A Father's Secret

“What? No answers? Why doesn’t that surprise me?” His voice dripped with loathing, a far cry from the man with whom she’d made such exquisite love only hours ago. “I’ll go in the morning but you can expect to hear from me through my lawyers later tomorrow.”

He turned to leave the room, hesitating a moment in the doorway before turning back to face her. Erin pulled herself up straight, bracing herself for the next blow that she instinctively knew would come.

“You know, I’d been prepared all along to consider joint custody of our son—something you seemed determined to deny me the right to. But you can forget that now. All bets are off.”

“How dare you say that,” she cried at his retreating back. “No court in the world would give you full custody of a child. You killed your wife, didn’t you? You admit yourself your work habits led to your accident. How can you consider yourself a fit parent for sole guardianship when you couldn’t be there for your wife? Do you expect a court to believe you’ll be there for a baby?”

Sam turned to face her again. This time the expression on his face showed the emotion he’d evidently been holding back. She flinched as he started to speak, his words like spears flying straight toward her.

“Be very careful before casting stones in my direction, Erin Connell. I know about your past—the running away, the shoplifting—everything.”

In that split second she knew he had somehow become privy to her worst secret and her worst nightmare.

“H-how?”

“How doesn’t matter. And I won’t stop there, Erin. Before I’m finished I will have unearthed every single last thing there is to know about you, now and from the past. Things that will show you in a very bad light when it comes to considering your fitness to be a parent. I think—” he gave her a grim smile “—that by comparison, my work ethic will be the least of my problems.”

Thirteen

The microwave let out a long beep, signaling it had completed its task but Erin was oblivious. She sank into one of the kitchen chairs, her whole body shaking with the enormity of what had just happened.

Sam’s threats shook her to the core, but as she sat shivering in the chair, her mind was filled with painful images of her life before she came to Lake Tahoe. Her past was dark and murky. She thought she’d put all that behind her, that by being a good employee, a solid citizen and then subsequently a good wife and mother, that she’d paid her dues. But now the memories of the horror and shame of her past filled her again.

The death of the baby in the house she’d lived in had been horrifying on its own. Being publicly vilified when she was accused of conspiring to conceal information about the death had been her worst nightmare.

She hadn’t even been home the night the little girl had been injured and died. After a night of drinking heavily, she’d passed out in an alley and woken in the morning only when a street sweeper had come by. When she got back to the house, the police were there. She’d arrived just in time to be taken into the station for questioning.

The press had been there, the air filled with shouts and the flash and click of cameras. She’d been confused and disoriented—and scared. Very, very scared.

She hadn’t willingly conspired with the others in the house, but she had been threatened, and threatened very convincingly, with what might happen if she told the police what she thought had happened. It was no excuse, sure, for not telling the truth, but as she’d told herself at the time, who would have believed her anyway? She was just another runaway. Someone living off the streets, surviving on cunning and luck to get food in her belly each day. Still, the guilt over her silence had haunted her, wrecking the tiny bit of peace of mind she’d found since leaving her mother’s house.

It had become her turning point. The line in the sand where she knew she had one chance, and one chance only to make her life right again, to get onto a solid path for a worthy existence. She’d headed for Lake Tahoe, knowing she needed to get away. At the hostel where she’d stayed, she’d found the advertisement for work at Connell Lodge…and the rest was history.

Or rather, the rest had been history. Now, if Sam was to be believed, it would all be exposed again. She knew that if any of what had happened at that time was dragged before a Family Court it couldn’t help but color how they might deal with her. Especially in light of whom she was up against. Sam’s corporate image was world-renowned. The man himself was charismatic, warm and attentive. She’d struck a low blow when she’d dragged his responsibility for his wife’s death into the argument. He’d clearly been punishing himself all this time, but any court would see that he was a good man who’d make a wonderful father. His lawyers would see to that.