The Texan's Secret (9 page)

“How sad,” Shay murmured. Her real father had died when she was a baby. He’d known nothing about her.

As if Blanche could read her thoughts, she added, “I should have told him about the baby. Then maybe some of the Farnsworth money would have come to me instead of going to charities. I didn’t know how to
get in touch with him, though. Besides, I wanted Jack back.”

Shay’s eyes narrowed on her mother’s pale face. “You said you thought the baby was Jack’s.”

“It was.” Blanche shook her head. “I mean, you are.”

“Then why bother telling Eric?”

Her mother ripped the Kleenex to shreds. “Why did you have to take that test? Why did you have to break my heart?”

Blanche wasn’t going to play the guilt card now. “You did that all by yourself without any help from me. Evidently Eric Farnsworth had money, and that attracted you. His looks only made the temptation that much stronger. You risked everything for one night with a stranger. I’m thinking things weren’t going too smoothly for you and Jack and you wanted a backup man—someone with money. To you that’s what love is—hard cash.”

“When you grow up poor, money means everything.” Blanche waved a hand around the drab room. “But I’m back where I started—living like poor white trash.”

“We are not poor white trash,” Shay snapped. “I work hard to keep a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs and clothes on our backs. I have money to buy what we need and sometimes to buy things we just want. I don’t take charity or handouts—”

“Go do your rah-rah speech somewhere else,” Blanche interrupted. “I’m tired.”

Shay drew a long, silent breath. “Do you know how much you’ve hurt me?”

“Hurt you? How have I hurt you?”

“By repeatedly lying to me and depriving me of my biological father.”

“Well, I never had a father either, so deal with it.” Blanche turned on her side, away from Shay.

Shay tore the photo out of the album and left.

In her own room she sat on her bed and stared at the picture—stared at her father. He was a complete stranger, and no matter how many times she looked at his face, he was still a stranger. Unreal. Alien to her.

Was her mother lying? Blanche was good at that.

She glanced at her computer, and on impulse pulled out the desk chair. She typed in Eric Farnsworth and in an instant a charitable foundation popped up, with an address and a phone number.

Even though it was late she couldn’t resist punching in the number on her cell.

She was startled when a voice answered, “Farnsworth Foundation.”

“Ah…I’m looking for Eric Farnsworth.” She didn’t know what to say and the words came out in a rush.

There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, the Farnsworths are no longer living.”

“Oh.” Shay’s hands shook, but she had questions and she wanted answers.

“Are there any living relatives?”

Another pause. “Mr. Farnsworth Sr. has a sister in a private nursing home, but dear, you can’t apply for a charitable donation from a family member. Give me your charity’s name and address and I’ll mail you an
application. But any request has to be approved by the board.”

“Oh, no. That’s fine. Thank you.” Shay clicked off. Her courage stretched only so far. After her nerves calmed down, she realized one thing rang true. Her mother hadn’t lied about Eric, and at least part of the story had checked out.

Shay buried her face in her hands. She’d made a fool of herself, believing her mother about the Calhouns. Never again would she go through that humiliation.

Who was she?

Shay Farnsworth.
For a moment she let herself think about the name.

It was still alien to her. She wasn’t Shay Farnsworth.

Shay Calhoun.

That certainly wasn’t her.

Shay Dumont.
That was her. She didn’t need a father for a last name. She already had one. Taking one more look, she slipped the photo into a drawer.

Chance had said that nothing had changed, and it really hadn’t. When she woke up tomorrow, she would still be Shay Dumont, with a small daughter to raise, a sick mother to care for and an eccentric cousin living next door. Yet she couldn’t help but feel hurt and a little broken inside. She wouldn’t be human if she didn’t. But she wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity. Her biological identity didn’t change who she was.

Life would go on, of that she was certain. But she was through dreaming about a father she would never meet. Blanche’s lies had cured her of all those dreams.

And there was a tall, handsome cowboy waiting for her in the kitchen. His presence made this horrible day worth living through.

“W
HAT DID YOU SAY
?”
Chance asked Darcy.

The girl let out an irritated sigh. “You’re not listening. At least when Mom helps me, she listens.”

“Okay, hotshot.” He tipped back his Stetson, which she was still wearing, so he could see her face. “Tell me again. I’m listening.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have to write a paragraph on the person I admire the most. Petey and me looked up the word
admire.
How’s an eight-year-old supposed to know what that means?”

“But you had a good idea of what it meant, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but we wanted to be sure ’cause we make all A’s and we didn’t want to make a B.”

Chance wondered where her sidekick was today, but figured the kid had to go home sometimes. He cleared his throat. “Have you written the paragraph?”

“Yes, and now you have to check my spelling.” She slid a sheet of notebook paper toward him.

He glanced at her and asked, “Do you have a dictionary?”

She gave that annoyed sigh again. “I knew you didn’t know how to spell.”

“Get the dictionary,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that had her out of her chair in an instant. While she was getting it, he read her paragraph.

Chance smiled. He kind of admired her mom, too.

Darcy ran back and plopped a red
Webster’s
on the table. As she sat down, he pushed the paper to her. “I circled the words that are misspelled.”

“You wrote on my paper?” she asked in outrage.

“Yes. What’s the problem?”

“I have to write it over.”

“So? It’s one paragraph. If it takes you more than five minutes, you’re in trouble.”

She glared at him.

“Oh, I see. You were going the old erase-and-change route, huh?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“That’s messy. You do not get an A by being messy.”

She looked at him, her glasses lopsided. “Do you have kids?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said, in a tone that implied how lucky the world was.

“Check the words,” he instructed in his stern voice again.

With a thoughtful look, she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and he knew something was percolating in that mischievous brain of hers. “Why don’t you tell me how to spell them? It’ll be faster.”

He nudged the dictionary toward her. “Look them up.” When she made no move to open it, he added, “Now!”

She grabbed the book and started searching. “I know I have that one right. Shucks, I don’t.”

After she corrected each one, he placed a clean sheet of paper in front of her. “Now write it over.”

Without a word, she began to do so, chewing on her tongue all the while.

“Petey can’t come here anymore,” she said out of the blue, still working on her paragraph.

“Why not?”

“Because I get him in trouble all the time, his mom says.” The little girl made an I-don’t-like-her face. “Nettie’s going to turn her into a toad. Yeah, that’s gonna be cool—so cool.”

Chance had no idea what she was talking about, but decided not to open that door. Some things were better left unsaid.

She stopped working on the paragraph and he tapped the paper. “You’re not through.”

“Okay, okay,” she grumbled, and went back to work.

Suddenly she stopped again. Peering up at him, she said, “Shay’s not my real mom.”

Damn, the girl switched gears faster than that old
Mustang he and Kid had fixed up. With a smooth stretch of highway and not a cop in sight they could go zero to ninety in…

He caught her impatient stare and applied the brakes on his wandering thoughts. He cleared his throat. “I know.”

“My real mom died when I was four. I miss her, but I don’t…” She paused and twisted her pencil between her fingers.

“You don’t what?” Chance asked.

“I don’t remember her much. Is that okay?”

He leaned forward, his heart in his throat. “Yes, it’s okay. I was twelve when my mom died, and sometimes it’s hard to remember certain things.” But he vividly remembered her bloody face against the car window. He could also still hear her screams. Those things were etched in his mind—forever. But he wouldn’t tell Darcy that. Her situation was different.

“Really?” she asked, her eyes bright behind the glasses.

“Yes, really. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Shay’s my mom now.”

He knew exactly where Darcy was going. “You can love Shay all you want. Your mom doesn’t mind.”

“Good.” Darcy went back to her paragraph.

Tiny jumped up and barked at the back door. A woman walked in. Chance blinked and wondered if he was seeing correctly. She wore a long, flowing, colorful skirt with some sort of puffy blouse. A bright sash and beads adorned her waist and a scarf was tied around her long gray hair. Were those purple and green streaks for
real…? Yes, they were. She had on more jewelry than he’d seen in his life, so much that she jangled when she walked.

“Hey, Nettie,” Darcy said, without raising her head.

“Where’s your mother?”

The girl gestured over her shoulder. “With Blanche.”

The woman’s gaze swung to him. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company.”

Chance stood and walked over to her, holding out his hand. “I’m Chance Hardin.”

She shook hands with a wide-eyed stare. “Chance Hardin, you say.”

“Yes.”

“Does Shay know you’re here?”

“Yes,” Darcy answered. “He’s helping me with my homework.”

“Oh,” she said, her gray eyes puzzled.

Before he could respond, Shay walked into the living room. Chance watched her face. She looked okay, but was she?

Nettie hurried to her and he could hear them whispering, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Suddenly they hugged, and Nettie jangled out the door.

Shay turned and stared at him then, and, abruptly, the hum of the refrigerator sounded like an eighteen wheeler rolling through the house. He saw so many things in her eyes: sadness, heartache and pain. Amid the pain was hope. She was going to make it. She was going to be fine.

She was the first to look away. “Have you finished your homework?” she asked Darcy.

“Yeah, but I had to write it over ’cause he—” Darcy pointed her pencil at him “—wrote on my paper.”

“Why did Chance do that?”

“Well…” Darcy was flustered. Clearly, she hadn’t expected her mother to ask that question.

“You were going to erase the mistakes and rewrite, weren’t you.”

Darcy nodded.

“You know I don’t allow that. It’s messy and your teacher will take off marks for it.”

“Yeah.” Darcy gathered her papers. “Adults all think alike.”

“Yes, we do,” Shay told her. “Put your papers and books in your backpack so it will be ready for school in the morning, and then go take a bath. I’ll tuck you in when you’re through.”

“Okay.” Darcy darted off with Tiny at her heels, but not before Shay snatched Chance’s hat from her head.

“I think this belongs to you.” She handed it to him and sat at the table.

“Are you okay?” he asked, twisting the Stetson in his hands.

“I’m not sure. It all feels so unreal, as if I’m watching a movie or something, and I’m emotionally detached from it.” She told him about her conversation with Blanche.

“Wow!” He sat beside her. “That’s some story. You called the Farnsworth Foundation?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Pretty desperate, huh?”

“It’s very human to be curious.”

“Mmm. Mom has told me so many lies I had to be
sure this time. But it’s my life—how I was conceived, not in love but in lust.” Saying the words out loud made it seem more real to her, but made her nerves ping-pong with restlessness. She stood. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, tea or a soft drink?”

“A glass of iced tea would be nice,” he replied.

She picked up her glass from the table and reached for another in the cabinet. After opening the refrigerator for the tea, she poured two glasses. Setting one in front of him, she sat down again.

He reached for her hand, and for a moment she tensed. But then she felt his strength, his power, and she wanted to lean on him, let him absorb some of the shock from years of lies.

“You’re all wound up,” he remarked, caressing her clenched fist until she opened her hand. As he placed his large palm against hers, a wave of new sensual feelings washed over her. “Take a deep breath, calm down and talk to me. Talking is a great healer. I found that out just recently.” His voice was soothing. Comforting. Real.

Her whole body relaxed as he went on to tell her the story of his parents’ deaths and the secret he’d kept.

“Oh, Chance.” She gripped his hand with both of hers, trying to ease his pain. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“You’re trembling.”

She’d hoped he wouldn’t notice, but hearing about his parents and the other woman was just too much for this day.

“I’m a little emotional,” she tried to explain.

“It’s okay,” he said, and she felt worse. “You’re sort of the reason I finally told my brothers.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I got a glimpse into how secrets can destroy people’s lives, and I knew I had to tell my brothers the truth.”

“Oh.” Tears stung the back of Shay’s eyes. Chance Hardin was the nicest, most handsome, most tempting man she’d ever met. She didn’t deserve him.

“I’m sure your mother thought she was doing the right thing. After all, neither man was in your life, nor were they likely to be.”

“That’s true.” His soothing voice pulled Shay in and she found herself confiding in him. “Blanche never thought about me. It was all about her and the money. That’s what made her happy—money.” More words came tumbling out. Words that peeled away layers of her life she always kept to herself. She found herself telling him about her lonely childhood, about Nettie raising her and about her mother’s many lovers. Like an onion, each layer seemed to grow more potent, more revealing of who she was at the center of her heart.

“I guess I was about ten or eleven when I figured out the male and female relationship. When Mom would bring one of her lovers home, I’d sneak out the back door to Nettie’s. I didn’t want to be in the house when she had men over. It made me feel creepy.”

In the silence that followed, he asked, “One of them didn’t…”

“Abuse me?” Shay shook her head. “I was never around them that long, and if one had dared, Nettie
would have put a curse on him so strong he’d never be able to function again.”

Chance smiled and Shay’s heart wobbled. That smile could open doors, melt ice and heal the deepest wounds. There was power and magic in his lips. She’d heard Nettie say that once about her late husband and Shay was seeing it now.

With that smile Chance could make her believe in fairy tales, the Easter bunny and Santa Claus.

And just maybe, love.

“A curse?” He lifted an eyebrow.

She raised a shoulder in jest. “Nettie professes to be a gypsy witch, but that’s a whole other story.”

“She’s…different.”

“Yes,” Shay replied, and actually laughed at his careful choice of words.

After all the layers had been peeled away, the potency that was left was real. A lonely, frightened little girl had turned into a strong woman. A survivor.
Shay Dumont.
Nothing would change that. Her life wasn’t perfect—no one’s was. But it was her life. She’d managed to survive a difficult childhood and she would survive now. That was the honest truth, deep in her heart. Learning about her real father hadn’t changed a thing. She already knew who she was.

“Mom,” Darcy called.

“I’ll be back,” Shay said, getting to her feet. “I have to put my daughter to bed.”

After listening to Darcy’s prayers, she kissed her good-night and hurried back to Chance. He stood in the kitchen, his hat in his hand.

When he saw her, he placed his Stetson on his head and said, “It’s getting late. I better go.”

“Oh.” She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to explore all these feelings she had when she was with him, even though her heart told her it was dangerous. But after the revelations of today she’d come to see that each day was a gift and a risk. Blanche took risks without hesitation. But could Shay?

“May I ask you a question?” Chance murmured, interrupting her musings.

“Of course,” she replied. His face was set in a neutral mask, but she knew he didn’t feel that way. What did he want to know? She wondered nervously.

“Why didn’t you call me the day you took the DNA test? I gave you my number.”

So that was it. She decided to be honest, because at the moment that was all she could muster. “I thought about it and I wanted to, but I don’t have time to get involved with anyone. My life’s a mess and I have to concentrate on Darcy and her future. I can’t just leave her to go on a date.”

“So you deprive yourself of a life of your own?”

“For now, yes.”

“That’s not normal, Shay, and you know it. If you allowed yourself to have some fun, you’d be better equipped to handle the stress at home.”

“After today I’m not sure about anything.”

He looked straight at her and the darkness of his eyes made her insides quiver with need. “I meant what I said earlier about kissing you. I’ve been attracted to you since pulling you out of that creek. I know you feel
the same way. When I first walked in here, your eyes lit up when you saw me. Let’s build on that feeling. I’m not asking a lot—just a simple date.”

The temptation, oh, how sweet it was. All she had to do was say yes, and her life would change. She’d be involved with the one man who could break her heart. And if he knew the truth, she most definitely would break his. She wasn’t like her mother. She couldn’t hurt other people for her own satisfaction.

“I can’t,” she whispered, the words burning her throat. She couldn’t take the risk.

“Fine,” he said in a clipped tone as he walked past her to the front door.

He was leaving, walking out of her life. That thought jarred like no other. The one thing that was good in her life was leaving, and she’d never see him again. But that was the way it should be—no one would get hurt.