Page 35 of One Wild Texas Night
Jake had walked down the hall looking for Claire. She could slip away from him and she was quiet, even in boots. As he’d reached the open door to the study, he’d almost walked past it, but he’d seen her seated and turned back, smiling as he’d stepped into the doorway. Now he looked at her and at an open book on her lap and a picture in her hand, and his heart sank. He had forgotten about the damn picture of her sister and her family.
“Claire—”
She shook her head. “Don’t start, Jake. There isn’t an explanation of any sort that will make up for you not telling me that you know where my sister is. And you’ve known all along.” Her voice was low, tight with anger, and he felt his hurt deepen.
“I promised them I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said as he entered the room and started to approach her. When she held up her hand, he paused.
“Stop. Don’t you come near me,” she said.
“I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he repeated with an emphasis on the last word. “If I had told you, I would have broken my promise to my brother and to her. I couldn’t. I had to keep my promise to them.”
A tear spilled down Claire’s cheek, and she hastily wiped it away with the back of her hand, and he felt worse. He could see the anger blazing in her green eyes.
“There’s nothing you can ever say to make keeping this from me right. I’ve given you my body. Unfortunately, I probably gave you part of my heart, too, but I will get over that if I haven’t already. Your promise is no excuse at all. We’re intimate. If you had told me, don’t you think I could have kept quiet about it?”
“I don’t know. Would you have kept quiet? Or would you want to contact Regina? I think you’d want to talk to her and maybe go see her. I don’t see them. They severed relations with everyone here except me. My brother has kept in touch. He makes the contact—I don’t. He’s never come to see me.”
“Have you gone to see him?”
“Yes, four times, after the birth of each of their kids. They invited me to come, so I went. He doesn’t come back here. It’s your family that drove them away. Mine is bad, but your dad and your brothers are worse. I know Regina wanted to contact you, but your two older brothers and your dad kept her away. She was afraid they would find out. She was afraid of what they might do.”
“Jake, there’s nothing you’ll ever be able to say to make it right or for me to forgive you,” she said.
“This is tearing me up. I don’t want to hurt you even the tiniest bit.”
“Oh, please. Stop, Jake. You kept Regina’s whereabouts, information about her and her family, secret from me while we were intimate. When I leave here, I never want to see you again.”
“Look, give me a chance here—”
“When I gave you my body, I also gave you my trust. And I expected it to be mutual. Well, it quite obviously was not.” She shook her straight red hair back from her face.
“Look, I’m sorry. I did what I thought was best for them.”
“Just stop. I’ve already called for a driver to come here and pick me up. I said I would be by the gate because I know you value your privacy.”
“Cancel that and let me take you to Dallas or wherever you want to go,” he said, hurting, wishing he could undo what had happened. “I forgot that damn picture—”
“How long ago was it taken?”
“A year ago. They’re all a year older now. Claire, they’re not coming back. They don’t communicate except my brother has let me know when a baby is born.”
“How close were you with your brother?”
“Close enough,” he answered. “They’re scared of your dad and your brothers. And probably rightfully so at first. By now, your dad is older, your brothers are scattered and have other interests. All of them are accustomed to Regina’s disappearance, and if she returned, none of you would live under the same roof again, so it’s all different now. When Sam and Regina left, they had justification for secrecy.”
“I know they did, but it’s years later now, as you just said. You could have told me without any repercussions to them. I wouldn’t have jumped on a plane and gone to see her or even called her. It just hurts to know that you have no trust in me. It hurts that you kept something so important from me. At least you made it quite clear where I stand with you and how deep your feelings go for me and how much you trust me. I’m leaving, and I don’t want to see you again ever.”
“I know you have appointments about your house, and you’ll need to be out here where you can meet with people and look at the damage, so just stay here and I’ll keep out of your way.”
“Thank you, but no. I got a suite at the hotel in Persimmon. They had one available, and I can drive back and forth from there, so I don’t need to stay here. And I don’t want to stay with you one minute longer than I have to. I do not want to see you again,” she said slowly and firmly.
With each word, his hurt deepened, and finally he felt a twinge of anger because she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t accept his apology, wouldn’t give him a chance. If she was so hell-bent on being let in on the secret about her sister, maybe he should just throw the other family secret at her.
“I’ll get my things,” she said and turned to start out of the room.
“All right, Claire,” he said. “You want me to share family secrets with you that concern you,” he said, anger and hurt overcoming his judgment. She stopped walking, turned and frowned, staring at him.
“Do you want me to share another big family secret with you? One you can’t tell anyone else and I’ve never told anyone. I’ll be happy to trust you with it.”
