Back Where She Belongs(52)

“They were coming to see me, weren’t they, Rachel?” The voice from the doorway made them all turn. It was Sean Ryland. His tone had been personal, almost intimate. Dylan stood beside him, eyebrows raised in surprise, too.

Her mother stood and turned to face Sean, not saying a word.

“That’s why you wanted to meet me,” he continued. “They’d learned a secret you wanted kept. You had to beat them to the punch.”

Tara had never heard Sean Ryland speak so gently. “Tell me now, Rachel. What were you afraid I might learn?”

Her mother’s body softened, her gaze, too, looking at Sean. It was as if they were the only two people in the room. They clearly had a relationship that Tara knew nothing about.

“It’s about Faye, isn’t it?” Sean said. “She’s mine.”

Her mother dropped her head and her shoulders sagged before she spoke, her voice low and rough. “There was no use in telling you.”

Tara’s brain stalled. What? Sean was Faye’s father? Her mother had been with Sean? She saw that Dylan was stunned, too.

“How did Faye find out?” Sean asked. “Did you tell her?”

Her mother raised her head, pulled herself together, taking a shuddering breath. “She had tests. Because of Joseph’s genes. She sneaked out hair from Abbott’s brush, replaced his toothbrush with a new one. The results showed that Abbott was not her biological father. She came to me and demanded I tell her who it was.”

“And did you?” Sean asked. “Did you tell her?” Tara could tell he was holding back anger, making a supreme effort for her mother’s sake.

Her mother shook her head, her eyes downcast. “Not at first. I told her those companies are scams, they mix up the tests all the time, but she kept at me and kept at me.” She lifted her anguished gaze to Sean. “I gave in.”

“You cheated on Dad?” Tara blurted.

“We weren’t together at the time. We’d broken up.”

“But Faye was born months after you were married....” Her words trailed off, the answer obvious. Her mother had been pregnant when they married. Another jolt.

“We told everyone she was premature,” her mother said. “We had to say that. Your father’s family...their status...we had no choice.”

“So you and Dad broke up...then you dated Sean?” The words sounded strange to Tara’s ears, felt like hard marbles on her tongue.

“I thought it was over with your father. I was devastated and Sean was kind.”

“Kind?” The word held Sean’s usual bitterness. “I was in love with you, Rachel. And you loved me, too. When Abbott called, you ran to him. You chose money over love.”

“That’s not fair,” she said sharply, head up, her shame diminished for a moment. “You wanted me because he wanted me. You always envied him.”

“That’s not true.” Sean jutted his jaw.

“I chose a life I could count on. You were restless and moody. Abbott knew what he wanted for himself and in a wife. I needed that. I needed a safe place. I grew up in chaos. I wanted security.”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” he said gruffly.

“It was too late, Sean.”

Everything about this moment was surreal to Tara. Revealing this terrible secret, her mother’s voice was more natural and her demeanor more open than Tara had ever seen or heard. But she still didn’t know what had caused that night’s events.

“So Faye told Dad?” Tara guessed.

“No. I made her swear she wouldn’t. Abbott accidentally found the results. The envelope from the genetics company got stuck between two folders Faye gave him at work.”

With a jolt, Tara pictured the address on the envelope in her father’s bloody shirt pocket. CGC Gen was all she’d been able to see. She’d assumed it was some technology firm—Gen part of Generator. Instead it had been Genetics. She remembered the books on his desk on the subject, too.

“Abbott was furious,” Tara’s mother said, her eyes going distant. “On principle. Abbott and his principles. Forget people when there were rules to be followed, a high moral ground to march on. He wanted a divorce. He wanted to destroy everything we’d built, all we’d achieved. Faye tried to calm him down, reassure him that he was still her father, that knowing didn’t change anything.”

Tara remembered the text on her father’s phone.

Nothing changes. Let it go.

“What happened that night, Mom? Before the accident?” Tara asked, dreading what she would hear. Her heart thudded so hard she could hardly hear her mother over the beat.

As if he’d read her mind, Dylan moved beside her and put a warm hand to her back, grounding her. He’d been with her through every trauma in her life, she realized. Even the one he’d caused.

“Abbott wouldn’t let it go. He decided you had to know.” She looked at Sean, who stood still as stone, as if he expected a firing squad to take aim any second. “What was the point? Why cause you pain, too?”

Sean didn’t move or speak, but Tara could feel his anger, his hurt. Her mother must have, too, because her voice went high and desperate. “It was one night forty years ago, Sean. You never asked. We hardly spoke in all those years. You didn’t want to know. Abbott was Faye’s father in all the ways that mattered.”

She turned her gaze back to Tara. “Faye wanted me to go with Abbott to talk to Sean, to make sure they didn’t lose their tempers, destroy the peace they’d come to.” Her mother stopped and took harsh breaths, clearly fighting her emotions.

“I should have gone. I know that now. But I was angry at Faye, hurt that she’d turned against me, that she’d torn us apart at the seams, put my marriage at risk. I told her that she had caused this mess, she would have to live with the consequences.”

Her mother’s eyes flicked from person to person, as if seeking asylum in some face, begging someone to take her side. No one spoke.

“Faye exploded at me. I’d never seen her so angry. She called me selfish and cruel. She said I lied to myself and everyone else, and the lies had ruined my marriage, ruined our family. Such terrible things.” Her mother shook her head. “Then she said she was going with her father to talk to Sean. I told her if she did that, she was no longer my daughter. She’d hurt me so deeply. Don’t you see? She’d betrayed me. She chose her father over me, Sean over me, blamed me for everything.”

Her mother began to cry again. “But she was right. I was selfish and cruel. And I was punished. I killed my husband and almost killed her.”

Tara, Dylan and Joseph stood in shocked silence, while Tara’s mother sobbed quietly in the chair beside a sleeping Faye. Dylan rubbed Tara’s back in slow circles, reminding her that he’d promised to be whatever she needed.

He’d kept that promise from the moment they’d first talked.

He’d helped her investigate the accident and now she knew the truth—all the truth. The accident happened because of confused ideas about love and loyalty—both in her mother and in Matt Sutherland.

There was one final mystery. “Did you empty Dad’s desk of files?” Tara asked.

“I couldn’t find the genetics report. There were papers about the divorce, I knew. I didn’t know what other terrible item was there, so I shredded it all. It had to be gone. It was all a mistake.” Her mother made a wiping gesture with her hands.

Her mother’s behavior horrified Tara. All her decisions had been aimed at hiding, lying, keeping secrets she shouldn’t have, shredding the truth right and left, culminating in running away from the accident she’d caused.

“Wha... Is... Where...am...?”

Faye’s words were a whispered rasp in the silence. They all turned to stare at her. She blinked, looking startled.

“You’re in the hospital. You were in an accident,” Tara said.

Faye touched her throat.

“You’re thirsty! Right.” Tara grabbed the plastic cup of water Rita had placed there for when Faye awoke.

Faye nodded against the pillow, still blinking, still confused.

With shaking fingers, Tara put the straw between her sister’s lips. When she’d finished, Tara set down the cup. “Welcome back. We missed you. All of us.” Tara nodded toward the people now crowded around the bed—Joseph, their mother, Dylan and Sean, the father Faye had barely learned about.

Would she remember the accident? Did she know her father was dead? Would she remember them?

“Baby.” Joseph dropped to his knees beside the bed and grabbed Faye’s hands, pressing them to his mouth. “Do you know me?”

She nodded slowly, as if just awakened from anesthesia. “Jo...seph.”

“And me?” Tara had to ask. “You recognize me?”

“My...sis...ter.” Her eyes moved over all of them. “Mom...?”