as great as the odds of your lovely daughter getting on a bus to come to Salt Lake one dark winter night without your knowledge.”
His gaze sobered as it wandered over her features.
“What prompted you to take the time out from your heavy workload to accompany Allie all the way to Montana? If you performed that kind of service for everyone who needed help, there’d be nothing left of you.”
Once again, Colt had asked a question that hit at the core of her growing distress. “I could say that your daughter is an exceptional girl and a real charmer. Both descriptions are true. But now that you’ve prompted me to think about it, I have to admit I was driven by an underlying anger.”
He stopped munching on his salad. “Anger?”
Without realizing it, she’d crushed the paper napkin in her fist. “I have a lot of it inside me, Colt. When I first saw Allie lying there and went through her clothes looking for clues, I could see she came from a wonderful home. Everything about her screamed excellent health. She was well cared for.”
Kathryn warmed to her subject. “It was obvious she’d been given every advantage in life. Once she spoke to me, she displayed good manners. In fact, she was so different from most of the troubled teens who end up at Renaissance House, I wanted to shake her for causing the most wonderful father in the world in her opinion so much grief. I knew you had to be in hell.”
Their eyes met in silent understanding. To her chagrin, her lids began to prickle as emotion swamped her. “At her age I would have given anything on Earth to know my parents and swore that if I were ever united with them, I’d never leave their sight.
“I’d been told that my great-aunt Marie Buric had brought me to Skwars Farm because her grandson and his wife had abandoned me. After she died, her daughter Olga took care of me until she died. From then on I was passed around the farming families. For years I prayed my parents would come and get me. I had no idea I’d been kidnapped by strangers and my real parents were looking for me. To have a home, an identity—you can’t imagine what it’s like not to have those things. But getting back to your question, I suppose a part of me felt compelled to see Allie home safely and make her realize how blessed she was to belong to you.”
Colt’s hand covered her fist clutching the napkin. “Thank God for you, Kathryn.” His heartfelt touch filled her with warmth.
“Thank my remarkable parents.” She put her other hand on top of his for a moment and squeezed gently before easing both away. “Their money started the foundation. They gave me this beautiful penthouse, paid my tuition so I could become a nurse. Without the patient advocacy program they set up, I would never have been called in on Allie’s case. I’ll never be able to repay them for giving me my life.” Her voice shook as she spoke.
He sat forward, studying her with eyes so alive and green that she couldn’t tear her own gaze away. “Don’t you know that being united with their beautiful daughter was all the payment they could ever want? You’re not a parent, but I am. Last Friday night when I couldn’t find Allie, I had a brief taste of their terror. I never want to go through that again.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Your honesty has given me deeper insight into my daughter’s soul. The powerful emotions that drove you all those years are driving my daughter. Though Matt’s not vocal about it, both children need answers about the mother who abandoned them. What worries me is that without them, Allie’s going to be stunted in ways I don’t want to think about.”
Kathryn stared at him. “You can’t provide the answers?”
“After I got home from taking you to the airport, I sat down with the twins and told them as much truth as I felt they could handle. It’s something I should have done years ago. My grandmother warned me that if I didn’t explain things as soon as they could understand, there’d be repercussions.”
A shadow darkened his eyes. “Considering Allie’s behavior, my grandmother was a prophetess. Too late after the fact, the children now know their mother hated the ranch, hated being under my grandparents’ thumb and hated me most of all for taking her away from the money and glitter of big-city life. Unfortunately that explanation isn’t enough for Allie. She still wants to find her mother.”
“Is that an impossibility?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The twins were in the hospital a month. She never went in to hold or feed them. When I finally brought them home, she took off for long periods. After they’d been home a week, she went out one day and never returned. I knew she’d planned to leave me, so I can’t say I was surprised.”
Kathryn groaned. “Allie told me that prior to your marriage Natalie had been raised by her aunt and uncle in Salt Lake. Would she have gone there?”
Colt’s eyes turned to flint. “No. During one of our fights, she admitted that her aunt and uncle were a tale of fiction. There was no Beehive Motel, but by that time I’d figured as much because she never wanted to travel to Salt Lake to see them. It all came out that she’d lived in one foster home after another until she got a job in Las Vegas, where we met.”
“Oh, Colt …”
“That’s what you get for marrying a woman after only knowing her two weeks.”
Two weeks? A stab of pain went through her. Colt had to have been besotted.
“Perhaps now you can understand why early on I maintained the story that she’d grown up in Salt Lake. I couldn’t bring myself to tell the children their father’s immaturity and poor lack of judgment had doomed them to a motherless existence. When you phoned me, I was horrified to think Allie had gone there on a wild-goose chase.”
“It’s only natural you wanted to protect them.”
“Don’t try to make it better, Kathryn, because you can’t. I take full responsibility for being too drunk on the rodeo life to pay attention to what was really important until it was too late. The thing that alarms me now is that even though the twins know most of the truth, Allie’s still wondering if Natalie might have been the object of foul play. In her mind, that would explain why she never came home that day.”
“That’s because she’s heard my story,” Kathryn lamented. On top of having been married to an irresponsible child, Colt was in real trouble because he had a daughter who was a big dreamer like Kathryn. Until presented with incontrovertible truth about her mother’s character, Allie would cling to the possibility that something terrible had happened to her.
“You’re right,” Colt muttered. “My daughter would rather believe her mother’s alive somewhere, unable to return home to her children rather than accept the alternative. In truth, Natalie tried several times to go in for an abortion, but I caught her in time.”
Kathryn froze. “Do the children know about that?”
“No. I hope they never have to know. The fact is, I told Natalie I’d do anything for her if she would carry the babies to term. We made a bargain. I gave her all the savings I had and told her she could leave me after they were born, no questions asked.” Colt stopped pacing. “She left with the money all right and made sure she stayed lost.”
The revelations kept coming. “Was it a big sum?”
“No, but you don’t
