For the Girls' Sake

chapter THREE

HE STRODE IN, just as she’d feared, a big angry man with a hard face. From the moment he sat down, she felt his hostility like porcupine quills jabbing and hooking her skin.

"What do you want?" he asked brusquely.

No preambles. No introductions. No "we’re in a tough spot, aren’t we?"

Through her exhaustion and dread, Lynn said, "I want this never to have happened."

His eyes narrowed a flicker.

Lynn had completely forgotten they weren’t alone in the room until one of the lawyers cleared his throat. "Ms. Chanak, let me introduce Adam Landry. Mr. Landry, Lynn Chanak."

His mouth thinned, but he gave a brief, reluctant nod in acknowledgment of the formal introduction.

She swallowed. "Mr. Landry."

He looked past her. "I’d prefer to talk to Ms. Chanak alone. If—" the coldly commanding gaze touched her "—she doesn’t mind."

In the flurry of objection, she caught only one phrase, which annoyed her unreasonably.

"The hospital’s interest is in seeing us come up with an amicable future plan." She’d memorized that phrase: amicable future plan. Was there such a thing? "Only we can decide on the future of our daughters. We need to get to know each other. Please."

She had hoped for approval. He only waited.

The lawyers offered their intervention if it was needed. Adam Landry said nothing. Lynn stared at her hands. After a moment, the two men backed out, shutting the door behind them. The silence in their wake was as absolute as any she’d ever heard. The courage that had gotten her this far deserted her. She couldn’t look up.

Her nerves had reached the screaming point when Adam Landry said at last, "Perhaps I phrased my question incorrectly. Why did you start this? Did you suspect your daughter..." he stumbled, "Shelly, wasn’t yours?"

"No." At last she lifted her head, letting him see her tumult. "No. Never. It was my ex-husband. He...he didn’t want to pay the child support anymore. He claimed I must have had an affair. That she wasn’t his child. But it wasn’t true! I never..." She bit her lip and said more quietly, "I wouldn’t do something like that. So I took Shelly to have a blood test to prove to Brian that she was his. Only..."

"She wasn’t."

"No. Which meant—" she took a deep breath "—that she wasn’t mine, either.” She tried for a smile and failed. "I wasn’t going to tell anybody. Only, then I started worrying about the other little girl. The one who was really my daughter."

The dreams wouldn’t impress him, not this man. He reminded her too much of the lawyers. His gray suit cost more than she spent on food and mortgage in a month or more. His dark hair was clipped short, but by a stylist, not a barber. She could easily picture his big, capable hands gripping the leather-covered wheel of an expensive sedan, or resting on the keyboard of a laptop computer. Not changing diapers, or sifting through the sand for a seashell, or brushing away tears.

Who was raising Jenny Rose Landry? A grandmother? A nanny? Anxiety crimped her chest.

Softly she finished, "I wanted to be sure she was all right. Loved."

"And that’s it. That’s all you want." His tone said he didn’t believe her for a second.

Lynn didn’t blame him for his skepticism. Already, if she was being honest, she’d have to admit that she wouldn’t be satisfied with that modest goal.

"I don’t know." She held his gaze, although she quaked inside. "I’m not sure anymore. I suppose I’d like to meet her. And...perhaps get acquainted. Now that I know she doesn’t have a mother."

"What makes you so sure she needs one?" Landry stood abruptly and shoved his chair back. Looming over her, hands planted on the table, he said tautly, "Is it so impossible to believe I’m an adequate parent?"

Her breath caught. She’d obviously struck a raw nerve. "No. Of course not. I’m a single parent myself, and I think I’m doing a fine job." Naturally she would say that; did she really expect him to believe her? More uncertainly, she continued, "It’s just that..." For all her rehearsing, she didn’t know how to express these inchoate emotions, these wants, these needs, these fears. "She’s my daughter," Lynn finished simply.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. "You suddenly want to be a mother to my daughter."

"Aren’t you curious, too?" How timid she sounded! No, perhaps hopeful was the word. Could it be that he didn’t want Shelly, wouldn’t try to reclaim his birth daughter? That she’d never had to worry at all?

He swung away in a jerky motion and took two steps to the window. Gazing out at—what? the parking lot?—he killed her hopes in a flat, unrevealing voice. "Yes. I’m curious. Why do you think I’m here?"

Lynn whispered, "Is that all? You’re just...curious?"

He faced her, anger blazing in his eyes. "My wife died and never held her baby. Now I find out that neither have I. Does ‘curious’ cover my reaction? Probably not. But we have to start somewhere."

He sounded reasonable and yet scared her to death. She’d hoped for a completely different kind of man. Perhaps a car mechanic, struggling to make ends meet, grease under his fingernails and kindness in his eyes. Or a small-business owner. Someone like her. Ordinary. Not a formidable, wealthy man used to having his way and able to pay to get it. Someone she could never beat, if it came to a fight.

Make sure it doesn’t, she told herself, trying to quiet the renewed panic. You can work something out. Go slowly. He may not be that interested in parenting even one girl, much less two.

"I brought pictures," she said tentatively. "Of Shelly."

He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. Lynn could tell he was trying, too, when he said gruffly, "I brought some of Rose, too."

They stared at each other, neither moving. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, she thought, semihysterically. How absurd. Make the first move.

Lynn bent down and took the envelope from her purse, which sat on the floor by her feet. Slowly she opened it, her fingers stiff and reluctant. She felt as if she were sharing something incredibly private, pulling back a curtain on the small, sunny space that was her life.

He came back to the table and sat down. As she removed the pile of photos from the envelope, he pulled a matching one from the pocket of his suit jacket. When she pushed the photographs across the span of oak, he did the same with his.

Lynn reached for them, hesitated.

"She looks like you," he said, startling her.

"What?"

"Her hair." His gaze felt like a touch. "Her nose, and her freckles, and her chin. But her eyes are blue."

"Brian’s...Brian’s are blue."

Her hands were even more awkward now. Did she want to see the child’s face? There might be no going back.

She turned the small pile of four-by-five photographs, peripherally aware that he was doing the same. And then the fist drove into her belly, bringing a small gasp from her, and Adam Landry vanished from her awareness.

She saw only the little girl, grinning at the camera. At her. My daughter, Lynn thought in astonishment.

He was right: Jenny Rose could have been Lynn at that age, except for the pure crystal blue of her eyes. The little girl’s face was round, solemn in the other pictures Lynn thumbed through. She was still plump, not skinny and ever in motion like Shelly. The freckles—Lynn touched them, almost startled by the slick feel of photographic paper instead of the crinkling, warm nose she saw. How like hers! Rose’s mouth was sweet, pursed as if she wanted to consider deeply before she rendered a judgment.

There she was in another photo, on Santa’s lap, not crying, but not entirely happy, either. And younger yet, a swimsuit over her diaper, the photograph taken as she stood knee-deep in a small backyard pool filled by a hose. Why wasn’t she smiling more often? Was she truly happy?

Lynn looked through the pictures over and over again, beginning to resent the meager number, hungering for more. What was she really like, this little girl who had once been part of her? What made her sad? What did she think was funny? Did she suck her thumb? Have nightmares? Wish she had a mommy?

At last, at last, she looked up, aware that tears were raining down her cheeks, that Adam Landry had made a sound. Like a blind man, he was touching one of the photographs she’d given him. His fingers shook as he traced, so delicately, her daughter’s face.

She saw him swallow, saw the emotions akin to hers ravage his features.

"Jenny," he whispered.

"Does she look like your wife?"

His hand curled into a fist. "It’s...uncanny."

For the first time, Lynn understood. "This must be almost worse for you, with your wife dead."

He looked up, but his eyes didn’t focus; he might have been blind, or seeing something else. "Our daughter was all I had left."

She couldn’t draw a breath, only sat paralyzed. He saw the wife he’d loved and lost in Shelly’s face. He would want her. She could even sympathize with how he must feel. She had to meet Jenny Rose, answer the questions the photographs didn’t, hold her, hug her, hear her voice, her laugh, feel her warm breath. She had to be part of her life.

As he would, somehow, have to be part of Shelly’s life.

"I want to see her," he said, a demand not a request. "Where do you live?"

Her sympathy evaporated at his assumption that he could bulldoze her. She wanted suddenly to lie, or refuse to answer, or...but what was the point? People were easy to find, particularly one who hadn’t been trying to hide. A few phone calls and he could be knocking on her door.

"Otter Beach. Over on the coast. I own a bookstore."

"Did you bring her with you?"

"No. She’s...she’s home. With a baby-sitter." Lynn lifted her chin. "What about Jenny Rose? Where’s she?"

As impassive as his face was, still Lynn saw his initial reluctance give way to the same begrudging acceptance. "She goes to a preschool Monday through Friday. While I’m working."

"You don’t have a nanny, or someone like that?"

"No." He caught on, and a flush traveled across his cheekbones. "Is that what I look like? A man who takes care of his personal life by writing a check?"

Yes. Oh, yes, that’s exactly what he looked like.

But she couldn’t say so, of course. "What do you do for a living?"

"I’m a stockbroker."

"It’s just that it’s hard to be a single parent. Most of us do everything because we have to. You don’t."

"You assume I’m wealthy."

She raised her eyebrows. "Aren’t you?"

"I make a decent living."

Ten or twenty times the one she made, if Lynn was any judge.

"Couldn’t you afford a nanny?"

"I don’t want someone else raising my child." He said it in a hard voice.

The words sliced like a switchblade between the ribs. She was someone else.

He swore. "I wasn’t talking about you."

"No?"

"When you contacted the hospital, what did you have in mind? That we trade kids?"

Trade kids? Lynn stared at him in shock. Was that what he had in mind?

"You don’t love your—" she corrected herself "—my daughter at all, do you?"

Neither his voice nor his expression softened an iota. "I wasn’t talking about me. You’re the one who started this. I’m asking what you thought you’d get out of it."

She squeezed her fingers on her lap. "What I’d get out of it? You think I’m using this mix-up to gain something?"

"Why not?" He sounded grim. "You know the hospital is prepared to pay a fortune to shut us up."

"I don’t want money." Shaking, she gathered the pictures of the daughter she’d never met and pushed them heedlessly into her purse, then snatched it up and stood. "I told you what I wanted. That’s all I have to say. My attorney will be contacting you about visitation rights."

"Stop," he snapped. "Sit down."

"Why?"

"We have to talk." He shut his eyes again for a moment, then opened them and let out a ragged breath. "Please."

Lynn bit her lip, then slowly sat again. "What is there to say?"

"I don’t know, but these are our kids. Do we want the courts mandating their futures?"

"No." Lynn sagged. "I didn’t bring a lawyer today. I hoped..."

"I hoped, too." After a long silence he sighed. "Where do you suggest we go from here?"

"I’d like to meet her. Jenny Rose. And I expect you’d like to meet Shelly." When he nodded, Lynn said fiercely, "You can’t have her, you know. She’s my daughter. I love her. I’m her world."

Adam Landry’s hard mouth twisted. "It would seem we have something in common. I’d fight to the death for Rose. Nobody is taking her. So you can put that right out of your mind."

Had she imagined raising both girls? "Then what?" she asked in a low voice.

He shook his head. "Visitation. We can take it slow."

"Have you told Rose about me?" Lynn asked curiously. "About what happened?"

"No. You?"

"No." She made a face. "It’s a hard thing to explain to a three-year-old."

"On Rose’s nightstand is a picture of her mommy, who she knows is in heaven. How will I introduce you?" Bafflement and anger filled his dark eyes, so like Shelly’s.

"All we can do is our best." How prissy she sounded, Lynn thought in distaste.

He didn’t react to her sugar pill, continuing as if she’d said nothing, "It’s going to scare her to death if I suddenly announce she isn’t my daughter at all. And, oh yeah, here’s your real mommy."

Lynn had imagined the same conversation a million times. To a child this age, parents were the only security. They were the anchor that made exploring the world possible.

"Maybe we should meet first," she suggested. "Would it be less scary once they know us?"

"Maybe." He made a rough sound in his throat. "Yeah. All right. We’ll all just be buddies at first."

She let his irony pass, giving a small nod. When he said nothing more, Lynn clutched her purse in her lap. "Shall I bring Shelly to Portland one day?"

“Why don’t I come there instead? Rosebud would enjoy a day at the beach. It might seem more natural."

Rosebud. She liked that. She liked, too, what the gentle nickname suggested about this man. Perhaps he wasn’t as tough as he seemed.

"Fine. Saturday?"

They agreed. He wrote down her address and phone number, then gave her a business card with his. It all felt so...mundane, a mere appointment, not the clock set ticking for an earthshaking event.

He escorted her out of the conference room and, with his hand on her elbow, hustled her past the cluster of lawyers and administrators lying in wait.

Over his shoulder, he told them brusquely, "We’ll be in touch once we figure this out."

Lynn imagined the consternation brewing at their abrupt departure. Together.

She and Adam Landry rode down silently in the elevator, Lynn painfully conscious of his physical presence. She caught him glancing at her once or twice, but each time he looked quickly away, frowning at the lighted numbers over the door. Of course, he couldn’t help being so imposing at his height, with broad shoulders and the build of a natural athlete. Nor could he help that face, with Slavic cheekbones and bullish jaw and high forehead that together made him handsome enough to displace George Clooney in a woman’s fantasies.

She was glad that Shelly looked like her mother and not her father. It would have been too bizarre for words to see her daughter in this stranger’s face. As though they must have been together and she just didn’t remember it, or else how could she have breast-fed his child, raised her, loved her?

Heat suddenly blossomed on her cheeks. Had he had the same thought, she wondered, about her? As though he must know her on a level deeper than he understood? No wonder he didn’t want to look at her!

When the elevator doors opened, he gripped her arm again as if she wouldn’t know where to go without his guidance. Habit, she gathered, when he was with a woman. "Where are you parked?"

"My car is right out in front."

He urged her forward, his stride so long she had to scuttle along like a tiny hermit crab just to avoid falling and being hauled ungracefully to her feet. Outside the hospital doors, Lynn balked.

Adam Landry looked so surprised when she pointedly removed her elbow from his bruising grip that she might have been amused under other circumstances.

"My car is right over there." She gestured. "I don’t see a purse snatcher lurking. I can make it on my own, thank you, Mr. Landry."

"Adam."

"Adam," she acknowledged. "I’ll see you Saturday."

The lines around his mouth deepened. "We’ll be there."

Neither moved for an awkward moment. Then he bent his head in a stiff goodbye and stalked away across the parking lot. With a sense of unreality she watched him go, wondering how she would have viewed him if they’d passed in the halls earlier, before she knew who he was.

I would have thought he must be a doctor, she decided. He had that air of money and command, as though he could make life and death decisions before breakfast and assume it was his right.

He would be a tough opponent, way out of her league.

Then she didn’t dare let him become an opponent, Lynn thought again. Although she disliked the idea acutely, she must accommodate him, coax him, play friends—do whatever it took to stay out of court.

Her stomach roiled. It was bad enough that a divorced woman with a child had to spend the next twenty years somehow getting along with her ex-husband. Now she, Lynn Chanak, had gone one better: she had to get along with a man she hadn’t chosen, even if foolishly. A man she’d never married, never been close to—a total stranger. All for the sake of the child they shared.

For better or worse, they were tied together until Shelly and Rose were grown.

How bizarre did it get?

* * *

LYNN MADE THE LONG, winding trip back over the coastal range to the Pacific Ocean and home. Her instinct was to collect Shelly right away, to reassure herself by her daughter’s presence that nothing would ever change, that they were a family.

But there were things she didn’t want Shelly to hear, and she should make some phone calls first.

She got Brian’s answering machine and started to leave a halting message, feeling like an idiot. Why was she always taken aback when the beep sounded and she had to talk onto a tape? But this time she’d barely begun when he picked up the phone.

"Yeah, I’m here."

"I, um, I told you I’d found her."

"Our daughter."

"Yes." She took a breath. "Today I saw pictures of her. She has your eyes. And my hair."

Strangely, what flitted into her mind at that moment wasn’t the photo, but rather the potent way Adam Landry’s gaze had touched her and the grit in his voice when he’d said, "She looks like you."

"How do you know this is the right kid?" her ex-husband, the true stranger, said with an audible sneer.

Closing her eyes, Lynn said evenly, "We’ve had DNA testing done. And you’d know, if you saw her."

He grunted. "So what do you want from me?"

"Nothing." How glad she was to be able to say that! "I thought you should know. That’s all."

"Uh-huh. Well, you do what you want." His tone changed. "Hey, my call-waiting beeped. Hold on." When he came back on a minute later, Brian said, "You don’t have her there, right?"

"The man who has been raising her didn’t hand her over to me, if that’s what you mean."

Brian being Brian, he stayed focused on all that he cared about. "Well, I’m not paying any more child support. I mean, Shelly’s not my responsibility. And I’m not paying this other guy, I can tell you that."

How could she ever have married this man? How had she deceived herself, even for a while, into thinking she loved him?

"You held Shelly and kissed her and changed her diaper. She thinks you’re her daddy. After all these years, don’t you love her at all?" Lynn asked, trying to understand.

"She’s not my kid," he explained, as though she was an idiot not to grasp the concept immediately. "Maybe it’s different for a woman. But for a guy...hey, we want to pass on our own bloodlines. I mean, sure, Shelly’s a sweet kid. But she’s got a dad now, right?"

"That’s lucky for her, isn’t it?" Lynn carefully, gently, hung up the telephone receiver.

However much she feared Adam Landry, he had to be a better father than the man she’d married.

She picked up the phone again and dialed quickly. Her mother answered on the second ring.

"Mom, I saw her picture today."

"Oh, honey," her mother said, compassion brimming in her voice. "I wish we were there. I can hardly wait to meet her. And to cuddle Shelly and make sure she knows we’ll always be Grandma and Grandpa."

Just like that, tears spilled hotly from Lynn’s eyes. "Oh, Mom." She sniffed. "I wish you could be here, too."

Her mother had raised Lynn alone, but she’d remarried right after Lynn left home. Hal would never feel like "Dad" to Lynn, but he was a kind man who loved to be Grandpa. Lynn was grateful her mother had found him. She only wished his work hadn’t taken them to Virginia.

“For Christmas," her mother said. "I promise we’ll come for Christmas."

She gave a watery laugh. "I’ll hold out until then. No, really, we’ll be fine."

"Do you need money? We can help more than we have been, you know. If we have to, we’ll take out a loan."

Lynn’s mother and stepfather had loaned her the seed money for the bookstore and her mortgage on this old house. She wasn’t going to take another cent from them. She knew darn well they didn’t really have it.

"No, money’s not the problem," she said, meaning it. "It’s just...everything."

"Then tell me everything," her mother said comfortingly. "And we’ll see which parts of it really count."

Lynn saw herself suddenly, a child. What grade had she been in? Third or fourth? The teacher had accused her of cheating, and she hadn’t been! Goody Two-shoes that she was, she never would. She’d been humiliated and hurt that Mrs. Sanders hadn’t believed her. All the way home, she’d dragged her feet. What if Mom didn’t believe her, either?

She found her mother in the kitchen. Unable to speak, she began crying. Funny how clearly she remembered every sensation of her mother’s embrace, the soothing warmth of her voice. "Tell me what’s wrong," Mom had murmured, "and we’ll see which parts of it really count."

Mom had always said that, when troubles seemed overwhelming. And her analysis invariably did help. She brought problems down to size.

Well, not even Mom was going to be able to shrink this one.

But she told her mother everything anyway, the way she always did.

* * *

THIS WAS THE SECOND toughest phone call Adam had ever had to make. Both to his parents-in-law.

He probably should have told them these past weeks what was going on, so that they could absorb the shock slowly, as he apparently had.

But he hadn’t wanted to alarm them. It might all come to nothing. Jenny Rose was all they had left of their Jennifer. They always called her Jenny, and sometimes he was sorry he’d named his daughter after her mother. He’d turn, half-expecting to see Jennifer. Besides, Rosebud shouldn’t have to live up to such an intense emotional demand. She wasn’t her mother, and shouldn’t have to fill Jennifer’s shoes. Her own were enough, right?

So he hadn’t told them. Unfortunately, the time had come. Some things couldn’t be avoided forever.

"Mom," he said carefully, when Angela McCloskey answered the phone.

"Adam, dear! Oh, I was just thinking about you. And Jenny, of course." She chuckled. "Christmas is coming, you know."

It was barely autumn. Adam was interested in how retailers did in November and December, but he didn’t do his own shopping until the last week or two before Christmas. How hard was it to take a day and fill the trunk of his car?

He made a noncommittal sound. "Mom, something has happened." At her intake of breath, he regretted his choice of words. "Rose is fine. Nothing like that. The thing is..." He didn’t know how to be anything but blunt, but instinct told him he needed to edge into this.

"What?" His tone had given something away. His mother-in-law sounded scared.

"There was a mix-up at the hospital."

"Not Jenny’s...Jenny’s ashes."

"No," he said hastily, then closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Not Jenny. Rose. We’ve, uh, had DNA testing done. Rose isn’t my biological daughter. Or Jennifer’s."

"Rose isn’t...I don’t understand." She was pleading with him.

How well he knew the feeling.

"The other mother and I met today. We...exchanged pictures."

"You’ve found her, then?" Angela latched on to the idea with frightening, pitiful eagerness. "Our Jenny’s little girl?"

"Yes."

"You’ll be bringing her home, won’t you?"

He pinched his nose again. "Mom, we’re taking it slowly. This mother...she loves Shelly. That’s the girl’s name. Shelly Schoening. And I love Rose."

"We do, too, of course," she agreed, but he heard no conviction in her voice. "But...but Jenny’s daughter. You can’t leave her to be raised by someone else."

"How can I not?" he said brutally. "I wouldn’t trade Rose away, even if I could."

His mother-in-law was crying now, he could hear hitches of breath, the salty pain in her voice. "No...but our granddaughter..."

"I hope you’ll still think of Rose that way."

"Jennifer was all we had."

How well he knew!

Gently he said, "I’ll try to arrange for you to meet Shelly as soon as possible. The, uh, mother seems like a decent woman." He still had his doubts, but he wasn’t sharing them with Angela, reeling from one blow already. "I can’t imagine that she won’t be willing to involve you in Shelly’s life."

"Shelly! That wasn’t even on Jenny’s list of possible names."

"No, but it’s pretty, isn’t it?" he soothed. Had she even heard him?

"Yes, I suppose. Adam..."

"We have to take it slow. For the girls’ sake."

"Does she know?"

"She" wasn’t Rose, he guessed, anger stirring. "Neither Rose nor Shelly has been told. They’re really too young to understand. We’ve agreed to meet, get to know the other child, so it’s less frightening when they have to be told."

"You’re just going to leave her?" Fixated, his mother-in-law made it sound as if he was deserting his own flesh and blood.

"I am not going to wrench her from the only home she’s ever known, if that’s what you mean," Adam said evenly. "We’ll see what happens. You’ve got to be patient."

"We want to meet her."

He suppressed a groan. "I’ll try."

But he saw suddenly that he couldn’t let them near Shelly too soon. They couldn’t be trusted not to tell her they were Grandma and Grandpa. And when they saw her resemblance to Jennifer...

He got off the phone after a dozen more promises he didn’t mean. He paced his office, anger and pity and intense frustration churning in his belly. Rose had just lost her grandparents, he knew. Angela and Rob McCloskey would say the right things, but without meaning them. He wondered about the other grandparents. Would they be as desperate to meet Rose?

His own parents wouldn’t be, he knew. Not especially warm with him, they were pleasant and remote with Rose. One or the other might become interested when Rose reached school age if she displayed a real spark of artistic ability—Mom—or a powerful interest in anatomy or oceanography—Dad.

Adam made the call nonetheless. For better or worse, they were his parents.

His mother listened without interrupting.

Only when he was done did she ask, "Why didn’t you say something sooner?"

He couldn’t believe he’d hurt her feelings. "I wanted to be sure."

"Is going further with this a good idea?" she asked unexpectedly. "Rose is a sweet child. I don’t see how this can end happily for her."

Adam assured her that he wasn’t going to let anybody take his Rosebud from him. But she’d stirred a different kind of uneasiness that ate at him from the moment he set the phone down in its cradle again.

Saturday seemed a century away and, at the same time, too close. What would he feel when he saw her, that little girl with his eyes and Jennifer’s face? Would there be some instant connection? In a way, he hoped not. He didn’t want anything to affect his love for Rose. To lessen it. Emotions shouldn’t be so insubstantial. They shouldn’t be dependent on blood tests or facial features.

It had unnerved him, though, to see how much of Rose had come from her mother. That hair. On the ride down in the elevator, it had been all he could do not to touch it, see whether the texture was the same as Rose’s.

The sweetness of her face had stunned him. He’d arrived certain he would hate her, but how could he hate someone who looked like his Rosebud?

Now he didn’t know what to think of her. Her ex-husband had thought her capable of having an affair, which didn’t speak very well for her morals. And yet, she’d defended her Shelly as fiercely as he had his Rose. Whatever her other flaws, she seemed genuinely to love the little girl she’d raised.

Or had it all been an act?

He sank into the leather chair behind his wide bird’s-eye maple desk and sighed. How could he know? How could he trust her?

Did he have any choice?