Read Online HardWind by Charlotte Boyett-Compo - Free Book Online Page B

erupting.
    “When I delivered her, some woman came to see me in the hospital.”
    His dark brows drew together. “What woman?”
    “She didn’t tell me her name and I didn’t ask,” Star replied. “She came in and the
    first words out of her mouth were to tell me I was a liability to you.”
    “Gentry,” he said, and the word was a bitter taste in his mouth. “She’s my boss.”
    “She then went on to say that I had just given you an even more dangerous liability
    and she offered me money to get out and stay out of your life from then on.”
    A muscle worked in his jaw. “How much money?”
    “A million dollars,” Star answered, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue.
    “Apparently you’re worth a lot of money to your people.”
    “I hope you told her to go fuck herself,” he said. He had no doubt Star would have
    done so.
    “I told her she had nothing to worry about,” Star said. “I told her it was over
    between the two of us and that I had no intention of seeing you again.”
    “Did she tell you where I was?” he asked.
    Star shook her head. “No, but Jackson did.”
    “So you know it wasn’t a place where I could have been with you when you had
    our child?” he asked quietly. “Even if I had known about it?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “And before you ask, no, Jackson doesn’t know about
    Jillian. If he did, he’d have said something to me. I don’t think that woman told anyone
    about the baby.”
    He hung his head. As furious as he was with Gentry, he couldn’t fault Star for
    feeling the way she did. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and
    middle finger. “Where is the baby now?” he asked.
    “In Pensacola where she is being raised.”
    He lifted his head, hurt playing across his handsome features. “You gave her
    away?” he asked.
    Star stared into his eyes. “No, I didn’t give her away. Jillian is a special-needs
    child,” she told him. “She required more care than I am capable of giving her. She’s in a
    group home with other special-needs children.”
    “Special needs,” he said. His heart was no longer pounding but racing. “What does
    that mean?”
    40
    HardWind
    “She’s a Down’s syndrome baby,” Star said, her eyes full of fresh tears.
    “Down’s…?” He shook his head, completely taken aback. “I don’t…”
    “It is a genetic condition,” she told him. “Children born with DS develop it at
    conception, caused by the presence of an extra chromosome.”
    Dáire flinched as though he’d been slapped in the face with a wet rag. “I know
    what Down’s is,” he said in a choked voice.
    “It’s nothing either you or I did, Dáire,” Star said. “She was underweight, born two
    months earlier than expected.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “It didn’t help though that
    I was thirty-five when she was born.”
    “Star,” he said, trying his best to cope with what he was being told, “I thought you
    were on the Pill. I thought—”
    “I was, but the Pill isn’t always foolproof, Dáire.”
    Feeling as though he was back in the dark, dank bowels of the prison in Borneo,
    Dáire got up and began pacing, assuring himself that he was, indeed, free to move
    about, to stand before the wide sweep of windows and look at the piercing blue of the
    sky.
    “I wasn’t equipped to care for her,” Star said, following his every move. “Jillian is
    severely retarded. Her sight is very limited. She has a hearing impediment too. Now,
    this morning, I heard from Frieda, the woman who runs the facility where Jillian lives,
    that she’s been diagnosed with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia.”
    “Leukemia?” he repeated, horror flooding his face.
    “It’s a form of leukemia that occurs in infants under a year of age. Frieda said Jilly
    had been losing weight then she developed a high fever and was crying a lot. They took
    her to the doctor and when he ran tests on her, they found the ANL.”
    Dáire squeezed his eyes shut against