Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret by Tara Quinn (rosie project .txt) 📕

her thumb from her mouth and shook her head. "No. Brent doesn't. And neither do Debbie and Dana. They're twins."

Jamie knew all about the identical twins in Ashley's class. They had fascinated Ashley and Kayla since the twins had first joined their class the previous October.

' 'And do you know where their daddies are?''

Slumping back against Jamie, Ashley spoke around the thumb once again in her mouth. "Brent's daddy lives in Cali…Cali…"

"California?"

Ashley nodded. "Mmm-hmm."

"And what about Debbie and Dana? Where's their daddy?"

' 'Their mommy divorced him. But he still comes to school and gets them sometimes. He's really tall. Kayla says he's big enough for his head to touch the ceiling, but I don't think so. Men can't get big enough to touch the ceiling, can they, Mommy?"

"Not usually, sweetie." Jamie brushed at curls, still damp from the bath, on her daughter's brow.

' 'Mommy, if a tall man jumps really, really hard and even jumps from a tall, tall ladder, could he at least peek into heaven?''

Afraid she knew right where this was going, pained that her daughter found it necessary to struggle so adamantly for her identity, Jamie slowly shook her head. "I'm afraid not, honey."

"Don't cry, Mommy."

"I'm not crying, Ash."

"But if I ask about my daddy, you'll cry, huh?"

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"No, honey. We can always talk about anything, you and I. I thought you knew that."

'"Cept my daddy. We never, ever talk about him."

"You never asked."

"Miss Karen has pictures of Kayla's daddy. Where are my daddy's pictures?"

"I don't have any." The words almost choked her.

"Did my daddy die fighting for our country before you could take pictures?"

Hugging the child against her, Jamie forged on. She'd have prayed for guidance if she'd thought there was any chance her prayers would be heard. But the only God she'd ever learned about couldn't hear people like Jamie Archer.

"No, sweetie, I just didn't have a camera."

"'Cause you were poor?"

She hadn't been rich. But she'd had enough money. She'd worked hard for it. Sold her soul for it. "'Cause I didn't think there'd be anyone I wanted to take pictures of."

Wriggling closer, sliding her pudgy little arms around Jamie's neck, Ashley said, "But now you gots me for pictures, huh?''

"Yep." Jamie smiled. "Now I do. As soon as I knew you were on the way, I went out and bought a camera."

"That's when I was in your tummy?"

"Mmm-hmm."

Ashley was quiet for so long Jamie assumed she'd fallen asleep. And though they hadn't resolved a

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

darn thing, Jamie was relieved. She just didn't know where to go with this one. And was finding herself damn stupid for not foreseeing this eventuality. When she'd let the town think what they wanted about her husband, she'd never thought about this tiny baby of hers growing up. Hadn't considered the fact that while she could ignore the curiosity of a town, she couldn't refuse to answer her own child.

"Where was my daddy when you bought my cam'ra?"

Damn. So much for sleeping. "He was, um, already gone."

"Gone away forever?"

"Yes, honey, forever."

"To heaven?"

"No."

"Then he was gone 'cause he getted mad and didn't want a baby girl?"

"Is that what Nathan told you?"

Ashley's nod against Jamie's chest hurt worse than a lot of the things she'd endured in her lifetime.

Jamie sat the child upright and gazed into Ashley's eyes. "That's not true, Ash. It's just not true. You understand?"

Never breaking contact with her mother's gaze, Ashley nodded. But Jamie knew that Ashley didn't understand at all.

"Your father never even knew I was pregnant, honey. He didn't know he had a baby girl to love."

'"Cause he died fighting for our country before you could tell him?''

The little girl's earnestness almost broke Jamie's

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heart. "No, baby. He didn't die fighting for our country. But he'd already left before I knew I was pregnant with you and so I couldn't tell him. I didn't know where he was."

"But is he died now?"

Frozen to the core, Jamie stilled, no longer holding Ashley, barely supporting the child's weight against her body.

"No, Ashley, he isn't."

Wincing as the little girl scrambled around so fast she bruised her in the process, Jamie waited almost with equanimity. What was to be, was to be. She couldn't lie. Not to Ashley.

"Miss Karen said he's died," the little girl said.

' 'When she told you that, she thought he was and I hadn't told her he wasn't."

"Why, Mommy?"

"Because that was my secret," Jamie said, choosing her words carefully. "And now it's your secret, too."

"I can too keep secrets, can't I, Mommy?" the child asked solemnly.

"Of course you can, darling. Did someone tell you that you couldn't?"

"Kayla," Ashley said. "Her mommy has a secret and Kayla says she won't tell us 'cause we don't keep secrets good."

"But you'll keep this secret, won't you, Ash?" The words stuck in her throat, burning her even as she uttered them. They were wrong. She was wrong to ask such a thing of her child. But what was her

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alternative? What would Ashley's life become if the truth were revealed?

Ashley nodded. "It's our secret, huh, Mommy?" the little girl asked. "Just you and me?"

Gathering the child close once again, Jamie hid the tears brimming in her eyes. "Just you and me, Ash, and that's okay, isn't it?"

"Mmm-hmm." Ashley's thumb was obviously back in her mouth. The guilt in Jamie's gut grew a little bigger, singeing her a little more.

And as she tucked her sleeping daughter into bed half an hour later, Jamie knew she'd accomplished nothing. In trying to protect the innocence and sweetness of Ashley's life, the security, she'd done nothing to alleviate the child's doubts about herself. About the man who'd fathered her and then disappeared. She'd given Ashley nothing to take to school with her, nothing to help her face a world full of curiosity and nastiness and children with cruel tongues.

Because, when it came to Ashley's father, Jamie had absolutely nothing to give her daughter. Except the truth. And that would hurt Ashley far worse than all the accusations