Lost & Found Love (27 page)

Stoner strode out of the room.

Evan’s heart pounded. Anger and empathy nearly brought him to his knees. He knew exactly the pain and grief his dad was feeling because he’d felt it himself. The anger he felt told him his dad didn’t get to just walk away from this. Evan started to go after him, but paused in mid-step as Jenny handed Peter off to Joe.

“I’m going with you. I want him to finish. I want him to tell me. He owes me.”

They found Stoner standing on the terrace out back, not staring down at the pool as one might expect, but with his eyes looking over toward Sam Barnes’s farm and the small cabin near there. Jenny stopped just a few feet away, and Evan wrapped his arms around her from behind, wanting her to know she had his support.

“You have a real flare for the dramatic, Stoner,” she spat. “But I won’t let you off the hook that easily. You owe me.”

His dad sat on the low stone wall. “You’re right. I do. I know from the court documents what your daddy told you. I also knew that it was simply my word against a dead man’s.”

“Exactly.” Jenny rubbed her temples as if they ached. She was as tight as a bowstring. “Now you want me to believe you over my own father.”

Stoner sighed tiredly. “There was never any deal beyond my finding the teenagers for what was supposed to be a setup, and that was all. Mike Saunders stepped way over the line. I saw that tape and recognized it for several things. Ultimately it landed me here, but it also ended my political career. Mike threatened to make it public seven years ago. I’ve always suspected he was paid off by competition in my own party. That’s when I said I wouldn’t run for another term.”

Jenny trembled in Evan’s arms. She was a strong woman, but this was so beyond what anyone should have to hear. Any illusions about her father that she might still have clung to were being ripped away.

“Let’s say I believe this. Why did you pay for my education? Why did you show me that damn tape? Why did you continue to threaten me to keep me away from Evan, and why the
hell
did you hire Mike Saunders to
kill
me?” She raked a hand through her hair. “Stoner, how can I believe you with all of that stacked against you?”

He stared at the cabin again. Evan wanted the same answers from him that Jenny did. Between Stoner and her father, they had ripped more than a decade from him and Jenny.

“I paid for your education because I felt guilty about what had happened to you. Oh, make no mistake,” Stoner continued in a weary voice, “I was overjoyed when you and Evan split. After all, I still hated your father with a passion. I made it possible for you to get the education I thought would keep you away from my son. When you refused the money, I was desperate. All I could think of was you coming back, and Evan and you getting back together. I wanted him to have the political career I had to give up. Your career would keep him here, so I threatened and tried it again when you showed signs of forgiving him.

“I was so used to thinking of you as Billy’s daughter, that I hated you as much as Billy. I was sure you would eventually turn out like him. I called Mike because he was a slimy bastard who would do anything for a little money and power, but I didn’t hire him to kill you. He was supposed to scare you, God forgive me, maybe even rough you up some, but never kill you! He took that on himself.”

Jenny stepped out of the Evan’s embrace and right into Stoner’s face. “If all of this is the truth, why did you plead guilty to everything?”

That was what Evan had wanted to know too. If all this was true, his father’s actions at the trial made no sense.

Stoner’s concentration rested completely on Jenny. He reached up with a shaking hand to touch her cheek. When she flinched, he dropped it without making contact. He stared once more at the cabin. “Hadn’t there been enough pain? You lost your mother to your father’s lies and manipulations. You already hated me, almost as much as I hated myself. So it was easy to plead guilty. It saved you and Evan the trauma of my trial, and it left you at least some illusions about your father.”

Jenny waved her hand in dismissal. “I no longer have any illusions about my father. Those were destroyed the day he left me with no way to get help. But you? Why come clean now if that’s how you feel?”

“Finding and almost losing Tabby made me realize the past needed to die. If the truth didn’t come out, your father would still be dead, but the rest of us—you, Peter, Evan, Tabby, and Catherine—would lose the chance to become a family. I want us to have a chance to be a family. You don’t have to forgive me. I’ve done unforgivable things, but if you could open the door a crack, that’s all I ask.”

For the first time Evan saw not arrogance, but self-defense when he looked at his dad. Stoner was afraid of rejection. He had felt rejected by Catherine, then by Mary. Only Tabby had walked into his life with an open heart and mind. He was too hemmed in by his own isolation now to let down all his defenses, though he had certainly thawed like a snow cap in springtime compared to what he had been. Evan and Jenny had to be the ones to reach out, to make the first move.

Jenny stood almost perfectly still. Almost. Her fingertips tapped her leg, betraying the emotions she must be holding rigidly under control. Evan watched them, his own emotions in turmoil, but knowing he couldn’t react until he saw which way Jenny’s reaction would go. First and foremost, his loyalty was to his wife.

“I’ve hated you for so long, Stoner, I don’t know how to start.” Her words were barely louder than a whisper.

For a second, the man who had been such a remote, cold version of the father Evan had really wanted appeared uncertain. His Adam’s apple bobbed before he opened his arms to Jenny. When she stepped into his embrace, Evan’s throat closed with emotion.

Stoner hugged her and whispered, “If I’d gone with my gut all those years ago, if I’d taken you and your mama and run, I could have had you all.”

Jenny shook her head. “No. There’s a reason for everything. Holly taught me that. We just haven’t been shown yet what it is.” Jenny stepped back and glanced at Evan before she turned to take Stoner’s hand.

“Come back inside,” Evan told them both. “I have a feeling that the earth hasn’t quit shifting beneath our feet.”

* * * *

Tabby studied them when they returned. Jenny’s arm was tucked in Stoner’s elbow. Evan was just a step behind, and all of them were smiling. She blinked against the sudden tears in her eyes. Her dream of a family was becoming reality.

“I guess it’s my turn to confess now.”

Everyone in the room stared at Catherine. Tabby had known she was hiding something. Now it seemed tied to this mess.

“Katie?” Stoner inquired. “What on earth could you possibly have to confess?”

She looked at her husband and sighed. “You’re not an easy man to live with, Stoner. You’re an even harder man to love. I’ve alternately loved and hated you for thirty-five years.”

She tugged at her earring, an unusual gesture from the normally poised woman Tabby had come to know. “Five years ago, I answered your private line when you were out hunting one morning. A woman asked for you. She sounded much older than the political groupies who flocked to you in Washington, so I drew her out. She had called from a pay phone in Asheville, North Carolina.”

“Katie, what did you do?” Stoner whispered.

Catherine’s eyes went to Tabby. “It was your mother, honey. It was Mary. She told me who she was, said she didn’t want you to know—didn’t want Stoner to know—but she was desperate to get you away from there so you could go to college.” Catherine reached into her pocket and drew out a sketch that bore the creases of being folded and unfolded time and time again. “She said you had incredible artistic talent, so she sent me this as proof.”

Catherine handed the sketch to Stoner who gasped. It was a sketch of him sitting on the porch of the cabin, looking as he had around Evan’s age. When he passed it to Joe, he held it for Tabby to look at. She touched it, smiling in nostalgia.

“I called it ‘Mama’s Memory’ because she talked about it so often from the time I was a little girl until I left for college. She never told me who the man sitting in front of the cabin was. I always wondered what happened to it.”

Catherine smiled. “I flew to Asheville, and we met for lunch. I think your mama was ill even then, honey, but even if she wasn’t, I could see how life had worn her down. She showed me your picture. I saw so much of Stoner in you. She described your talent and the trouble with your stepfather. I set up an account for you, jointly in your name and hers, to help you with college. When I heard she passed, I made sure you found out about the teaching position here.”

When Joseph twined his fingers through hers, Tabby realized she had tears welling in her eyes. The letter would have brought her here to visit, but it was Catherine who had opened the door for her to move here, to get to know her family. Joseph tucked a handkerchief in Tabby’s hand so she could wipe her eyes.

“That explains why you weren’t shocked to hear Dad was her father the day of the accident,” Evan mused. “You already knew.”

“Forgive me,” Catherine said, staring at Tabby contritely. “Despite having helped you, Tabby, I was still prepared to dislike you. After all, you were my husband’s love child, conceived and born after I had already given him children, after I had been married to him for ten years. But then I saw how you two meshed, how you changed him. Suddenly, I was looking again at the Stoner I fell in love with decades ago. He laughed without that awful cold edge to it. He used to lock himself in his study or his wood shop and stare morosely into space, and suddenly he was creating, talking, smiling, even making jokes about his house arrest.

“I will never forget his face that afternoon he knelt next to you, keeping you alive until the ambulance came. I knew if we lost you, we would lose him before anyone else had a chance to see the real Stoner.”

Catherine rose from her chair, crossed the room, and cupped Tabby’s cheek in her palm. “Tabby, I couldn’t love you more if you were my own child. You’ve given me back my husband. I don’t think he’s called me Katie since before Erin was born.”

She bent and kissed Tabby’s cheek before resuming her seat. Tabby looked at Stoner, Evan, Jenny, and Catherine. Her family. Almost. She finally asked the question that had bothered her through this whole story. “Where is Erin?”

Evan twirled Jenny’s hair around his fingertips. Stoner frowned thunderously. Catherine sighed.

“The last time I heard from Erin, she was the cook on one of those sailing boats somewhere in the Caribbean. What do they call them?”

“Windjammers,” Joe supplied.

“Not hostessing at the topless bar in St. Thomas anymore?” Evan inquired mildly.

Stoner made a choking noise. “What?” He glared at Catherine. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

“It was only for a few weeks between life guarding for the hotel and being a nanny for the owner and his third wife.” She looked at Tabby and Joseph apologetically. “Erin left for school at eighteen, and when she was able to access her trust fund at twenty-one, she disappeared. We haven’t seen her in five years.”

“We should invite her to the art showing.” Tabby said it quietly, but she refused to let it drop until Stoner nodded.

Tabby was awfully tired. Joe helped her to her room. Evan and Jenny had left with Peter a short time earlier. Stoner invited Joe to spend the night and gave him the guest room across the hallway from Tabby.

“Is he deliberately tempting us?” Tabby yawned.

Joe laughed. “That didn’t sound convincing, darling. You’re not supposed to yawn if you’re being tempted. Besides, you did ask if I might stay here while you’re recovering.”

“Can we kiss?”

“I can if you can.” He smiled and helped her into a chair. He sat at her feet and took her shoes off for her. His hands gently massaged her arches, then her calves, easing the tension she felt from walking so cautiously. Light gleamed off the golden hair of his bent head, and his massage was doing much more than relaxing her.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?” he responded absently. He had shifted behind her, unbraiding her hair and brushing it out.

“Will you mind living here for a while until I get back to where I was before the accident?”

“Not at all. You and your dad are good for each other. As much as I love you, I can’t ignore my parishioners or my work. There will be times when I can’t be with you because I have to visit people, lead Bible studies, work on my sermon. This way, I can do those things knowing someone is watching over you, someone who loves you as much as I do. Best of all, when I can grab some spare time, you’ll be right here.”

Tabby turned her head to smile up at him. “I do love you, Joseph. I hope you don’t get tired of me saying it.”

“Never.” He set the brush down and settled her carefully on his lap. His kiss was soft, his hands cupping her face. Tabby ached to be able to touch and caress him. He was so beautiful. Her lips parted, and Joseph groaned as he slipped his tongue inside to explore. Their breathing grew ragged. Heat flowed through her, settling in an empty feeling deep in her belly.

There was a discreet knock at the door. Stoner stuck his head in. “Look, I gave you time to help her get ready for bed. After all, you are her fiancé, but you don’t have permission to be in here all night. So get busy, get her tucked in, and say good night before I get my shotgun.”

Joe laughed. “Yes, sir.”

Stoner stared hard at both of them. “Look. Don’t touch.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

As soon as the door shut, they resumed their kiss.

* * * *

Stoner watched the news outlets and the Internet like a hawk. By the weekend, Tabitha
Richardson
’s engagement had made news not only in Virginia, but neighboring states as well. It wasn’t every day that a disgraced former U.S. senator announced the engagement of a daughter no one even knew he had. Castle County’s weekly paper,
The Messenger,
had juggled numerous calls for photos of both Tabby and Joe. Eventually, the wire services picked up Amanda Brown’s story of Tabby’s accident and near death, and how the senator literally held her artery closed with his bare hands. Suddenly, the phone rang off the hook at Richardson Homestead.