"Yes, honey, forever."
"To heaven?"
"No."
"Then he was gone 'cause he getted mad and didn't want a baby girl?"
"Is that what Nathan told you?"
Ashley's nod against Jamie's chest hurt worse than a lot of the things she'd endured in her lifetime.
Jamie sat the child upright and gazed into Ashley's eyes. "That's not true, Ash. It's just not true. You understand?"
Never breaking contact with her mother's gaze, Ashley nodded. But Jamie knew that Ashley didn't understand at all.
"Your father never even knew I was pregnant, honey. He didn't know he had a baby girl to love."
'"Cause he died fighting for our country before you could tell him?''
The little girl's earnestness almost broke Jamie's
TARA TAYLOR QUINN
heart. "No, baby. He didn't die fighting for our country. But he'd already left before I knew I was pregnant with you and so I couldn't tell him. I didn't know where he was."
"But is he died now?"
Frozen to the core, Jamie stilled, no longer holding Ashley, barely supporting the child's weight against her body.
"No, Ashley, he isn't."
Wincing as the little girl scrambled around so fast she bruised her in the process, Jamie waited almost with equanimity. What was to be, was to be. She couldn't lie. Not to Ashley.
"Miss Karen said he's died," the little girl said.
' 'When she told you that, she thought he was and I hadn't told her he wasn't."
"Why, Mommy?"
"Because that was my secret," Jamie said, choosing her words carefully. "And now it's your secret, too."
"I can too keep secrets, can't I, Mommy?" the child asked solemnly.
"Of course you can, darling. Did someone tell you that you couldn't?"
"Kayla," Ashley said. "Her mommy has a secret and Kayla says she won't tell us 'cause we don't keep secrets good."
"But you'll keep this secret, won't you, Ash?" The words stuck in her throat, burning her even as she uttered them. They were wrong. She was wrong to ask such a thing of her child. But what was her
HER SECRET, HIS CHILD
alternative? What would Ashley's life become if the truth were revealed?
Ashley nodded. "It's our secret, huh, Mommy?" the little girl asked. "Just you and me?"
Gathering the child close once again, Jamie hid the tears brimming in her eyes. "Just you and me, Ash, and that's okay, isn't it?"
"Mmm-hmm." Ashley's thumb was obviously back in her mouth. The guilt in Jamie's gut grew a little bigger, singeing her a little more.