His mother stirred a portion of rice and chili together, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “It upsets Adam.”
He was taken aback. “No, it doesn’t. We don’t talk about him because it upsets you.”
She was surprised. “Why should it upset me?”
“Because…” He floundered. “Well, because you never mention him.”
“Because you got so angry the one time I tried to tell you about him. Don’t you remember?”
Adam stared at her. “What?”
Alicia put her fork down and faced him. “When you were about six, you asked why you looked different from the rest of us. I tried to explain, but when I got to the part where Dad—Cole and Sass’s father—wasn’t yours, you covered your ears with your hands and ran screaming from the room.”
He had vague memories of that now. Strange, how he’d never remembered before.
She picked up her fork again. “Of course, I completely understood. Terrence, to do him credit, had always treated you exactly the same as the other two. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”
Adam thought of their father, tall, blond, good-looking, humorous. They’d all adored him—when he was around, which wasn’t that often, even before he took off completely. Adam had wondered a lot over the years how his dad had really felt about having this dark kid foisted upon him, proof to the world that he’d been cuckolded.
“Was I the reason Dad left?” he asked abruptly.
Alicia appeared horrified. “No! Absolutely not. He’d have gone whether you were there or not, Adam. You have to believe that.” She paused and added more matter-of-factly, “Some men aren’t meant to marry, Adam. Terrence was one of them. He loved being on the rodeo circuit. He was never a ‘nine-to-five, come home to the kids’ sort of man. Not deep down. We only married because I was pregnant with Sass. Looking back, I see that’s the worst reason to get married.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Cressa was so emphatic that both Adam and Alicia stared at her. “But, Alicia, you still haven’t said what Adam’s real father was like. Was he all macho and bossy?”
His mother’s eyes softened in memory. “No, Adam’s father was a modern-day troubadour. A man with a heart full of poems and not a cent in his pockets.”
“Wow, he sounds so romantic, whereas Adam—” she looked at him pointedly “—so isn’t. How did you guys meet?”
It didn’t matter how they met, and it wasn’t any of Cressa’s damn business. He pushed his plate away and was suddenly aware of how airless the kitchen felt, the heat of the oven fogging up the windows. His mother smiled. “He came to our school to talk about poetry to some of our writing classes.”
Poetry! Oh, jeez. Why the hell couldn’t he have had a real job, been a truck driver or something? His mom really knew how to pick them.
“And were there sparks the first time you laid eyes on him?” Though she’d asked Alicia the question, Cressa glanced sideways at Adam.
“Why, yes, there were. Funny you should ask. There was this strange electricity between us. Hard to explain.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Cressa. “What was his name?”
Adam’s stomach hollowed at the question.
“Adahy Wilson. A lot of the time he was just called Andy, but his real name was Adahy. It means ‘lives in the woods.’”
“Adahy.” He tested the name. “Adahy Wilson.”
He must have spoken, because Cressa stared at him. “Don’t tell me you never even knew his name.”
Alicia cut in. “That’s my fault. He never asked, so I never told him. I should have.”
Adam was hating this whole conversation, but what the hell, now that Cressa had started poking around, he had a few questions of his own. One in particular that he’d never dared ask. “Did he know about me?”
“No.”
At that single word, emotion jagged so sharply that Adam couldn’t identify it. Relief? Anger? Disbelief?
Alicia continued. “You see, we only saw each other for a month—Terrence was away. Adahy moved on and I never tried to contact him.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.