The Second Time by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online

know what you can do with it!”
    Dawn spoke quickly when he started to swing away to leave. “That isn’t why I came back, Slater.”
    “Isn’t it?” His mouth was slanted in a cruelly mocking line.
    “There are a lot of reasons why I haven’t been back before now, but there is only one reason why I wanted to see you privately today,” she stated, a steadiness finally returning to her voice after the passionately disturbing kiss. “When I told you that I hoped you wouldn’t be so bitter after this much time, it was the truth. Not because I wanted to pick up where we left off. I don’t expect us to be lovers. I doubt if we can even be friends.”
    “I’m glad you see that so clearly, because you destroyed any future for us eleven years ago,” he returned grimly. “Don’t forget to shut the door when you leave.”
    “Wait.” Her voice checked the stride he hadtaken toward the door. Impatience vibrated in his glance as Slater half-turned. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
    “I can’t think of anything you have to tell me that I would be interested to hear,” he stated flatly, and started again for the door.
    “Not even about your son?” Dawn asked and watched him freeze, then slowly turn to face her.
    His probing gaze was hard with anger. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded with an openly skeptical expression.
    “I’m talking about Randy—my son.
Our
son.” Her voice remained level, containing a degree of false calm under his narrowing gaze. “You are his father.”
    The silence lengthened into interminable seconds without his expression changing from its hard and doubting contempt. “You haven’t changed a bit.” His low pronouncement reached out to strike her down. “You’ll use any trick in the book to get what you want. Even to the extent of trying to tie me to you by pretending I fathered your son.” He shook his head, suddenly becoming totally indifferent. “It won’t work”
    “Randy is your son,” Dawn insisted, but Slater was already striding to the door. She started after him. “If you’d just let me explain—”
    The door was pulled shut behind his retreating figure, ending her sentence before it was finished. Dawn stopped and stared at the door, stunned by his reaction to the news. She had prepared herself mentally for bitterness, anger, and outrage—even doubt—but she hadn’t expected Slater to dismissit as an impossibility and refuse to listen to what she had to say.
    A despairing depression settled heavily onto her shoulders. Dawn turned, her gaze running sightlessly around the empty room. Dust particles danced in the sunlight streaming through a window. What proof could she show Slater that he would believe? If he refused to hear her out, what could she do?
    Outside, a car engine growled to life and accelerated, its transmission being shifted into reverse gear. There was something final about the fading sound of Slater’s driving away. Unsure what her next move would be, Dawn walked to the door through which Slater had so recently exited the house. The self-locking latch clicked as she closed it and crossed the veranda.
    Her thoughts were as crowded and tangled as the lush, green foliage pressing in on all sides. No solution worked its way through her troubled confusion to show her a clear path. Dawn followed the weed-riddled sidewalk to the driveway and her parked car.
    Reeta Canady heard the car turn into the driveway and was out the back door before Dawn could slide from behind the wheel. She knew her daughter’s decision to live permanently in Key West was riding on the outcome of this meeting with Slater MacBride. And she was anxious to know the result, wanting her daughter and grandchild to stay and crossing her fingers that it would come to pass.
    “What happened?” Her searching gaze made a hurried inspection of her daughter’s troubled countenance as she tried to guess what it meant.
    “Where’s Randy?” Dawn asked, glancing