Finding Our Forever (Silver Springs #1)(63)

“You know Aiyana as well as anyone,” Eli said when he was finished. “You love her, too. Should we tell her?”

“No.”

Eli blinked in surprise. Cal hadn’t sounded the least uncertain when he gave that answer. At a minimum, Eli had expected a bit of deliberation. “Because...”

“I’d rather not say.”

Another surprise. “You need to tell me. Otherwise, I won’t know how to protect both of the women I love.”

“I’m glad you came to me before...proceeding. I’m sorry for Cora. She must’ve come to Silver Springs hoping for a happy reunion with her mother, but I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

“Why?” Eli lowered his voice. “Was it rape? That’s where my mind keeps going. What else explains such secrecy? Was Aiyana brutally attacked? Is Cora’s father some scumbag rapist who’s spent time in prison?”

“I think it would be easier for Aiyana if that was the case. Maybe then she’d be able to forgive herself. As it stands—” he shook his head “—no amount of atonement seems to be enough.”

Eli’s heart leaped into his throat. “Forgive herself for what?”

He didn’t answer, was obviously still wrestling with his reluctance to break a confidence.

“Cal, as you’ve no doubt heard, in June Cora will become my wife. Please help me to understand the seriousness of this situation. Trust me to guard the secret as carefully as you have.”

“I would if I thought it would help Cora to know...”

“But if she doesn’t have a good reason not to, she’ll eventually tell Aiyana who she is! The closer they become, the safer she’ll feel to do that. And, as my wife, I can only imagine they will get close. That’s already happening.”

Cal dropped his head into his hands. “Aiyana will never forgive me.”

“She’ll never know. I swear it.”

“Even if she learns, I care more about her than I do myself,” he said on a fatalistic sigh. “So...if this might possibly protect her, I’ll do it.”

Eli could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “What happened?”

“When Aiyana was just a teenager, maybe eighteen, she fell in love with her stepfather.”

A sick feeling crept into the pit of Eli’s stomach. This was not what he’d been expecting. “She what?”

“He took advantage of her youth and inexperience, touched her where he shouldn’t, convinced her they were meant to be together—and, eventually, she gave in to his entreaties and ran off with him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I was. She realized almost immediately that she’d made a terrible mistake, but by then the damage was done. She felt she could never go back. She’d betrayed her mother and taken away the father of her two younger brothers, was positive Consuelo would never be able to forgive her.”

“So she stayed with him?”

“She had no choice, had nowhere else to go. They rambled around from town to town, picking up odd jobs and living in motels and dumpy apartments. Before too long, she was so miserable she began to search for a way out and finally met a girlfriend who offered to help. But when she tried to leave Dutch—Dutch Pruitt was his name—he came after her, made all kinds of crazy threats against them both. Your mother was so afraid he’d act on those threats, and hurt someone besides her, that she went back to him and, for the next year or so, was treated as more of a captive than anything else.”

Eli’s throat had gone so dry he could scarcely swallow. “How did she eventually get away from him?”

“She got a waitressing job. The owner of the place was a retired cop by the name of ‘Murph’ Matheson, and he and his wife took a shine to her. They helped her get a restraining order against Dutch, let her move in with them and their children. They even insisted she start college and helped with the expenses.”

“And the pregnancy?”

“Your mother realized she was going to have a baby a month after she moved in with the Mathesons. But she knew if she kept the baby, she’d never really be rid of Dutch. He’d be part of her life forever, and because she was convinced he wasn’t completely sane she didn’t want him around the baby. She also knew her mother would never be able to accept the child, would never be able to love it, if they ever reconciled, which was something she was beginning to hope for. So...”

“She gave it up.”

“That’s right.”

Leaning back, Eli took a deep breath. “Did Dutch ever find out about the baby?”

“No. But he would have had she kept it. It took another three years for her to get rid of him altogether. He was a truck driver by then and took his own life by driving his semi over a cliff.”

Eli sat rubbing the beard growth on his chin as he attempted to process this information. “Wow...” he said on a long exhale. Even a saint like his mother had a skeleton in her closet, and that skeleton had quite a stigma attached to it.

Cal came to his feet and circled the desk. “Eli, I hope you won’t let this damage your opinion of your mother. I would feel terrible if it did. Regardless of her past, I’ve never met a better person. I don’t think she should be defined by that one mistake.”