Amanda (40 page)
Authors: Kay Hooper
Bewildered, Amanda said, “But why didn’t my— Why didn’t Brian realize the truth?”
“He probably didn’t know that you shouldn’t have had his birthmark, Amanda,” Kate replied. “He wasn’t much interested in our family history, and the birthmark wasn’t something Jesse told any of us about when we were kids. I found out by reading an old family journal—probably how Maggie found out as well.”
“We often miss the obvious things,” Leslie noted. “it’s human nature.”
“I guess so,” Amanda murmured.
Nobody had very much to say after that. They merely sat and waited to find out about Maggie. It was
a little after midnight when Sheriff Hamilton came into the house wearing a yellow rain slicker, to report that they’d found Maggie out in the valley under a big oak tree. Very peaceful.
And very dead.
T
HE MID—JULY MORNING WAS HOT EVEN
at just after eight
A.M.
, and it was already muggy. Walker felt both the heat and the humidity as he came out of his bedroom onto the gallery. He moved to the end, then leaned on the railing.
From this angle, he could see the beginning of the pasture fence in back, whitewashed boards gleaming in the strong sunlight. His placid, elderly saddle horse was standing with his head poked over the fence, eyes no doubt closed in blissful enjoyment as a gentle hand stroked his neck.
In another week or two, Walker thought, watching, Amanda would be ready to climb up into the saddle for the first time in twenty years.
It hadn’t been easy for her, these last weeks. Jesse’s violent death, Maggie’s suicide—ironically with the
same poison she’d used trying to kill Amanda—would have been difficult enough for both Amanda and everyone else to cope with, but the discovery of a twenty-year-old homicide and the virtual certainty that Victor’s death had not been an accident had caused a great deal more than a nine days’ wonder.
And not only locally. There had been national interest, with television crews and tabloid journalists seemingly behind every tree—and word had it there was already an unauthorized TV movie in the works.
The whole truth had had to come out—or, at least, as much of it as could when so many of the principals were no longer able to comment. At a family meeting to discuss the matter before they issued a public statement, Amanda had expressed her own feelings with no hesitation; she wanted no secrets hanging over her head. Secrets could be deadly. No matter how disturbing the revelation of her paternity turned out to be, her wish was to make everything public.
The others had agreed.
The town of Daulton, shaken by the revelations, seemed doubtful at first, but when Kate, Reece, and Sully all stood by Amanda—to say nothing of Walker —it was eventually conceded that another odd chapter in the Daulton family history had been written, and who could be surprised by it?
As for Amanda, the violent events of that last day had left scars that had been slow to heal. She slept long hours but not especially peaceful ones; that was normal, Helen said. And she was quieter than before, which was also to be expected. It was evident she felt guilty because her return to Glory had been the catalyst for so much tragedy, and that was something she was dealing with as well.
But she was a Daulton, and Walker was confident her inner strength would prevail. He had lost very
little time in moving her to King High, a shift Amanda had accepted without question or protest and with definite relief; Glory would never be home to her.
It was, however, at least partly hers.
Jesse Daulton, characteristically, had pulled a fast one on all of them. His “business” trip into Asheville the Friday before his death had actually entailed a visit to a very expensive and efficient law firm, where he had, in the space of a few hours, gotten himself a new will drawn up.
And it was, Walker had to admit, a remarkable document. Named coexecutor along with Sully, he had himself read the will to the family, and although there had been a great deal of surprise, there would not be a legal battle over the estate.
Sully, who unquestionably loved Glory best, had inherited the Daulton stables outright as well as an equal share in the house and land. Reece, Kate, and Amanda were also left equal shares of that property. Reece had been granted outright control of the part of Daulton Industries he was best at, the manufacturing end—and Kate had been left in charge of the rest.
That was the real surprise, for although Kate certainly had a head for business, no one had realized that Jesse had noticed that ability in the daughter he— seemingly, at least—had virtually ignored.
Walker thought that Kate would probably be very good at running most of the family business, once she recovered from the shock.
As for Amanda, she had resisted the idea of inheriting anything at all at first, but Walker urged her not to make any decision for at least a few months. She was in no state of mind to consider the matter logically, he told her; she needed to give herself time to heal and then decide what she wanted to do. Glory was, after all, her heritage.
Walker doubted that his arguments had much effect, but the letter Jesse had left for Amanda certainly gave her food for thought. It had been delivered to her at the same time the new will had arrived, a sealed letter the law firm had been instructed to give her privately so that the remainder of the family would not know of its existence—unless Amanda chose to tell them about it.
He thought she probably would, one day. So far, however, only Walker had seen it. He hadn’t asked to read it, but Amanda had offered it, saying she wanted him to know as much as she did herself about the past.
Walker had read the letter only once, but it remained vividly in his mind even now, and when he thought about it, it was Jesse’s voice he heard.
My dear Amanda
,
I wish there were some gentle way of telling you what I believe you need to know. I wish I had been strong enough to tell you before I had to leave you, but even though I wanted to, I could never find the courage. Please forgive me for that.
You understand love, don’t you? You understand how it captures us without warning, giving us no choice to make except to fight what we feel —or endure it? I think you do understand, Amanda; I’ve seen the way you look at Walker.
I loved Christine. It was something beyond my control, not of my choosing. I fell in love with the wife of my son, and I can’t begin to tell you what agony it was. The blame is mine for what happened, Amanda. I should have been strong enough to fight what I felt, or at least unselfish enough to stop insisting they spend so many months at Glory, so that Christine and Brian
could attempt to work out their problems without interference.
But I was selfish. I wanted my son near, even though he was off riding so much of the time and Christine was too close. Too tempting.
It happened only once, Amanda. Christine was lonely, her marriage troubled because of Brian’s selfishness—and mine. She was vulnerable. And by then I knew I loved her as much as I had loved my dear Mary. Perhaps even more.
I won’t lie to you and claim I regretted what happened. I did not. I regretted only that she was my son’s wife and so could never be mine. She said she loved me. Perhaps she did. She wanted to divorce Brian, but that I could never permit. The scandal of destroying my son’s marriage and claiming his wife for myself was something I couldn’t face.
But, in the end, what I did was worse, much worse.
I made her stay with him. Bribery, threats, whatever it took. Then she discovered that she was pregnant—and, for a time, Brian became a better husband. So she stayed with him.
I swear to you, Amanda, I had no idea you were mine. It wasn’t until you were a toddler that I saw the birthmark, the mark only my child could have had, and by then Christine’s love for me had turned to bitterness.
What could I do? The truth would have destroyed my son, ripped apart the family, and ruined your life. So I had to remain silent.
It was my punishment for what I’d done, being forced to watch you grow into a beautiful little girl and knowing I would never be able to tell you that you were my daughter. Being forced
to watch Christine grow more unhappy year by year as Brian tormented her with his jealousy and his neglect.
What happened was, I suppose, inevitable. She fell in love with someone else.
I don’t know how much you remember of that last night, Amanda. I don’t know what you saw, or what your mother told you. I don’t know how important it really is to you to know what happened. But I believe I owe you that much.
I had believed I no longer felt jealousy of Christine, but when I realized she loved another man … I went mad, I think. I don’t remember everything, but I do know that I cornered her lover down in the stables and attacked him. I left him unconscious, and never saw him again after that night; I assume he ran from Glory.
As Christine did. She saw enough, I think, to frighten her badly. Perhaps she thought I would turn on her next, or that Brian would find out about her lover … I don’t know. All I do know is that she took you and ran away.
I wish I could say that was the end of the story, the end of my insanity. But I can’t. I did one more unforgivable thing, Amanda. In anger, I told Brian you were not his child. It was my fault he went wild that day, my fault he fell attempting a jump he would never have tried sane.
I killed my son.
You may never forgive me for any of this, I know. All I can offer in my defense is that I acted out of love, always. Love for Christine, for Brian, and for you.
As for the future, I leave it to you to decide if you will acknowledge your true paternity. Along with this letter, I have provided a signed and
witnessed document attesting to the fact that you are my daughter. In addition, the private lab still has, in their files, the DNA test results proving your paternity.
There will never be legal questions, should you decide to go public.
Amanda, if you can’t forgive me, at least please try to believe that I love you. You are the one good and precious thing to come out of an impossible situation, and neither I nor Christine ever regretted that.
Love,
Jesse
Walker was still, himself, coping with the shock of realizing how many lives Jesse had destroyed; he could only imagine how much more stunning Amanda had found the truth to be. It was surely no wonder she was so quiet even now. She had a great deal to absorb, to accept.
In the meantime, of course, she was with him, and that was all he had asked of her. He had been at some pains to make no demands, to wait patiently and give her the time she needed, and by this sweltering July morning he was reasonably sure the corner had been turned.
A rumble from the general vicinity of his knee made Walker look down. A big-boned black and tan creature with one ear flying was looking back at him.
“You can’t have another of my shoes,” Walker told the Doberman puppy sternly. “Go find your brother and help him dig up one of the flower beds if you feel bored.”
The puppy Amanda had named Angel (“Because it’s as far from serial killers as you can get”) scratched behind his ear energetically and made the
woof
sound
that was his idea of barking, then went looking for his brother, who was named Gabriel and who liked to dig up flower beds.
Walker turned his attention back to the sight of Amanda petting a horse. He watched for a few more minutes, then went down the steps and out into the hot sun.
“you’ll burn to a crisp,” he said when he reached her.
She gave the old horse a last pat and turned to him, smiling. “I’m wearing layers of sunscreen, as usual.”
“That won’t protect you from sunstroke.” Walker bent his head to kiss her.
“True.”
By mutual consent, they began to walk toward the path that led eventually to Glory. Most mornings they walked as far as the gazebo and back before having breakfast; it was a pleasant stroll and both enjoyed it.
“Les wants to meet for lunch one day this week,” Amanda commented idly. “I think she’s serious about staying.”
Walker thought so too. Unlike Amanda, the slender, redheaded former private investigator clearly did not find Glory overwhelming. And she did indeed seem to communicate with animals with almost telepathic ease—and with large, intense, temperamental Daulton men as well.
“Speaking of staying,” Walker said casually, “how do you feel about fall weddings?”
Amanda stopped and looked up at him. They had nearly reached the footbridge, and stood on the path near the gazebo. She was smiling just a little. “What did you have in mind?”
“A quiet ceremony and a long honeymoon. Beyond that, I haven’t thought.” He lifted a hand to her cheek and smoothed the sun-warmed skin over her cheekbone.
Abruptly, no longer casual, he said, “I love you. God, I love you. Marry me, Amanda.”
Her eyes searched his face very intently. Finally, after what felt like an eternity to him, she said huskily, “I already promised to do that.”