The Prodigal Groom. Karen Leabo

to her for pity. “So did they use you as a bargaining chip, like they intended?” she asked.

      “Apparently they tried, but by then the government was denying all knowledge of me. As far as they were concerned, I was dead—and they didn’t want anyone to contradict them.”

      “But…” she started to object, then paused when Jake pulled a bit of metal out of his jeans pocket and laid it on the table.

      “That’s the bullet Carmen found in me. It was from one of our guns, not the Uzis LaBarba’s gang was using.”

      “My God, you were shot by one of your own men,” she said, barely breathing the words. “It wasn’t intentional, was it?”

      He shook his head. “I’m sure it was an accident. All hell was breaking loose. Nerves were pulled to the breaking point.”

      “Still, I can see why they wouldn’t want you spreading it around that you were the victim of ‘friendly fire.’”

      “Particularly since, in their official report, I was shot in the head, not the back.” Bitterness twisted his mouth. “Apparently they weren’t as sure that I was dead as they pretended, and they wanted to make damn certain no one else questioned it.”

      “So what did LaBarba do when he found out you weren’t—” she paused, choosing just the right word “—valuable to them?”

      “He would have killed me outright and left me for the buzzards, but Carmen intervened. I’m not sure exactly what she did, but LaBarba listened to her for some reason.”

      There was a certain kindness to Jake’s expression when he talked about Carmen, and Laurie felt a pang of jealousy. Had he and Carmen…? Oh, surely Jake wouldn’t get involved with another man’s wife! She pushed the irrelevant thoughts aside.

      “LaBarba might have had other plans for me. I don’t know,” Jake continued. “But I didn’t wait around to find out. As soon as I was strong enough, I got the hell out of there. The first person I called when, I got back to the States was Danny.”

      Danny. Her brother and Jake’s best friend. It bothered her that Jake hadn’t called her first. “When was this?”

      “About…” He hesitated. “Shortly after Wendy was born.”

      Laurie was out of her chair. “You’ve been back for more than three years, and you waited until now to contact me? You let me think you were dead all this time? Danny knew, and he didn’t tell me?” She was so angry and frustrated at the unfairness that she wanted to hit something. She settled for the tabletop, slapping it with the palm of her hand and almost upsetting her glass of water. “Why? Why didn’t you come back to me?”

      “Because, Laurie, you were married to another man.”

       Two

      Laurie fell back into her chair with a thunk. Of course she’d been married. And Jake’s sudden reappearance would have been awkward, to say the least. She wasn’t sure that excused the fact that he’d continued to allow her to believe him dead, but there was some logic to his decision.

      “I wanted to see you, believe me,” Jake said, softening. “But Danny…convinced me otherwise. He said you’d finally gotten your life pulled together, and with the new baby and all…well, he just didn’t think it would be fair for me to jump in and upset the applecart. Your brother can be very persuasive. I finally agreed with him,” Jake concluded, rubbing his jaw.

      You agreed to stay away from your own child? She almost said the words aloud, but something held her back. This whole situation was getting harder and harder to accept.

      “Who else knows you’re alive?” she asked, picturing the whole town whispering behind her back, pitying her in her ignorance.

      “My folks, but that’s about it. They retired in Tyler after they sold the ranch, and that’s where I’ve been living, too, where I could keep an eye on them.”

      “How are they doing?” She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t kept up with the elder Mercers. She had been to see them a few times after Jake’s supposed death, which they’d taken hard. But after marrying Charlie— and as her pregnancy advanced—visiting the Mercers had seemed awkward, so she’d gradually let them slip away from her.

      “They’re holding their own,” Jake replied with an unmistakable note of fondness. “I’d swear they aged ten years during the months I was gone, but they’re doing better now. Anyway, I’ve made it a point to stay away from Winnefred. A couple of times I ran into people I knew, but I always managed to duck out of the way before they recognized me.”

      “Then why now?” Laurie asked, finally verbalizing the question she was most anxious about.

      He took a deep breath and sighed. “It was time.”

      Laurie sighed, too, trying to adjust to this new reality. “You should have told me,” she finally said. “I’m not saying it would have been easy, but I’m not a child. I was, and am, capable of making responsible decisions.”

      “Oh, you know how to make decisions, all right,” he retorted, a sudden bitterness in his voice. “It didn’t take you much time at all to decide to marry Charlie Birkett.”

      Laurie blinked a couple of times as she felt the blood draining from her face. Jake didn’t know. He didn’t know that she’d gotten pregnant as a result of the one and only time they’d made love. He didn’t know that Wendy was his daughter. If he did, he would understand why she’d married Charlie so quickly.

      How could Jake believe that she would marry anyone else if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary? How could he think she would treat their love so trivially? A denial was on the tip of her tongue. But again, something held her back. If she blurted out the truth now, it might have farreaching consequences, consequences she couldn’t even imagine.

      Wendy had been born seven months to the day after Laurie and Charlie had wed. Anyone with a lick of sense could count, and had figured out that the baby was Jake’s, not Charlie’s. In fact, Laurie was sure there had been a fair amount of gossip about it at the time. But no one had said anything to her or Charlie directly. And Charlie had been such a proud and doting father, that soon the whole town had embraced the idea that Wendy was really his.

      Laurie didn’t want that to change. Charlie had earned his place as Wendy’s father. He had delighted in everything the child did, from kicking in the womb to flinging baby food on his good shirt. He had been as supportive of Laurie’s situation as a man could be, and as devoted to Wendy as if the baby carried his genes. No one—not even Jake—was going to belittle Charlie’s role in her family or dishonor his memory.

      So she kept silent. She had to think carefully about this. She had to weigh Jake’s right to know the truth with the possible repercussions.

      “You’re not even going to comment?” Jake asked, crossing his arms.

      “No, I’m not,” Laurie replied succinctly. She took a sip of her water to avoid looking into those steel blue eyes, afraid he would see that she was holding something back. Silence stretched uncomfortably between them. She could hear the old mantel clock ticking in the living room, and Maurice’s mongrel dog barking at something.

      Clearly frustrated, Jake rose abruptly and walked to the back door, then gazed out pensively at the mild spring day. “Steering clear of you seemed like the right decision at the time,” he said. “Now, I’m not so sure. When I think about the years we lost, I have to wonder if I shouldn’t have been more selfish about the whole thing. Maybe I should have barged in and tried to break up your marriage.” He turned suddenly. “Would that have been better than my staying away?”

      “You couldn’t have broken up my marriage,” she said. That was the one thing she was utterly sure of. Her marriage to Charlie may