A Merciful Secret (Mercy Kilpatrick #3)(52)

Truman thanked her mother and then met Mercy’s gaze over the rim of the coffee cup as he took a sip. His eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Would you like a slice of pie?” Mercy’s mother asked her. “Rose made it.” Her father focused on his plate, chasing the last few bites with his fork.

Mercy’s stomach growled. And then she remembered the mutilated body of Rob Murray. “No, I’m good. Rose will be down in a while.”

“Is she okay?” asked her mother.

“Yes. Just don’t pressure her.” She looked at her father, but he continued to eat, his gaze down. “Rose will do what’s best for her and her baby.”

He looked up at that and opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and went back to his nearly empty plate.

“I’m going home,” Mercy told them, lifting a brow at Truman. “Don’t let me take you away from your pie.”

He finished the remaining half of his slice in two bites, wiped his mouth, and stood. “Tell Rose her pie was fantastic, Deborah.”

Mercy’s mother beamed again, looking up at Truman. He shook Karl’s hand, and they said their good-byes.

Outside he stopped Mercy before she got in her SUV. “How is Rose?”

“She’s okay. Just confused.”

“Nick is a good man, and he must feel strongly about Rose.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have eyes. That’s no ordinary gift in your parents’ living room. I hope she won’t avoid him.”

“No. She wants to explore the possibility.”

“Good.” Truman looked extremely satisfied. “Your mother likes me,” he said with a grin. “She fed me pie.”

“I saw.”

He leaned against her vehicle and pulled her into his arms. Mercy exhaled, letting the long day roll off her shoulders as she sank into his embrace. No dead bodies, no angry father, no missing suspect.

Truman smelled male and solid and comforting. She pressed her lips against Truman’s neck and his entire body tensed. Pleased with her power over him, she kissed a line up to his ear. “Kaylie is spending the night with a friend,” she whispered. He closed his eyes and shuddered at the sensation at his ear.

“Say no more.” He kissed her firmly and gave her a push toward the driver’s door. “I’ll be right behind you.”





TWENTY

I never met my father.

When I was old enough to notice that the children in my books had a mother and a father, I became curious. For a few years I accepted my mother’s answer that I’d never had one. When I was thirteen I realized that was physically impossible and confronted her again.

We were outside, walking the forest path to her favorite spot, where she prayed in the sunny clearing between the tall pines. She was often gone for several hours. “Harmonizing with nature,” she called it. She had taught me to look for the miracles in the outdoors. Every leaf, each bird, and even the dirt under my feet. I studied the amazing network of veins in the leaves and wondered at their colorful transformations and eventual deaths. I watched the birds fly and ached to join them, to be weightless, to soar. What had God drawn inspiration from to create the fragile creatures that flitted from tree to tree? When I magnified a handful of dirt, new galaxies were revealed, a cosmos of different grains, minerals, and pebbles.

There was much to learn if you took the time.

We reached her spot. Several old stumps stood in the center of the small grassy area. She set a thick candle on the biggest one and gestured for me to sit on one of the smaller. She lit the candle and closed her eyes, taking deep, even breaths, inhaling the scents of the forest’s life. After a moment she took a seat beside me and met my gaze.

“Your father is in prison.”

I don’t know what I had expected, but that was not it. “Why?”

She was silent. “It is a long story.”

“Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

She looked to her candle. “It is.”

I waited, knowing I couldn’t rush her. She would explain when she was ready, but my blood rushed hot through my veins. My father was a criminal. Embarrassment flooded me as if a huge audience had heard the dirty secret. But no one had heard her words except the trees and dirt.

Or did other people know? Was my father one of the reasons my mother was avoided as she walked the aisles in stores? Why no one except her customers came to our home?

“I was young once, you know. I was beautiful, and male eyes followed me.”

“They still do.” I never thought of my mother as old, although I knew she’d been nearly thirty when I was born.

She scoffed. “They don’t see me in the same way.”

I waited.

“I met your father in a dance club—”

“What?” I couldn’t imagine my cloistered mother in such a social environment.

“Hush and listen. I will only tell you this story one time.”

I pressed my lips together; I believed her. I’d never seen her current expression before. Sad, pensive, and pondering. She didn’t sit as straight as usual, and the lines across her forehead had deepened. I smelled an earthy beige aura around her; usually it was a calm, ocean-scented blue. I listened.

“He was handsome and charming. His eyes made my insides melt, and his words were crafted by a master of seduction.”