The Secret Truth at Dare Ranch (3 page)

She
stopped in mid-stride and kicked up dust from a sneaker clad foot. Dani turned
and gave Mitch a smile. "I forgot. Nice to meet you, Mr. Quinn.” She
darted off before Lexie's voice stopped her again.

"Aren't
you forgetting something else, young lady?"

Dani's
small shoulders slumped. She breathed a gusty sigh. She swiveled her head and
looked at Lexie over her shoulder. "Just this once, couldn't I go riding
first?" If that plea was directed at him he’d be a goner.

"You
know the rules. On a school night it's homework first.” Lexie was gentle but
firm. "Go on up to the house. I'll be there in a few minutes to help you.”

"Okay,"
Dani said with resignation before she disappeared around the corner of the
barn.

"Well,
it's been nice seeing you again, Mitch." Lexie’s voice was high pitched. "I
hope you'll drop by before you leave town.”

"Why
are you so skittish?"

Lexie
threw him a weak smile. Her gaze lit on his face then flew away. "I have a
lot on my mind, that's all."

"I
didn't know you had gotten married.”

Her
skin blanched. She lowered her head and glanced at the ground before lifting
her chin. Lexie gave him a cool stare, but anxiety shimmered in her eyes. "I
didn't get married, but I don't regret having her. I love her and she loves me.
Unconditionally."

Why
did he feel relief at not finding her married? He and Lexie hadn't seen one
another in years. Surprise at his own reaction to Lexie's situation reeled
through him. He knew about her finances so why didn't he know she had a child? And
why was she being so evasive? "Of course you love her. She's your daughter.
We've known each other a long time, Lex. You can tell me who her father is."

She
hesitated and remained silent. He shoved a hand through his hair. Her silence
annoyed the hell out of him. "Is what’s his name her father?" He
tried to hide the bitterness in his voice and failed.

She
shook her head and turned away.

"Okay,
where's Dani’s father now?"

Dani’s
face flickered through his mind. She had a stubborn chin. Just like his. A
startling thought ripped into his brain. No, she couldn’t be. Lexie would have
told him if she’d had his child or at the very least his own father. It had to
be somebody else. Mitch reached out, clasped her shoulders and turned her
around to face him. "Did the bastard knock you up then skip town?” 

She
glared at him. "No, it wasn't like that."

"What
was it like?"

She
tilted her head and looked at him. "Give me some time to collect my
thoughts then come up to the house and we’ll talk."

# # #

Twenty
minutes after Lexie stepped inside the house, the doorbell rang. All she'd had
time for was to get Dani settled down with her homework and start dinner. She'd
had no chance to freshen up. Lexie swiped a hand over her wind-blown hair, strode
out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the front door. She stopped beside
the door, looked through the sidelight and saw Mitch standing on the front
porch.

Her
heart hammered like a foal being separated from its mother for the first time.
A cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach. Thank goodness Dani was upstairs
doing her homework.

She
flicked the lock on the door and swung the panel open. Lexie squared her
shoulders. His tie was gone, his eyes clear and focused. His feathers smooth
and unruffled. She'd been churned up since the moment she laid eyes on him in
the barn earlier.

"Can
I come in?"

"Sure,
I'm making dinner. Come into the kitchen.” She moved to the side so he could
enter. He followed her down the hall, close on her heels. His footsteps echoed
on the wood floor like a death knell. Her nerve endings burned. Oh God, time to
tell him the truth.

She
walked into the kitchen and headed for the stove. "Have a seat. Would you
like something to drink?"

"No,
thanks."

Mitch's
gaze bored into her back. She removed the chicken from the pan and laid it on a
platter. Her hand shook when she reached for the green beans to give the pot a
stir. The kitchen clock ticked, refrigerator hummed. Everyday normal sounds. Only
today was far from normal.

A
chair scraped over the kitchen floor. Her heart leaped into her throat and she
spun at the noise. Mitch lowered his tall, very male frame into the chair. His
gaze observed her every move. His mouth curved, but it wasn’t a smile.

"Ready
to talk?"

How
will I ever make him understand?

Lexie
turned down the flame under the beans and walked to the table. She sat down and
rubbed her sweaty palms over the top of her jean covered thighs. There was only
one way for her to say it. "Dani's your daughter." She heaved a heavy
sigh. The truth was out. She’d finally said the words out loud to Mitch.

She
waited a few seconds then shifted her gaze up to his. Mitch slumped back in his
chair and nodded as understanding dawned on his face. "I thought she
looked a little like my dad. How could I not have recognized my own child?” 

A
frown creased his brow. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Shudders
of apprehension quaked through her body. Her nerves sparked. Lexie laid her
hand on his arm. He moved his arm away and she let her hand settle on the
table’s surface. "I didn't want you to feel trapped into coming home to
Chimney Rock.”   

She
stared at the stubborn set of his jaw and the grim line of his mouth. "We
didn't love each other, Mitch. That night we were just two people reaching out
to one another. When I asked you to marry me, I was desperate," she said
with a slight lift of her hand. "Nothing more. I realized later it
wouldn't have been fair to you. Or to me. And certainly not to Dani.” She
prayed with all her might that he would understand.

He
stared at her. "Fair? That's a lousy excuse." He spit the words out like
chunks of ice.

Lexie
straightened and refused to let him make her question her decision. "I did
what I thought was right."

"You
think it was right to keep my child from me?"

Lexie’s
heart panted in her chest.
I did the right thing.
She rose from her
chair and walked to the kitchen window. She stared at the rose bushes in the
back yard, their once bright yellow petals turning brown. She turned her head
and looked at Mitch. "I know you're mad, but please try to understand."

He
laughed, a cold, mirthless sound that chilled her to the bone. "Understand?
I'm Dani's father for Christ's sake and I never knew about her until today."

His
scathing words clawed over her already frayed nerves. He exhaled in frustration.
"Tell me what happened. Tell me everything."

Lexie
walked back to the table and sat down. She put her palms together and clasped
her hands between her knees to keep them from trembling. She hated confrontation.
Her stomach churned. "Eight weeks after you left I started getting sick to
my stomach first thing in the morning. I went to the doctor and discovered I
was pregnant."

She
looked at Mitch. The lines around his eyes had softened, the anger had faded. "How
did you feel about it?"

Lexie
massaged the muscles in the back of her neck. "I was terrified, excited,
happy. I told Vivian right away since she was my best friend and swore her to
secrecy. When I knew I could no longer hide my pregnancy I told your father.

"They
both wanted me to tell you and tell my father. I refused both. They threatened
to tell you if I didn’t, but I begged them not to. I knew in my heart you
didn’t want to be caught in a loveless marriage."

"How
did you know what I wanted? You never asked me.” His words were brittle and dry
like fallen leaves.

"I
wanted you to get an education and to succeed. If you had been saddled with a
wife and child you would have ended up resenting us both.” Lexie paused to
restore her composure. Her voice broke with emotions she’d kept bottled up for
years. Didn't he understand the she had cared enough about all three of them to
let him go? "We both would have suffered, but Dani would have suffered the
most." Her voice was steadier now. "I didn't tell you because I knew
you didn't want a commitment and I wasn't sure about my feelings for you. I was
sure of only one thing: I wanted to have the baby."

Mitch
shifted in his chair. His jaw locked. A tiny muscle twitched beneath his right
eye. A sure sign he was about to explode. She understood why. He’d just found
out he was a father.

Lexie
looked down at her jeans and molded her fingers over her knees. "Dad blew
a gasket." She’d longed for him to fold her in his big arms and tell her
everything was going to be okay. But no, that was too much to ask of Mason
Dare. "He got raging drunk and called me a whore.” The hurt in that long
ago moment still stung like a needle pricking her skin. She swallowed against
the anguish and blinked back her tears. "He couldn't bear the thought of his
daughter bearing
your
child, the son of the man he blamed for killing
Parker, his only son.” Her voice was fragile to her own ears. She inhaled a
deep breath to help ease the hurt.

Mitch’s
gaze cut to hers. "Go on," he demanded in a rigid voice.

She
licked her lips and swallowed. "He kicked me out. I had no place to go except
to Vivian. I lived with her until Dani was born. The night she was born a snowstorm
blew in. We barely made it to Doc Grant’s clinic." She smiled remembering
the most joyful and frightening moment of her life.

"Vivian
stayed with me the whole time. She even helped me with the baby after the birth.”
Lexie chuckled as the memories of caring for a newborn came flooding back. "We
knew next to nothing about babies, but boy did we learn fast."

He
leaned forward his hands resting on his thighs. "So everybody knew about
Dani but me." Scorn seethed in his voice.

Compassion
for him at her deception nudged against her heart. She needed to finish this,
to tell him everything. "My father came to see me at Vivian’s house. He said
tongues were wagging about him abandoning his daughter and he wanted me to come
home. Since he'd been on the city council and even served one term as mayor, he
was worried about his precious reputation."

I
don’t care what you want, girl. You and that brat are coming home with me. Now.

Mitch
rose from his chair, placed his palms on the table and leaned close to Lexie. She
pressed against her back into the chair. She’d never seen him so furious.

"How
could you hurt me like this? And my father was in on it too?” His voice rang
with pain.

How
could she hurt
him
? She was tired of shouldering the guilt about keeping
Dani a secret. Lexie straightened her shoulders and leaned forward until they
were eye to eye. "You didn't come back to Chimney Rock for seven years,
not even to visit your father. He always visited
you.
You didn't call or
even write me a letter. For all I knew you were
never
coming back. When
during that time of not receiving even one token communication from you was I
supposed to tell you about Dani?"

He
turned his back and started toward the door. "I’ve got to get out of here
before I say something I’ll regret."

# # #

Mitch
stood at the edge of the yard, inside the back gate and watched his father,
Judson, tamp rich, black earth around a clutch of golden mums. Overhead, dark
clouds bunched and thunder rumbled.

He
was a father. He had a little girl. Shock whirled through him along with deep
layers of unanswered questions. All of them beginning with why.

Fragrant
smoke drifted from a pipe Judson had clamped in his teeth. His chestnut hair
was a bit grayer, but his build was the same, solid and muscular with maybe
just a little extra padding around the middle. Aggie, his chocolate brown
Labrador, lay at his feet. Mitch listened to her muffled snore as rain began to
fall.

"Pop."

Aggie
woke, jumped to her feet and barked, while her tail wagged in a lazy circle. Judson's
head whipped around. He snatched the pipe from between his teeth and started to
smile but the expression faded. In a slow movement, he stood up. Mitch watched
his father's gaze, a brilliant, piercing blue, move over him, reading his mood.
Love unfolded in his heart despite knowing his father had betrayed him.

"You've
been to see Lexie." He stepped forward and gripped Mitch’s upper arms. The
scents of tobacco, aftershave and a light whiff of sweat surrounded him.

Mitch
wanted to slap a hand down on his father's shoulder and feel the soft, red
flannel of his shirt. For a moment, he remembered them back on their land,
working side by side, tending a colicky horse, and laughing with Parker over
some stupid joke. His heart burned at the memory.

"Let's
go sit on the porch,” Justin said.

Mitch
settled onto the oak glider on the large, screened porch, sucked down a gulp of
iced tea he didn’t want and eyed his father.