Page 80 of Second Chance Saloon

Fred got up, crossing the room in three long strides. He sat next to Jackie, putting a tentative hand on her forearm. “Sweetheart, it wasn’t like that.”

Jackie flinched, shuffling to the edge of the couch, away from her father’s reach. She didn’t want to be touched, didn’t need to be comforted. All she wanted was to understand, but that was an unrealistic wish. “She couldn’t have wanted me, otherwise she’d have stayed. Am I wrong?”

Fred didn’t answer right away. He drew a shattering breath, pushing both of his hands onto his knees. “Weronika couldn’t have raised you.”

“That makes no sense.”

He turned to her; his eyes filled with a consternation she hadn’t seen before. They were normally full of warmth and mirth, at least whenever he looked at her. But this? This was new. Jackie didn’t like it one bit.

“Have you read the letter she sent?” he asked quietly.

“No. I have no interest in reading it.”

He nodded, slowly, sadness overtaking his features. “All right. Getting pregnant wasn’t planned. Before she’d realized, she was four months along and … she had no interest in being a mother.”

“I knew it,” Jackie clipped.

Fred swallowed. “I wanted you from the first moment I heard she was pregnant.”

“Didn’t she think of having an abortion?” she whispered.

He chewed his bottom lip, looking as uncomfortable as she’d ever seen him. “She did, initially. But she was already quite far along and … Well, we talked. I knew she didn’t want to be a mother, but I really wanted to be a dad. I was ready for it; I was ready for you. Weronika said it wasn’t happening, stormed off and I didn’t see her for a month. She later turned up on my doorstep, said she’d decided to go through with the pregnancy and birth but wasn’t going to stick around.”

Jackie contained a cry behind her teeth. “What kind of mother abandons her own daughter?”

Fred was by her side in a second, putting his arm around her.

She didn’t protest, leaning into his embrace, her chest rising and falling as he stroked her back.

“I can’t speak for her. I wouldn’t dare. But I can tell you that I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I can’t even hate Weronika or be angry with her, because she gave me you—and you, my most precious girl, are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Jackie choked back a sob and pushed her father away. “I love you, Dad. But right now, I’m so angry at you that I can’t even look at you. I need some space.”

Wordlessly, Fred shuffled to the other end of the couch.

She blinked back tears, focusing on regulating her breathing. Wasn’t this what she wanted, the answers to questions she hadn’t even thought to ask before that damned letter arrived? What did she expect? She knew the woman who gave birth to her was out there, living her life somewhere, completely unbothered by the existence of a girl who shared her genes, her blood and, as it turned out, her looks.

“I look like her,” Jackie murmured, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I remember her. Her long, wavy black hair …” She swallowed, her fingers instinctively rising to a thick lock of her own hair. “I look just like her.”

Fred raised his hand, as though about to reach for her hand, but stopped himself halfway through, balling it in a fist on his knee. “You’re beautiful, sweetheart. She’s beautiful as well. But I like to think you look a bit like me, too.”

Jackie lifted her gaze, scanning her father’s face. He was in his early sixties now, but time did nothing to wipe away the fact he was a handsome man. She supposed as much as Weronika had black hair, so did Fred. Maybe she took after him, not her. She sniffed when she paused on his nose, the same nose she had.

“And you have so much of Sharon’s and Mimi’s personalities. Not everything is inherited biologically,” Fred added with a small smile. His fingers flexed as he opened and closed his fist, visibly itching to console her, but respecting her wish to have some space. That was who Fred van Moetlier was: kind to a fault, full of respect and love.

Her heart squeezed and she let out a light laugh. “Nature versus nurture?”

“There must be so much to it. Look at you, you’re smart, driven. No one could tell me riding isn’t in your blood. And neither Weronika nor I had ever been near a horse. Well, I have been now, since I met Sharon. But before that.”

Jackie inhaled, the smile slipping off her lips. She pushed herself into the side of the couch, her skin prickling with the awareness that the person she’d looked up to her entire life was also someone who’d lied to her. “Why did you and Mom let her visit us? Why did you introduce her to me as Mom’s friend?”

Fred swallowed, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. Concentration shone in his blue eyes, a shade lighter than Jackie’s. “She heard I got married. I don’t know where she got the ranch’s address from, but she turned up here one day. Mimi was furious. She wanted to use her shotgun to scare her away.”

Jackie’s eyes widened. “No, Mimi? Really?”

He chuckled. “Yes. She’s always been very protective of both your mom and you. We sat down at the table together and talked. It was your mom who offered Weronika a chance to visit, to see you grow up.”

A breath caught in her throat. The fact that neither of them had to clarify who they meant by “mom” filled her heart with warmth. Whatever transpired today, Sharon was her mother. She always had been. She was the one who raised her, read her bedtime stories about princesses and faraway kingdoms, drove her to school, watched her dance recitals, was there to talk to her about her first period and boys, took her shopping for her prom dress … Sharon was the one who always offered good advice or a shoulder to cry on, even if it was over the phone. She wasn’t there every day of her childhood, but she had been there for her when she needed her. She loved Sharon so much, and that was never going to change.