April's Promise (Forever Love Series) (16 page)

He
remembered the police officer coming to his door.  He remembered calling April,
bundling up Stephie, meeting April at the hospital.  She'd watched Stephie
while he'd gone in with Vanessa, and then he'd taken Stephie so she could sit
with her sister.  One of the nurses had said she was on a break and could watch
Stephie if he wanted to go in, too.  He'd overheard April whisper, "I
promise" to her sister.

What
had she promised Vanessa?  At the time, he'd thought she'd promised to watch
over Stephie.  But what if she'd promised something else?  What if she knew?

That
thought drove him to his feet.  It caused him to throw the e-mails into the box
and charge down the stairs.

April must
have heard his feet pounding in the hall because she was already sitting up in
the bed when he rushed into the room.

"What's
wrong?" she asked groggily.

He
studied her for a long moment before he answered, hardening his heart, erecting
those walls around it again for self-preservation.

"Stephie's
not my daughter."

To his
dismay, he didn't see surprise in her eyes.  In fact, he saw resignation.  When
April was silent, Gabe accused her of her lie of omission.  "You knew,
didn't you?"

She looked
shaken now as if she didn't know what to do, as if she didn't know whether she
should get out of bed and get dressed, cover up with a sheet, go to him, or
stay where she was.  She covered with the sheet.  "Not all along.  The
night of the accident, Vanessa confided in me."

"I'm
supposed to believe
you
, her sister, didn't know about the affair she
was having behind my back?  I have all the e-mails to document it."

"Vanessa
and I were close once, but after the two of you married, we weren't.  I didn't
know about the affair, Gabe.  Honest, I didn't."

"So
what exactly did she tell you?"  He wanted to know it all now, the whole
truth and nothing but.

April
looked as if she'd rather be any place else but in his bed, and he certainly
understood that.  But he wasn't going to make her feel better, not when his
world had just come apart at the seams.

Apparently
she recognized his dogged determination to ferret out every detail because she
said in a low voice, "Vanessa knew she was dying.  She knew she wasn't
going to make it.  She made me promise so many things.  The first was, of
course, to take care of Stephie...to help
you
take care of
Stephie."

If he
felt any softening toward Vanessa at all, it was over this point.  "What
else?" he demanded to know.

April
looked haunted.  "She told me the whole story before she died."  She
hesitated, then went on.  "After Stephie was born, she wasn't sure if you
were the father."

He and
Vanessa had had a sex life, though it obviously wasn't anything like she'd
enjoyed with Larry Powell.

"And
then?" Gabe prodded.

"She
told me that about a month before the night of the accident, she had a DNA test
done.  Larry wanted to know for sure."

"And
the results came back that with all likelihood, he was Stephie's dad."

"The
test determined he was her biological father, Gabe, not her real father.  Don't
you see that?"

His
heart felt as if it were ripping in two.  "No.  What I see is a woman who
lied to me over and over again.  Do you know what happened the night she
died?"

Now
April did reach for her clothes.  Hurriedly, she pulled her sweater over her
head, forgetting about the bra that lay on the floor.  She stepped into her
panties, pulled on her jeans, and stood before him, looking bedraggled,
miserable, and upset.

"Why
is this necessary, Gabe?  Why do you have to know every detail?"

"Because
I do."

She
took a deep breath, avoided looking at his naked chest, at his mouth, and kept
her gaze on his.

"Vanessa
and Larry were arguing when they had the accident.  Larry wanted things to stay
the same.  She wanted to give you custody of Stephie, ask for a divorce, and
run off with him."

Gabe
thought he actually might stop breathing. 
This
was the woman he'd
married? 
This
was the woman he'd thought he loved?  He asked in a
gravelly voice, "She was willing to toss away Stephie as if she didn't
matter?"

April
was already shaking her head.  "No.  She knew how much you loved Stephie. 
She felt you were a good dad.  Actually, I don't think she felt fit to be a
mother.  It was a solution, but one Larry didn't want any part of."

Gabe could
hardly wrap his mind around it.

"You
said she made you make promises.  What other promises besides watching over
Stephie?"  But before he asked, he suspected he already knew the answer.

"She
wanted me to keep it all a secret.  She didn't want your feelings for Stephie
to ever change.  Gabe, I've been torn apart by this, not knowing the right
thing to do.  Of course, I made those promises that night.  That's what she
needed to hear.  But afterward...but afterward, I didn't know what was worse—you
living a lie or you finding out Stephie wasn't your daughter and feeling
differently about her.  I was trying to protect you and your relationship with
Stephie.  It wasn't about Vanessa at all any more.  But then, after you and
I…"  She trailed off.  "After you and I made love, I knew I had to
tell you the truth.  I've been trying to figure out how to do it.  I was going
to tell you tonight.  But then Mother called, and when I got home…"  She
stopped.  "You wanted me."

Yes, he
had.  But other emotions were overtaking his desire for her.  "You
betrayed me.  You should have told me.  You didn't trust me to love Stephie
enough to cherish her, to always act as her father, whether it was a biological
fact or not.  You know what that means?  That means you didn't trust me now any
more than you did five years ago.  That means if we don't have trust, we have
nothing
between us."

"You
can't deny what we have between us," she protested, her voice trembling. 
"Look what happened tonight.  Unless..."  She stopped and put her
hand over her mouth.  Her gaze searched his and then she shakily asked, "Unless…what
did you find in that box in the attic before I came home?"

He felt
uncomfortable with that question and wasn't sure why.  "Nothing specific. 
I just found some receipts.  She'd bought a couple of men's things, things I
never received.  I thought maybe she'd purchased them for work."

Now
April's eyes accused
him
.  "Did you, Gabe?  Or deep down did you
know about this?  Did you guess what she had done?"  April took a step
back away from him.  "Did you have all that desire for me tonight to get
back at Vanessa?  Did you come on to me like that because you wanted me to be
hungry for you in a way Vanessa never was?  Is that what the past few days have
been all about?"

He felt
himself go as pale as April, yet he couldn't accept what she was saying had
driven him into bed with her.  So he went on the defensive.  "You kept a
secret you had no right to keep.  You made a promise that you knew would hurt
everyone in the long run."

"I
made a promise to watch over Stephie, and I've kept it," she reminded him,
her voice rising.

"You've
chosen a hell of a way to watch over her, and I have to wonder if I hadn't
found those e-mails upstairs, if you would
ever
have told me."

Tears
came to April's eyes now, and he hardened himself against them.

She
said, "You're not going to believe anything I say now, are you?"

"No."

That
word was like a cannonball hitting the wall.  The reverberation ended in a
silence that was dark and almost suffocating.

He
could see that as April picked up her socks and her sneakers.  He could feel it
as she went to the door, turned around, and said, "I'm going to stay in a
motel tonight.  Tomorrow, I'll figure out what to do next.  But no matter what
you think of me, Gabe, no matter what you think about Vanessa, Stephie is your
daughter in every way that matters."

After
April left his room, Gabe closed the door.  Then he sat on the bed and dropped
his head into his hands.

****

The
following day, April knew she had to get out of the motel room bed or she'd
stay there forever.  Desolate last night when she'd left Gabe, she'd checked
into this motel, not really caring where she was or what she was doing.  She'd
sat for hours in the dark in her room, thinking, trying to figure out what she
could have done differently.  Hurting Gabe had been the only option, and she
hadn't wanted to hurt him.  Maybe she hadn't trusted him as much as she should
have where Stephie was concerned.  Maybe she should have trusted his feelings for
Stephie wouldn't change.  But she'd been afraid to take that chance.

That
had been the problem.  She'd been afraid too much all along with anything that
concerned Gabe.

Not
knowing what else to do, she called her mother.  If ever there was a time she
needed her—

Winnifred
answered her cell phone with, "It's barely nine o'clock."

April
hadn't even known what time it was.  She just knew the sun was up, she'd been
lying there too long, and she had to do
something
.

"I
need to see you," April said.

"April,
what's wrong?  I haven't had my first morning coffee.  I can douse some cold
water on my face if you need me to."

"Stephie
isn't Gabe's daughter."

There
was stark silence, and April guessed that surprise had awakened her mother more
than any splash of cold water.

"Oh
my."  Somehow, her mother put a whole world of feeling in those two
words.  "Where are you?"

"I'm
in a motel."

"That's
ridiculous.  I'll ask Clarice if you can come stay here."

"I'm
fine here, Mother.  I just need to figure out what to do next.  Gabe hates me. 
We were getting close and then he found papers in the attic, and now…he hates
me."

"I
doubt that very much," Winnifred said.  "Oh, you might think he does. 
He
might think he does.  Tell me what happened."

So
April did.

"Vanessa
needed to confess and you were her confessor.  Of course, you had to keep her
secret."

"There's
no 'of course' about it.  And Gabe certainly doesn't see it that way."

"Give
him a little time.  You and Vanessa were sisters, for goodness sake.  That's a
bond that can't be broken, even over lost love."

April
kept silent.

"Don't
think I didn't know you still loved Gabe when you left.  A mother knows these
things.  But you weren't ready for what he had to offer, and nothing I said
could have stopped you."

That
was probably true.

"Honey,
I was a poor example for both you and Vanessa.  Sure, what Vanessa did was
awful and mostly her fault.  But if she had seen better at home, maybe she
would have done better."

"I
could never do that to anyone."

"That's
you."  Winnifred sighed.  "Your sister put you in an untenable
situation."

"Gabe
will never forgive me."

"
Never
is a long time, April.  Why don't you come over here?  We'll have tea and try
to figure out what we can do about this."

There
was nothing else April could do right now, so she agreed.  "I'll be there
in about half an hour."

****

Nicholas
never called before he came over, and Gabe supposed that was probably a good
thing because he would have told him not to come.

Unable
to concentrate on anything except what had happened last night, Gabe hadn't
gone into work today.  Unlike yesterday, Stephie had been quiet, almost
apathetic.  Gabe attributed that to April being gone because Stephie missed her
already.

He
wasn't going there.

Nicholas
took one look at Gabe and said, "I should have brought my best bottle of
brandy.  I thought we could play basketball."

"I
can't."

Nicholas
looked around, saw Stephie in the living room watching a DVD. 

"Is
April not here?"

"April
left."  There must have been a little too much vehemence in that last word
because Nicholas arched his brows.

"Left
to go back to Boston?"

"I
don't know."

"Shake
it loose, Gabe, because you're not making sense.  Tell me what's going
on."

So
after a lowered voice and saying, "Stephie's not my daughter...I found
e-mails...April knew it all along," Nicholas got the gist of exactly what
was happening.

He went
to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee from the second pot Gabe had
brewed that day, poured another mug for Gabe and took them both to the table. 
Then he pointed to the chair.  Both of them sat and Gabe just turned the mug
around and around, staring into it, unable to find any answers.