The Housekeeper's Daughter Read Free Page A

activities,” she said, tilting her chin defiantly as resentment swept over her. “I always ride with the boys—”
    â€œThat was stupid. If you’d been thrown—” Drakestopped, unable to block the image of her lying on the ground, hurt, dying.
    â€œDamn you,” he muttered. “If you can’t think of yourself, think of the child. You’re going to be a mother. You have an obligation to take care of the baby.”
    She moved away. “I know very well what my obligations are,” she said coolly.
    Then she walked over and sat in the old rocker that had been used to soothe many a Colton baby, including himself.
    Drake stalked over to the desk chair, pulled it around and straddled it, his arms resting on the back while he observed the woman he’d returned home to see, the woman his father had mentioned in his last letter, telling Drake of Maya’s pregnancy and suggesting that he come home.
    An inner contraction, so strong it was painful, reminded Drake of last June and the week he’d spent at the ranch, home from his job with the Navy SEALs to celebrate his dad’s sixtieth birthday.
    What a memorable visit that had been. Someone had taken a potshot at his father. Shortly after that Drake had made love to the dark-haired Madonna who now watched him warily. “Inez says you’re at least eight months along.”
    Her eyes widened. “You talked to my mother?”
    â€œYes. Since you refused to discuss it, I went to the one person I knew would tell me the truth. Why didn’t you write?” he asked, changing tactics abruptly.
    â€œWhy didn’t you?”
    The challenge hit him right between the eyes. “I was off the beaten path most of the time.”
    The excuse sounded flimsy even to his ears. Her gaze flashed to him, then away, clearly expressing her disbelief.
    He realized he’d grown up with this person, yet he didn’t know her. He was three years older and had traveled the world; she’d spent her life here on the ranch. So why did she suddenly appear to be the one who was older and wiser?
    Impending motherhood had changed her. It was more than the fact that her breasts were fuller and her tummy rounded. He sensed a primordial knowledge within her that hadn’t been in the innocent young woman he’d loved, then left.
    â€œMy mission was dangerous,” he tried to explain. “I move around. There’s no future…I told you in the note I left.”
    â€œI believed you.”
    The simplicity of those three words threatened his self-control. They spoke of trust once given and now lost. Despair opened like a pit leading straight to the hell within him.
    He exhaled heavily. He’d lived with the darkness for a long time. It was an old enemy, one he knew well. Standing, he thrust his hands into his pockets and paced to the window and back. “The child changes things.”
    â€œIt isn’t yours.”
    He stopped in front of her, not quite certain he’d heard right. She stood and faced him with that calm, older-than-time composure she’d recently acquired.
    â€œIt isn’t your child,” she repeated the denial.
    The silence buzzed around them like an angry swarm of killer bees. She returned his hard stare without blinking, then she smiled slightly, not in amusement but as if the whole situation was one of supreme irony.
    This distant, world-weary attitude baffled him more than her not bothering to write and tell him the news. He considered the conversation with her mother and remembered a name. “Then it’s Andy Martin’s?”
    â€œIs that what my mother said?”
    â€œYes.”
    She tilted her chin in that stubborn way she had. “It’s my baby. Mine and no one else’s.”
    He’d been in enough standoffs with desperate people to know an impasse when he hit one. “Right. A virgin birth,” he scoffed. “Look, this isn’t getting