Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (34 page)

“I think she is
.
I told her it was
okay
with me, that I would help her,
but
we haven’t had
a chance
to
really
talk about it. She
was so insistent on going
back to school
this past fall. I don’t know what she’ll do about
college
now
. David was so proud of her
.
H
e wanted her to get a
n
education.
Now
I’m afraid all that
is
lost
, too
.
”

“Anna. If
Dannilynn
comes
home and you don’t feel it’
s safe for her, please let her know she can stay with us. We have a spare room she is welcome to use.”  He
pat
ted her hand. “What concerns me
right now
is your worries about David. If he becomes violent, you must call the police.”

She
shrank
away
from him. “Oh, I couldn’t
.
I just ca
n’t do that.”

“You have
to protect
yourself, and
your daughter
and her child. If you don’t, who will?”

“I know
, Pastor.
I’ll talk
to
him again. And, I’ll try to find out when he’ll be back.
He’s
been
working down south.
”

He nodded. “
Let me know if you think I can do any
thing
more.
My
conversation with your husband wasn’t very productive. Mostly, he was accusatory.
And the
d
rinking. Is this something he’
s been doing a lot lately?”

She
bowed her
head in
to
her hands. “He used to drink—before we were married. I told him it was me or the bottle and he stopped. But, since he found out—
after
he
saw
Danni
at schoo
l
—
he started drinking
again. He doesn’t do it at home.
I won’t let him and he knows that. I think he’s been
drink
ing at
those
bars down by the harbor.”

“I see.
I want you to let me know how
I might help when he comes back,
particularly
after
Dannilynn
returns from college
. Will you do that
?”

She nodded and thanked him for his concern
.

Pastor Peter called
the vet clinic
and asked if he might
speak
with Ben.

“He’s at the south end of the island today, but I can ha
ve him call you when he returns,
”
Bronnie offered.

“Thank you
. I’ll wait for his call.”

When
he
met
Ben
at the clinic that evening
,
Peter
got straight to the point.
“Are you the father of
Dannilynn
Kelly
’s baby?”

“Why
do you want to know
?”
Ben asked
, his voice soft
as he
gazed back at
Pastor Peter
.

No guilt
there
,
he
concluded.
He’s not the one.
“I’m her pastor. I’m trying to help her family come together.”

“I’m not
the
father
.”

“
But you’re
helping
Dannilynn
anyway
?”

He nodded.
“
W
hen she lets me. We’re friends. I help my friends.”

“
I want to t
hank you
for doing that.
” He held out his hand to the younger man.
“
From what her mother tells
me,
Dannilynn
needs a friend about now.”

David was beside himself with frustration and rage. Finding
Dannilynn
pregnant thrust him back to when his sister had come home
prior to the birth of her baby. Although
she was
unmarried, his parents had taken her
in
and
insisted that she
put
the baby
up
for adoption
after its birth
. He
’d
watched his parents comfort her, but he felt strongly
that
she
had shamed their family
.

When she went into labor,
t
he
i
r parents were out of town.
David helped
her in
to
the car and headed for the hospital. They never made it. The
ir
car
was hit by a drunk driver and
David’s
sister
died
two days later
, the
unnamed
baby
declared dead
at the scene
. He
’d
tried to
put
aside his guilt, and
considered it divine retribution for what he felt in his heart was an evil that should not have been visited on his family. Now, his own daughter
—
named after his sister
—
was
pregnant and unmarried. He was certain the
young vet
was involved in spite of
everyone’s
denials. And i
f not him, who?

I let
her go away to college.
That was
a mistake.
It had to have
happened there, but she was at a private school, where the dorms were separated from one another, and he
’d
assum
ed the students were watched more
carefully
than at those public colleges they
’d
visited. That was one reason he
’d
finally
said
she could go to the
more expensive,
private
school
.

Had she stayed
home, he
was certain
it wouldn’t have happened
,
except
…
she was home when Ben had come on the scene.
He had to be the one, even though no one
, but David
believed that.
Drinking had killed his sister and her child. Drinking now
did little to ease
his
many
emotion
s—
anger
that his
dau
ghter was pregnant, rage at
the
unknown
father of the baby
,
fury
that he
didn’t know who had ruined his daughter’s life
.
And with his rage, overwhelming
guilt
that he had been unable to protect his
only
child
from the actions of
a
man
who had to be uncaring, who hadn’t stepped up and made things right
. Now
Danni
would have to quit school and get a
dead-end
job to support herself.

“Serves her right,” he muttered, though his heart ached that she
w
ouldn’t get the degree she
very
much wanted,
a degree
he had wanted for her. She
was to be
the first i
n their family to complete
colle
ge. He
’d
always regretted that he’d
had to go
into the Army
because he couldn’t afford college
.
Now,
instead of be
com
ing
an
engineer, he was
a skilled mechanic at the port
in Tacoma
. He was grateful he had been able
—in the
Army
—t
o
augment
what
he already
knew
. But
he
’d
so wanted
Dannilynn
to go to college, to enjoy what
had always been
out of reach for him.

Anna
, his dear Anna,
was furious with
him,
accusing him of throwing his daughter away for something that
was beyond her control
. “As if she had no part in it,” he
had
retorted
.
He refused
to speak to
Dannilynn
whenever she called home
. Instead,
h
e wrote her a note
full
of recriminations. He repeated
what he told her,
that
she had
no place in their home anymore,
and he added that she should give the baby away so that he
wouldn’t be reminded of what
Dannilynn
had done,
what she had allowed to
happen
, in spite of everything she had been taught
.

The pastor was right. This was no immaculate conception.
Danni
must
have let
a
man have her. He knew what the Bible said about that. He
couldn’t remember when he
had been taught
that sex before marriage
was
immoral
,
only that it was one of those things other people—the unchurched—did
.
How could he possibly forgive
Danni
when she had committed such a sin?
He headed for the bar and
took
a seat in the darkest corner of the room.

He gro
wled at the bartender,
“M
y usual.
”
H
ours later,
he
passed out
. Before the bar closed, he
woke
and stumbled into the night. Knowing he could n
ot go home, he slept in his car. When he woke it wasn’t yet light and he started driving
south to the job he
should have returned to
days
earlier
.

Danni
wept
when she
read
her father’s note. At first, s
he refused to show it to Ben when he came to see he
r and spotted the envelope on the kitchen table
. “
He
was so nasty
.
I
t means for sure I can’t go home. But I can’t stay here. I only rented this place until after fin
als are over.
I have to leave by
next
weekend
.”

“Then
we’ll find you another place.
Want me to
look
around and see what’
s available?”

She sniffed before shaking her head.
“
No, I
want to do it
.
If I’m going to live there,
I
n
eed to pick it out.
It has
to be
my
decision.
My last exam is tomorrow morning, and
I finished
all my final papers
last night
.
”
S
he pointed to the stack
of work ready to be turned in.
“I can take the bus
to New Harbor
and meet you after work.”

“Where are you going to live while we’re
look
ing?
We
r
e you thinking of my place, maybe?
”