The Truth About Tara Read online

  “That’s not so terrible,” he said. “You wanted the camp experience for Danny. You did it for him.”

  “That’s another thing,” Carrie said. “You think I became a foster mother because I saw children in need. It was the other way ’round. After Tara went to college, I needed people around who needed me. Being alone plum terrified me.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself,” Gustavo said. “Whatever your motives, look at all the children you’ve helped. It’s no crime to need people in our lives.”

  She shook her head, her stomach twisting at the effort of holding back her deepest, darkest secret. “You’re not getting it. There’s something else, something I can’t tell you. Something I should never have done.”

  He took both her hands this time. “Try me.”

  Could she break the silence she’d kept all these years and confess her biggest transgression, especially because it involved Tara? Could she ever move forward with her life if she didn’t?

  He gently squeezed her hands, gazing at her with his remarkable green eyes. “I dare you to tell me.”

  She took a breath of the salty air, released it on the breeze and told him the terrible thing she’d done.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TARA WAS HUMMING ON Saturday morning, something she almost never did. Recognizing the tune, she wrapped her arms around herself and smiled.

  Earlier this week at camp she’d led the children in a rousing version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Right about now she felt like clapping her hands, stamping her feet and shouting aloud all at the same time.

  Spending last night with the sexiest man on the planet could do that to a girl. Okay, perhaps that was an exaggeration. She’d never been out of the United States and had barely left Virginia. Still, she couldn’t imagine a sexier man.

  She’d stopped resisting Jack after watching the interplay between him and Danny at the dock. The passionate way he’d defended the child had warmed her through and through. It had suddenly seemed silly to keep him at arm’s length because of Hayley Cooper, a little girl who in all probability had no connection to her whatsoever.

  So she’d given in to her heart and invited him home with her last night after her busy shift at O’Malley’s. This morning he’d rewarded her by awakening her in the most pleasurable way possible.

  Her body still tingled from the aftermath of making love to him. Deciding to believe she was Tara Greer unless proven otherwise had been a very wise move. It had been inevitable, too. Fighting her growing attraction to Jack was too hard.

  She dug around in her kitchen cabinets until she found a coffeemaker her mother had insisted she take when she’d bought a new one. Tara hadn’t really wanted it but now was glad she’d accepted it along with some packets of coffee. She didn’t drink the stuff, but Jack did.

  He stuck his head out of her bedroom. He was dressed only in his boxer shorts, his hair was a mess and he needed a shave. She thought he looked terrific. If he asked, she’d tumble back into bed with him in a second.

  “I’m gonna take a shower, if that’s all right,” he said.

  “Sure. I’m putting on coffee. Want me to make breakfast?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll grab one of those muffins I saw on your counter on the way out,” he said. “I need to get in some solid work on my shoulder.”

  “How’s the rehab going?” she asked.

  “It’s going,” he said. “A few more weeks and I’ll be ready to throw some pitches.”

  She thought of what Art Goodnight had said about Jack never pitching in the majors again. She should talk to him about that. However, now wasn’t the time to bring it up.

  “Any idea of what you’d like to do later?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet,” Tara said. “How about you?”

  “As long as we do something together, I’ll be happy.” He winked at her, then disappeared into the bedroom.

  She smiled to herself. She felt the same way. While she was putting a blueberry muffin on a plate and pouring herself a glass of milk, she heard the shower start to run.

  As good a time as any to check email.

  With the glass of milk cradled in one hand and the plate in the other, she padded across the room to the computer sitting atop the rolltop desk that had once been her mother’s. Maybe she’d ask Jack to help her strip off the original finish this weekend. The materials they’d bought at the hardware store were still in her garage.

  She sat down in the desk chair and arranged her food and drink to be easily reachable. She pressed the button that booted up the computer, bit into her muffin and waited while she chewed. She washed the bite of muffin down with a swig of milk and waited some more.

  She’d forgotten how long the old computer took to get up and running. She might as well double-check to make sure the desk drawers were completely empty in case she got around to refinishing the rolltop in the next few days.

  Her mother had done a fair job cleaning out the top two drawers, aside from a few loose paper clips. The bottom drawer, however, was half filled with assorted desk supplies. Tara went to the kitchen for a plastic grocery bag. When she returned to the desk, the icons on her computer screen had finally appeared. She positioned the mouse over her email icon and clicked. And waited. It’d be another few moments before her computer could access the internet.

  She started taking things out of the drawer and dumping them into the bag. Scissors. A stapler. Tape. A couple of tablets and some sheets of loose-leaf paper. The drawer was empty in no time except for something stuck to the bottom of it.

  It looked like the back of a photo.

  Very carefully Tara peeled the item loose. From the texture, she could tell she was right. It was a photo. She flipped it over.

  The face of the woman from her nightmares stared back at her. Her lips curved upward, but her eyes were cold. Tara heard herself gasp. Her hand flew to her mouth. Why did her mother have a photo of the awful woman?

  The woman wasn’t alone in the photo. She stood behind a small girl about three years old who could have been Tara. Brown bangs fell into the girl’s eyes similar to the bangs Hayley Cooper had sported in the website photo.

  What did it mean?

  It meant the woman was real.

  Tara tore her eyes from the woman staring back at her from the photo paper. Her gaze landed on her email inbox and a subject line that read “DNA results.”

  The email had been sent late yesterday from the company she’d paid extra for expedited results. All this time she’d been in bed with Jack, it had been waiting for her.

  Her heart hammering so hard she heard blood rushing in her ears, Tara reached for the mouse. Her index finger hovered over the button. Then she clicked.

  The text of the email appeared, the first sentence jumping out at her.

  Jane Doe is excluded as the biological mother of Tara Greer.

  Because Tara hadn’t provided a name to go along with the hair sample, in actuality Jane Doe was Carrie Greer.

  Who was not her mother.

  Not her mother. Not her mother. Not her mother.

  The surreal words echoed in Tara’s brain, making her entire life a lie.

  “Mmm. This looks good.” Jack was in the kitchen, opening the package with the blueberry muffins. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m gonna pass on the coffee.”

  She heard him talking, but the only words that computed were the ones she’d just read.

  “Tara?” Jack came toward her, a muffin in one hand. “Everything all right?”

  He got increasingly closer, almost near enough to see the computer screen. She quickly closed her email program.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, the words sounding like a lie even to her own ears.

  He cocked his head. “Are you sure?”

  Things had never been less okay in her life. Again she yearned to confide in him, but she couldn’t, not until she figured out what to do—maybe not ever. She’d been a fool to give in to how she felt ab
out him and dismiss the mounting evidence that she was Hayley, even if it was circumstantial.

  She forced herself to smile. “I’m sure.”

  “What’s that in your hand?” he asked.

  She’d forgotten she was holding the photo. She crumpled it into her fist. “It’s nothing. Just some trash from the desk.”

  He watched her with narrowed eyes, seeming about to say something else.

  “Don’t you need to get going?” she asked.

  “Yeah, right.” He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her mouth, then straightened. “See you later.”

  He was almost to the front door when he stopped and turned around. “I almost forgot to tell you. We’ve got plans for tonight, after all.”

  It took everything Tara had to focus on what he’d said. Plans. For tonight. “We do?” she asked.

  “Remember those calls I was getting last night that I let go to voice mail?” he asked.

  She dredged up the memory and nodded. He’d said the calls were from one of his sisters.

  “I just checked my messages,” he said. “My sister’s in Virginia Beach. She’ll be at my place late this afternoon. I thought the three of us could go to dinner together.”

  Tara gulped back her panic. She needed to ask the question, although she already knew the answer. “Which sister?”

  “Maria,” he said.

  The private investigator who’d been hired to find Hayley Cooper, the little girl Tara now knew she used to be.

  * * *

  JACK HAD THOUGHT OF ALMOST everything to make the first meeting between Tara and his sister go well. He’d made reservations at a classy restaurant by the water. He’d requested a table by the window with a view of the sunset. He’d gotten himself and Maria to the restaurant on time.

  The one thing he hadn’t done was insist on picking up Tara.

  “Are you sure you told her the right time?” Maria asked, twirling the stem of her wineglass. “She’s already fifteen minutes late.”

  “I’m sure.” He’d called Tara with the plans a few hours ago, although they’d talked only a minute before she had to ring off.

  “Did you check to see if she left you a message?” Maria asked.

  Jack hadn’t heard his cell phone go off, but he pulled it out of his pocket to double-check. “No messages.”

  Their waiter, a gentleman with slate-gray hair, gave another pass by their table. He was as elegant as the restaurant, a new place with a black-and-silver color scheme that took advantage of excellent views of the bay. It was nearly full, mostly with older customers who looked as if they were on vacation, the kind of people who had expendable income.

  “We’re still waiting for one more person,” Jack told the waiter. To Maria, he said, “Let’s give her five more minutes. If Tara’s not here by then, I’ll call her.”

  Maria had striking coloring. Pale skin, long black hair and blue eyes that were the definition of piercing.

  “You really want me to meet her.” It was a statement, not a question. “Why is that? You can’t have known her long.”

  “It doesn’t take long to know you like someone,” Jack said.

  “How much do you like her?” Maria asked. “Enough that you have things to talk about when you’re not in bed together?”

  Jack kneaded the spot between his eyes. “You’re not shy about asking me anything, are you?”

  “Why should I be?” she asked. “I’m your sister. I love you.”

  He might as well answer or she’d find another way to wheedle the information from him. “I enjoy Tara’s company, okay? Everybody does. She’s really plugged in to her community.”

  Maria broke eye contact with him so he no longer felt like an insect under a microscope. She leaned back in her chair, “Bully for you, then. Summer flings can be a lot of fun.”

  “Did I say it was a fling?’ he asked before he could stop himself. Who knew what Maria would make of that question?

  “You said she has roots here,” Maria said. “You can’t be thinking of staying much longer.”

  The text tone on his cell phone buzzed, saving him from answering. He wasn’t sure how he’d respond, anyway. He’d been living day by day, thinking only of working toward the goal of getting his arm healthy. He checked the display screen.

  “It’s from Tara,” he told Maria.

  He pressed a key and the text appeared. Sorry. Can’t make it tonight.

  “What’s wrong?” Maria asked.

  He realized he was frowning. “Tara won’t be joining us.”

  “Why not?’

  He didn’t have the foggiest idea. Her text had offered no explanation. “Something came up,” he said vaguely.

  “Then let’s get the waiter over here. I’m starving.” Maria said, raising a hand to signal him.

  She ordered seafood and ate with gusto when the food came, deflecting his attempts to get to the bottom of the reason for her visit.

  “Okay, enough,” he said after she’d eaten every bite of her meal and the waiter had brought her a piece of key lime pie. “I want to know what you’re really doing here.”

  “I told you,” Maria said. “I was in Virginia Beach running down a lead on a case.”

  “The Hayley Cooper case?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid that one won’t ever be solved. The trail’s too cold. This case was workmen’s compensation fraud.”

  He frowned. “Why did the client call you and not someone local?”

  “I went to college with the owner of the business,” she said. “I’m the only private eye he knows.”

  “You know other private eyes. Why not just refer your friend to someone else?” He groaned as the answer struck him. “It was because of me, wasn’t it? You wanted an excuse to come here and check up on me.”

  “Not entirely.” She put a forkful of pie into her mouth and closed her eyes in apparent bliss. She chewed before answering. “I also wanted an excuse to come to the beach for a few days.”

  “Then you admit you’re checking up on me?”

  “I prefer to think of it as providing moral support,” she said, waving a fork at him. “I know how tough these shoulder problems have been on you.”

  “I’m working through them,” he said. “Getting stronger every day.”

  “I meant mentally,” Maria said. “It can’t be easy to face up to the fact that you’ll never pitch in the majors again.”

  He felt his spine stiffen. “That’s an opinion, not a fact.”

  “Shared by everybody but you,” she said.

  He looked out at the water. Clouds obscured the sinking sun, ruining what should have been a great sunset.

  “I’m the only one who’s attached to my shoulder,” he pointed out. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Okay,” she said. “When are you coming back to Kentucky?”

  When my shoulder’s where I want it to be, he thought. When I’m ready to contact a major league club to say I’ve bucked the odds. When I can tear myself away from Tara.

  “I haven’t decided,” he said.

  “Because of that woman, Tara? Is she why you’re sticking around?” In typical Maria fashion, she didn’t give him time to answer. “How did you meet her, anyway?”

  “She’s the physical education teacher who looks like the age progression of Hayley Cooper,” he said.

  Maria snapped her thumb and the third finger of her right hand together before pointing at him.

  “Maybe she is Hayley,” she said, eyes dancing. “Maybe she didn’t want to meet me because she thought I might figure it out.”

  “Good try, but Tara isn’t Hayley Cooper,” Jack said. “I’m friends with Tara’s mother. Carrie’s such a good person that she’s the foster mother to a special-needs child.”

  “Oh, well,” Maria said, spearing another piece of pie. “You can’t blame a P.I. for trying.”

  He didn’t. Considering Tara hadn’t provided a reason for standing them up, Maria’s joking guess was
as good as any.

  * * *

  TARA KEPT HER HANDS A shoulder’s width apart on the paddle and stroked on the right side of the kayak Sunday morning, rotating her torso as she pulled the paddle alongside the boat. She snapped the blade out of the water and repeated the motion on the polyethylene boat’s left side, exactly as she’d been doing for the past two hours.

  Her arm muscles ached with the effort to keep the twelve-foot kayak moving at speed through the shallow water of the tidal creek, and her lungs strained. The conditions, light wind and virtually no tidal current, would have made for smooth and easy paddling if she hadn’t been traveling much faster than normal and passing every other kayaker she saw.

  Usually all it took to clear her mind was a leisurely look around at the scenery. Shorebirds resting on the marsh grass that stuck out of the water in tufts. Fish leaping from the water before disappearing again into the depths. Sun shining out of a crystalline blue sky.

  The stunning vista hadn’t worked today, less than twenty-four hours since she’d discovered her entire life was a lie.

  Today, when her brain felt as if it might explode, her goal was to become too tired to think.

  She’d spent yesterday in a daze, driving aimlessly for a few hours before hiking through a state park in the heat of the day, replaying scenes from her childhood, wondering how she hadn’t noticed any warning signs.

  When darkness fell she’d been no closer to figuring out anything, least of all how to handle the information that she’d been abducted from a shopping mall in Kentucky. She’d parked her car in the elementary school lot, kept off her porch light and switched off her phones.

  She didn’t want anyone to know she was home. Not the mother who wasn’t really her mother. And not Jack, who had expected her to show up at that restaurant to meet his sister, the private investigator who was searching for her.

  Jack, whom she’d stood up with a terse text message that bordered on rude.

  She groaned. Her plan wasn’t working. Vigorous kayaking wasn’t going to provide a respite from all that was wrong in her world.