The Lost Daughter Of Pigeon Hollow. Inglath Cooper
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get back, or I’ll fade out of the picture. Fair enough?”
“Pamela—”
“You don’t need to explain anything. But I can’t sit on the fence any longer. That’s all.” And she hung up.
He sat for a moment, then popped the phone back into his pocket, acknowledging a wash of guilt for the way he had treated her. She didn’t deserve it. And she was right. He’d kept her hanging on.
He had come here to do an old friend a favor. Maybe clear his head in the process. And yet he couldn’t deny he saw Willa Addison in a light that did nothing to promote either of those agendas.
SHE FELT THE CHANGE as soon as she arrived back at the table. Saw it in the set of his ridiculously well-cut jaw.
Second thoughts.
That was fast.
She glanced down at the top button she’d undone in front of the restroom mirror, her face flushing with instant embarrassment. Initial gut feeling. Always trust it. She’d known this had nowhere to go.
She pasted on a smile, one hand at the neck of her blouse. “It’s late. I have to get going.”
He stood, threw some bills on the table and said, “Let’s go.”
She decided to wait until they were outside to clarify that she would be leaving alone.
But as soon as they hit the parking lot, he said, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
She gave him a smile that had to look as forced as it felt. “Look, Owen. It was fun to this point. But we both know anything more would just be an exercise in why bother. So—”
He leaned in and kissed her, quick and thorough.
At first, Willa was too stunned to respond. But he softened his approach, and anything that might have rallied as outrage collapsed like so much false bravado.
And she responded.
The man knew how to kiss.
She had a moment to catalogue impressions. The very faint scent of expensive cologne. The rough stubble on his chin in direct contrast to his mouth, lips smooth and full. The hand cupping her jaw insistent, but somehow letting her know at the same time, he would stop whenever she wanted.
Never would be just fine.
She finally latched on to enough will to pull back and hope she looked offended. “Why did you do that?”
“Because you’re so sure you’re right about me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”
“Not about the obvious, no. Can we sit in your car?”
She dropped her head back, studied the night sky. She finally let her gaze meet his and said, “Why don’t we just end this here when we can both still say it was fun?”
“Willa. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
The seriousness in his voice brought her up short. “What?”
“Not here. This would be better in private.”
“Why can’t you say it here?”
A man and woman in twin Stetsons walked by, singing an off-key George Strait tune, slightly drunk smiles on their faces. They both eyed Willa and Owen with curiosity.
“All right,” she said and headed for the Wagoneer. She got in the driver’s side, the door squeaking in protest. He went around and opened the passenger door, sliding into the seat, making the vehicle seem much smaller. She rolled down her window, feeling a sudden need for air.
“I came here to see you,” he said.
The words hung there between them, something in his voice making her stomach drop. “What do you mean?”
He reached in his pocket, pulled out a sealed envelope, handed it to her. “This is for you.”
She turned it over. Her name was written in neat cursive on one side. “What is it?”
“A letter. From your father.”
She dropped the envelope as if it had suddenly ignited. “What are you talking about?”
“He asked me to come and see you. He’s a very old friend of my family.”
She slowly shook her head back and forth. “That’s ridiculous.”
Owen said nothing for a moment. “It’s also true.”
Impossible. She had a father who wanted to see her? Her father had died years ago. And if her mother had been accurate in her portrayal of him, it had been no great loss to the world. “I’m afraid you must have me confused with someone else. My father is dead.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been told,” he said. “But there’s no confusion.”
“This has to be a mistake.” Her brain tried to process the information, sorted through the bits and pieces her mother had meted out during Willa’s childhood about the man who had been her father. Which wasn’t much. The one subject Tanya Addison had chosen not to discuss except for the times when Willa’s need to know something, anything about her father, pressed her to dole out just enough to stop the questions.
“No mistake,” he said.
“If I have a father, why didn’t he come himself?” she asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.
Owen’s gaze cut to the parking lot. He rubbed a thumb across the back of his hand, his voice somber when he said, “Because he’s sick.”
“Sick?”
“He had a very serious heart attack a couple of weeks ago. It was impossible for him to come, so he asked me.”
“Why you?”
“I guess I’m someone he trusts.”
She gripped both hands on the steering wheel, as if it might steady the tilt of disbelief inside her. “Why now? After all these years?”
“The letter should tell you what you want to know.”
Willa picked the envelope up again, stared at the handwriting. “This is why you came here.”
“Yes.”
“And why you—” She waved a hand at the building they’d just come from, humiliation settling in the pit of her stomach.
“I think that was more about something else,” he said, his voice softening. “Something I had no right to pursue.”
She wondered what he meant by that, but at the same time did not want to know. He probably had a wife and five kids waiting at home for him. A flat feeling of outrage slid in behind the humiliation.
“Read the letter tonight,” he said. “Then we’ll talk again.”
He got out of the Wagoneer and shut the door with a firm click.
She sat for a few moments, stunned, then finally started the engine and pulled out of the Hoot ’n’ Holler parking lot. The Wagoneer muffler clanked on the pavement, a shower of sparks visible in the rearview mirror.
Behind them, he stood, watching her go.
SO MUCH FOR well-laid plans.
Owen didn’t think he could have bumbled it more if he’d tried.
Willa’s reaction to learning about Charles wasn’t exactly surprising. She had a father she had not known existed. Who wouldn’t be blown out of the water by something like that?
A brown pickup truck with tires that looked like they had been injected with steroids roared into the parking lot, came to a rumbling halt. Two guys in bandanas and muscle shirts got out, swaggered inside.
Owen headed