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“You can’t think that any of this is real,” Delaney said furiously. “No matter what it says on a test that he could easily have doctored—”
“I know that you’re upset,” Catherine said. And she suddenly seemed imbued with the strength Delaney hadn’t seen in her in ages. It made her heartsick that it was only now. Only under these bizarre conditions. “I understand. I’m upset, too.”
Delaney couldn’t keep herself on her end of the sofa any longer. She moved toward her mother, reaching out without thought and making a little sobbing sound when her mother grabbed her hands.
It was hard to tell who held on tighter.
“Listen to me,” Catherine said, her voice as fierce as her grip. “You are my daughter. In every way that matters,you are my daughter. I took you home from the hospital. I loved you. I raised you. We’re not debating whether or not you are mine. You are, Delaney.You are.”
“But you said...” Delaney croaked out, horrified when she realized the water splashing on her hands was coming from her eyes. Clarks didn’t cry. Clarks didn’t make scenes. Clarks endured. But this Clark felt as if she’d already been carried away in a tornado. “You told him...”
“I had a funny feeling,” Catherine said quietly. “And was quickly told it was my hormones, that was all. Over time I would sometimes remember that feeling, when you would sing, perhaps. Or when I would think about the fact that you don’t have the Clark chin. All Clarks have the same pointy chin.” She tapped the end of hers, round and stubborn. “You don’t even have mine. Still, these are little things. I love you, Delaney. I find myself interested in meeting the child I bore in my body, I won’t lie. But that will never change my love foryou.”
Delaney couldn’t let herself think about that other child. Thatprincess, if Cayetano was to be believed. And how could she possibly believe a word he’d said? How could her quiet life have anything to do withprincesses? It made no sense.
She knew about corn. Not thrones.
“Even if it’s true,” she said, after a moment—though she didn’t think it was. But Catherine clearly did. “Even if somehow it’s actually true, that doesn’t mean that I need to go off somewhere with this man. Thisstranger.It certainly doesn’t mean I shouldmarryhim.”
“Weddings don’t necessarily happen overnight,” her mother said, an odd gleam in her gaze. “No need to rush into anything, I would say. But I think what we have before us is an opportunity, Delaney.”
“An opportunity for what?” Inside, she thought,to question everything? To find out I’m not who I thought I was?She could have done without the opportunity, thanks.
All she’d ever known, all she’d ever wanted, was the farm.
“I know you love this land,” her mother said quietly. Almost as if it hurt her to say. “But I have agonized over it. As my own strength wanes, I’ve watched you try to work with your own two hands what it took my father and a full set of workers and family to maintain. How can you possibly stand up to it? How can anyone?”
“It’s Clark land,” Delaney protested. “I’ll find a way. That’s what Clarks do.”
“I’m an old woman now.” And Catherine sounded firm now. She patted Delaney’s hand in the way she’d always done. A quietchin up, child. “I have tended this land since I was little more than a girl. Sometimes I think I’d like to live in town, in the time I have left. It would be nice to walk somewhere, if I wanted. Be easy, if I wish. Sleep in late and leave the cows to do their business with someone else.”
Delaney’s heart was kicking at her, some whirl of fear and panic and too many other dark things she couldn’t name. Or breathe through, really.
She made herself focus on her mother, not whatever was happening inside her. “Mama, if this is how you feel, why have you never told me?”
“How could I tell you?” Catherine asked quietly. “You’ve already given up so much for this farm. You are young, Delaney. You shouldn’t be here, isolated and away from everyone. You have more in common with a vegetable patch than people your own age. It’s not natural. And it’s not good for you.”
Delaney sat back, pulling her hands away. “But you think some stranger showing up and saying he wants to spirit me off to play some sort of political game is better? How is that natural?”
“What kind of life will you have if you never leave the farm?” Catherine retorted. “I could never think of a way to tell you what I thought you should do. You have always been so determined. And you never asked. But it seems fate has taken care of it, doesn’t it? You have a birthright, Delaney. You already know what this one looks like. Why don’t you go and see what this new one is about?”
“Because I don’t want to go!” Delaney cried, and she didn’t care if Cayetano with his burnt gold warlord eyes could hear her. “I don’t want to go anywhere!”
Her mother—because she is still my mother, I don’t care what that test said, she told herself—reached over and patted her hand again. She had that canny look about her that Delaney had always rued. It was too much like her grandmother. It always led to truths she’d have preferred to ignore. “Is it because you truly don’t wish to go? That’s fine. No one will make you go anywhere if you don’t want to go. I don’t care how many cars he has.”
“Thank you,” Delaney said in a rush—
But Catherine held up a hand. “I wonder, though, if it’s more that you’reafraidto go?” She shook her head. “Because if that’s the case, my dear girl, then I’m afraid I will have to insist.”
It took Delaney two days to answer that question.
And she wasn’t happy about it. Any of it. She spent forty-seven hours talking herself around and around in circles. And a lot of those hours succumbing to emotions unbefitting a person who had been raised in the Midwest.
Emotions were for high-strung coastal types. Midwesterners were made of sterner stuff. Salt of the earth, in point of fact. She would pull herself together as quickly as possible, reminding herself thatsalt of the earthdid not mean sobbing into her pillows.
But then she would remind herself that she wasn’t made of anything Midwestern at all. Because the DNA test didn’t lie, much as she wished it did. She’d researched it. Delaney was a good Kansas girl who’d been raised up right on a farm—but now she was aprincess.
It feltwrong, that was all.There was no other word for it.
