested in what the future held, he simply stopped caring. He was surprised she stayed as long as she had.

She’d probably done him a favor by beating him to the punch. The direct hit to his ego finally pulled him out of his lethargy, at least on a basic level. The only real relief he knew from the demon of restlessness that had taken over his charmed life, had been the constant flow of women, but even that faded over time.

He’d filled his life with women, travel, and sponsorships, always moving on to the next challenge before the current one fell apart. He made more money than he could spend in two lifetimes, but he hadn’t been truly happy since the moment his opponent’s shoulder connected with his knee.

The only real pleasure he had found, in more years than he wanted to count, was when he worked with the kids at the day camp eight weeks each summer, or when building something with his hands. And spending time with Cara. He would screw that up before long, too.

He’d fallen in love with her—a damn stupid thing to do, and there was a good possibility she loved him as well. The stark emotion in her expressive eyes the night they first made love was impossible to miss.

He should have walked away from her then. He should have shouted at her to find a man, a whole man, one who could love her back the way she deserved. She needed a man who wouldn’t cut and run before the love and trust died in her eyes, and killed what was left of his soul.

A man like Evan Malone.

Finn checked his watch. Eight-fifteen. She’d be with Evan now, in his suite at the Four-Seasons.

Finn wanted to rage at the very idea of Cara O’Shea with another man. Instead, Michael Finnegan, ex-all-pro, Super Bowl winning quarterback, sank to the concrete balcony floor of his exclusive penthouse apartment, dropped his head against his raised knees, and did something he hadn’t done since his mother died. He wept.

Cara woke to the pale pink streaks of dawn stabbing like shards of colored glass through the sparkling windows of her bedroom. She blinked against the morning light, eyes scratchy and sore from the tears she shed throughout the night.

Throwing aside the sheet, she stumbled to the bathroom. When she entered the kitchen several minutes later, she grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee, then headed downstairs to finish storing her supplies. Finn would be here in fifteen minutes to seal the floors.

She had no idea what she would to say to him when he arrived. Somehow she didn’t think he would appreciate her demanding to know where he had disappeared to the night before. She was mad enough she wouldn’t bother asking. It was the principle of the thing. They would however, be discussing the merits of common courtesy. She’d been worried about him, had left several messages on his cell. At the very least, he should have called or sent a text to let her know he was okay.

A knock on the front door made her jump. Finn had a key, so it wouldn’t be him. Shoving the last of the supplies onto a shelf, she went to see who was knocking on her door at seven in the morning. Bob Burns shuffled his feet on the sidewalk outside, his battered baseball cap twisted into a mangled mess in his beefy palms.

“Good morning, Bob.” She leaned to one side, glancing beyond him to the quiet street. His old pickup sat alone at the curb.

Following the direction of her gaze, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. His hat suffered further damage at the nervous flexing of his fingers.

“It’s, ah, just me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m here to seal the floor. I’ya, guess Finn had some things he needed to do. He called me to say, that is, he wanted me to...” His customary smile absent, Bob couldn’t quite meet her eyes. He stared down at his shoes. “He asked me to come finish it.”