LITMIR.BIZ

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but he was enough like his father to know it would be futile. McDaniels hid their weaknesses, burrowing in somewhere to lick their wounds like savage animals.

      Silence fell, so thick Deirdre couldn’t breathe.

      “I’ve been dreading this day since I was sixteen,” Cade said. “Scared that the truth would come out somehow. But I thought…hoped the secret died with Mom. God, Dee, haven’t you suffered enough? And the Captain, hell, what could the truth do but hurt him? Dad didn’t know about this any more than you did.”

      “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Deirdre stammered.

      “I was never supposed to know, either. I accidentally overheard Mom talking to the doctor at the hospital. They were afraid you might need a kidney. When they tested for a compatible donor, the truth came out. Your blood work and the Captain’s proved you couldn’t be father and daughter.”

      “My God.” Deirdre sagged into Finn’s rocking chair. “That’s why Mom changed once I got home from the hospital.”

      Cade nodded. “It killed her just to look at me, knowing I knew her secret. Sometimes I think she was so afraid you and Dad would find out the truth that she wanted to die. Yes, she had an affair with some musician—”

      “A musician?” Deirdre echoed. “Like me?”

      “It doesn’t matter what the guy did for a living,” Cade said, but Deirdre could tell that he knew it did; it mattered to her in ways he’d understood far too long. “Mom stayed with us,” Cade insisted. “She tried to make things work. She loved all of us.”

      “Don’t even go there, Cade.” A lifetime’s bitterness spilled through Deirdre. “She loved you. That’s why she stayed. She never loved me. At least now I know why.”

      “Deirdre, you don’t know that,” Finn said. “People make mistakes. Do things they regret. You disappeared from Emma’s life for nine months, but that didn’t mean you’d stopped loving her. How do you know your mother—”

      “Nice, Finn,” Deirdre said. “Real nice. Throw that up in my face.”

      Tears welled in Finn’s eyes. “You’re my best friend. The sister I never had. I don’t want to hurt you, but I love you enough to tell you the truth.”

      “The truth…” Deirdre echoed, Finn’s words lancing through her. “Yeah. Maybe it is time I faced the truth. My mother and I never could be anything like you. You’re so damned easy to love I could almost hate you for it. You even got three hardcases like the McDaniels to adore you. I mean, two McDaniels,” she corrected. “The Captain and…and Cade.”

      Cade glowered. “Deirdre, none of this changes the fact that you’re my sister.”

      “Don’t even try to tell me you felt the same way about me after you heard the truth!” Deirdre exclaimed. “You could hardly look at me after I came home from the hospital. It was like…like someone ripped all the joy right out of you. You were a stranger.”

      “Dee, it was my fault you got hurt! I felt guilty as hell. Mom told me you came to the hangar because you missed me. All I did was yell at you, try to drag you off that plane. All I cared about was my damned job and the flying lessons it bought me. You almost died! And then to find out about Mom and—Hell, yes, it shook me up! But I didn’t stop loving you! I was just a kid myself, hurting, mixed up…”

      “Deirdre,” Finn interrupted, desperate, “I wish you could have heard Cade when he told me how much he regretted the distance between you. It tore him apart.”

      “No wonder he thought I wasn’t a fit mother for Emma,” Deirdre said. “I was the product of some sleazy affair.”

      “You abandoned the kid on my goddamned doorstep without a word of explanation! I didn’t know where you were for nine months! It had nothing to do with who the hell your father is!”

      “Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better,” Deirdre said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

      “Okay, you want the truth? I would have given my right arm to keep you from finding that letter. To keep you and the Captain from finding out about a piece of ancient history that could only hurt you. But when it comes right down to it, you’re still my kid sister. The Captain’s still your father. That letter doesn’t change a damn thing.”

      “You’re wrong,” Deirdre said, her chin bumping up a notch. “It changes everything.”

      “Don’t go off half-cocked and do something we’re all going to regret. I know you’ve got a hell of a mad on, but the truth is you’re hurt. Hurting people back isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

      “Maybe not. But finding my real father might.”

      “The Captain is your real father,” Cade roared in exasperation. “He’s the one who taught you how to throw a baseball, who ran all over town looking for orange pop when you were sick!”

      “Yeah, well, the military trained him to fall on a grenade if necessary,” Deirdre said. “Duty, honor, country and all that crap. When it comes right down to it, we should all be relieved! None of us have to pretend to be a big happy family anymore.”

      She snatched the letter. Cade swore. He grabbed for her arm.

      She wheeled on him, flames all but shooting from her eyes. “Leave me the hell alone!” she roared.

      “Damn it, Dee, I’m sorry. Tell me…tell me what to do. How to fix things.”

      Fix things…that’s what Cade had always been good at. But all the magic in the world couldn’t erase the letter’s contents from Deirdre’s mind.

      “You want to know what hurts most of all?” Deirdre said. “You lied to me, all this time. Cade, I trusted you.” Tears pushed against her lashes. She turned, fled.

      She could hear Cade start after her, heard Finn’s insistent voice. “Let her go. She needs time to sort this through.”

      Finn probably thought once Deirdre calmed down everything would be all right. Finn and Cade would try to put the broken pieces of the family together again. They didn’t know it would never work.

      The hurt of a lifetime finally made sense. She wasn’t a McDaniel. It was time to find out exactly who she was.

      She raced across the garden that separated Cade’s cabin from March Winds, slipped around to the back door to avoid the newlyweds mooning over each other in the porch swing. She rushed into the private living quarters she and Emma called home and stumbled to the small office that was her haven, a room devoid of the antiques and Victorian furbelows that gave the rest of the old house its old-world aura.

      Deirdre slammed the door and leaned against it as if a wolf were chasing a few feet behind her. She sucked in a deep breath, the tears finally falling free. Disgusted with herself, she scrubbed them from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She wasn’t going to waste any time crying. She was going to do something. But what?

      How was she supposed to find this Jimmy Rivermont so many years later? Considering the letter was returned to sender it was obvious her mother hadn’t been able to find the man. And at least she’d known who she was looking for.

      Deirdre didn’t have a clue how to begin. How did you find someone who’d disappeared?

      She closed her eyes, her memory suddenly filling with a tall man in a long outback-style coat, a black cowboy hat on his head, his steel-gray gaze dangerous, ruthless. Six years had passed since she’d opened the door to find Jake Stone on the other side—the private investigator tracking down the small fortune Finn’s ne’er-do-well father had stolen. Obliterating the inheritance Finn had believed was proof her father had loved her enough to provide her with the home he’d never given her as a child.

      Stone had shattered Finn’s illusions, all but destroyed Cade and Finn’s chance at happiness, then gone, leaving ugly scars in his wake. Finn had made peace

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