His Ten-Year-Old Secret

How could this have happened? How could a woman give birth and...

She stopped the thought in midstream. She hadn’t been a woman. She’d been a girl. A teenager. Still how could any female, of any age, give birth to a baby and not know that her daughter lived? Such a thing was inconceivable...wasn’t it? Things like that didn’t really happen. Those kind of situations were only impossible, unbelievable fictionalized ideas thought up by movie-of-the-week scriptwriters.

Things like this simply didn’t happen to sane, rational, normal people like herself.

At the moment, though, Tess felt anything but sane and rational.

Erin.

Erin Minster.

Staring unblinkingly into the mirror, Tess saw an older version of the child’s face. Erin had her eyes. Erin had her nose. Her mouth. Her chin. Her hair.

There was no doubt in her mind that Erin was her baby.

Her daughter was alive!

And Tess had run from her the instant she’d made the connection. Her eyes rolled upward and she closed her lids. Why had she made such a dash for her car? Why hadn’t she simply stayed and talked things out with Dylan? Why hadn’t she introduced herself to her daughter?

She had no other excuse except to say that the discovery had been staggering. No, it had been mind-blowing. A literal bombshell that had devastated her thinking processes.

Alive. And well. And living with her father in Pine Meadow.

How could this be? How could this have happened?

Worrying the small pearl pendant that hung on the delicate gold chain around her neck, Tess resumed her pacing.

Had Dylan somehow kidnapped Erin from the hospital in Connecticut where Tess had given birth?

She knew that Dylan had been rebellious in his youth, but she’d never witnessed him break the law. Besides, the idea that he might have abducted their child simply didn’t make sense when she thought of the awful accusations he’d made when she’d come to him with the news of her pregnancy.

“You won’t trap me into marriage,” he’d railed at her.

His choice of hurtful words had clearly told her that he didn’t want her. That he didn’t want their baby. So she really couldn’t imagine him turning around and stealing their child from the hospital nursery.

Furthermore, even if Dylan had been the type of person who could do such a thing, with doctors and nurses milling around, she just didn’t think it would be easy to pull off. No matter what the movie-of-the-week scriptwriters might want TV watchers to believe.

But the Minsters were wealthy enough to pay off a doctor or nurse. The thought floated eerily into her mind, and she shivered.

People who chose to work in the medical profession did so to help people, not hurt them, she reminded herself. Yes, but, a tiny voice piped in, there was always someone who was desperate enough to act unethically. Especially if money was involved.

Suddenly Tess felt sick to her stomach to think the man she’d thought had been the love of her life would hurt her so terribly. Would rob her of her own flesh and blood.

He had been vicious when he broke up with you all those years ago, the tiny voice echoed in her head.

Yes, she remembered. He had been vicious.

She unwittingly nibbled the cuticle of one thumb. Why didn’t things seem to add up? she wondered. Why didn’t the pieces fit?

The scene at Dylan’s garage earlier today unfolded again in her mind. All afternoon she’d been replaying the bit where Erin had come into the picture. Her gorgeous little girl had stepped out of the driver’s seat as if she’d been born there. Tess couldn’t help but smile.

However, she forced herself to push the endearing image aside and focus on what had happened prior to Erin’s appearance. What had she said to Dylan? More importantly, what had he said to her?

“So, ” his words floated into her mind, “you’ve finally come to see how your little puppy dog has fared after all these years.” Her breath caught as his meaning cut her to the quick. Then, she remembered him saying, “I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about the little stray you so heartlessly sent back to me. The waif you thought was so useless you didn’t even give her a name before you got rid of her. ”

The realization was enough to make her knees buckle, and she sank onto the mattress, burying her face in her hands.

Dylan thought she hadn’t wanted Erin. He thought she’d heartlessly sent her newborn daughter away without even giving the child a name. He thought she hadn’t wanted to raise her own baby. He thought she’d known all along of her child’s whereabouts, but that she hadn’t even cared enough to call or visit or—

Tess groaned audibly. Dear Lord in heaven, Dylan had thought all these horrible things about her for the last ten years! She pressed trembling fingers against her mouth as one final, chilling question came to her.

What must her little girl think of her?

Without another thought, Tess grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

“The garage is closed.”

Tess spun around to see the same elderly lady with whom she’d talked before, the same one who had urged her, only a couple of hours ago, to stop in and visit Dylan.

“Yes, I see that,” Tess said, still wrestling with the disappointment she experienced over seeing the Closed sign hanging in the window of Dylan’s place of business. She’d had the thought of going to Minster House to look for him, but didn’t know if she had the nerve to do so. “The sign there says he opens at eight in the morning.”

She hated the thought of waiting all those hours before having the chance to talk to Dylan. And Erin.

A thrill shot through her body with a jolt when she realized all over again that her baby was alive. Really alive!

“Eight, sharp,” the woman said.

Defeat rounded Tess’s shoulders. “I guess I’ll come back tomorrow. Thanks for coming over to talk.”

“Aww, now—” the woman actually seemed embarrassed “—there’s no cause to go thanking me. Just trying to be neighborly. And seeing as how you sped out of here earlier like an arrow out of a bow, didn’t seem like you and Dylan had much chance to catch up on things.”

“No.” Now it was Tess’s turn to feel chagrined. “You’re right, we didn’t.” But she simply couldn’t bring herself to explain the situation.

What could she say? That she’d just discovered today that she has a daughter?

This woman would think she was a raving lunatic!

“Well, I’d better go find someplace to grab some dinner.” The last thing Tess wanted was food. But she needed a means to politely take her leave. She had a hotel room floor that needed pacing, hours that needed worrying through. She turned away and started toward her car.

“You know...”

Something in the woman’s tone made her jerk to a halt and spin around. The elderly lady’s mouth was curled into a soft smile.

“I know how you can contact Dylan,” she said. “If you’ve a mind to, that is.”

Tess’s silent, eager expression was answer enough to make the woman chuckle.

“You see, Dylan has his phone number listed there—” she pointed to a small, index-card-size note taped in a lower corner of the window “—just in case of an emergency. I had to call him once when a bunch of boys were hanging about in the parking lot here and getting up to no good.”