After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

“Come on in,” her stepfather said, his voice low, his face serious. As if someone had died.

Cassie’s heart sank. All her fears congealed. “Oh, God, Mom, is it Allie? Is she all right?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t know.” Jenna’s voice broke.

Cassie yanked herself free and held her mother at arm’s length so she could stare into Jenna’s tortured eyes. “What is it? What happened?”

“I . . . we haven’t heard anything about Allie,” Jenna said, tears forming as a gust of wind raced across the porch.

“Then what? Are you okay?”

Her mother and stepfather exchanged glances. “Come inside,” Jenna said, blinking and managing a frail smile. “I need to talk to you.”

Another time, Cassie would have protested. Jenna knew that they were late, they’d talked about it on the phone, so, the fact that Jenna was so insistent coupled with Jenna’s emotional state warned Cassie that something major was up. Something not good. Apprehension propelled her into the house and she felt Trent’s hand on her elbow as she followed Jenna and Shane into the kitchen with Trent one step behind. Like most of the other rooms in the house, the kitchen had been updated since she lived there—new tile floors, appliances, and countertops—but the layout much the same. She stood at the island and wondered what in the world was going on.

Her mother had always been theatrical, but this? It was over the top, even for Jenna Hughes.

“Can I . . .” Jenna started, seeming to have composed herself a bit. She swiped almost angrily at the unwanted tears. “Can I get you coffee or a drink or—?”

“No! Just tell me what’s going on!” Cassie interrupted. “You look like someone died.”

Jenna stiffened, then said to Shane, “Well, I need something. Strong.”

“You got it.” Her husband was already reaching into a cupboard for a bottle of some kind of whiskey. He poured two short glasses, added ice from the freezer, then raising his eyebrows in a silent question, looked at Trent.

Cassie’s husband’s face was as somber as Carter’s, his jaw set in granite. He gave a quick shake of his head. “Another time.”

“S

o what is it?” Cassie demanded. She’d rarely witnessed Jenna drink more than a glass of wine, maybe two, but tonight she took a long swallow, then cradled the small glass of amber liquid in both hands as if it were nectar from the gods. Leaning a hip against the counter, as if for support, she drew in a steadying breath. “There is something I never told you girls . . . well, anyone, for that matter. Not Shane, either, nor your father, no one.”

“What?”

Jenna took a sip, pulled a face, then met all of the questions in Cassie’s eyes. She took in a long breath, then admitted, “I had another daughter, one who’s older than you by about four years.”

“What?” Cassie thought she hadn’t heard right. “Another daughter? Are you kidding me?” She couldn’t believe it, but her mother’s ashen face confirmed her words.

“Yes.” She was nodding, staring into her glass as she struggled for the right words. “I gave her up for adoption.” She cleared her throat. “I was only sixteen, still in high school when it happened.”

Cassie stood stock-still, tried to process.

“I should have told you, well, everyone sooner.”

“Wait a second. Who is she?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. My boyfriend, the father, it . . . it wasn’t a good relationship.” Her eyes glazed over in memory. “For God’s sake, we were just kids ourselves and we . . . we’d only been dating a couple of months and yeah, I got pregnant. It wasn’t quite the same then as it is now. Marriage was expected, at least in my family, but we were just too young and not in love and could never have made it. He took off when he found out, just moved out of town to live with an uncle, wanted nothing to do with the baby or me. My parents and I made the decision to go for a private adoption through a lawyer, here in Portland, and I promised never to . . . never to look her or them up.” She squeezed her eyes shut and when she spoke again, her voice was higher. Strained. “I don’t even know her name.”

Cassie felt as if her world had just turned upside down. Everything she’d known, everything she’d believed was no longer sturdy and true. It was as if her past, that which had molded her, was no longer set in concrete but more like emotional quicksand. She had a half sister? An older half-sister she’d never met, never known existed? Dark thoughts swirled in her mind as she began to consider all the implications. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I had the baby at St. Mary’s Hospital.” She cleared her throat. “That hospital, St. Mary’s? It’s now Mercy.”

“What?” Cassie whispered, thinking of her own experience recently. Dear God, she’d been a patient in the same hospital where her mother had birthed a secret baby thirty-odd years earlier? What were the chances of that?

A tear had started to roll down Jenna’s cheek and she sniffed. “When you checked yourself in there, all these old memories returned and I even thought about telling you then, but Allie was missing and you . . . you were struggling.” Her back stiffened as she brushed the offensive tear away. “I didn’t think it was the time to bring up that I had another child, one I didn’t raise.” She sniffed. Guilt wracked her features. “I . . . I guess there never was a good time. I . . . oh, dear God. I made so many mistakes. First I was ashamed, but I finished school and drifted to California, where I met your father and got into films and . . . there just wasn’t a time to come up with the truth. I was afraid of the press, of what it would do to my career and then, of course, to you and Allie. What it would do to you to know that I’d abandoned my first child.”

“Shhh. You did the right thing,” Carter said.

“Did I? Who knows?” Her eyes were wide. Guilt-riddled. “I should have at least put my name on some kind of registry so that she could have found me, could have gotten in touch, but”—Jenna was shaking her head—“of course I didn’t. I thought it would be best and maybe someday I’d get in touch with her, but then I became this . . . this thing in Hollywood and I thought it would be best not to say anything.” Her expression evolved to regret. “As I said, no one knew, and I felt that the child didn’t need to be subjected to the spotlight of being Jenna Hughes’s ‘secret baby’ or ‘love child’ or whatever name and stigma would be thrown her way. She needed to grow up in a normal family, with loving parents, a mother and a father who cared about her.” Jenna’s voice cracked and her drink wobbled in her hands.