Forgotten Father by Carol Rose Read Free Book Online

of swimming through a nightmare,
she took the suitcase to the bed and opened each drawer of the
bureau. Scooping her clothes out randomly, she dumped them into the
case.
    For the last six months, she’d lived here,
supervising the renovation in its last stages. She went to the
closet again and began to drag down her hanging clothes, ignoring
the roaring in her ears, the thundering in her head.
    Every movement sent the room shimmering before her
eyes and she hesitated, leaning with an outstretched arm against
the bed. Leaving was the only option. If she could get away, she
could silence the words drumming in her head, quiet the gash in her
heart.
    Fool! she berated herself as she scooped her
toiletries off the counter in the bathroom. When will you
learn?
    Zipping her crammed suitcase, she scooted it to the
floor and picked up her purse and her overnight case. Only a few
more minutes, a few more steps. Then she’d find a way to forget,
find a place in her head she could crawl into. She just had to get
away from the memory of his furious face.
    The memory of his kisses.
    Leaving the hotel room she’d called home, Delanie
spared an anguished thought for Donovan. He’d been a good friend to
her. More like a father, if that thought weren’t so grimly
ironic.
    But she couldn’t face him now. Couldn’t talk to
anyone. She’d leave, get back to her crowded, beloved apartment in
Boston. She’d go home and find a way to forget the gaping hole in
her heart.
    Then she’d call Donovan, tell him something. She
didn’t know what, but that would wait till another day. Till the
pounding in her head had eased and the pain in her chest
lifted.
    Making her way down the stairs, clinging to the
handrail as the steps swam before her eyes, she made it to the
ground floor and went out the side door.
    Her eyes hurting more in the light, despite the
clouds that had rolled in since she went inside, Delanie glanced
around. Unable to face a repeat of Mitchell’s accusations, she
dreaded running into him as she left.
    Around the back of the main hotel, off to the side,
were the parking lots. Her small red compact was there.
    She fumbled with the keys, ready to cry. If only she
had sunglasses, to hide her ravaged face. Another layer of
protection between she and the harsh world despite the darkening
sky. Anything would help. But she didn’t have any glasses.
    Heaving her cases into the truck, Delanie got into
her car, the warmth of the closed up vehicle swelling over her like
an oven despite the moderate season and the now overcast skies.
    She leaned her head back against the headrest,
fighting off the nausea that welled in her. Her head throbbed and
pounded, leaving her feeling even more disoriented.
    The heat in the car, the suddenness of it, left
another moment, a ragged, blurred memory, tugging at her fragile
composure. Another car, another time. Heat pounding against her.
Another heart-wrenching failure.
    Shoving the key into the ignition in a panic,
Delanie started the car and made herself focus on driving out of
the lot, away from The Cedars forever.
    Away from Mitchell, who she loved. Mitchell who
hated her.
    Tears blurring her vision, she just barely saw the
on-coming car, swerving at the last moment.

CHAPTER THREE
    The black-topped road stretched before her, a
winding ribbon beneath the shifting sky, blurry gray to her misty
vision.
    Delanie drove on, away from The Cedars, away from
Mitchell and his cold, cruel eyes, his harsh angry words. Away from
her own stupidity. How could she have not told him who she was? If
she had done that one thing, then he wouldn’t have felt tricked and
betrayed. Then they could have met on a different footing.
    Above her as she drove, the windswept clouds
blocked, then revealed the sun, a bewildering, roiling mix of light
and shadow. A scattering of raindrops cracked against the
windshield like bullets.
    Delanie flinched.
    If they’d met differently, she could have somehow
made him see that she