How to Keep a Secret Read online

  She’d always planned to do it when the time was right, and that time wasn’t now. Mack was hurt and confused, which was the very thing she’d tried to avoid.

  She hadn’t even had a chance to process her own emotions and now she had to switch off her own feelings so that she could concentrate on those of her daughter. She had to be a mother, not a bereaved wife. A better mother than she’d been up until now. How, when she’d tried so hard to get it right, could it have gone so wrong?

  “We always intended to tell you, but we were waiting for the best time.”

  Mack shot upright. Her mascara had smeared under her eyes and her hair stood on end. “The best time was a long time ago.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I wanted you to grow up feeling secure and confident. We were waiting for you to be old enough to understand before we told you. Ed was your dad in every way that mattered. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

  “Find out what? That you had an affair? That’s disgusting.”

  It had been life changing. On the rare occasions she allowed herself to remember, she could still feel the touch of his hands and the warmth of his mouth. The press of sand against her naked, desperate flesh. When she was with him, she’d felt the electrifying thrill of being alive.

  “I didn’t have an affair. That’s not what happened. I was always faithful to your f—to Ed.”

  “I can count! No matter how you add it up, you were expecting me when you married Ed.”

  “Yes,” Lauren said. “I was.”

  “So, what? You had sex with another man on your honeymoon? Ugh.”

  Lauren clasped her hands in her lap to try to disguise the fact that her fingers were shaking. She hadn’t slept for a week. She spent her nights crying by herself, shocked by her own grief. She hadn’t known a human being was capable of losing so much water. During the day she mostly held it together but it required such an effort she couldn’t touch food. Her head felt as if it was stuffed with wool and somehow in this state she had to have the most difficult conversation of her life. She could barely find any words, let alone the right ones. “That wasn’t what happened.”

  “Then what? You tripped and fell on a guy and you were like, oops, I got pregnant? What?”

  Thinking about it was one of her banned pastimes. It was all too easy to start thinking, What if? But now she was not only going to have to think about it, she was going to have to talk about it, and not only with Mack.

  “Before I met Ed, I was—” she wondered how much to say “—in love with someone.”

  “You’re kidding.” Mack’s eyes flew wide with that teenage incredulity that emerged whenever parents revealed themselves to be remotely human. “Who?”

  Did she really have to talk about this? What sort of example would she be setting for her daughter? “He was someone—unsuitable.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “He was older than me. More experienced.” Which wasn’t hard, because she’d had no experience at all. “Not the settling-down type. He lived for the moment. He loved boats and the sea, so sometimes he’d skipper a boat for the tourists. And he built boats. He was good with his hands.” Very good with his hands. She remembered watching him working on the deck of a boat, sanding down planks while wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts. She’d never seen anyone like him before. She’d been unable to drag her gaze away from his body. Wide shoulders pumped with muscle and gleaming with sweat. Dark curls of hair that covered his chest. Powerful biceps that flexed when he worked. Looking at him had made her think of sex in a way that left her skin hot and prickly. And then he’d noticed her standing on the dock and given her a long look that had stolen her breath. “Sometimes he’d spend the day on the beach surfing. He lived on a boat—” she cleared her throat “—sometimes one that belonged to someone else and he didn’t have permission to use. If the owner caught him, he’d sleep on the beach. He wasn’t big on responsibility.” It was the understatement of the century.

  “Whoa—” Mack’s eyes were round. “So you’re saying you hooked up with a bad boy?”

  It was odd what impressed a teenager.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say—” She reflected on the monumentally uncomfortable reality of having to confess to one’s mistakes to an impressionable teenage daughter. Do as I say, don’t do as I do. “We didn’t—I don’t know how to describe it.”

  Mack’s mouth was open. “But you’re perfect,” she blurted out and Lauren gave a humorless laugh.

  “I am so far from perfect, you have no idea.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “He came into the café where I was working.”

  “And you got talking?”

  “No, not that first time.”

  It had been more than sixteen years and yet she could still remember the way she’d felt that day. The delicious thrill. The intoxicating excitement. The incredible high that came from knowing he’d noticed her.

  “And then you hooked up. Did Grams know?”

  “No.”

  “You were scared of what she’d say?”

  “I didn’t talk to Grams much. Not the way you and I do.” Or used to. She knew now why Mack had changed overnight.

  Mack looped her arms round her knees. Her face was pale. “How long did it last?”

  “The whole summer before I went to college.”

  It had been the best summer of her life. The summer against which all other happy times that followed would be compared and fall short. It had taken her years to realize that none of it had been real. That even if their relationship had somehow lasted, it wouldn’t have looked the way it had then.

  “And when Grams finally found out, she freaked?”

  “I never talked about it, I never brought him home and she never saw us together.” She saw Mack’s mouth drop open. “I know, I’m a hypocrite because I expect you to talk to me about everything. I want you to feel you can. But I didn’t feel that way with Grams.”

  “You loved him?”

  “Yes.” If they’d stayed together, would it have lasted? They’d never had a chance to be bored with each other or challenged. “He loved me, too, but he wasn’t the sort who wanted responsibility. He’d had a difficult childhood. I don’t want you thinking I was with someone who had no feelings for me. I don’t want you to take my experience as encouragement to be sexually adventurous.”

  Mac snorted with laughter. “A relationship when you’re eighteen isn’t exactly sexually adventurous, even if the guy doesn’t own a house. So you found out you were pregnant and you panicked because you didn’t want me.”

  Lauren could feel the hurt pulsing from her daughter. “I wanted you. I wanted all of it. Him, you, a home on the island—I wanted a life together.” She’d been naive. She’d tried to squash life into a neat package, not realizing that wasn’t how it worked.

  She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t wanted a life that didn’t have him in it. And because their relationship had been conducted in secret, she’d had to hide feelings too big to be hidden.

  It was the only time in her life she hadn’t talked to her sister.

  Mack tugged the covers. “Did he know you were pregnant?”

  “Yes. I didn’t feel it was right to keep that from him. Every man has a right to know he’s going to be a father.”

  “So he freaked and you never saw him again?”

  “No. He was shocked, that’s true, because we had used birth control.” She emphasized that and saw Mack roll her eyes.

  “Forget it, Mom. You don’t ever get to lecture me again on any of this stuff.”

  Lauren decided that was tomorrow’s worry. “For some reason it didn’t work. He asked me what I wanted to do.”

  “He wanted you to get rid of me?”

  “No. That option was never discussed. It wasn’t something
either of us would have wanted. He said he’d marry me if that was what I wanted.”

  Mack rolled her eyes. “Jeez. Romantic. Not. Like you were actually going to consider that.”

  She’d considered it.

  “Exactly. I was in love and pregnant but I still had enough wits to know that to marry a man who didn’t ever want to settle down would be a recipe for disaster.”

  Reliability. That had been the most important thing for her.

  “So you turned him down.”

  “Yes.” And seen the relief on his face.

  “So you decided to have me on your own. That’s kind of brave. And super scary. And he didn’t try to talk you out of it? He walked away.”

  “He sailed away.”

  Mack gave a snort of derision. “Men. What did Grams say? She was okay about it, right?”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  “Wait—you never told her you were pregnant?”

  “I was going to. Before I could do that, I met Ed.”

  “Where? How?”

  “On the beach. I was sitting there one evening, trying to work out what to do.” Breathless with panic, life in ruins, trying to work out whether to walk into the sea, start swimming and never come back.

  “So you were sitting on the beach, and Dad—I mean Ed—” she stumbled over his name “—Ed came along and you hooked up?”

  He’d talked her down off the ledge and for that she’d always been grateful.

  Kind, patient Ed who had taught her that people’s lives were rarely what they seemed. That everyone had a part of himself or herself that they didn’t show to the world.

  Ed, who had also been nursing a bruised heart and problems of his own.

  “We talked. Turned out he was on vacation to get over a relationship that had gone badly wrong.”

  “With that Caroline woman? Nana talks about her sometimes.”

  “She dumped him.”

  “That’s not the way Nana tells it.”

  “Well it’s how it was. Ed was devastated. Maybe that’s why the two of us clicked, to begin with at least. We were both hurting and we formed a friendship. Ed told me about his relationship, I told him about mine. And I told him I was pregnant.”

  “He knew?”

  “Yes. I told him I was trying to work out how to tell Grams. He was the one who suggested we get married.”

  Mack looked taken aback. “But you’d only just met.”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I liked Ed a lot. I knew we could be happy together.”

  “But you weren’t insanely in love like you were with the other guy?”

  How was she supposed to answer that? “I loved Ed. Was it different to the way I felt about your father? Yes, but that didn’t make it less real. Ed and I liked and respected each other. Friendship and respect can be an excellent basis for a marriage. And we were honest with each other right from the start. That’s what true intimacy is. We told each other everything.”

  Or so she’d thought. She’s not our problem.

  It had grown dark outside and Lauren leaned forward and flicked on the bedside lamp.

  “I’m sorry I blurted it out that way, in front of everyone.” Mack’s voice was small and threaded with guilt.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. It’s our fault, all of it. As parents we tried to do what we believed was best, but maybe we got it wrong.”

  “Why didn’t Ed adopt me?”

  Regret shot through her. She wished now that they tackled this subject years ago, together. “He always intended to, but it would have meant contacting your real father and neither of us wanted to do that. So we put it off and—” she swallowed “—somehow it didn’t happen.” She decided not to mention that Ed couldn’t have children of his own, or his fears about Gwen not accepting a granddaughter who wasn’t her flesh and blood. She didn’t need to add to Mack’s insecurities. “But the one thing you have to know is that Ed loved you. He couldn’t have loved you more even if you’d been his, or if he’d adopted you.”

  “Yeah, right. So what happens now?”

  Hearing the quiver in her daughter’s voice, Lauren decided honesty was probably the best approach. “Nana is very upset, but I’ll try to talk to her and—”

  “I mean, what’s going to happen now it’s the two of us? What will we do? How will we live?”

  She had no idea, and it terrified her. But she was a mother. It was her job to reassure her child and tell her everything would be fine. But how could it be fine without Ed?

  “Ed made provisions for you in his will, so you don’t have to worry about the future. We will carry on living here, in our home, doing the things we’ve always done.”

  “Without Ed.”

  “Without Ed.” Her stomach lurched. She felt as if she’d been dropped in a desert with no map and minimal survival skills. “This horrible, horrible thing happened to us, Mack, and we’re going to feel sad and it’s going to be difficult but eventually, one day, it will get better.” Please let it get better. Please don’t let that be a lie. She desperately wanted her daughter to be okay. She wanted to be okay because the thought of feeling like this forever was terrifying. “We have to be strong, Mack, and deal with things a day at a time. We’ll do it together. Warrior women, that’s us.” Wishing she believed it, she leaned forward and hugged her daughter, but Mack pushed her away.

  That rejection felt like the worst thing of all.

  She wondered what Jenna was doing. Had she called their mother? That was another conversation Lauren wasn’t looking forward to. “I’m going to go and check on Aunt Jenna. Will you join us?”

  “Maybe later.” Mack curled up under the covers. “Have you ever seen him again? My real dad?”

  Lauren felt her heart kick against her chest. “No. We’ve never seen each other again.”

  “So you don’t know where he is or what he’s doing? He could be married with six kids.”

  The thought of it made it difficult to breathe. “I don’t think so.”

  There was a pause. “Am I like him?”

  “In some ways. He was very smart, like you. He loved the sea—”

  “I love the sea.”

  “I know.” Lauren remembered Ed’s mouth tightening slightly when she’d told him that Mack wanted a bedroom like a ship’s cabin. It had been an uncomfortable reminder that Mack had DNA that didn’t originate from him. On impulse she reached out and pulled Mack’s battered copy of Moby-Dick from the shelf. “This belonged to him.”

  “My real father?” Mack took it from her and leafed through the pages, searching. “His name isn’t in it.”

  “He gave it to me at the beginning of our relationship. It was his favorite book.”

  “It’s my favorite book, too.”

  “I know.” Lauren saw the way Mack held on to the book with both hands. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?”

  “Yeah—” Mack scrubbed her cheek with the palm of her hand. “The man you loved. My real dad. What was his name?”

  There was a tap on the door and Jenna put her head round. “Sorry to disturb you, but there’s a friend here to see you. James? He says it’s urgent. Said he’s your lawyer and the executor of Ed’s will.”

  Lauren sat still for a moment. There was a buzzing in her ears.

  She’s not the problem.

  She rose to her feet, her stomach churning and her instincts telling her that she was about to find out what the problem was.

  Had Ed committed fraud? Had he left all his money to a cat’s home? Was this something to do with Mack?

  Whatever it was, she had a feeling that the worst day of her life wasn’t over yet.

  Part Two

  11

  Nancy

  Dilemma: a difficult situation in which you have to choose between two
or more alternatives

  “People have noticed your car parked outside the house. There’s been gossip. I hope it doesn’t bother you.” She handed him a mug of coffee. Far too strong for her tastes, but it was the way he liked it. It struck her that she knew any number of small things about him—that he liked his coffee black, his beer cold, that he hated mushrooms, rarely bothered wearing a sweater no matter how hard the wind blew, preferred to work with the windows open—but none of the big things.

  “Why would it bother me?”

  “Most people care what others think.”

  He took a mouthful of coffee and slowly lowered the mug. It was obvious from his expression that he didn’t give a damn.

  It was one of the many things she liked and admired about him. “You don’t care. I realized that five years ago.” At the time she’d thought it strange that he’d been the one to come to her rescue. She’d never been the type to dream about a hero riding to the aid of a damsel in distress, but even if she had, she never would have cast Scott Rhodes in the key role. It seemed more likely that he would have been the one to put the damsel in a state of distress in the first place.

  And yet—

  “I’ve never mentioned it to anyone. You’re the only one who knows. Unbelievable really that you, a stranger, know my most intimate secret. I protected my family from all of it.” She’d always protected them. It was the one thing she’d done right as a mother.

  He put the mug down and turned back to the job in hand, restoring her window frames.

  There were people on the island who talked so much you wondered if death might come before the end of the conversation. And then there was Scott.

  He’d always been more of a listener than a talker.

  She’d watched in fascination over the weeks as he’d taken apart the sash frames and put them back together. He’d dug out paint and caulk, oiled wood, and secured the glass in the sash. A surgeon operating on a child couldn’t have taken more care.

  Not that she’d ever doubted his skills. He knew wood like she knew paint.