Lonestar Secrets (5 page)

Standing too far to hear the words on the other end of the phone, Kylie put her hand to her mouth and coughed. "I'm sorry, I'm not a nurse. I just wondered if she was okay." She closed her phone before the woman could answer.

"Your friend has a little cough and fever," she said to Kylie. "But she'll be fine."

"She's not my friend. She's my sister." Kylie took Betsy's hand and the two little girls went back to the living room.

"I think Faith is my daughter," Shannon whispered.

Obtaining the proof, then getting her back might prove to be the most formidable task she'd ever faced, and she wasn't sure she was up to it. Was it even the right thing to do?

3

DOSED WITH VICKS AND FNRICA'S HOMEOPATHIC CONCOCTIONS, FAITH would be fine by morning, Jack thought. He tore through the books on the shelf in his office. Blair had kept meticulous records of Faith's early years. He hadn't been good at keeping up with pictures and memorabilia since Blair's death. When he found the baby book, he dropped into the leather chair at his desk and flipped it open.

"Mr. Jack, what you doing?" EnricaTorres his housekeeper, Faith's nanny, and an indispensable member of the family stood by his framed movie poster of John Wayne in North to Alaska. Five feet two and nearly as round as she was tall, she ruled the household with an iron hand muffled by velvet. "Something is wrong, si? Did you check Faith?"

He took off his cowboy hat and ran his hand through his hair. "I checked on Faith a few minutes ago. You've got her on the mend, Enrica. She'll be all right after she rests. Has Wyatt come home yet?" His golden retriever had gone missing this morning. Jack had fired a ranch hand the night before, and he feared the guy had taken Wyatt as revenge.

Enrica shook her head. Jack studied her a moment. She had been Blair's childhood nanny and never left the family. "Do you remember the night Faith was born?"

"Si, I remember. The nurse think our Faith will die I see it on her face. But we pray and show them all a miracle." Her brow furrowed. "Something is wrong?"

"Maybe. Do you remember anyone else in the clinic having a baby?"

She nodded. "A young woman in the next room. She have twins. But one baby die. I hear her sobbing all night long and pray for her."

Jack's gut gave a hot squeeze. Twins. He stared at the entries in the baby book on the desk.

Faith Ann MacGowan. Seven pounds, seven ounces. It had been touch and go from the moment she arrived. Her Apgar scores weren't good. She was flaccid and blue. He barely saw her before Blair's aunt Verna rushed her to the nursery. He and Blair held hands and prayed for her recovery, and God delivered a miracle to their arms a few hours later. When they next saw their baby girl, she was pink and beautiful.

But what if it was the wrong baby? Faith didn't resemble either of them.

There was no denying his daughter looked amazingly like Shannon's little girl. And like Shannon. Blonde hair so pale it was almost white. And those striking azure eyes. A boulder formed in his throat. It wasn't just the coloring. The heart-shaped face, the set of the eyes.

"Mr. Jack, you scaring me." Enrica put her hands on her nonexistent waist and glared at him.

"Enrica, I saw the woman who was in the other delivery room today. She has a little girl who looks exactly like Faith. Nearly an exact copy. I couldn't tell them apart when I saw them standing together."

Enrica's brow furrowed. "A woman call just now. She ask if Faith is sick. How she know this?"

Shannon had called? Did she know something already? "She asked if Faith was sick?"

Enrica nodded. "Like she already know."

Maybe her daughter was sick too. He wanted to bury the questions, ignore the possibilities. But he knew Shannon wouldn't let it lie. He'd seen the fear and speculation in her eyes. She would poke around until she found out the truth. But this was his fear talking. It had to be. Faith was his daughter. His.

COYOTES YIPPED LONG INTO THE NIGHT, A SOUND SHANNON HAD GROWN unaccustomed to in the city. She punched her pillow and stared at the shadows on the walls. The pillows, even with clean cases, smelled dusty and old. She'd buy some new ones as soon as her first check came in. But it wasn't the smell of the bedding that kept her awake. She rolled over and glanced at the clock. Two in the morning. Her arm around her stuffed unicorn, Kylie slept soundly in a cot against the wall until her room was ready.

Where was Mary Beth? Shannon glanced at her cell phone. She sat up and reached for it, then dialed Mary Beth's number. It just rang until she got her friend's voice mail. She closed the phone and tried to lie back down.

A creak echoed from somewhere in the house. An old house always made strange noises. It was nothing. Then the noise came again, and she sat back up. She slid out of bed, then lifted the mattress. Her fingers groped along the box springs until she found the butt of the pistol she'd put there before going to bed. Moving quietly so she didn't awaken Kylie, she crept to the dark closet and reached up onto the highest shelf where she'd put a box of bullets. She loaded the pistol, then her feet moved to the door.

She twisted the doorknob and the door creaked open, the sound like a crack of thunder to her ears. Her pulse galloped so loudly in her ears she couldn't hear anything. Moonlight dappled the carpet from a window at the other end of the long, narrow hallway. She tiptoed along the worn rug to the top of the stairs. By sheer effort of will, she stilled her pulse and her breathing and listened to the quiet house. She'd thought the noise was from downstairs.

If she'd been thinking, she would have had Moses sleep inside by her bed tonight. She gripped the handrail with one hand and held the gun steady with the other as she descended the staircase. The coyotes howled again, and the sound raised gooseflesh on her arms. Had she been dreaming?

The house was perfectly quiet now. Not a creak, not a whisper. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a trail of light cutting through the floor and leading to the front door.

Moonlight. The door stood wide open.

SHANNON SAT ON THE SAGGING PORCH SWING AND WATCHED THE SUN IGNITE the shrubs and bushes across the ranch. The thick scent of creosote and sage intensified with the warmth. She was still a little unnerved by finding the door open, but she couldn't remember if she'd shut it securely or not. The stress of the last two days had taken a toll on her memory of the events of the past few hours.

Once everything was up and running this morning, she'd get the locks changed. She buried her fingers in the dog's fur, taking comfort from his warmth. Shannon should have called Horton yesterday when she arrived, but things had spiraled around her so fast she hadn't had time, though worry for Mary Beth hovered in the back of her mind. It would be the first call she made this morning.

Her thoughts went to the child she'd seen yesterday. "Faith." Saying the name made it all the more real. Her daughter Faith. Shannon was sure of it.

Allie had volunteered to watch Kylie this morning while Shannon went to the medical clinic and looked at the records of the birth of her girls. Then she'd try to find Verna Jeffers. The nurse was likely in her sixties by now, but she might still be working.

Shannon rose and stretched, then went inside to get ready. She wanted to be at the old mining camp by ten, so she'd better get a move on. After showering and dressing, she sat at the old black phone in her uncle's office. The sheriff had made a call and activated the service immediately. She dialed Horton's house.

"Horton Chrisman," he said. He'd never lost the last trace of his English accent.

"It's Shannon. How is everything?"

"Not the same without you, my dear. When I got to the clinic yesterday morning, there had been a break-in. All my files were strewn about the floor."

She tensed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It was probably a burglar."

"And you haven't seen Mary Beth?"

"No, I'm sorry. Not a word. I tried to call her but got only her voice mail."

"Same here." She told Horton she'd check in a few days later and gave him her number at the ranch.

By seven thirty she was standing outside the birth center in Bluebird Crossing. The small building was only one story. It had five delivery rooms and a few exam rooms. Two doctors in the area had started the clinic to make sure women didn't have to drive two hours to give birth. The sight of the terra-cotta and white facade took her back five years to the mixture of grief and elation she'd felt when she'd driven away from the building with an empty car seat. And one cradling a tiny baby girl.

Had she left one behind?

Shannon studied the clinic, her gaze slipping past two women who stood smoking by the road. She hadn't been here since her girls were born. The memory of that night was branded so deeply in her psyche that even now her muscles tightened and her teeth wanted to chatter. She'd never felt so alone, then or now. It was the night she finally realized that if she was going to make anything of herself, it was up to her. The night she faced the fact that she'd be raising Kylie on her own. The night she vowed she'd prove one mistake didn't have to ruin her life.

Now here she was, back in the town she'd promised to leave in her dust. God sure had a sense of humor. She pushed through the glass door of the clinic and stepped to the check-in counter. The gum-popping twentysomething girl with pink streaks in her hair handed over copies of the records once Shannon signed the release form.

"Does Verna Jeffers still work here?" Shannon asked as she thrust the papers into her purse.

The girl fingered one of the four studs in her ear. "Miss Verna? Nope, she retired last year. She's in the phone book if you want to give her a call. She help deliver your baby?"

"Yes. Thanks for the information."

"No problem. Hey, you hear about the wildfires up north? They might move this way."

"I haven't had the news on. Are they bad?"

"The news said they're the worst outbreak since the winter of '05 and ' 06."

In Texas, talk of fire was as common as conjecture about rain. Shannon thanked the girl again and hurried back out to her Jeep. She glanced at her watch. She had an hour and forty-five minutes before she had to be at the mining camp. Shannon drove to a gas station, where she looked up Verna's address and phone number, then headed along the road to the small house.

The potholes along the dirt road were big enough to swallow her Jeep, and a wash ran across the road in front ofVerna's house. The road likely hadn't been graded since the last time Shannon was in town. During monsoon season, Verna was probably stuck here.

Shannon eased the Jeep through the sandy bottom of the wash and into the driveway. The place was a double-wide that had to have been put here back in the seventies. Dents left by hail dotted the siding, but the neatly landscaped yard stole the attention from the house. Bird of paradise, ocotillo, and oleanders lit the yard with a blaze of color.

Shannon walked along a brick pathway to the house, waving away bees and inhaling the fragrance of the blossoms that filled the air. Verna had made a desert museum of her yard with the native plants and habitat for lizards.

A woman in overalls and a wide straw hat was coming down the steps from the house with a spade in hand. She pushed the hat off her forehead and smiled at Shannon. "Can I help you?" In her sixties with blue eyes in a tanned face, she was as slim as a girl.

Before Shannon could answer, tires spit gravel behind her, and she turned to see Jack MacGowan in a big blue truck. He barely waited for the truck to stop before leaping out of the vehicle and striding into the yard. His gaze flickered from Shannon to Verna. "What did she tell you?" he asked Shannon.

Shannon thought about playing coy and acting as though she had no idea what he was talking about, but the suffering in Jack's expression was enough to silence her. "Nothing. I just got here. How's Faith?"

"She's fine. The fever broke about midnight. It's just a cold. How did you know she was sick?"

"Kylie told me," Shannon said, waiting to see if his reaction was anything like hers had been.

Jack's head rocked back as though he'd been slapped. "Kylie? How did she know?"

"She has sometimes told me things about her her twin." Shannon forced herself to watch him, to notice the agitation in his hands, the fear in his eyes. She needed every bit of ammunition she could find to fight him.

"Jack? What's going on?" Verna's voice was tremulous.

"We need to talk to you, Aunt Verna." Jack took her arm and guided her to a garden bench.

Verna's gaze lingered on Shannon's face. "I know you," she said. "Shannon Astor, isn't it?" The spade fell from her fingers onto the ground. Her hand shook when she lifted it to tuck a stray lock of gray hair behind her ear.

"Yes. You remember me?"

"You told me you were leaving this wide spot in the road and never coming back."

"I changed my mind," Shannon said evenly. "I need to know what you did that night. How you switched the babies. Don't try to lie. I know it's true. I've seen Faith. She's my daughter."

"You don't know that," Jack said. "She's mine."

Verna held her hands up in front of her face. "I want you to go now."

Shannon folded her arms over her chest. "I'm not leaving. Tell me what you did." She glared at Jack. He had to want the truth.

Jack's hand was shaking when he wiped his forehead. "We need the truth, Aunt Verna. Did you switch the babies?"

Shannon glanced at his stony face and hoped she'd never see him stare at her like that. Surely the woman would crumble and tell the truth.

Verna shook her head. "How could you think such a thing?" Her voice trembled.

"The girls look alike. Totally alike," Jack said.

"That happens sometimes." Verna grabbed her spade and turned toward the house. "I have to go now."

Jack moved after her, but she disappeared inside the house, and the lock clicked. Jack shook the doorknob. "Aunt Verna, you have to talk to us." He rattled the door again, but the woman didn't reappear. He rejoined Shannon in the yard.