Shameless (16 page)

M
ATT HAD LOST
hope that Pippa would come to her senses and return home. His unwed, pregnant daughter was no longer willing to listen to him. She needed the advice and counsel of her mother, which meant the sooner he got in touch with Jennifer Fairchild Hart, the better. His heart jumped at the thought of seeing the woman he'd loved since he was sixteen.

He had the best reason in the world—as though he needed an excuse—to contact her. However, in order to ask for Jennie's help, he would have to admit that he'd stolen their daughter and fled to Australia, keeping Pippa's existence a secret from her for twenty years.

By sunset on the day of the barbecue, he'd made the decision to head to Texas the next morning to speak with Jennie in person. His stomach did a somersault when he thought of what she might say, what she might do, when she realized the choice he'd made all those years ago. What if she refused to meet with him, to speak with him? He'd never really fallen out of love with her, probably because he'd never been allowed to say goodbye. Was that all they would do? Say hello…and then goodbye?

Matt wanted so badly to have another chance with the woman who'd been the love of his life that his heart physically hurt whenever he thought of holding her in his arms. There had been years when he was free, but she was not. She'd been a widow for a year now, and he'd known that if he didn't reach for what he wanted, she would likely find someone else to love, and he would lose his chance.

And yet, he'd been in Wyoming for more than two months and he hadn't called, he hadn't written, he hadn't made the trip to Texas. He simply couldn't believe that, after all the loneliness and pain he'd suffered, and all the loneliness and pain he'd caused, fate would allow him to have his heart's desire.

He stopped halfway to the house and turned to King. “I need to leave the ranch for a few days.”

“You can't go anywhere,” King replied.

“Why not?”

“You heard what Angus said. That yellow-bellied cur finally has his knobby fingers around my throat, and I need you here when I talk to my banker and my investors this week.”

“Investors?” Matt frowned. “In what?”

“A quarter-million acres of grassland I purchased in Brazil.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“I mortgaged Kingdom Come to buy it.”

“Sonofabitch! You should have told me you were in way over your head when we spoke in Australia. You signed a contract with me that stipulated—”

“Don't raise your voice to me.”

Matt bit his tongue.

“The ranch will be yours,” King continued. “Angus may think he can turn the screws and squeeze me out. But I'm not done fighting yet.”

“What the hell were you thinking? A quarter-million acres? In Brazil?”

“I was planning to start a cattle operation, but the currency down there hasn't exactly been stable.” He hesitated and said, “Then I had that cancer scare, and I put things on hold.”

Matt halted in his tracks. “You have cancer?”

“It's in remission.”

Matt eyed his father. He had mixed feelings hearing that King had been sick. He'd made a point of cutting his father completely out of his life. He wondered how he would have felt if he'd come home on his own someday and found King dead and gone. Would he have regretted missing the chance to confront him?

But his father looked hale and hearty now, and there were past transgressions he needed to atone for.

What other surprises—besides an astronomical mortgage—were out there waiting to ambush him? “What, exactly, is the problem with the land in Brazil?”

“The South American banker who made the loan cut off my credit. He wants his money.” His eyes narrowed and his mouth flattened. “I don't know how Angus did it, but you can bet he was the one who convinced him not to give me an extension on the loan.”

Matt's stomach churned. He'd known his father would cheat him in the end. He just hadn't expected King to be going down along with him. Disgusted, he asked, “What is it I need to be here to do?”

Matt was only half listening to King's convoluted explanation of his role in the upcoming negotiations, but it was obvious that he needed to be there. “Fine,” he said, cutting him off. “If you'll excuse me, I have a call to make.”

Matt had used the call as an excuse to get away before he said something he would regret. But as he headed for his room, he realized that he couldn't wait even another day to contact Jennie. Pippa's situation wasn't something that could be put on hold. She wasn't getting any less pregnant.

Matt had too many bad memories from Jennie's precarious pregnancy to believe that nothing bad could happen to his daughter. The longer he waited, the longer Pippa would be in danger if some mishap occurred on Devon Flynn's isolated mountain ranch, where medical help might not arrive in time. He hoped Jennie could provide the lever that would bring Pippa home.

He went to his bedroom and closed the door, then sat down on a chair near the bed with the phone in his hand, his elbows on his knees, his head down, aware that his heart was hammering a mile a minute and that he was having trouble catching his breath.

What if Jennie wouldn't take his call? What if she still blamed him, all these years later, for the supposed death of their child? He'd kept track of her over the years, yet he'd never called her. Had she ever wondered where
he
was? Had she ever hoped that they would see each other again?

He tried taking a deep breath, but only got it halfway in before he huffed it out again. It was ridiculous to feel so nervous. He dropped his cellphone and clenched his fists to stop his hands from trembling. Then he picked up the phone from the floor at his feet and called the number that had been programmed into it for the past year.

The number he'd dialed was the home phone at Jennie's grandmother's ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas, west of Austin. Her grandmother had passed away and left her the ranch, and he could only suppose she'd wanted the privacy to grieve that she could have there.

A dozen thoughts ran through his head as the phone rang. What if she wasn't in? Should he leave a message for her to call? Or should he simply hang up? He figured the phone had caller ID, so if he hung up, Jennie would realize, when he called a second time, that he'd called once before and hadn't left a message. So he would have to leave a message if she didn't pick up. What should he say? And what if she listened to the message and didn't call back?

Matt realized he'd been listening to the phone ring for a very long time without any sort of answering machine picking up. Then he remembered that on a ranch, it might take a while to get to the phone, so he held on for one more ring.

At that moment, the call was answered and a female voice said, “Fairchild Ranch.”

Matt's heart was in his throat, so for a moment he couldn't speak. He managed to croak, “Jennie?”

The silence on the other end of the line was so profound that all he heard was the pounding of his own heart.

“This is Jennifer Hart,” she replied.

He had to clear his throat before he could say, “It's Matt.” And then, because it had been twenty years, and because she might not have thought of him as often as he'd thought of her, he added, “Matthew Grayhawk.”

“Matt.”

Just his name. Nothing else. What had he heard in her voice? Surprise? Yes. Delight? Joy? Happiness? No. He felt frozen by what else he'd heard in that single word. Caution. Ambivalence. Wariness. Although, he couldn't imagine why she would think he would ever do anything to hurt her.

“It's been a long time,” he said, aware he was walking through a minefield, and that saying the wrong thing could be deadly to his hopes of a reconciliation.

“How are you, Matt?” Her statement was as ordinary as his, as though they'd seen each other just yesterday. His answer needed to cover twenty years of living and a separation that had wrenched his soul from his body.

“How are you?” he said at last. “I heard about your husband's death. I'm sorry for your loss.” He was sorry she'd been hurt. He wasn't sorry she was free. He wondered if she could make that distinction from the way he'd expressed his condolences.

“Why are you calling, Matt?”

Well, she wasn't going to beat around the bush, was she? She had a lot more courage than he did. He wiped the sweat from his brow, then swiped his hand on his jeans, stalling for time to come up with the right words to tell her everything he was feeling. In the end he blurted, “I need your help.”

“Oh?” The caution was back in her voice. “Where are you?”

It was a logical question. He'd been out of touch with everyone he'd known for the past twenty years. “I'm at Kingdom Come.”

“Did something happen to your father?”

Another logical question. His father's death or incapacitation was a good reason for him to have finally returned home. “King's fine. He offered the ranch to me if I'd come live here, so I came.”

“Where have you been?”

“I was living on a cattle station in the Northern Territory in Australia.”

“I always wondered how you disappeared so completely, as though you'd fallen off the face of the earth. I guess that explains it.”

He felt encouraged that she'd wondered about him. But this meandering conversation wasn't getting him where he needed to go. He wished they were face-to-face. He didn't want to tell her this news on the phone. It was his own fault he'd waited so long, and now he had no choice.

On the other hand, this might be better—especially if she wanted nothing more to do with him after all was said and done. He wasn't sure he would have been able to bear standing in the same room with her and having her send him away.

“There's something I need to tell you,” he began. “Something I should have told you a long time ago.”

“There's no need to say anything,” she said, cutting him off before he really got started. “We were foolish children who lost something precious. It's over and done.”

He wasn't sure if she was speaking of their love for each other or the child they'd supposedly lost, but it was the best opening he was going to get, so he took it. “Our daughter didn't die.”

In the hush that followed, he imagined her brows deeply furrowed, her mouth open wide with disbelief, her hands trembling like leaves in the wind at the literal shock of such a statement. He heard a thump and wondered if her legs had given out. “Are you all right?”

He heard a gurgling sound, and then her frantic voice asking, “Where is she? How is she? How could this have happened?”

He wished he were there to take her in his arms and hold her and comfort her as he revealed the tale he had to tell. Maybe then he could keep her from hating him after he exposed the enormity of what he'd done.

“King told me that you died in childbirth and that our baby died with you. I went crazy thinking I'd killed you, getting you pregnant so young. I mourned for the loss of you and our child.”

“My parents told me our daughter died,” Jennie said in a voice that trembled. “I missed you terribly. I was…not myself…for a very long time.”

For several moments, all he heard was the sound of breathing.

Then she said in a much calmer—but sharper—voice, “If our baby didn't die, what happened to her?”

“She went to a foster home.”

“Was she eventually adopted? Where is she now?”

Matt's throat ached. His heart ached. He felt sick to his stomach. “She's with me. She's been with me for the past nineteen years.”

An ominous quiet ensued, followed by the question, “How did that happen?”

“I didn't find out the truth—that neither of you were dead—until nearly a year after Pippa was born.”

“Pippa?”

“It's short for Philippa.” It was the name Jennie had wanted for their child, if it was a girl. It was from the Greek, meaning “lover of horses.” Jennie had been horse crazy all her life.

“At first I couldn't believe it,” Matt said. “I learned from my uncle Angus that you'd been told the same lie that my father had used to deceive me—that Pippa had died. Once I knew the truth, my uncle secretly helped me to establish paternity.”

“Why didn't you say something to me? Why did you let me keep on believing that our child died at birth?”

He heard the torment in her voice and felt the knot tighten in his stomach. “I wanted to tell you the truth. But I didn't dare.”

“Why not?”

“Angus warned me against it. He said your parents might move Pippa somewhere else, somewhere I couldn't find her again, before I could prove I was her father.”

“You should have told me anyway.”

“I didn't know where you were!” he protested. “At least, not at first.”

“But you knew before you ran away with her?”

“Yes, but—”

“You should have told me.”

He spoke quickly, wanting her to understand the reasoning behind what he'd done. “I knew your parents didn't want you raising our daughter, because they'd lied to you about her being stillborn. But they obviously didn't want me to have her, either, because they dumped her in that foster home. Based on the lie my father had told me, I figured he was conspiring with your parents to keep both of us from raising our child.

“I couldn't take the chance that either of our parents would find out that I had Pippa and try to take her away from me. So I grabbed her and ran as far and as fast as I could.”

“And left me behind!” she cried in an agonized voice.

That was the crux of his betrayal. He'd made the choice to escape with his child, rather than with the girl he supposedly loved more than life. And had wondered forever after if he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.