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“Right after?”
Again he nodded. “I know it’s not fair, my keeping my secret and choosing my time to share it. And in the very next breath, asking you to reveal the rest of yours. But I am. I have to.”
She drew her hands back suddenly and looked down at the table. “Bobby, I–”
“Is Selene my daughter?”
Vidalia slammed her eyes closed, like slamming a door on the secret she had kept for far too long. But it was too late. It was already out. She drew a deep breath, prayed for strength and forced herself to look him in the eye. “I was going to tell you last night. And I’ve been working up to it all morning. The truth is, Bobby, she might be. But I don’t know for sure.”
“How can you not know?”
She held up a hand to ask him for patience. “John came home only a couple of days after you...after we....after you left. It was six weeks later I realized I was carrying Selene. You were long gone and I hadn’t heard a word. I was mortified and ashamed of myself for cheating on my husband, and I just...I saw no good that could come from digging around in any of it. I just never looked into it any further.” She lowered her head. “To tell you the truth, I was afraid to.”
He sighed heavily. “You should’ve told me, Vidalia. I had a right to know.”
“I don’t deny that. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. But I want you to ask yourself what difference it would have made if you had known? You were as much as an absentee father to your boys as my husband was to my girls.”
“No. Not quite that much,” he denied.
She nodded, unwilling to argue the point. He was right. At least he hadn’t had another wife, another family, competing for his attention. “All right, not quite that much. But still, it wasn’t like you would’ve spent time with her, raised her as your own. Not back then. You were all wrapped up in making your fortune.”
He was silent for a long moment, and then, at last, he heaved a heavy sigh. “You’re right. But I’d have...at least tried to help you support her. I would’ve sent money–”
“And I’d have sent it back. I’m a proud woman, Bobby Joe. One of the things I’m proudest of is having raised those five girls on my own. I wouldn’t have taken your money. If I had, they wouldn’t have turned out to be the women they are, and I’m damn proud of the women they are.”
He nodded. “You should be.”
She looked at her sandwich, half-eaten, and pushed the plate away. “I’ve never told Selene. But if you want me to, you have a right to ask that of me, I suppose. Or if you want some kind of testing done to be sure–”
“I don’t know if I need to tell her or not. I...I need to mull on this a little. It’s a lot to take in.”
Nodding, Vidalia pushed away from the table, picking up her tray and heading for the nearest wastebasket. Bobby came behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not angry with you, Vidalia.”
“You should be,” she said. “I deserve your anger. This has been eating at me all this time. I was so wrong–”
“You were a single mother, for all intents and purposes, and you had to put that first. I don’t blame you at all for making the decision you did.”
She set the now empty tray atop the stack of others and turned to face him. “I did wrong, Bobby, and I had every intention of telling you the truth today. I was...working up my courage. But I readily admit that I am desperately in need of your forgiveness.”
“I don’t see that there’s anything to forgive–”
“I need it. And I need you to mean it. So give it some time to settle in, and really think it over, Bobby Joe. This is a stain I’ve been wearing on my soul for a long time, and you’re the only one who can remove it.”
He nodded, leaned down, kissed her forehead. “I forgive you, Vidalia. And I mean it. I’m not gonna change my mind, even if I think on it for a few years. And I’ll tell you why.” He licked his lips, lowered his forehead and pressed it to hers. “It’s because I love you.”
“Oh, Lord, Bobby Joe, it’s too soon to be saying such–”
“Too soon? I’ve loved you for more than twenty years, woman. Listen, I’m a man who knows his own mind. His own heart. At least, I am now. I’ve made a vow to say what I feel to everyone in my life, right at the moment I have the chance, because life is short, Vidalia, and you just never know when you’ll get another shot. I love you. I’ve loved you since I came to work for you a hundred years ago. And I’ll love you till the day I....” He stopped there and swallowed hard.
And then he smiled quite suddenly and said, “A ventriloquist’s doll!”
Vidalia frowned, blinking up at him in complete confusion.
“That’s the one Christmas present Jason ever asked for that I didn’t get him. He got on this kick after seeing an old TV show on a Sunday afternoon that featured Edgar Bergen and his Charlie McCarthy puppet. I looked everywhere. But there were none to be found.”
“Well, why don’t you use that fancy phone of yours to track one down?” she asked. “If you can’t find one on the Internet, then one doesn’t exist.” She was glad the subject had lightened up so much. And grateful that he wasn’t furious with her for the secret she had kept all these years. If only she knew for sure, and if only she could have the courage to tell Selene the truth. But there was one thing Vidalia Brand feared more than she feared the devil himself, and that was losing the love of her daughters. What if they hated her for what she had done? What if they lost respect for her?
And she was worried about more than that, too. Because that niggling little theory about this secret Bobby Joe was keeping from her was growing bigger all the time, and she didn’t like where it was leading her.
