Christian was sitting there across from her and not speaking, and for that she was grateful. If he tried to say something kind or sweet or sympathetic, she’d lose what little control she was desperately clinging to.
She lifted her gaze to look at him and said in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the inevitable, “How do I know my mother actually wrote this letter? For all I know you’ve had it forged for your own reasons.”
“And what could those be?” Christian asked. “What possible reason could the Jarrod family have for lying about this?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted as she frantically tried to come up with something, anything that might explain all of this away. Her family wasn’t a close one, but they were all she had. If she accepted this as truth, wouldn’t that mean she would lose them all?
“Look at the other two papers,” he urged, taking a sip of his coffee.
She didn’t want to, but didn’t know how to avoid it. Pretending this day had never happened, that Christian Hanford had never appeared at her office, wouldn’t work. Hiding her head in the sand wouldn’t change anything. If this were actually true, then she had to know. And if it were all some elaborate lie, then she had to know that, too.
Nodding to herself, she looked at the next paper and froze in place. It was a letter from her father to Donald Jarrod and it managed, in a few short lines, to completely disintegrate the last of her doubts.
Jarrod,
My wife is dead, delivering your daughter. This letter is as close as you’ll ever get to the child, make no mistake. If you try to get around me, I’ll see to it that you regret it.
Walter Prentice
“Oh, my God.” Erica slumped against her chair and looked at Christian.
“I’m sorry this is so hard.” His voice was without inflection, but she thought she caught the sheen of sincerity in his dark brown eyes. Still, his being sorry didn’t change anything.
“I don’t even know what to say,” she whispered, staring at her father’s handwriting. She’d have known that scrawl anywhere. She knew it was genuine because as her older brothers had long said, what forger could ever reproduce such hideous writing?
God. Her brothers.
Half brothers.
Did they all know? Had they been lying to her, too, all these years? Was nothing in her life what she’d thought it was? If she wasn’t Erica Prentice, then just who was she?
“Ms. Prentice … Erica,” Christian said, “I know you’re having a hard time with this.”
“I don’t think you could have the slightest idea,” she told him.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But I do know that your biological father regretted never being able to know you.”
“Did he?” She shook her head, unsure just what she felt about Donald Jarrod. What kind of man was it who slept with another man’s wife? Who created a child and then never made an attempt to acknowledge it? Had Walter’s letter really kept Don Jarrod away? Was he that easily put off? Had his affair with Danielle and Erica’s birth meant nothing to him?
As if he knew exactly where her thoughts had taken her, Christian said, “Donald’s wife, Margaret, died of cancer, leaving him with five children to raise alone when the youngest, your sister Melissa, was only two.”
“My sister,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said, “and Melissa is eager to meet you, by the way. She’s delighted she’s not the only girl in the family anymore.”
“I’m the only girl in my family, too—” Erica laughed shortly as she looked at him. “But then, apparently I’m not.”
An icy wind blasted down the street and the sun slipped behind a bank of gray clouds. Erica shivered, but didn’t know if it was the emotional reaction or the sudden drop in temperature that caused it.
Christian said, “Don met your mother at a vulnerable point in his life—”
“And that excuses him?”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said, his features tightening even as his voice grew clipped. “I’m simply trying to explain it to you the same way Don did for me. He knew how you’d feel hearing this news.”
“I’m surprised he gave it a thought,” she said. “Not one word from him my whole life and now I’m supposed to be grateful that my biological father is popping up after his death?”
“He didn’t contact you because he thought it would make your life more difficult.”
“Putting it lightly.”
“Exactly. Don’t think you weren’t on his mind, though.” Christian folded his hands around his coffee cup. “I knew him for a lot of years and I can tell you that to him, family was most important. It must have driven him insane knowing you were here and completely out of his reach.”
“So my father’s—Walter’s—threat worked. Donald stayed away from me to avoid scandal.”
“No.” Christian smiled a little at that. “Don wasn’t worried about what other people thought of him. My guess is he stayed away out of respect for you and your father. He wasn’t the kind of man to go out looking to destroy marriages.”
“And yet …”
Christian shook his head. “Just before he died, Don talked to me about all of this because he knew I’d be the one coming to see you.”
“So even when he knew he was dying, he didn’t get in touch with me.” Erica wasn’t sure how she felt about that. If Donald Jarrod had contacted her, would she have believed him? Would she have welcomed him? She couldn’t say. Her relationship with her father had never been a good one, but she did love Walter. He was her father. The only one she’d ever known.
Didn’t she at least owe him loyalty?
Frowning, the man across from her admitted, “I argued with him about that. I thought he should talk to you. Tell you this himself. But he refused to go back on his word. He’d sworn to Walter he would stay away and he did, though I believe it cost him a great deal to keep that promise.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that, won’t I?”
“I guess so.” Their waiter appeared with a coffeepot to refill Christian’s cup, but when he would have stayed to take their order, he was waved away again. “Look,” Christian continued when they were alone again. “Just do me a favor and read the last letter in that envelope before I say any more.”
She really didn’t want to. What more was there to tell? What in her life was left to shake up and rearrange? Yet, morbid curiosity had a grip on her now and Erica knew she’d have to satisfy it.
Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when she glanced at the bottom of the page and saw the name Donald Jarrod in a bold signature. Lifting her gaze to the top of the paper, she read,
My Dear Erica,
I know how you must be feeling right now and I can’t blame you. But please know that if I had been given the opportunity, I would have loved you as I cared for your mother.
People—even parents—aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. But if we get the chance we try to correct them. This is my chance. Come to Colorado. Meet your other family. And one day, I hope you’ll be able to think of me kindly.
Your father,
Donald Jarrod
Again her eyes misted over. She had never known her mother. She’d grown up with a stepmother, Angela, who had been as distant in her own way as Walter had. Now, it turned out, she’d never known her father, either.
“Did