Her Secret Daughter

“Does he, now?” The striking woman pierced him with a sharp gaze, and he leaped to his own defense, then wondered why he felt compelled to do so.

“I don’t. Addie Rose Weatherly, you’re going to get me into trouble one of these days.”

The girl giggled and grabbed him around the leg. “Well, silly, how are we going to find you a wife if you never ask pretty ladies to come see us? I don’t think that’s how it works, Dad.”

“I’ll find my own dates, thank you.” He kept his tone dry, but when Addie burst out laughing, he had no choice. He reached down, picked her up, and marveled at how beautifully strong and healthy she was after such a rocky beginning. “Now say goodbye to these nice ladies. I’ve got a meeting at three, and I can’t be late.”

“Goodbye.” She flashed the ladies a grin while she hugged him, and if he didn’t know any better, he was pretty sure he’d been blessed beyond belief the day this little lady came into his life. She was the bright light in a sea of mourning. She made every day fuller and happier. He’d never thought about settling down and having children, and when his sister’s marriage fell apart, he was pretty sure he’d made the right choice. Now, as he held the niece who was now his adopted daughter in his arms, Jacob was 100 percent certain he’d never have it any other way.

He settled Addie into the back seat of the SUV, watched while she adjusted her shoulder strap, and when she snapped it to show him she’d tightened it correctly, he high-fived her. He’d just climbed into his seat when she surprised him from her perch. “Why was that lady mad at you?”

He could pretend that Josie Gallagher wasn’t mad, but he’d be lying, and he never lied. “My company is buying her land and she has to move and she didn’t want to move.”

“You’re making her move?” Surprise hiked Addie’s gaze to his.

“Well...” He backed up, turned the car around and aimed for the two-lane road. “I’m not. But she has to move, yes.”

“But you’re building the new big place,” she said reasonably. “So it’s like you’re making her move.”

It was kind of like that, so he nodded, but wasn’t happy to do it.

“And I get to go to big-kid school soon!”

Not much fazed Addie, and he loved that about her. They’d moved twice as he followed huge projects up the East Coast, and Addie seemed to find happiness wherever they landed, although now it was different. She was different. She was older and in need of schooling, and he was pushed to make some hard decisions about life and career. She needed roots, and after running projects on the fly for a dozen years, he might need some, too.

A boat horn sounded across the water as the Canandaigua Lady completed a lunchtime cruise. Bits of color tipped the trees, hinting new leaves. Daffodils and tulips brightened the landscapes surrounding the water, and the grass had gone from dull sage to kelly green in the past week. Spring was surging, and he had three months left on the Eastern Shore Inn project. By mid-July the project would be complete, and then what?

He wasn’t tired of building. He loved putting jobs together, and he loved being a dad, two things he’d have never predicted as a younger man.

But since Addie came to him, he’d grown tired of pulling up stakes every few seasons.

He turned onto the road, and glanced back at the two women.

The taller one had moved forward and put an arm around Josie Gallagher, but Josie Gallagher wasn’t looking at her friend.

She was watching him pull away, and the sorrowed look on her face made him want to pause. Turn back. Find out what was really wrong, what put that deepened sadness in her gaze.

He did no such thing. He had a business to run for the next few months, and she was facing changes she didn’t want or need, but they weren’t his fault.

“She looks sad, doesn’t she, Daddy?”

Right now he wished his beautiful daughter wasn’t so intuitive. “Everybody gets sad sometimes, Addie-cakes.”

“A little sad,” she agreed, but when he glanced back, his daughter’s troubled gaze was on the beautiful woman standing outside her soon-to-be-demolished restaurant. “But I think she’s not just a little sad, Daddy. I think her heart hurts, like mine does sometimes.”

What could he say to that? To have a father walk out because parenthood dragged him down, and then lose a mother to a tragic accident within months of Addie being declared cancer-free?

Addie had known heartache, and when foolish people reassured him she was too young to remember those early life tragedies, he bit his tongue to keep from lashing out.

He’d seen the grief in her little face and the naked sadness in her eyes. Time had eased much of that, but if Addie thought the Gallagher woman had a sore heart, he was inclined to believe it, because Addie had had way more experience with sadness than any six-year-old should ever have to face. No matter what he did, or what choices he made, from this point on he was totally invested in making sure her life was as trouble-free as it could be. She’d been dumped by a drug-using birth mother, abandoned by an adoptive father, fought cancer and won, only to lose her mother in a commuter train crash.

Now she had him. And he had her. And with God on their side, they’d make everything work out. Despite Addie’s funny attempts to gain him a wife, they were doing okay. And that was all right by him.

Chapter Two (#uc7a916cb-5310-5d58-a7b3-0445ac28b00a)

“Josie.”

Josie didn’t want to make eye contact with Kimberly, but her cousin’s proximity left her little choice. “Yes?”

“What’s going on?”

Josie moved toward the restaurant side of the building. “Change is in the air, it seems. I need to make a list.”

Kimberly’s hand on her arm made her pause, but not because she wanted to. With Kimberly’s due date so close, she didn’t want to be a jerk, but seeing Addie had rattled her entire being.

Her restaurant gone, her beautiful daughter climbing out of a strange man’s car and the secret she’d buried seven long years ago yawning widely... “It’s just a lot to handle, Kimberly. I was hoping we’d win, that it wouldn’t come to this.” She splayed her hands in the direction of the barbecue joint. “And yet it did.”

Kimberly studied her. She started to say something, then stopped herself. “We’ve been friends and cousins since we were born, Josie.”

Josie nodded. They’d grown up hand in hand, then lost touch for a while, and now here they were, back in Grace Haven. Kimberly had found the love of her life. She had a great job, a lovely new home and a second baby on the way.

Josie had nothing, and that reality didn’t sit well.

“Whatever it is, it might be easier to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing, Kimberly. Except losing all these years of work and effort, watching it get the wrecking ball and bury my hopes and dreams with it. Other than that, it’s nothing much at all.”

She wanted Kimberly to buy that story and let things go, but Kimberly arched one brow and then made a little face of regret. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Josie waved her off deliberately.

She had no intention of being ready, ever. She’d shoved that horrible night and the ensuing time into a deep, dark closet of her consciousness, and she kept it there, locked up tight. She’d moved through life making decisions in Addie’s best interests...

But were those decisions still in her daughter’s best interests? Because seeing her with a stranger and calling him “Dad” sparked too many mental red flags. She couldn’t research any of this with Kimberly around, so she kept her emotions at bay and her hands steady. “I just need time, Kimberly. That’s all. Time to get used to this.”

Unconvinced, Kimberly moved to her car. Josie followed, and when Kimberly turned and hugged her goodbye, Josie longed to spill her guts, but didn’t. She’d kept the secret for so long already. What use would revealing it do? But could she keep it to herself with Addie living so close?

The thought of her daughter nearby sobered her more.

What would that mean? Would she have to move away from the family and friends who’d helped build her business and her self-esteem over the years she’d spent here? How long would the Weatherly man be in Grace Haven?

The host of questions with no answers would hound her until she had time to do more research, and as Kimberly released her, a big part of Josie wanted to tell her everything.

But she’d promised herself and her baby daughter that no one would ever know about the crime associated with Addie’s conception. What child should ever have to grow up knowing that?

None.

She waited for Kimberly to pull away, and moved back to the apartment. She retrieved her laptop from a dusty shelf, opened it, typed in her password and then began a search. One way or another she was going to find out what had happened to her beautiful child in the past few years, and Josie Gallagher was pretty sure she wasn’t going to like any of it.