Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(17)

Her throat moved as she swallowed. Then she glanced away, reaching up to move her hair behind her ear. I got the feeling she understood how bad this was, even though I’d told her very little.

“That’s why he never came today.” She turned to look at me again. “He told me you were both leaving, and asked me to come with you. I waited all day.”

My eyes widened in surprise while her expression crumpled. Her hand fluttered up to her throat as she tried not to cry, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Excuse me,” she said and walked out of the room, apparently not wanting me to see how upset she was.

How serious was it between them? My father had invited her to run away with us, and apparently she was planning to actually go? When was he going to tell me—as he was pulling up in front of her house to pick her up?

“Hop in the back, Candy. Your future stepmother is going to ride shotgun. Oh, did I forget to mention her?”

That would have gone over well. Nice, Dad.

Lorraine was gone long enough for me to take off my coat and wonder if I should go looking for her. Restless, I stood and gazed around the room instead, noticing her taste tended toward busy floral patterns in pastel colors. Again, very different from my mother, who decorated our house in subdued solids. Lorraine had some prints hung on the walls, and framed pictures on the table beside the television stand.

As I headed toward the photographs, I glanced in the direction she’d walked in and saw a narrow hallway with an open doorway at the end. That had to be where she’d gone to collect herself.

I shifted my gaze to the photos and saw what looked like a younger version of her with a lanky boy by her side holding a football. That same boy was in all the pictures.

Bending closer, I squinted when I realized the boy looked familiar. After examining the other pictures, I sucked in a breath.

Jonah. There was no scar, but it looked just like him. My heart picked up speed as I realized who this woman had to be.

“You know my son,” she said as she stepped up beside me. I hadn’t even heard her approach.

I straightened, trying to find my voice. “You’re Jonah’s mother.”

She nodded and I stared at her, trying to see past the dyed hair and makeup. I thought maybe the shape of her eyes was the same as his, but hers were green. This was the woman who’d walked out on Jonah. She was his mother, and somehow my father knew her? Blood whooshed in my ears, and I felt a headache coming on.

Lorraine’s eyes were bloodshot from crying. She reached down and picked up a photograph of her standing beside Jonah. “Your father told me they put him in your school.” She bit her lip, still looking at the picture. After a moment, her hand trembled, and she set it down again.

“My father knew who Jonah was?”

“No, not until you showed him the license you found.”

I gaped at her. “He told you about that?”

She nodded. “He called me when he realized it was my son. I’ve always called him Cooper, but to you and everyone else, he’s Jonah.”

My father called her when he knew? He said nothing to me but he called her? I resented the hell out of that.

“How do you know my father?”

Lorraine wrapped her arms around herself. “He didn’t tell you anything about me?”

“Nothing,” I replied bluntly, wanting to hurt her feelings, but was immediately ashamed of myself when I succeeded.

She breathed a little deeper in an attempt to control her emotions. “I met your father when we lived in Massachusetts. He worked with my husband.”

Lorraine hadn’t really answered my question the way I’d meant it, and I let my expectant expression tell her that.

She cleared her throat. “One afternoon when your father was at our house, he saw Victor strike me. The job wasn’t going well, and I interrupted him when they were talking. Anyway, before Sebastian left, he took me aside and asked me if I needed help. I was so embarrassed. I told him I was fine, but he left me his number in case I changed my mind.”

The fact that Victor could have hit Lorraine didn’t surprise me so much as the fact that he’d do it in front of my father. My father’s kindness to her made my heart swell, but it also made me wonder why Jonah was angry at his mother for leaving. How could he feel that way if his father was hitting her?

“When did this happen?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “Almost seven years ago.”

I recalled Jonah said his mother left when he was fifteen years old, which would have been seven years ago, just like she said. The problem with that was my mother only died six years ago.

“So you and my father are . . . ?”

She lowered her chin and raised her eyes. “What? An item?” She smiled shyly and nodded.

“Oh.” My lack of enthusiasm was obvious, but I couldn’t help it.

She seemed to know what I was thinking. “It was more than a year after your mother passed before anything happened between us. Your father loved her, and he was faithful to her. He’s a decent man. That’s how I know whatever they’re accusing him of, he didn’t do it.”

Now I knew that my father hadn’t told her what this was all about either, and yet she still believed in him. I smiled, finally recognizing something in her that was similar to my mother—the way she defended my father. Because of that and the fact that he’d kept us both in the dark, I couldn’t help but soften toward her a little.