Route 66 Reunions (53 page)

Amanda looked into his eyes. Surely Chad wouldn’t make up such a story. He’d never been deceptive. Had Susan deceived them both as he claimed? But she’d seen him with Susan, and he’d admitted there was a baby. The bitter thought left a sour taste in her soul, and she covered her lips with her fingers and pressed hard.

“I’m sorry, Mandy.” Chad’s gentle voice surrounded her. “I’ve wanted to tell you for days. The timing never seemed right. That’s one reason I wanted us to go out tonight. There’s so much to say. Will you listen to the rest?”

He turned to face her, watching her. She looked across the cab at him. The streetlight scarcely illuminated the inside of the truck, but she could see Chad well enough to know this wasn’t easy for him either. She should be angry at him. Angry and shocked as she’d felt in the restaurant, but somehow those emotions had evaporated, leaving a numb acceptance instead. Now she felt detached, as if the story of Chad’s life didn’t affect her.

She nodded. “What about your child? Why did you tell me you had no children?”

“I never had a child.” Chad shrugged. “That’s another of Susan’s deceptions.”

What was he trying to pull? His words cut like thorns scraping her heart. She choked out the accusation she’d held inside for fourteen years. “That isn’t true. I saw you, Chad. I saw the two of you together in the park that night.”

As she said the words, the realization hit with enough force that she gasped. “It was this very park. How could you do that? Chad, how could you bring me here of all places to talk about Susan and you? Don’t you know I loved you?”

“You loved me then, Mandy, and I loved you. But Susan and I didn’t do what you think. Not that night. That was another of her deceptions. Oh, there were many.” His voice sounded bitter as if he’d like to spit the words out and be done with them. “She played us both for fools that night. She was your good friend telling me you’d sent her here to talk to me. To tell me it was over between us. I was hurt beyond reason and she took advantage of that, consoling me. The hug you saw was only that, Amanda. Only a hug.”

“You were all over her.” Amanda’s eyes burned and she swiped at them. She would not cry another tear over Chad. Not now. Not after what he’d done. “I know what I saw. Besides, she told me what happened.”

“She lied to you.” Chad’s quick harsh laugh told his feelings. “Let me guess. Did she tell you I came on to her? Did she tell you I asked her to meet me here?”

“No, she said you just showed up and told her you wanted to call our wedding off. She said you’d been having second thoughts. Then she said you came on to her. You seduced her. Where’s the deception, Chad? I saw you when I got here.”

“And why did you come? Who invited you? Susan? I think I understand better now. She told you to meet her here at the park at a certain time, didn’t she? But why would you? What did she want to tell you that had to be said in a secluded spot where no one else would hear? Things about me? Maybe the same things she told you after giving her performance with me. A performance, I might add, that I fell for because my heart was torn in two at the time.” His voice lowered. “I’d just been convinced that the woman I loved more than my own life wanted out. She said you’d been talking about going to California.”

“For a visit, not to live.” Amanda’s head spun. She didn’t know what to think. “I told Susan I’d been invited to California. I never said I was going. I wouldn’t have gone if you and Susan hadn’t…”

“Amazing, isn’t it, how different the truth is from what we’ve believed all these years. Susan should have been the one who went to California. She’d been a better actress than she was a pretend wife.” Chad sounded bitter and Amanda was beginning to believe him.

“I don’t understand all this, Chad. There are parts missing. How about your baby? You aren’t so gullible to believe that unless there was cause.”

A deep sigh tore from him. “I’m sorry, Mandy. You can’t imagine how sorry I am. I’ve regretted my weakness from the night it happened. But please believe me when I say nothing happened until after you left. Susan said she’d talk to you that night. I believed her and waited until the next day to see you, but you’d already gone home. I tried to call you. No one would let me talk to you. I drove to your house and Brad met me outside. He said you’d gone to California just like Susan said you’d planned. Why wouldn’t I believe everything she told me by then?”

As he talked, pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, and the pain in Amanda’s chest lessened. She nodded encouragement.

“She became my friend, I thought. She sympathized and held me while I cried for you. No one else knew how much you’d hurt me. I took comfort in her arms and about a week after you’d gone, I lost control. Looking back now, I know Susan orchestrated the entire thing. From breaking us up to seducing me while I had no defense. That’s no excuse, but that is what happened. I should’ve been stronger. There was only that night, but when she came to me a month later and said she would be having my baby, I figured one time was all it took. She arranged the wedding ceremony right away, but her baby was Down syndrome and died. If he’d lived, I’m not sure what would’ve happened. The poor little guy didn’t have much of a chance either way.”

Amanda frowned. “Maybe you could’ve gotten custody.”

Chad’s lips lifted in a mocking smile. “The baby was full-term, but we were together little more than six months when he was born. He wasn’t mine, Amanda. I could’ve never proved he was. She used us for her own purposes. I’ll never understand why she picked me. She certainly didn’t care anything for me.”

The truck cab was dark and silent as if they were cocooned within their own world. Amanda tried to process what Chad told her. Had Susan only pretended to be her friend? She searched Chad’s face and eyes and saw sincerity. He told the truth.

“Yeah, it’s true. Every word.” Chad spoke as if he’d read her mind, which wasn’t so hard to imagine. He’d done that before. He turned the ignition key and his truck roared to life. “I’ll take you home, Amanda. It’s getting late.”

She nodded, unable to think beyond the idea of what Susan had done. Amanda looked at the park while Chad backed his truck out and pulled away. It had been late that night when Susan set her trap for Chad. She got them both to the park to witness a scene of her own making. Oh, she’d been clever. Yet, in the long run, she’d lost so much. But so had Chad.

“I’m sorry, Amanda.” Chad’s voice in the silent cab startled Amanda.

She turned toward him. “I need time to think about all of this, but one thing I believe now is that you weren’t totally at fault. You’d never done anything to make me think you’d been unfaithful. Susan knew that, and she set up a scene to convince me. I shouldn’t have believed it even then.”

“I’m sure she explained everything thoroughly.” Chad’s voice was bitter.

“Yes, she did. In fact, she thanked me for showing up when I did.” Amanda turned toward the window when tears burned her eyes. She squeezed them away but couldn’t stop the emotions that roiled in her chest. Her breath quickened as she relived that night. “Susan started crying before we got back to the dorm. She said if I hadn’t come along when I did, she didn’t know what might’ve happened.”

At Chad’s sudden intake of air, Amanda turned to look at him. His jaw clenched and he shook his head. “I thought she was your friend. I trusted her and look where it got me.”

Amanda’s head ached from an emotional turmoil she thought she’d put in her past. She hadn’t expected this and didn’t fully know how to handle what Chad had revealed. Their conversation drifted into silence as Chad turned his truck south toward Litchfield. She watched the dark countryside drift past as they rode on the highway. She saw a road sign that said they were on I-55, and a little farther another said Historic Route 66. How interesting when the past and the present blended together to make one road. She wondered if her life, hers and Chad’s, were like the old road. Once Route 66 had flourished with life and purpose. Now the old road had been changed, torn apart in many places and rebuilt into something else so the Mother Road was scarcely recognizable. Isn’t that what had happened to her dreams and even to her life? Chad, too, had changed from the innocent boy he’d been fourteen years ago. He’d been torn apart by deceit and manipulation until his basic beliefs had taken a beating. The loss of his sister and brother-in-law only added to his bitterness. Was there hope? As Route 66 had accepted the new, safer freeways across its miles, could she and Chad learn from their past and forge a new relationship or, at least, a new friendship?

They didn’t talk on the drive home, but Amanda’s thoughts churned. When Chad stopped in front of her parents’ darkened house, she turned to him. “Thanks for telling me, Chad. I needed to know.”

He simply smiled and opened his door. “You’re welcome.”

She waited while he circled the truck. They walked without touching to the front door where Chad grinned at her. “You aren’t locked out, are you?”

She laughed, glad for a break in the tension that had gone on long enough. “You have a good memory, only this time I have my own key.”

His grin disappeared as he looked into her eyes. “My memory isn’t so good except where you’re concerned. I’ve never been able to forget you, Mandy.”

She searched for words and could find none. Then his attention centered on her mouth, and she knew he wouldn’t wait for her response. He moved closer, giving her time to back away, but she couldn’t move except to lift her face toward his. She watched the distance close, and his lips brushed hers in a short, friendly kiss that left her wishing things were different between them.

He opened the door for her and she stepped inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mandy. Good night.”

She could only nod and watch him walk away.

Throughout the rest of the week, Amanda drove to Chad’s house each day and cleaned. By Friday she’d worked her way into the bedrooms and was vacuuming when Chad came inside. He spoke as soon as she turned the cleaner off.

“Hey, this place is looking real good.”

“It is, isn’t it?” She smiled at him. “Maybe ready for a little girl to come home?”

He frowned. “I finished the roof, the glass is all cleaned up, Rick came out yesterday and inspected. He says the house is solid. He didn’t find any other problems. The barn still needs to be rebuilt.”

“She won’t be living in the barn, Chad.”

“I know.” He sighed. “She’ll have to live in the house with me.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Amanda wished she could call them back.

Chad’s eyes darkened as they searched her face, as if he looked for a truth she didn’t want revealed. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had been holding her emotions in check, keeping them private from him. Neither had mentioned Susan or the night they’d split up since their outing in Springfield and their confidences at the park. They also hadn’t mentioned the kiss that night or how unsatisfactory it had been. Amanda wanted more than friendship. Maybe Chad didn’t. Maybe she shouldn’t read more into Chad’s expression than his concern for his niece.

“Will the social worker come and inspect the house first?”

“Before Kara can come home?” His gaze shifted, and the intense expression on his face lifted as a wry smile took its place. “Oh yes, you can count on it.”

Amanda knew the house would pass inspection. She straightened the cheerful Sunbonnet Sue quilt she’d smoothed over Kara’s bed. Someone had sewn love with careful stitches into the small cover with bright patches of colorful fabric in the dresses and matching bonnets. “You don’t need to worry about an inspection. It’s just a matter of time, then.”

“Yeah, the house is ready.” He leaned against the door frame as if he didn’t feel comfortable coming all the way into the room. “I can’t decide if I want time to speed up or slow down. I’m going to see her Sunday afternoon again. If I come to church will you sit with me? We could go get something to eat and then visit with her.”

Amanda gripped the bed railing for support. Did she want a baby she couldn’t have to become part of her life? Her arms and her heart remembered how precious Kara felt as she snuggled close. How could she put herself through the bittersweet torture of holding Kara? Through the longing to have her own child when she knew it couldn’t be? Yet, how could she walk away from the one thing she wanted more than anything else? A family of her own.

She wasn’t so naive as to think she and Chad could pick up where they’d left off. Too many years with too many hurts had gone before. But they could be friends, and friends helped each other. Life couldn’t get any simpler than that. Chad had a need and she helped with the house. Would it hurt so much to help him learn he had nothing to fear from Kara?

“Almost every Sunday after church my brother comes for dinner. Sometimes Karen comes down, too. You are welcome if you don’t mind eating with us.” She waited as he stared across the room toward the window.

When he spoke, his voice was low. “I remember. I doubt your folks would want me there. Brad maybe, but not the rest.”

“Brad and Karen. As for my parents, maybe you don’t know them as well as you think you do.” She unplugged the vacuum cleaner and wound the cord in place. “They don’t hold grudges. I’m not sure they ever believed you did wrong in the first place. I’m the one with that problem.”