Part 38 (2/2)
”Where are you going?” Jack asked in a relaxed, s.e.xy voice.
She grabbed her robe off the foot of the bed and put it on before facing him. ”We need to talk.”
He sat up in bed, allowing the sheet to slip down and around his hips. ”Sounds serious.” He studied her closely. ”What's wrong, honey?”
”Get up and put on some clothes,” she told him. ”I'll fix us something to drink. Which do you prefer iced tea or iced coffee?”
He tossed back the covers and stood, boldly naked. ”I'd prefer your staying in bed with me.” He reached down and picked up his discarded jeans from the floor. ”I thought everything was fine, that life was good for us. For you and me and even for Seth.” He put on his jeans and then s.n.a.t.c.hed his s.h.i.+rt off the nearby chair, where it had landed when he'd flung it aside in his haste to strip off hurriedly an hour earlier.
”We have to talk,” Cathy said. ”I've put this off too long as it is.”
Leaving his s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned, he closed the gap between them, grabbed her gently by the upper arms and looked down into her face. ”Tell me you aren't having second thoughts about us.”
”No second thoughts,” she a.s.sured him. ”As a matter of fact, I want you to know that I love you now more than I did seventeen years ago.”
He sucked in a deep breath and tightened his grip on her arms. ”Is that what this is all about-you need to hear me say the words?”
”No, Jack, really, that's not-”
”I love you, Cathy.”
Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d. Why now? This simply made telling him the truth about Seth even more difficult.
”d.a.m.n, woman, you're scaring me,” Jack told her. ”Take that frightened look off your face.”
”Finish getting dressed and meet me in the kitchen.”
She pulled away from him, and he let her go without protest.
”Cathy,” he called to her as she reached the door.
Without turning around, she replied, ”Yes?”
”If this is going to be bad news, maybe you'd better fix me something stronger than coffee or tea.”
”Okay.” She hurried out of the bedroom, practically running away from him.
She'd barely had time to uncork the bottle of wine-the strongest liquor she had in her house-before Jack entered the kitchen. Fully dressed, but with his hair slightly mussed, he paused on the other side of the room and rubbed the back of his neck.
He eyed the two half-full wine gla.s.ses sitting on the table. He blew out a d.a.m.n-it's-bad-news breath.
When he came toward her, she held up both hands, signaling him to halt. He stopped and stared at her.
”Is it that bad?” he asked.
”Oh, Jack, I don't know how to tell you. I-”
”Good G.o.d, whatever it is, just say it.”
She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eyes. ”You haven't pressed me to explain why I married Mark so soon after you left.”
”Is that what's wrong, why you're so worried? Whatever the reason, it's all water under the bridge. We have to let go of the past and be grateful for what we have now.”
”This is part of our past that affects our present and our future.”
He nodded. ”Okay. Go ahead. I'm listening.”
She wrung her hands together and then threaded her fingers in a prayerlike gesture. ”A couple of months after you left, Mark came to Dunmore to conduct a gospel meeting. He was staying with his parents. I remembered him from church, of course, but he was years older, and our paths hadn't really crossed outside of church. I knew he'd been a widower for a couple of years.
”I needed guidance, so I went to him because I thought, as a young minister who had lost the love of his life, he might understand the situation I was in better than our regular preacher, Brother Fulmer, who was stern and judgmental.” She swallowed. ”Not only did Mark understand, but he was sympathetic, and during the next two weeks, while he visited his parents after the gospel meeting ended, we talked often and he came up with a solution to my problem.”
”You've lost me,” Jack said. ”What was your situation? What problem did Mark Cantrell solve for you?”
”He offered to marry me and take me with him when he left town so that no one would ever know the truth.”
Jack stared at her, clearly puzzled.
”I was seventeen, had just graduated from high school, and suddenly I was pregnant and unmarried and I'd just been told that my baby's father was missing in action in the Middle East and presumed dead.”
She waited for the information to sink in and for Jack to realize that he was her child's father.
”You were pregnant?” His voice lowered to a deep huskiness. ”With my baby?”
She nodded. Please, G.o.d, let him understand. Let him forgive me. Please, G.o.d, let him understand. Let him forgive me.
”You married Mark Cantrell because you were pregnant with my child and thought I was dead.”
”Yes. After you left, I received only one letter from you, and then I didn't hear from you again. When I found out I was pregnant, I went to see your mother. She told me what had happened to you.”
”Did you tell her that you were pregnant?”
”No. No, I didn't tell her.”
”So Mark Cantrell offered to marry you and take on the responsibility of another man's child. He must have loved you a great deal to-”
”Mark was still in love with his wife, and I was in love with you. In his profession, he needed a wife, a helpmate, and...He knew he could never father a child of his own. When he and his wife had tried to have a baby and she didn't get pregnant, they underwent numerous tests and discovered that Mark was sterile.”
”If Mark was sterile, then what about Seth?”
Hadn't he understood what she'd said? Hadn't she told him that he was Seth's biological father, not Mark? Oh G.o.d, no. She hadn't mentioned Seth. Did he think she had lost that baby-his baby-and gotten pregnant again by Mark?
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