bother to share with you. It’s the real reason why I left town the way I did, and the main reason I haven’t really wanted to return.”
“Lucy and I didn’t keep secrets from each other,” Kit insisted, making no effort to hide her continued distrust of him. “We were best friends…always.”
“I didn’t think Lucy kept secrets from me, either, and we were a hell of a lot more than best friends. But I know now that she did.”
“That doesn’t mean she kept secrets from me, too,” Kit shot back defensively.
“Just hear me out, okay?” Simon pleaded, his frustration evident though his voice was still low. “Then you can decide how honest Lucy Kane really was with us.”
“Okay, fine. Say whatever it is you have to say. Just don’t expect me to believe you,” Kit advised.
With a negligent shrug of her shoulders, she turned her attention to feeding Nathan.
“The night Lucy told me she was pregnant she also told me the baby wasn’t mine,” Simon began, only the slightest bit hesitant. “She said she’d been seeing someone else over the summer, someone she said that she loved more than me. She also told me he was the one who had fathered her baby.”
Kit stared at Simon then, unable to hide her surprise. Lucy—seeing someone else? Impossible—
“I didn’t want to believe her, Kit,” Simon continued insistently. “In fact, I refused to believe her until she looked me straight in the eye and said it all again, just as calm as you please. She told me to have a nice life in Seattle, then she gave me a little kiss on the cheek by way of goodbye. Talk about a kick in the teeth.”
Simon’s version of how he and Lucy had parted company was too outrageous to even be considered. Yet the look of anguish Kit saw in his eyes before he glanced away was so genuine that she couldn’t dismiss what he’d told her. The thought came to her that he might just be telling her the truth, and with that thought came a cold rush of fear.
Lucy hadn’t really wanted to go with Simon to Seattle. She had admitted as much to Kit more than once that summer. But would she have lied to him about her pregnancy so she wouldn’t have to? Though Kit didn’t want to think her friend could have been so cruel or so deceptive, Simon’s revelation had set off a tremor of uncertainty that was already beginning to shake her faith in her friend.
“Yeah, I left Belle, Montana, in a rush, all right,” Simon added in a musing tone when Kit made no comment. Sitting back in his chair, he crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “I couldn’t get away from here fast enough. I wouldn’t have come back now except my parents called and told me I had some family business that needed tending. They didn’t give me any details, but I’m guessing they’ve been thinking what you and half the town must have been thinking of me lately. Only it’s not true, Kit. I didn’t intentionally abandon Lucy or my child. That’s not the kind of man I am, and you, of all people, should know it.”
Mechanically, Kit finished feeding Nathan his soup, saying nothing though her thoughts whirled a mile a minute.
She was no longer convinced that Simon was lying to her. He’d told his side of the story with too much sincerity for her to dismiss it as a fabrication. There was also no reason for him to go to so much trouble offering excuses. No one had asked him to take responsibility for Nathan’s welfare.
Well, she hadn’t, and she wouldn’t in the future, but maybe his parents would. Only it wasn’t going to be necessary. Once the adoption was final, Nathan would be her child, legally, and she was more than capable of caring for him all on her own.
Finally Kit glanced at Simon again as she helped Nathan take another drink from his cup. He eyed her stubbornly in return, still waiting for her to respond. She wasn’t sure what to say to him. The truth Lucy had told her was so different from his truth. Maybe it warranted repeating.
“Lucy told me that you knew the baby was yours. She told me that’s why you left town. She said you didn’t want to be tied down to a wife and family. She bawled like a baby when she told me you’d gone, and she was miserable for a long time after you left.” Pausing, Kit frowned and looked away again. “It’s unlikely she was seeing someone else—highly unlikely. She was either with you or me or both of us that summer, and she was working at the diner, too. She wouldn’t have had time to fit in a secret lover, and if she had, I’m sure she would have told me. We were so close….”
“I thought we were close, too, Lucy and I, but obviously I was wrong,” Simon said. “She lied to me, Kit, and she lied to you, too. You can either admit it to yourself, or not, but that’s the one basic truth in the whole damned mess she created.”
“But why?” Kit demanded fiercely, suddenly more afraid than ever. “Why did she lie to us? She must have had some good reason.”
If Simon was right about Lucy—if she intentionally kept him from his son—then he might actually have a legitimate claim to Nathan. He had already said he wanted his son. But he couldn’t just take him away from her. She was already his legal guardian and the adoption was very near to being finalized—
“I don’t know why,” Simon admitted. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since I first saw Nathan standing in his playpen. She knew I loved her and she knew I wanted her to live with me in Seattle. Hell, I must have asked her to marry me half a dozen times that summer. She’d just smile and say she’d think about it.
“Then she said the one thing she had to know was guaranteed to run me off. You were her best friend, Kit. You were the one she would have trusted most, yet she lied to you, too, didn’t she?”
“Only if I believe what you’ve told me is the truth,” Kit countered.
Gathering Nathan’s empty bowl and cup, she pushed away from the table and crossed to the sink, turning her back on Simon. He was making too much sense for her peace of mind.
“Why would I lie to you?” Simon asked relentlessly, echoing the question she’d posed to herself once already.
“So you can strut around town again without looking like a jerk,” she retorted, aware that she was grasping at straws.
Why would Simon Gilmore care what anyone in tiny Belle, Montana, thought of him—including her? He could certainly snow his own parents without a practice run, and he had a whole other life in Seattle, Washington. None of his friends in the big city need ever know about his youthful indiscretion.
“You should know me better than that after all the time we spent together, Kit,” Simon chided her gently. “I’ve made my share of mistakes and I’ve always owned up to them. But I’m not hanging my head in shame over something I didn’t do. And I did not abandon Lucy or my son.”
“I thought I knew Lucy, too, but now I’m not so sure,” Kit admitted, failing to realize until too late that she had finally sided with him, at least in an indirect way.
“That’s not exactly a vote of total confidence, but hey, I’ll take what I can get,” Simon said, his gruff tone lightening perceptively. Then as Kit took Nathan’s bottle from the warmer, he added to the little boy, “Hey, buddy, how about I get you out of that high chair?”
Clutching the baby bottle in both hands, Kit spun around to face Simon again, just as he lifted Nathan into his arms. The child went to him willingly, looking up at him with wondering eyes. His
