The Barefoot Summer(54)

“Not by choice, more by workload. I lost the baby and found out what a horrible person he was all the same week. After that I buried myself in my job. Now back to this other thing. I found a whole pack of letters hidden in my bedroom. They were up under the dresser, addressed to Iris’s daughter, Darcy. I read them, and believe me, they will open your eyes. I’ve given all the information to Waylon. He’s asked us not to tell anyone, not your aunt, Amanda, or your grandmother, Jamie, or my mother, either. It has to be a secret so that it doesn’t interfere with the investigation,” Kate said.

“Oh, I love secrets,” Amanda said. “Will it help us to figure out who gets this cabin?”

“Probably not, but we won’t have to move out anytime soon. It’s likely that the church will own it when everything is settled,” she answered as she headed down the hallway and returned with her suitcase.

“Good Lord, how many are there?” Jamie asked.

“There are a few—you need to read the letters for yourselves. Did you know the room I’m staying in is Darcy’s? Iris’s daughter grew up in this house. When she was a little girl, she used to hide things under the bottom drawer of the dresser. One morning that drawer got stuck.” Kate went on to tell the rest of the story, leaving out none of the details of the letters that were still fresh in her mind.

“Oh. My. God!” Amanda threw her hand over her eyes when Kate finished the story. “I’m changing my name back to Hilton as soon as I can get it done.”

“And I’ll be changing mine and Gracie’s to Mendoza when we go home. I wonder how much it will cost,” Jamie said.

“A little over two hundred dollars,” Kate answered.

“How do you know that?” Amanda checked the potatoes.

Kate stirred the small pot of beans. “Because I looked into it one time, and I’ll gladly pay for all of us to get it done.”

“You’d do that for me?” Amanda asked.

“He cheated us all, and I have the money,” Kate answered.

“I can pay for the name change,” Jamie said. “I’m not in the habit of taking charity.”

“Me, neither, but I’m pretty much broke unless I want to get into my small savings account. I’ll take you up on the offer,” Amanda said.

“I’ll get the legal staff on the name-change papers sent to us tomorrow morning. They’ll send down whatever we need to do, and when it’s time to go before the judge, we can make a day of it.”

“Only two weeks ago he was alive, and now we are talking about changing our names. It’s surreal,” Amanda whispered.

“Not as much to me as to you,” Kate said. “But I wish I’d hired someone to dig into his past like Iris did. I knew he was a con, yet it never dawned on me that he wasn’t even Conrad Steele.”

“I had no idea, either,” Jamie said.

Amanda laid her hand on her stomach. “It all hit me with so much force that I might be reeling for a month or maybe a year.”

Kate was sorry that she’d lost her chance at motherhood, but she was glad she’d never have to worry about raising a child with Conrad’s—or Cain’s—blood. She couldn’t imagine Gracie being anything but a sweet child, but a boy? Amanda would have a heavy load raising a son if he was like Conrad.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jamie awoke on Sunday morning and propped up on an elbow to stare at her daughter. How on earth she and Conrad had created such a delightful little girl was totally amazing. After reading through those letters, Jamie might even go so far as to say that her daughter was a miracle. With Conrad for a father, she could have been a conniving little girl, but she wasn’t. She was as open as a book and as sweet natured as Mama Rita.

She glanced at the clock and rubbed her eyes, then looked at it again. She had exactly forty-five minutes to get up, eat breakfast, and get ready for church.

She slung her legs out over the side of the bed and headed straight for the bathroom, knocking on Amanda’s door and Kate’s on the way.

“Rise and shine, ladies. We have overslept,” she called out and purposely slammed the bathroom door shut.

Amanda was standing at the bathroom door when she opened it again. “Pregnancy shrinks the bladder down to thimble size,” she grumbled.

“We’ve got to hurry, and it’s my turn to make the covered dish for the potluck.” Jamie moved to one side to let Amanda inside the bathroom.

“It can be my turn, Mama.” Gracie rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “We can take the cookies me and Amanda made.”

“Coffee is making,” Kate said when Jamie and Gracie made it to the kitchen. “I’m not going to church, but I’m in as big a rush as y’all. Waylon and I are skipping services this morning.”

Amanda arranged cookies on a plate. “Oh, really! Have you got a room reserved?”

“No, we do not!” Kate poured three cups of coffee and set them on the table. “Did either of you do any interesting reading last night?”

“I did,” Jamie answered. “That’s probably why I overslept. Talk about tangled webs and twists and turns. Now what? This place should go to a dead woman?”

“But since she’s already passed on, then we’re back to square one, right?” Amanda asked.