Silent Killer Page 0,137

have loved you a great deal to—”

“Mark was still in love with his wife, and I was in love with you. In his profession, he needed a wife, a helpmate, and…He knew he could never father a child of his own. When he and his wife had tried to have a baby and she didn’t get pregnant, they underwent numerous tests and discovered that Mark was sterile.”

“If Mark was sterile, then what about Seth?”

Hadn’t he understood what she’d said? Hadn’t she told him that he was Seth’s biological father, not Mark? Oh God, no. She hadn’t mentioned Seth. Did he think she had lost that baby—his baby—and gotten pregnant again by Mark?

Apparently the shocked expression on her face revealed the truth as surely as a verbal confession. “You didn’t lose my child, did you? Seth was that baby. Seth is my son.”

“Yes, Seth is yours.”

Jack stood there and stared at her, but didn’t say another word, not for several minutes. Cathy wanted to beg him to say something, but she waited patiently, allowing him time to absorb the information.

“I understand,” he said. “Under the circumstances, it makes sense that you’d agree to marry Mark. What I don’t understand is why, after you found out that I was alive, you never contacted me to tell me I had a son.”

“I didn’t know for quite some time. My mother chose not to inform me when she learned, through local Dunmore gossip, that you were alive. Mark and I lived out of state, and it wasn’t until Seth was nearly two years old and we were visiting that I ran into Mike and he mentioned you.”

“That was fourteen years ago. For the love of God, Cathy, why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I wanted to tell you, but…My mother and Mark convinced me that it wouldn’t be fair to any of us if I did. Mark and I had just begun to have a real marriage, and he’d been so good to me. He thought of Seth as his, and Seth, even at two, adored his father.” When she saw the hurt look in Jack’s eyes, she corrected herself. “He adored Mark.”

“If you ever loved me, how could you have kept the truth from me? I had a right to know that I had a son.” He paused for a gasping breath. “I have a son.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth.

She moved toward him, but when she reached out to touch him, he flinched.

“Please, Jack, try to understand how it was. Try to see my side of things. I was young and stupid and let Mark and my mother make all my decisions. I was wrong, so very wrong for keeping Seth from you. If I had it to do all over again, I’d—”

“You’d do what?” He opened his eyes and glared at her. “You wouldn’t do a damn thing differently, because you wouldn’t have the backbone to stand up to your mother or anyone else for that matter. Weak, spineless, helpless Cathy. Damn you!”

“I am not that same easily manipulated girl I was. I’ve changed. I’ve grown a backbone. If not, do you think I’d be standing here telling you the truth?”

“Lady, you’re a day late and a dollar short!”

He marched past her, ignoring her outstretched hands, flung open the back door and stomped outside. Cathy ran after him, catching up with him in the driveway. She grabbed for him. He shoved her aside and got in his car.

“Jack, don’t leave like this. Stay, please. Let’s talk this out. Don’t go.” Tears sprung to her eyes.

Jack started the car and backed out of the drive. Cathy followed him for half a block until his car disappeared as he turned at the end of the street several blocks away. Then, barefoot and wearing only her robe, she stood on the sidewalk and cried.

Tasha and Dewan hosted an informal get-together the first Sunday night of each month, with the deacons and their wives and children coming to their house for coffee and dessert. During their years in Dunmore, they had made many friends, but none as dear to them as Dionne and Perry Fuqua, a couple only a few years older than they were. Dionne was an elementary school teacher and Perry the high school football coach. They had married young, had children in their early twenties and were now parents to a twelve-year-old and a fourteen-year-old, both boys.

While the boys watched TV in

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