Lonestar Secrets (18 page)

He pulled her forward to meet his parents. "Shannon, this is my mom and dad, Alexis and Senator Jack. You probably figured it out." He knew his smile was weak. How on earth was he going to steer this conversation away from the girls?

"I'm so happy to meet you." Shannon embraced both parents, then stepped back and tucked her hand into Jack's elbow again.

"She doesn't know you think the sun comes up just to hear you crow." Jack's dad punched him on the arm. "Wait until she lives with you a spell."

Jack forced himself not to fire back. Just because he didn't jump when his dad snapped his fingers didn't mean he was self-centered. "We'll have plenty of time for her to find out my faults."

"Well, what was the rush, Jack?" His mother tossed back a strand of hair that dared to stray onto her forehead.

Her gaze stayed focused on her new daughter-in-law, and a puzzled frown marred the smoothness of her brow. Her Botox must be wearing off. Jack tanked the stray thought and managed a smile. "I didn't want her to get away."

Shannon's fingers tightened on his arm. "We wanted the girls to get to know one another as quickly as possible."

His mother's eyes narrowed. "Why do they look so much alike? Is your child Jack's love child? The girls looked enough alike to be sisters, and they're the spitting image of you."

Jack nearly rocked on his heels. Is that what everyone thought? That he'd had an affair while he was married to Blair? "No, Mother. Look, the guests are hungry and this isn't the time to discuss the situation. I'll explain it to you later."

His mother opened her mouth, her protest in the vertical lines between her eyes. He ignored the way her hand came up. "We'd better mingle." He led Shannon to the serving line to speak with the few guests who had come.

He'd have to tell his parents the truth, and the confrontation wouldn't be easy.

SHE MANAGED TO ENDURE THE WEDDING AND RECEPTION. SHANNON KEPT remembering the way Jack's mother had stared at her like she was an unknown species of tarantula that inspired horror, fear, and curiosity. Jack had taken his dark good looks from both parents, and their reaction to the situation had been a mirror of Jack's horror when pushed into marriage.

Facing the townspeople wasn't easy either. Several of the people who'd avoided her and mocked her in school were there, though with kinder attitudes. Amazing what Jack's mantle of approval could do. Or maybe it was the fact she was grown up now, with a vet's license. That would bestow some credibility upon her too. She wasn't any longer the poor white trash they could torment.

Large stone pillars flanked the paved drive back to the two-story home. Driving the Jeep packed with her few belongings up to the house, she trembled inside. She had to keep reminding herself she had chosen this life for her daughters, or she would have turned the SUV around and jammed the pedal to the floor.

Her face wreathed with smiles, Kylie chattered in the back from her booster seat with her arm around Moses. "I'm going to share a room with my sister. And we're going to build a playhouse with blankets."

Faith probably had a real playhouse, but Shannon didn't destroy her daughter's dream. Kylie would discover what a privileged life was like soon enough. No more buying clothes at Goodwill or taking hand-me-downs from friends at church. No more saving quarters to buy shoes or get those blonde locks trimmed.

Maybe a comfortable life would be enough compensation for a loveless marriage. Especially if the worst happened, and Shannon ended up unable to work. Her symptoms had gotten worse with all the stress of everything.

Shannon wanted to tell Jack about all of it, to share the burden. The words stuck in her throat every time she thought about it. How did she explain Mary Beth? Better to keep quiet and hope the storm passed. He already wondered about Shannon's morals. If he knew about the fix Mary Beth had pulled her into, Jack would question her judgment too.

Jack motioned her to stop by the huge front porch supported by massive white pillars. She'd barely popped the lift gate when four ranch hands began pulling out her boxes. They disappeared through the open double doors with her things. Jack lifted Kylie out of the backseat, then set her down to grab Faith's hand. Moses went to sniff noses with Jack's dog.

Shannon gathered her courage to face her future. Holding her cream skirt down in the wind, she followed him up the wide steps to the porch. Every gray board was spotless. The red doors opened into a wide foyer painted in pale green. Shannon hurried inside before he could make a move to carry her over the threshold. She could only go so far with this marriage thing, and he'd already forced himself to kiss her after the ceremony.

The color soothed her the minute she stepped onto the plush oriental runner protecting the gleaming oak floors. Some kind of spicy candle perfumed the air.

"Wow, Mommy," Kylie said, her voice awed. Her hand crept into Shannon's. "Can I sleep with you?"

Shannon was overwhelmed too. The ceilings rose twelve feet, and a curving staircase swept up to the second floor.

Jack lifted Kylie to his shoulders. "Your room is right across from your mommy s.

"And my room has a door to your room," Faith put in. Her hand crept into Shannon's.

Shannon glanced down at her unknown daughter and squeezed her fingers. It would be worth everything she had to go through to keep the girls together and to get to know this little girl who'd been stolen from her.

"I wanted to share a room with my sister," Kylie said, her lower lip trembling.

"You're tired." Shannon knelt and pulled Kylie into an embrace. "You'll see plenty of Faith. You might even get tired of each other."

"I'll never get tired of my sister." Kylie turned out of Shannon's arms to reach for Faith's hand. Both girls smiled at one another.

Jack put his hand on Kylie's head. She gazed up at him as if he were Barney and Clifford the Big Red Dog all rolled into one. "I had double beds put in both rooms. You can share a room whenever you want to. And then you can go back to your own rooms whenever you want."

Jack's gaze met hers, and she saw a surprising softness in his eyes that warmed her. At least he was showing affection to Kylie, who was lapping it up like a kitten.

"Your rooms are this way." Carrying Kylie on his shoulders, he led them up the gleaming oak staircase to a wide hallway that stretched in both directions from the stairs. He turned right and strode along the thick carpet to a set of doors at each side of the hall. Setting Kylie down, he opened the door on his left. "This is your room, Shannon. The girls have the connecting rooms across the hall. You can hear them from here very well."

Shannon peeked into the room. "It looks new. The furniture, I mean." The air held the faint odor of paint. The walls were pale pink and so was the carpet. White country-french furniture brightened the room even more. A pink-and-yellow quilt covered the pillow-top mattress, and silk pillows in both colors nearly overflowed the bed. She fell in love with her bedroom the minute she saw it.

"Daddy used to sleep in there," Faith said, still clinging to Shannon's hand. "It was all dark, but he said you'd like it prettier. Besides, he said girls need their own bathrooms for their smelly stuff. It's painted pink too. Daddy let me pick the color."

"It's lovely," she said, smiling her thanks. He'd done all this for her? She had trouble taking it all in.

He shrugged and turned to the rooms across the hall. "I let Faith pick out the color of their new stuff too. She wanted the white furniture you had."

Both rooms had double canopy beds, pink and white. Definitely girlish and sweet. A picture caught her attention. "Unicorns?"

He shrugged. "Faith loves them."

"So does Kylie."They shared glances, then she turned back to examine the room again. He'd dropped quite a bit of money redoing all three rooms. Her smile faded. Not that money made up for the distance between them. But this circumstance wasn't for her. She had to remember that. It touched her even more that he would do this for Kylie.

Jack left her to unpack. Shannon laid out Kylie's clothes first, then while the girls played, she went to her room and shut the door. Opening her suitcase, she put her clothes away, then got out her cell phone. Nothing. No word about Mary Beth since Wednesday night. It was like the lull before the storm though. Shannon was sure the man wasn't through with her yet, and the waiting was taking a toll on her health. If only she knew what to do.

13

THE DINING ROOM TABLE GROANED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF THE SUNDAY evening dinner Enrica had prepared. Jack sat at the head of the table. He could hardly bear to see Shannon in Blair's place, and it was easier to avert his eyes and not deal with it.

Faith chattered to her grandmother, but his mom's gaze kept flitting from her to Kylie. His mother's eyes glazed over at the steady stream of little-girl talk. Horses, new beds, a new sister. Faith's life was exciting, at least to hear her tell it.

The turkey tasted like sand in his mouth, and Enrica's famous dressing didn't lift him out of his dread. He ate a piece of pie, but it was like eating dust.

At seven, his mother pushed away from the table. "Enrica, you put the children to bed. I'd like to talk to the newlyweds."

Jack and Shannon exchanged resigned glances and rose to join the elder MacGowans in the living room. Shannon had so far only ventured from her room to the dining room since church, and he watched her take in the thick carpet, the ornate ceiling, the massive stone fireplace, and the leather seating clustered around it.

"It's a lovely room," she whispered to him.

Her awe touched him. Maybe he'd be able to give her and Kylie things they would never experience otherwise. But a man wanted to be respected and loved for more than his possessions. He had no idea what Shannon thought of him as a person other than her contempt for what he'd done in high school.

He dropped onto the sofa so she could sit beside him. A unified front might put his parents off a bit. His mother took the seat to the right of the fireplace, and his father sat down in the opposite chair.

His mother folded her hands in her lap. "Now children, tell us what's going on. The resemblance between the girls is quite remarkable."

"That's because they're twins," Shannon said. Her hands lay on her thighs, and her voice didn't reveal any stress.

Nothing like jumping right into open war. Jack nodded. "That's right. They're twins."

Alexis gasped and put her hand to her throat. "Twins? I don't understand." She glanced across the rug to her husband. "Senator, do you know what they're talking about?"

His mother had called his father Senator from the moment he won his first race twenty years ago. Jack used to think it an affectation that proclaimed her own status, but he'd come to realize his mother really was proud of Dad. The endearment was more for his father's ego than for hers.

His father cleared his throat. "I think the young'uns are about to tell us, poppet. Settle down and let 'em talk."

Jack took Shannon's hand. "Both girls are Shannon's." He waited for the gasps to end. "Blair's dear aunt switched our dead baby with one of Shannon's girls."

His mother's head swung from side to side as though to clear it. "Verna did this? I don't believe it." But the color drained from her face.

"She did." Jack wasn't sure how much more to say. His mother was sure to want to know why Verna would do such a thing, and the minute she found out Shannon had delivered the girls out of wedlock, Alexis's attitude would take a major shift. At least his dad's attitude had softened. He was in his "win the vote" mode.

"What was she thinking?" Alexis murmured. She twisted her huge rings on her fingers.

"She wasn't thinking at all or she wouldn't have done it," Jack said.

Shannon inhaled, a gentle sigh, and her glance at him held gratitude. She straightened from her slouch against the sofa. "She thought she was doing me a favor. I had no husband. I was going off to college. She thought it would be impossible for me to support two children by myself."

Jack shook his head. "That was how she rationalized it. The reality is, she did it for Blair. Blair's life was wrapped up in the baby. It was a miracle she carried the baby to term in the first place. The doctor didn't think she'd get pregnant again. Verna saw her chance to make Blair happy and took it."

"Land sakes,"Alexis said, her voice nearly inaudible. "How was this discovered?"

"We ran into one another and saw the girls together. Neither of us knew which was our own daughter." The memory of that horror still dogged his dreams. "They're too much alike to miss the resemblance. And they look just like Shannon."

The senator crossed one leg over the other. "So you married to take care of both girls. You did good, Son."

His wife stared at him as though he'd just sprouted cactus from his forehead. She looked back to Jack. "But you don't love one another."

"We'll learn to," Jack said. He'd mouthed the words, but did he really intend to learn to love her? He wasn't ready to let anyone take Blair's place. Shannon's hand twitched in his, but he kept hold of it. This whole thing might be harder than he'd imagined.

His father managed a smile. "Welcome to the family, Shannon. It's easy to see where the girls got their looks." He stretched out his legs. "Interesting legends in that old canyon your uncle owned. You ever go looking for Spanish artifacts with your daddy?"

Her hand clutched his tighter. "The desire to find the treasure killed my parents. I believe in letting the dead rest in peace."

"Of course. I'm sorry about your parents. You look very much like your mother."

"I get that a lot."

Jack glanced down at her. The tension in her voice made him wonder. His dad was just making idle conversation, but her cheeks had lost color and she had his hand in a death grip. "It's just legend," he said.

The senator cleared his throat. "You know the stories, Jack. Spaniards, gold coins, gold mines. The rumors picked up again in 1980 when a hiker was backpacking on a trail in the Big Bend. He stumbled on a jeweled gold cross, washed down from someplace on the hill. I always reckoned that cross was part of a treasure hidden after Indians massacred a band of Spaniards. Folks looked for more at the time, but it was all big hat but no cattle."