Love Inspired February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Cowboy's Reunited Family\The Forest Ranger's Return\Mommy Wanted (48 page)

His cell phone rang as he entered the house. He glanced at the display and saw Hannah's name.

Mitch answered. “I was just thinking about y'all. Oh, hey, is everything okay with the girls? Is something wrong?” Concern quickly filled him as he remembered Matt and Hannah were keeping Dee and Emmie.

“They're fine,” Hannah said. “I should've thought you'd wonder if something was wrong, and I asked Matt if I should wait until morning before calling, but then I couldn't sleep for thinking about it, and I just had to call and tell you. Mitch, I feel awful, but I think I have to say something. I mean, I'd want to know, and you need to know. And I'm still just so shocked by it all.”

Hannah rattled off the words so quickly that Mitch had a hard time keeping up, and from what he could tell, nothing made sense. “Hannah, is something wrong?”

“Yes, something is very wrong. Tonight, when I saw her dressed up, it sparked the memory a little clearer. Because that time I met her, even though she wore a halter and shorts, her makeup was done just so and her hair fixed beautifully, like she were going out on a date. Her face is different now, thinner or something. It makes her eyes appear a little bigger. Her hair is the biggest difference, though. It was long and blond. And she was very tan. There's just so many differences, but the more I thought about it and then also the fact that she moved to Claremont from Atlanta, the more I knew I was right.”

Again, Mitch was clueless, but he could tell this had something to do with Kate. “Hannah, what are you trying to say?”

“Kate. She looked so familiar because I did meet her before.” She paused and then said, “It was when she was married to Chad Martin.”

Chapter Ten

S
ince Hannah was taking the girls to the day care this morning, Mitch came in to the office extra early to give himself time to prepare for the arrival of his office manager. But how did you prepare for someone who had so thoroughly lied to you since the moment she'd stepped foot through your door?

The entire town knew the story about Chad's first wife. She'd essentially destroyed him, or at least attempted to, by having him give up his dream of being a medical doctor, move back to Claremont in an effort to keep her happy and then leaving him with a baby to raise...and no way to understand why she'd treated him so badly.

Mitch had been up most of the night trying to reconcile Kate Martin with Kate Wydell, the woman who, only yesterday, he'd thought he was falling in love with.

Obviously Chad wasn't the only male she was doing a number on.

Mitch pressed his pen against the desk as he remembered every horrible detail he'd known about the woman back then. She'd met Chad in Atlanta when he was still recovering from his first love, Jessica, leaving Claremont without telling him goodbye. Chad had no idea that Jess had been pregnant, or that she'd left because she didn't want him to give up his scholarship to marry her. So the guy was already down and vulnerable, and then he met Kate.

Chad had been smitten from the get-go by the gorgeous blonde with a zest for life and a penchant for the adventurous.

Mitch had met his friend's ex-wife once, but he didn't see Kate as the girl from his memory. Her dark curls were different from the long, silky blond hair he remembered, and Mitch hadn't seen any hint of a woman who lived for hiking, white-water rafting and snow skiing. Those were characteristics of the girl Chad had married back then. Kate seemed more like the sit-around-and-watch-a-T-ball-game type girl. Happy to merely play with Dee and Emmie in the front yard.

Chad had said he couldn't keep up with her craving for action when he had to study so much for med school, but he also said he didn't realize how badly she wanted him to become a doctor until he dropped out to save their marriage.

And then there was what she did to Chad regarding Lainey. Which was, basically, one of the most mean-spirited actions Mitch had ever heard of.

The pen bent beneath the weight of Mitch's fingers and snapped in two, spraying ink all over the desk, his papers and even on his dress shirt.

He picked up the pieces and flung them across the room.

And that was when his employee walked in.

* * *

Kate opened the office door at the precise moment that a plastic hunk of pen landed a few feet in front of her, spraying ink in its wake. She glanced toward Mitch's desk and saw that the remainder of the pen had apparently headed the opposite direction and the majority of the ink had landed all over and around her boss.

She'd woken in a happy mood, the memory of Mitch's kiss keeping a smile on her face, so now, seeing this scene made her giggle. “Oh, my, bless your heart,” she said, closing the door behind her and tossing her purse on the top of her desk. “Let me go get some napkins or a towel out of the back and help you get cleaned up.” She started quickly maneuvering through the front office, but then noticed his eyes zeroed in on her, his mouth flattened and tense.

Especially after their date last night, when the majority of the time they'd been laughing, she didn't understand why he was this upset over a broken pen. “Mitch, is something wrong? Is it the girls? Are Dee and Emmie sick again? Because I can run things here, and you can go take care of them. Or we could work from your house again, if you'd rather.”

“The only thing wrong with the girls, the way I see it,” he said, his words clipped and short, as though he were forcing them through a clenched jaw, “is that they've gotten so attached to you.”

Kate stopped, stood stone-still and braced for the worst. “What?”

“That's what happened before, isn't it? People would get attached to you, fall for you, and then once you didn't need them anymore, you left them.” He shook his head. “You nearly destroyed Chad, broke his faith and shattered his confidence. Do you know how hard it was for him after you left?”

Kate's head pounded at the rapid change of events. He knew...and she had missed the opportunity to tell him herself. “I am so sorry for everything I did and for everyone I hurt,” she said. Last night she thought she might be falling in love with Mitch, and she'd prayed he might be feeling the same thing. And now he looked at her as though she disgusted him, as though he hated the fact that she'd ever entered his life.

And maybe he did.

“I won't let you hurt my girls that way, get them attached and then leave them behind. They don't deserve that.” He paused. “No one deserves that.”

“I need to explain,” she said, struggling to pick the right words with her blood pumping so fast it burned within her veins. “I was going to tell you—”

“When?” he yelled. “Exactly when were you going to tell me, Kate? After I completely lost my heart to you? After I fell in love with you? After my girls started seeing you as a part of their lives? When?”

She backed up until her hip hit the desk and then she got a bearing on her emotions. He'd just spouted everything she had hoped would happen. That he would lose his heart to her, that he would fall in love with her and that she'd become a part of Dee's and Emmie's lives for good. And Lainey's.
Help me out, Lord. Please, let me say the right thing. I've hurt him. Help me fix that, Lord. I think I may be falling in love with him, and I don't want to ruin this relationship before it even gets started.

“I was going to tell you last night,” she said.

One brow lifted, and his mouth slid into a sneer. “I don't recall you mentioning needing to tell me something.”

“That's because I couldn't.”

“Couldn't, or wouldn't?” he asked. “Do you realize I haven't been on a date with anyone but my late wife?”

“I know, and that's part of why I didn't want to ruin our perfect night by bringing up my past. I knew I had to tell you, and I wanted to tell you. I still do! But last night was one of the most beautiful nights of my life, and I knew you hadn't been out with anyone else since Jana passed away.”

“Ever,” he said. The word snapped out as though he wished it could inflict physical pain.

But Kate didn't know what he meant. “Ever? What?”

“I've never been on a date with anyone but Jana. Asking you out was huge for me. It meant more than merely a date. It meant...that I felt something toward you and that I thought there might be a possibility in commitment. That's the way I am, Kate. That's the way I've always been. When I do something, I don't do it halfway, and I certainly don't do it for my own selfish means. I asked you out because I thought you might be special, that God might have sent you here purposely...for me.”

His honesty was more painful than any lies Kate had ever been told, because she could see the truth of his words in his eyes, and she could see the pain that she'd inflicted by holding back her truth.

“Let me tell you everything, Mitch, please. Because I want the same things that you do, and I don't want last night to be my only time spent with you. Please, let me tell you about everything back then.”

He wadded up the top sheets of ink-covered papers on his desk and tossed them in the trash. Then those blue eyes that Kate had always seen so much compassion in looked up at her, but she saw only revulsion now. “No, Kate, why don't I tell you about everything back then. You met Chad in Atlanta after he'd been abandoned by the love of his life. He was alone in a new city and he was heartbroken. You were, according to Chad, one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen, and you had a zest for life that enamored him, because he had basically been ready to give up on life. You had a great big dream of marrying a doctor, and you set your sights on Chad because he was in med school and he was also vulnerable and easy to manipulate.” He waited a beat. “Let me know if anything I say isn't true.”

Kate gripped the desk to keep her hands from shaking. “It's all true,” she whispered, “and it's what I was going to tell you last night.”

He gave her a single nod that said he didn't believe her. “Then he asked you to marry him, and you said yes. It all happened so quickly, the intense dating and then running off to Vegas, that all of us in Claremont merely knew our buddy had fallen head over heels and gotten married. I was actually happy for him.”

“I'm sorry for what I put him through,” she said. “I am, Mitch.”

“Is it true that your friend called him when you were trying to abort Lainey?” Mitch asked, his voice no longer angry but converting to something that sounded pained. “Is it, Kate?”

“I did go to the clinic, but I didn't do it,” she said. And then, before Mitch could tell her what she was certain he already knew, she added, “But Chad came to the clinic and stopped me.”

“And then you were miserable,” he said. “You didn't like being pregnant, and you didn't like being married to Chad while he spent all of his time working on his med degree. You wanted to marry a doctor, but you weren't willing to go through the intern years so that he could be...good enough for you.”

“I've changed, Mitch. I have, and that's why I came to Claremont. I want to show Chad that I've changed and I want to have a relationship with Lainey. I want to be her mother.”

He moved his hand to his forehead and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You see, that's the thing that I remember the most, the part where you not only left Chad to raise Lainey, but you twisted the knife. You told him that you'd never wanted to have her anyway and that if he wanted her he could have her...but that she wasn't biologically his.”

Kate's sob tore through the room, the pain of that moment, of recalling the horrified look on Chad's face when she'd told him he wasn't Lainey's father and then slammed the door without ever looking back. “Chad loved her, whether she was his or not. I knew he did. I knew he would be better to her, be better for her, than I would be.”

“But that isn't why you left her with Chad, Kate. You weren't doing what was best for Lainey. You were doing what was best for you. Right?” He slammed his palm on the desk and repeated louder, “Right?”

“I'm sorry. Sorry for what I did back then and sorry for what I've done to you now. I never meant to hurt you, and I would never ever hurt Dee and Emmie, I promise. Please believe me, Mitch.”

This time, he tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, and Kate was almost certain she saw a tear leak from his eye and streak down his cheek. “How would I know whether to ever believe you, Kate, when you nearly killed him with your deceit? Chad believed you back then. What if you're doing it again? What if you're here playing me so that I'll convince him to let you see Lainey?” His words were spoken toward the ceiling, but then he lowered his chin and looked at Kate. “You're obviously very good at manipulating, and you're definitely a pro at keeping secrets. Just look at the secrets you've kept from me ever since the day you got here.”

“I
was
going to tell you, and I did tell you that I gave up my little girl.”

“I thought you meant by adoption, not that you walked out on a husband and daughter because you were chasing doctors in Atlanta.”

His words pierced her heart, but Kate couldn't deny that they were true. “I was going to explain it all, in detail.”

“When?”

“Before Chad got back from vacation,” she said honestly. But she had no idea whether he'd believe her now. Or ever.

He shook his head. “I don't have anything else to say to you, Kate. I don't understand. I've been trying all night to wrap my mind around why. Why are you back in Claremont? Why did you apply for a job at my office knowing Chad and I are friends? And why didn't you tell me the truth about who you were when you had to see I was falling for you?”

He
was
falling for her. But he wasn't now. And from the look on his face, he never wanted to see her again. Which, Kate supposed, served her right for the pain she'd caused in the past. She felt the dampness on her dress and realized that her tears had been steadily falling throughout their heated conversation, but she didn't wipe them away now. They'd serve as a reminder of what she'd done and a reminder of what she'd lost. She picked up her purse, turned and walked out of the office and out of Mitch's life.