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“Of course, of course. A bad choice of words on my part, and a reality we’d like to help you maintain.”
He couldn’t mean that like it sounded. That somehow, someway, Josie could take Addie away from him. Who would do that? Who would tear a child apart like that for their own selfish gain?
Wild child…
The phrase gut-slammed him again.
Maybe he’d been stupid. Perhaps she’d fooled him completely, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that she needed to know in no uncertain terms that Addie was his daughter. Random genetics didn’t dictate a child’s heritage. At some point, the basic science of the matter hit Pause and tender, loving care stepped in.
He hung up the call and didn’t stop to pray or think or do any of those rational things he’d been taught as a major development negotiator. He climbed behind the wheel, grabbed hold and drove toward the resort, fuming.
She thought she could upset Addie’s life? She thought she could mess up the years he’d invested, giving his amazing daughter the faith, hope and love every child deserved?
She was wrong. And he was about to let her know it, and no amount of wringing hands and tears would make him see it any other way.
* * *
He knew.
The moment Josie turned from the walk-in cooler and saw Jacob standing inside the barbecue kitchen, she knew the hour had come.
“I need to see you outside.”
The gruff tone of his voice made Terry turn, surprised. “Something wrong?”
Oh, there was something wrong, all right. Something so very wrong that words could never put it right. She saw that in Jacob’s face, read it in his eyes. She slipped her apron off, left Terry to listen for timers and moved toward the door. “I’ll be at the smoker, Terry.”
“All right.” He shot her a look as she glanced back, and she shook her head slightly. Terry was a good guy, and he was reacting to the cold steel in Jacob’s voice, but this wasn’t his fight. It wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s fight, but that had been taken out of her hands a long time ago.
She moved into the smoker “cave,” turned and folded her hands across her middle. She gazed up at him, letting him take the lead.
“You’re Addie’s birth mother.”
Oh, the cruel irony of words, the sharp-edged sword. How the sacrificial act of giving her child up had turned her into the bad guy here, she didn’t know, but suddenly the words “birth mother” annoyed her. “I am her mother. Yes.”
“Don’t do that.”
She waited, wishing this was over, wishing it had never gotten started. But then there would be no Addie, would there?
“Don’t make the mere accident of genetics let you think you have rights, because you don’t. You lied to me. You lied to my daughter. You lied to my parents, and to everyone around here, letting folks think you were an honorable person. All the while you were going behind my back, putting your tangled web of deceit into motion.”
“I did nothing of the kind. Ever.”
She hadn’t thought he could look angrier. She was wrong. “You deny that you’ve got a lawyer looking into the original adoption? A closed adoption, according to the paperwork I was given, so how could you have known who Addie was unless you stalked her? Stalked them? What kind of person are you really, Josie? Because you fooled me.” He crossed his arms, too. “And I didn’t think I fooled easily. So shame on me for letting myself and my daughter get sucked into your ruse. But as of now, this moment, consider it over. My work is nearly complete here, and until it is, stay away from me, my family and especially my child. Do you hear me?”
Kind? Compassionate?
The man before her bore neither of those qualities, but she recognized his fear and pain because she’d lived it. “I’d already decided to have no further contact with Addie once you’re gone.”
He scoffed in disbelief. “Don’t expect me to fall into line, Josie. To believe what you say now. Your actions speak louder than your words ever could. Just make sure you stay out of our sight. Out of our way. My daughter and I have no desire to further our acquaintance with a woman known around town as a ‘wild child.’”
