AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sylvie would’ve given anything to know what he was thinking. Likely it had something to do with betrayal and liars. She couldn’t do anything about him until they were alone.
Anger bubbled up inside her. How dare her mother do this? What gave her the right? In no time, she’d worked up one hell of a whirlwind of righteous anger.
“I can’t believe you went through my personal things,” Sylvie told her mother. “That’s wrong. And you can keep your opinions about me to yourself. This is my life, not yours, and I don’t have to tell you everything about it. I’m sick and tired of you always making everything about you!”
“How dare —” Momma began, but Sylvie cut her off.
“My whole life you’ve done nothing but criticize my decisions and everything I’ve done.”
“So you won’t make the same mistakes I did,” Sachet said.
“I’m not you, Momma. And I’ll damned well make all the mistakes I want, whether they’re the same as yours or not. Do you get that? You know, you act like the world owes you something because your husband drove off and left you at a convenience store with hardly a dollar in your purse.”
“We’re not talking about that right now.”
Sylvie smacked a palm on the table, making her mother jerk back. “I’m talking about it, Momma. Daddy leaving us didn’t just happen to you. It happened to Will and me, too. And I still remember what it felt like to stand out on that hot tar, watching you run around the lot, wailing about how you’d been abandoned and how we were all going to starve and die in the desert and how Daddy wouldn’t give a damn.”
“You never once thought about me and Will, did you, Momma?” Sylvie rushed on. This had needed saying for a long, long time. “Once you wound down, you just sat on that suitcase and didn’t move again. It was Will and I, who begged for money from strangers so we could call home for help, and so we could get a room for the night while we waited for the wire from Grandpa to arrive. Momma, I was eight years old, and Will was only six. We were terrified and devastated. And you didn’t help us at all!”
Sachet had begun to cry. “I did my best. Lord knows I did. I’ve never said I was perfect. I tried so hard, and I only ever want what’s best. I want to be a good mother and I —”
“I, I, I. Always with the I’s, Momma,” Sylvie said, the adrenaline in her system beginning to wane. “That’s the real problem. You don’t care if Heath’s last name is Cartwright, Collins, or Cooper. You only care that I’ve cut you off and haven’t let you run my life anymore. I didn’t tell you about this because I knew what your reaction would be. I knew how you’d judge me. Well, I’m done with all that. I won’t be afraid anymore of your self-absorbed judgments that you try to disguise as loving concern. The truth about my private life is my own business and you can just back the hell off.”
Momma jerked up, her thighs hitting the table and shaking it. Her voice boomed. “I can’t believe I would’ve ever raised such an ungrateful child that would speak to me like this.”
Eli stood up and put his hand on her arm. “Sachet, I think you might want to lower your voice. You don’t want to cause the boys to fuss.”
Momma shook off Eli’s hand. She shook her fist at Sylvie. “I have never wanted anything but what is best for you, and for Will, and for my grandchildren. Forgive me for wanting to be helpful to you and to protect you from the horrible things in life that I had to deal with when it came to your father.”
Sylvie wanted to rip her hair out. “I know, I know! You weren’t the only one that got hurt that day. It’s over now. It’s been over forever. Move on. And anyway, I’m not you. I’m grown up. I’m a parent now, and I know what’s best for my children.”
Momma barked a nasty laugh. “You know what’s best? Apparently you conceived these children out of wedlock during a one-night stand with a total stranger. I would hardly call that the best judgment in the world.”
Sylvie got to her feet. “I don’t regret that night for an instant. Your grandchildren were the result of it. If I ever hear you say anything else about that night, or if you ever say anything about it in front of my children, I swear on everything I hold sacred that not only will I never talk to you again, you’ll never see your grandchildren either. Not as long as you live.”
Now, Heath got to his feet. Sylvie could see by her mother’s sputtering that she was settling in for an all-out brawl. Then, one of the babies started to cry and Sylvie instantly focused on Quentyn. She wanted to go to him and comfort him, but Heath was already headed that way.
Eli broke the standoff. “I’m going to take Sachet out into the kitchen for a minute. We’ll cut some pie and have a little chat,” he said. “Perhaps you two would like to do the same.”
Sylvie watched Momma’s mouth open as Eli dragged her out of the room. Sylvie hadn’t realized Eli had it in him to be that forceful. She’d never appreciated him more.
She slowly turned to the silent man standing there staring at the bassinet and the crying baby. “Heath?”
Heath touched Quentyn and Jadyn. Quentyn quieted right away, comforted by his father’s proximity.
“Is she telling the truth?” He asked the question in a cold, toneless voice.
“Which parts?” She was desperately trying to figure out how to delay the inevitable reckoning. She shouldn’t do it, she knew but she couldn’t help it. She was guilty, and she knew it, and she wasn’t ready to hear the sentencing.
Sylvie had already seen glimmers that the boys were growing attached to Heath, which had made her so happy. She thought that the perfect family she had always wanted was right there in front of her.
And now it might all be slipping away.
Heath stared at the twins as if he were memorizing their faces. Dread filled Sylvie.
“Does it matter which parts?” he asked, not looking at her. “Did you really know who I was all this time?”
She had no choices. They had all been taken from her. There was only one direction left, and traveling it meant baring herself to the truth.
“Yes, I knew,” she said. “I was seven months pregnant when I found —”
“I need some time,” he interrupted. “I’ll walk home.”
Before Sylvie could protest, Heath had gone to the hall, grabbed his jacket off the coat rack and was out the door.
Chapter Twenty Seven
HEATH WALKED FOR WHAT SEEMED like forever. It was warmer than normal for a March evening, but it was still below fifty. He carried his jacket on his arm. He didn’t need it. It was as if the cold around him wasn’t able to seep into his limbs because of the fire burning inside him.
He couldn’t believe what happened. Momma Jones had sent the world spinning off of its axis.
Sylvie had known who he was all along.
The truth wouldn’t click into place, so he kept stuttering over it. Sylvie didn’t seem like the type of woman who would deliberately keep a man from his children, and yet that’s exactly what she’d done. Before the twins were even born, she knew where to find him.
When he arrived in Zeke Bend’s, she knew who he was, and still she let him pretend to be someone else. Had she played him for a fool?
Why would she do that? What could she gain from not telling him that she knew who he was?
He knew that he’d done his own lying, of course. He wasn’t completely without blame. But surely giving her an incorrect last name and not confessing to being a billionaire wasn’t as bad as not telling someone they might be a father.
Heath kept coming back the idea that Sylvie was suddenly a stranger to him. The Sylvie he thought he knew wouldn’t have done this. So who was this woman, really?
Had she been putting on a façade for him, luring him in for financial gain, or something equally mercenary?
On a scale of who told the worst lie, she was far and away the victor. He hadn’t admitted who he truly was. But she had not only known his identity, she’d also kept his possible paternity a secret. Yes, her crime was far worse than his.
If Sylvie were a gold digger, she was a seriously great one. He’d dealt with a lot of gold diggers in his day, and Sylvie was nothing like them. She didn’t hang on his every word and agree with everything he said or go out of her way to do everything that he wanted her to do.
In fact, it was Heath who’d been going out of his way for her. Lately, he’d been contemplating selling his company and retiring to Zeke’s Bend for her.
This was perhaps the biggest rub of all. His life was different because of her, and it was only because he pursued her. He’d been the one to keep searching, not her.
All that time, Sylvie had known exactly where to find him and yet did nothing about it. Why? Sure, she was proud, but this went far beyond that. This was denying a father a relationship with his children. There was nothing right about that in any universe at any time.
He circled around and around the streets of Zeke’s Bend. Eventually, his feet took him where he knew they would … to Sylvie’s house. All the lights were blazing inside. She was home.
He felt a twinge of guilt for not helping her get the babies back and put them down for the night. He had started to get used to their evening routine. He was slowly, but surely, adapting to his role as a father.
He once had been so afraid of being a bad father that he almost gave up trying to be a good one. He still didn’t know what a good father was like. It was something he still needed to learn. But, he was willing to try.
At least, he had been. Now he wasn’t sure how anything would work moving forward. This was twice now that Sylvie had broken his trust. If she could lie to him about things so huge, what other secrets could she be hiding from him?
He approached her door with a heavy heart. The door opened as soon as his feet hit the small porch. Sylvie had been waiting for him.
Her expression was neutral. “Where have you been?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Around. I needed to think about things.”
