Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion

“I didn’t mean to imply that it could.” She was a little angry. He could feel it.

“Good.”

“So what happened, Striker?”

His jaw worked.

“Can’t talk about it?” She rolled her eyes. “After I explained about Sam Donahue? That I was sleeping with him and he was still married. How do you think I feel, not seeing the signs, not reading the clues. Geez, whatever it is can’t be that humiliating!”

“We had a daughter,” he said, his voice seeming to come from outside his body. “Her name was Heather.” His throat tightened with the memories. “I used to take her with me on the boat and she loved it. My wife didn’t like it, was afraid of the water. But I insisted it would be safe. And it was. Until…” His chest felt as if the weight of the sea was upon it. Randi didn’t say a word but she’d blanched, her skin suddenly pale, as if she knew what was to come. Striker closed his eyes, but still he could see that day, the storm coming in on the horizon, remember the way the engine had stalled. “Until the last time. Heather and I went boating. The engine had cut out and I was busy fiddling with it when she fell overboard. Somehow her life jacket slipped off. It was a fluke, but still… I dived in after her but she’d struck her head. Took in too much water.” He blinked hard. “It was too late. I couldn’t save her.” Pain wracked through his soul.

Randi didn’t move. Just stared at him.

“My wife blamed me,” he said, leaning against the door. “The divorce was just a formality.”

Ten

Dear God, how she’d misjudged him! “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wondering how anyone survived losing a child.

“It’s not your fault.”

“And it wasn’t yours. It was an accident,” she said then saw recrimination darken his gaze.

“So I told myself. But if I hadn’t insisted upon taking her…” He scowled. “Look, it happened. Over five years ago. No reason to bring it up now.”

Randi’s heart split. For all of his denials, the pain was fresh in him. “Do you have a picture?”

“What?”

“Of your daughter?”

When he hesitated, she crawled out of the sleeping bag. “I’d like to see.”

“This isn’t a good idea.”

“Not the first,” she said as she crossed the room. Reluctantly he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. Randi’s throat closed as she took the battered leather and gazed at the plastic-encased photograph of a darling little girl. Blond pigtails framed a cherubic face that seemed primed for the camera’s eye. Under apple cheeks, her tiny grin showed off perfect little baby teeth. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yes.” He nodded, his lips thin and tight. “She was.”

“I apologize if I said anything insensitive before. I didn’t know.”

“I don’t talk about it much.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Don’t think so.” He took the wallet from her fingers and snapped it shut.