horizon. Someone they should be getting ready to call brother, she thought silently. Fingers icy, she began. âYou all know that your father and I started Maitland Maternity so that young women who found themselves pregnant and alone would have somewhere to go. Somewhere along the line, the clinic became a trendy, in place to have a baby, and Iâm not quite sure why that is, but the fact that it happened is beside the point.â She saw the question in their eyes. They were wondering where she was going with this. âWhat you donât know is why the hospital was founded.â
Confused, Abby looked at Beth, who shrugged. âYou just told us, Motherââ
âNot the whole reason.â She realized that sheâd been folding and refolding her napkin and forced herself to stop. âIt was started because I didnât wantanyone to have to go through what I had gone through.â
R.J. glanced at Mitchell, then at his mother. âBut you were married.â
Megan moistened her lips. âNot when I was pregnant with my first child.â
Abby grinned. So that was it. Their mother was going to confess being human to them. It seemed sweetly old-fashioned. âYou mean you and Dad danced the light fantastic before he married you?â
It was now or never. âI was seventeen years old and very much in love.â
âBut youâre sixty-two,â Beth protested. âIf you were seventeen when you were pregnant for the first time, that would make Mitchell, what? Forty-five?â
There was an apology in her eyes as Megan looked at Mitchell. âMitchell is not my firstborn.â Her glance shifted briefly to Connor before she dropped her bombshell. âConnor is.â
CHAPTER FOUR
I T WAS QUIET enough to hear the proverbial pin drop. Certainly quiet enough to hear the spoon that slipped from Lacyâs suddenly lax fingers, landing on her plate with a clatter.
So that was what Janelle had been hinting at, Lacy realized. Janelle knew. Somehow, the other woman had discovered that Connor wasnât Clariseâs son but Meganâs.
That had to be what the letter was about, the one sheâd started to say sheâd found among her fatherâs things. Why hadnât she pressed Janelle further when sheâd had the chance?
Reflexively covering the spoon with her hand, Lacy met Meganâs eyes and offered the woman who had befriended her so easily an apologetic half-smile. She could have sworn she saw a touch of gratitude in the other womanâs eyes just before they left hers and swept over the other occupants of the tomb-silent dining room.
You could almost hear the light emerging from the chandelier overhead, Megan thought. There were varying degrees of shock and astonishment registeredon her childrenâs faces. What she didnât see, she realized, was condemnation or any looks of dismay.
It was too early to entertain relief, but she made a mental reservation.
It was Mitchell who found his tongue first. Slanting a glance at Connor, he then addressed his mother. âHowâ¦how is that possible, Mother?â
Though sheâd thought him dead, sheâd never stopped loving her first child. And never stopped feeling the weight of the secret sheâd silently carried around with her all these years.
She folded her hands before her primly, fortifying herself with the small, formal action. It kept her hands from trembling.
âItâs possible, Mitchell, because itâs true.â And then, very slowly, she began to bare her soul to the people who mattered most in her life. They had a right to know. It was past time. âForty-six years ago, when I was just seventeen and very naive, I believed a tall, strapping, good-looking ranch hand when he said he loved me. That he couldnât live without me.â Her lips curved sadly at the thought of the trusting, vulnerable young girl sheâd once been. âAs it turned out, he
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