Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

He reached to her, wrapping his large, warm hands around her upper arms, his eyes looking directly into hers. “It’s okay, Kendra. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“But . . . but Paulo Ayudor doesn’t exist.”

“I’ve used that name, and others. But I’m Daniel Delligatti.”

She stepped back abruptly, breaking the connection. His hands dropped to his side.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came for you–and our son.”

CHAPTER THREE

“You . . . you know . . .”

The death of a fragile hope staggered Kendra. How many times in the lonely, uncertain nights had she pitted her common sense, her realism against the stubborn, foolish hope that if he was alive and knew she’d had their son he would have found her somehow? But the hope had persisted. Until this moment, when his own words revealed he had known, and he hadn’t come.

She sank back to support her hips against the top of the couch’s back. Ellyn took her arm, but Marti turned on her heel and headed for the kitchen.

The man remained standing before her, hands loosely fisted at his side, eyes intent on her, expression solemn.

“Now I do. I didn’t for a long time. I couldn’t look for you. Not until recently. And then–you weren’t easy to find. The network wouldn’t tell me anything. Official channels weren’t much help, not even the consulate. But I heard you were pregnant when you left. Eventually I found out you’d had a son–and when he was born.”

The heat of his dark eyes threatened to kindle memories from nine months before Matthew’s birth. She doused them by an act of will.

His shoulders shifted as if he’d wanted to take a step toward her, then thought better of it. “I knew . . . I’m his father, aren’t I, Kendra?”

But her mind had snagged on one phrase. One phrase clicked a thousand shards of memory into a mosaic that made sense for the first time.

“The . . . consulate . . .” She had to form the word twice to get it to come out. “My God, you were there. That day. The day of the hurricane, before I went to La Baja. Before I found the guide. Before . . . You tried to talk me out of going. Tried to send me to the airport with the others. The baggy suit. The hair. And the bad posture . . . Tompkins.”

“Yes.”

“That was you. And afterward, after the hurricane, you’re the one I talked to–the one I talked to when I called to try to find–that’s why the voice nagged at me. It seemed so familiar, but . . . My God, I talked to you when I called the consulate asking for help finding Paulo. How’s that for irony?” The strangled sound from her throat could hardly be called laughter “When you – Paulo–had walked away from me, from us.” Her hands spread over her abdomen, an instinctive gesture to protect the child she’d carried from his father’s desertion. “You must have had a good laugh over that.”

“You know I didn’t.”

“I know? How can I? I know nothing about you!”

Memories streamed through her mind now, driven by a different kind of hurricane. Altered by the storm of her emotions. Shock. Relief. Joy. Pain.

She’d known Paulo, the Paulo she’d known and made love with, didn’t truly exist. She’d accepted that . . . hadn’t she? But to be faced now with how badly, completely and thoroughly she’d been deceived–

“Kendra, let me explain.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“I couldn’t tell you before. I’m still not . . . They wanted absolute secrecy, but I never agreed.”

“Secrecy? Having secrets seems to be your strong suit.”

“Kendra–”

“I’m glad you survived–or Paulo did–or the man from the consulate or whoever the hell you really are. But I don’t . . .” She put a hand to her forehead, as if that would slow the spinning thoughts. Then she forced herself to straighten. “I don’t know that I have anything to say to Daniel Delligatti.”

“Then listen. Because I have things to say to you.” Now he took that single step forward. She stiffened, and felt Ellyn’s supporting hand tighten on her arm. “And things to ask.”

“I don’t–”

“The boy–Matthew, that’s what you named him, right?–he’s my son, isn’t he, Kendra?”

Matthew.

A new fear roared into her head. She’d worried and mourned for so long that his father wasn’t part of Matthew’s life that she’d never considered this other possibility. How stupid of her. How careless and unthinking.

He’d said he’d tracked them down, once he knew he had a son.

“Kendra.”

He said it the way he had during those hours of the hurricane, stretching and rolling it like a caress. Her eyes met his for the first time without darting away. Did she see something of Paulo Ayudor in them? More likely a reflection of her own pathetic hopes.

She shook her head, mostly at herself, but he responded to it.

“I want to know my son. I want to be in his life. I need . . .” Something flickered in the darkness of his eyes, something more complex than anything she’d seen there in those hours on Santa Estella. “I would never try to separate you. I would never do anything to keep my son from being with his mother. I swear to you.”

“Because I was fool enough to have trusted you before doesn’t mean I would trust you–”

“You weren’t a fool.”

“Right. To trust a total stranger?” she scoffed. “It was idiotic. I know better–I knew better. My God, someone I’d never met, didn’t know.”

“You knew me, Kendra.” His voice was deep, sure.

“Knew you? Of course I didn’t know you.”

His certainty didn’t waver. “You knew me. And I knew you. The real people.”

“That’s absurd. A tall tale, like Paulo Ayudor. It’s a–”

She hadn’t heard the back door open, but the rap of boot heels on the kitchen floor caught her attention. Boot heels in a hurry.

Luke Chandler, foreman of Far Hills Ranch, rounded the corner.

“Everything okay, Kendra? Marti thought you might want some help.” He spoke to her, but pinned a warning glare from under the brim of his hat on Daniel Delligatti. Luke planted himself beside her, half a step in front, so his left shoulder provided a partial barrier between