LITMIR.BIZ

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Inside, several photos fell into her lap. In the first one, she was small, about four or five years old, with a missing front tooth and a big smile. A memory crashed back, the day her mother had taken the photo. They’d gone shopping and had ice-cream sodas at the soda shop in town. Then her mother had bought her a charm bracelet. What had happened to it?

      She jerked her head toward Deke. “Where did you get this?”

      “Your mother gave it to me. She kept it all these years.” He hesitated, his voice gruff. “That’s the way she remembers you, Elsie, as the little girl she loved.”

      A low sob caught in Elsie’s throat. “I…can’t believe this is happening, that all this time…”

      Deke gestured toward the other photos. Two tall muscular men who resembled Deke flanked a gorgeous woman. “That’s Hailey now,” Deke said. “And my brothers, Rex and Brack, on Rex’s wedding day. Hailey planned to remodel her old house into an antique shop, but it burned down. They’re living at Falcon Ridge now, while they build a new house on her old property.”

      Elsie’s mind raced to assimilate the information. Her best friend from years ago was really alive. She had survived her awful childhood. And now she looked so happy. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she swiped them away, hating to reveal her emotions in front of Deke Falcon. He seemed so angry.

      She thumbed through two more pictures of the wedding, until her gaze fell on a group shot. An older woman with graying hair and the warmest smile Elsie had ever seen stood in the center.

      “That’s your mother, Deanna,” Deke said in a gruff voice.

      Elsie pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. She’d recognized her immediately. “She’s…so beautiful.” Elsie’s heart stammered. Although she was smiling, the woman’s eyes held an emptiness, as well, as if she had experienced deep sadness in her life. The kind of loss that Elsie had felt in her own heart since her father had taken her away.

      Could it possibly be true? Had her mother really wanted her?

      Memories bombarded her. Memories she had stored away in the most distant corners of her mind because they had been so painful. She and her mother weaving pot holders out of yarn. The two of them baking a cake for her birthday. Her mother singing lullabies to her and tucking her into bed.

      Her mother had loved her. Elsie had felt it back then.

      A woman like that wouldn’t just turn her back on her child. Her gaze met Deke’s, and she saw the truth in his eyes. But her smile faded as bitter reality surfaced. Her father had lied to her all these years. He’d convinced her that she was responsible for the plague of death on Hailey’s family. That her mother hated her. And later when she’d grown up and had questioned him about her mother, he’d claimed her mother was dead.

      Then Elsie had been even more lost. Even more confused and angry. And she’d gotten in trouble.

      So much trouble that she’d blamed herself when her father had abandoned her to the horrors of Wildcat Manor.

      DEKE HAD ALWAYS BEEN a sucker for a damsel in distress. And Elsie Timmons fit that picture perfectly. Instead of happy or excited, she appeared to be tormented by his news.

      Of course, he understood her mixed reaction. He had been thrilled that his father was released, but the bitterness he felt from all the time he’d lost with him, for all the pain his family had endured, especially his mother, had lingered.

      Elsie had obviously struggled. If her claims were true, her father had lied to her all her life. Where was he now?

      She studied the pictures over and over again, then glanced back into the fire, dazed. Her eyes looked haunted, grief and sadness so embedded in the depths, that his gut clenched. She reminded him of the injured animals he and his brothers found in the wild. A butterfly maybe, or a wounded kitten.

      “Your mother wants me to bring you back to see her,” he finally said.

      Her gaze flew to his, questions and worry flashing.

      “I’ll be glad to escort you.”

      “No…I can’t go.”

      His anger rose, defenses born from a lifetime of being looked at as a killer’s son surfacing. Was she still afraid of him?

      “You can call her yourself.” Furious at himself for wanting to soothe her pain when she looked at him as a villain, he reached inside his wallet, removed his business card, then scribbled her mother’s name and number on it. “This is my P.I. firm, if you want to check it out, and there’s your mother’s number.”

      Her chin quivered as she accepted the card. “She really wanted me all these years?”

      The anguish in her voice overrode his anger, and he sat down beside her and gently touched her hand. A frisson of sexual awareness bolted through him, the sight of her eyes filled with tears nearly ripping him inside out. “Yes, Elsie. Call her. She’ll be thrilled to hear from you.”

      She clamped her teeth over her trembling lip. “I…can’t right now. I need time, time to think, to take all this in.”

      He stroked her hand with his fingers, aching to pull her into his arms. A possessive, foreign feeling he didn’t understand filled him. “Where is your father, Elsie?”

      Fear and something else—shame? anger?—settled across her face. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

      “What happened after he took you from your mother?”

      She glanced down at her hands, at his fingers as they moved slowly over hers, but she didn’t pull away. “We moved around a lot. Every town he took me to, we used another name.”

      “Your mother hired another P.I. back then,” he said. “But your father managed to stay hidden.”

      “He didn’t…couldn’t keep a job,” she said. “He blamed her for their failed marriage, for me.”

      “What do you mean?”

      She couldn’t explain the painful things he’d said to her. “I…I don’t think he wanted a child.”

      “But he stole you from her,” Deke said in a low voice.

      “To hurt her,” she said, raw pain tingeing her voice.

      He muttered a curse, and she averted her gaze, rocking herself back and forth. “When was the last time you saw him?” Deke asked.

      The shaking that had finally stopped racking her slender frame assaulted her again, and he ground his teeth to keep from putting his arms around her. He had to move slowly with Elsie, be gentle, approach her as he would a wounded hawk.

      “When I was fourteen.”

      He frowned. “What happened?”

      She shook her heard, hunching her shoulders. “I…don’t want to talk about it.”

      He gestured around the monstrous room. “He left you here at this orphanage, didn’t he?”

      A slight nod of her head served as her reply. Then she stood and turned toward the fire, seemingly lost in the flames.

      “I will take you back to your home,” he said. “When you see your mother, everything will be all right. Trust me, you’ll see.”

      Elsie shook her head, tears spiking her long black lashes. “It’s too late,” she said in a haunted whisper. “I can’t go back now, Deke. Not ever.”

      Raw anguish knifed through Elsie. In mere seconds, she’d memorized her mother’s features. Her smile. Her sad eyes. The changes in her face. The slight graying of her hair.

      And with that, the memory of her voice had returned. The sound of her soft singing. Her spontaneous laughter. The smell of the gardenia lotion she used on her hands. The look of joy on her face when Elsie had drawn a picture for her or when she’d done something

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