Dad the penitent?” Strain and mortification were showing on Alana’s face. “I’m only surprised he doesn’t scourge himself.”
“I’ll undress him,” Guy said. “Or at least make him more comfortable. No problem. Go along now.”
Alana turned, but hesitated near the door. Her father blew out a harsh, spluttering moan, then seemed to come alive. He lifted one still powerful arm and began to wave it with a vigour that surprised her.
“She was in love with him, you know,” he said, in voice that was almost normal. “I’m telling the truth here. I made her pregnant. I made my beautiful Belle pregnant. Can’t say anything in my own defence. I did it. I did it. “ Alan Callaghan made a futile grab for the front of Guy’s shirt. “You’re a gentleman, aren’t yah? And your dad was a gentleman. I’m just a bog Irishman. Anything to say?”
Guy’s expression transfixed Alana. It had turned from compassionate to granite. Would this man who had always been so kind to her father now turn and condemn him for being a pitiful drunk? “You’re shocking your daughter, Alan,” Guy said quietly.
Alan Callaghan stared blearily past Guy, the full weight of what he had just said seeming to fall on him. “Are yah still here, darlin'?” he asked in dismay.
Alana didn’t answer. She stood frozen on the spot, more vulnerable than she had ever been in her life.
“Leave this to me, Alana,” Guy repeated, putting his tall rangy body between her and her father.
“What?” She stared at him dazedly. “You know what Dad’s saying. You know—don’t you, Guy. And my uncle knows. That’s why he hates us.”
“Doesn’t he just?” Alan Callaghan suddenly bellowed. “He’s never tried to conceal it. Idolised her, he did, his beautiful sister. Loved his dear friend David. But I didn’t care how I got her. I was mad for her. Just couldn’t back off. I always had a touch of the prize fighter in me.”
“You’re not putting up any fight now, Alan.” Guy’s dark eyes were blazing with light. “I see no sign of the fighter. Look at you. A big man—what? Fifty-five, fifty-six years of age?—collapsed in your bed like you’ve been defeated.”
Alana was seized by agitation. “Dad’s no coward, Guy!” she cried. “He has courage.” Or once he had had it, she thought mournfully. But now her father had lost all direction.
Guy bent his gaze on her. “Someone once said courage in a man is enduring in silence whatever heaven sends him.”
“What about what heaven takes away?” she retorted fierily. “Takes away so you can never get it back?”
Guy sighed deeply. “We all bear the weight of our losses, Alana. I miss my father every day. He was a fine upstanding man. The finest.”
At that, Alan Callaghan’s broken laugh exploded. “That he was!” he roared, and then, as though all played out he rolled away without another sound. Face to the wall.
It was the worst of all possible scenarios. Alana sat rigid, arms clasped around her, in the living room, waiting for Guy to come out of her father’s room—the cell of the condemned man.
What had her father done all those years ago? What tricks had he used to get the woman he had always looked at so adoringly? How had her mother agreed to marry him, have his baby, when she’d been meant for somebody else? Had loved somebody else? Or was there little truth in that either? What else could she hope to find out when her father was drunk?
Guy had known what had been hidden from her and Kieran all along. He had never breathed a word. Surely other people in the Valley knew of the old love triangle? Why had everyone, including her uncle, kept the old story so deeply hidden? And the stark way Guy had spoken! Should he have rubbed in her father’s defeat? Could she forgive or forget that? The real nightmare was that Guy himself might hate them underneath. How would she know? What really lay in the depths of his unfathomable dark eyes? And what of Guy’s mother, always civil, but maintaining her distance? Guy loved his mother. Sidonie would have known about an old love affair of her husband’s, surely? It hadn’t gone as far as an engagement, but it now appeared to have been serious. Maybe her mother and David Radcliffe had never patched up a violent quarrel? It happened. Maybe they had argued about the Irishman Alan Callaghan? Was the truth more shocking yet? Whatever it was, it haunted her father—maybe to the grave. It was his choice to walk a self-destructive path.
“He’s dead to the world,” Guy announced when he returned.
It couldn’t have sounded more grim. “Who? The coward?” she retorted, feeling the stinging heat of humiliation.
“I didn’t use that word, Alana,” he said almost wearily. “You did. But isn’t he, in a fashion?” Guy’s tone was extraordinarily bitter for him.
He sank onto the leather sofa opposite her, the teak chest that served as a coffee table between them.
“And I thought you were a compassionate man.” She stared at him with deeply wounded eyes.
“Compassion isn’t working, Alana,” he responded bluntly, finally convinced of the fact. “Your father has taken a tremendous blow in life, losing his beloved spouse. But so have others in the Valley—including my own mother. The world is full of people who have had massive blows to overcome. Your father calls himself a fighter? Well, as a fighter, he has hit the mat. Anyone can forgive him that. But he’s never tried to get up, Alana. That’s the thing. He has you and Kieran. He has Briar’s Ridge. He’s as good as lost it.”
Her voice shook with emotion. “You think I don’t know that?’
He leaned forward, focusing on her distressed face with its large expressive eyes. “You’ve put your heart and soul into the farm, Alana. Don’t you deserve some consideration? And Kieran has worked like a slave. Though Kieran will fall on his feet. Kieran has inherited the Denby gift.”
“No sign of any gift in me?” She flashed him a look that was more poignant than bitter. Did he despise her?
“Alana, you’re beautiful, and gifted in so many ways,” he said with a curious sadness. “What I hate is that so much weight has been put on your shoulders. You should be enjoying a better life, not spending your time fighting off ruin.”
The humiliation of it all rendered her abruptly furious. “I love my life, Guy!” she said, leaping to her feet. “The last thing I need from you is pity! I hate it! And never, never from you!” Easier that the entire world should pity her.
His response came fast. In a single explosive movement he was on her side of the table, towering over her, his own disturbed emotions in full view. “That’s how you see it? Pity?”
She stared up at him with a thudding heart, knowing that a challenging answer would change everything in one indelible second. Still she threw out the challenge. “What else is it?” She lifted her chin, trying to hold her nerve, yet knowing she was in some kind of jeopardy.
Black eyes that smouldered caught fire. “Well, here’s where we find out!”
She couldn’t look away The intensity of his expression chopped off her breath. She had set herself against him for years now, but he was about to prove
