Read Online A Mother's Secret by Janice Kay Johnson - Free Book Online

Then, his voice was constrained. “Nadia and I have tried not to make it like that for Kaitlin, but it’s hard.”
    Daniel’s hand tightened on the bottle. “You’re saying Rebecca was right?”
    “Of course not. Just…don’t let your bitterness hurt Malcolm.”
    “I’m doing my best.”
    His best, he thought, not to wonder what it would have been like to be married to Rebecca, to see her body swell with pregnancy, to be present at his son’s birth and there as he grew up.
    As clearly as if she were there, Daniel heard Rebecca say, You didn’t want to be a father. We didn’t have any future . Had he been capable of trying as hard as Joe had to make a marriage work anyway?
    Remembering that smothering sense of panic he’d felt at the idea of spending the rest of his life with Rebecca or any other woman, Daniel wasn’t as sure as he wanted to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

    R EBECCA GLANCED AT THE MAN walking beside her down the trail before, in automatic mom-mode, checking to see how far ahead of them Malcolm had run. He’d been excited to go to the beach, even though, this being January, they had to bundle up in sweaters and jackets. The sun was out, but a chilly wind was blowing. A favorite of Rebecca’s because it was little-known, this was one of the many pocket beaches that dotted the shore south of Half Moon Bay. There wasn’t even a real parking lot, just enough room for three or four cars to pull off the Coast Highway.
    Daniel was being more patient than she had expected with this business of getting to know Malcolm. It had been almost an entire week since the pizza outing.
    Patient? Or was it that he’d been bored spending time with a four-year-old? She bristled at the thought. How could anyone, never mind Malcolm’s father, not immediately appreciate what a smart, funny, lovable kid he was?
    Oh, wait. She wanted Daniel to lose interest. Now. Before Malcolm could be hurt.
    She stifled a sigh before Daniel could hear it. No, he wasn’t bored yet. Patience was one of Daniel’s gifts. In business or seduction, he was able to lie in wait as deceptivelyand lethally as a big cat on the hunt. When she first met him, he had pursued her slowly, relentlessly and skillfully.
    No, either he’d thought his purpose would be served by letting her stew, or else he was just plain busy.
    He’d called Monday and suggested a Saturday outing. He apparently wouldn’t be down to El Granada all week, as he had another project in the planning stages and would be meeting with the architect and city officials in San Rafael.
    Today, he’d come by for her and Malcolm, a picnic already packed in a wicker basket. She only hoped the contents weren’t too gourmet. Preschoolers did not have eclectic tastes. Malcolm was suspicious even of jam that wasn’t strawberry.
    During the twenty-minute drive along the curving Coast Highway, they had made sporadic, falsely cheerful conversation. Daniel had, to his credit, been careful to fasten his seat belt before starting the car and had made a point of sticking well under the speed limit. He seemed to feel Malcolm’s penetrating gaze pinned on the speedometer. Annoyingly enough, her son wasn’t just learning to count to five, like most other kids his age. No, he had fixated on speed limit signs and seemed to have no trouble correlating those numbers with the numbers on the car speedometer.
    They’d parked in a turnoff on the bluff, joining only a couple of other cars, and started down the trail to the beach. Malcolm raced ahead.
    “Mal!” she called. “Wait up!”
    “But you’re going slow!” he yelled back.
    Rebecca heard a huffing sound from the man beside her and realized he’d laughed. The sound was almost rusty, asif he didn’t often. He was fully capable of smiling with devastating charm, but now that she thought about it she didn’t remember much laughter when they were together. He’d been a very…contained man. By the time they went their separate ways, she had realized