The Welcome Home Garden Club by Lori Wilde Read Free Book Online

said. “I’m a rip-the-Band-Aid-off kinda guy. Not a fan of the slow pull. End the torture with one clean, sharp yank.”
    “I know, but some news should be broken gently.”
    A sudden thought occurred to him and he gulped. “You’re not . . . are you . . . pregnant?”
    How could she be pregnant? They’d been very careful. She took the pill, he always wore condoms.
    She laughed. “No, Gideon, I’m not pregnant.”
    “What is it then?”
    “It’s about your father.” She paused. Wet her lips. Gentled her voice to a whisper. “I’m afraid he passed on to the other side.”
    It wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. He just sat there, not processing. “Passed onto the other side?”
    “A call for you came in from some lawyer named LaVon. He didn’t know how else to reach ya and hoped we could get the word out.”
    Gideon hauled in a deep breath. So it really was true.
    She lowered herself to her knees, her shoulders between his thighs, and met him face-to-face. Her eyes darkened with concern. “Gid? Are ya all right?”
    He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
    Moira wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her head on his chest, and squeezed him tightly. “I’m so, so sorry.”
    His throat burned and his muscles hardened to stone. Her words held no meaning. It was as if she was speaking in a foreign tongue he had not perfected.
    “I know it’s shockin’,” she cooed, walking her hands up to the back of his neck. She rested her forehead against his and gazed into his eyes. “I remember how awful it was when I heard my da had died. I fell to my knees sobbing. Ya don’t have to hold it in, Gid. I’m here. You’re safe.” She hugged him tighter. He could smell her familiar earthy scent.
    Gideon said nothing.
    “Did ya hear what I said?” she whispered after a long silence.
    “I heard you.”
    “He died of pancreatic cancer in the wee hours of the mornin’. His funeral is on Saturday. That’ll just give ya time to get back to the States.”
    J. Foster Goodnight, the man who sired him and tossed him aside, the man he’d resented his entire life, was dead, and yet Gideon felt . . . absolutely nothing .
    Gently, he untangled Moira’s arms from around his neck, slipped from her embrace, set her aside, got to his feet. “Thanks for telling me, but I’m not going to his funeral.”
    In the silence of the small hut, Moira’s sharp intake of breath echoed loudly. “Ya don’t mean that.”
    “I do.”
    “Trust me on this, no matter what your relationship with your da was, ya need closure.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I’ve never asked ya any questions about the past and I’ve respected those boundaries because I don’t want to speak of mine,” Moira said. “But would ya care to say what you’re feeling?”
    Empty. That’s all he felt. Empty and hollow. The old anger was gone. So was the regret. In its place, nothing. The nothingness of it made him feel not there. And that caused him to feel very far away from Moira and her sympathetic eyes.
    He reached his hand to the button of her shirt. “I’d rather just make love to you.”
    Moira wrapped her hand around his. “You tell me something about yourself and I’ll let you have a button.”
    Her skin was so soft, so warm. He’d been sleeping alone on the ground for many weeks. “You drive a hard bargain, Moira Simon.”
    “Your father?”
    “He never acknowledged he was my father. There’s no reason to mourn him.”
    She let him undo the top button. “That sounds like reason enough to me. Look at what he missed out on. Getting to know a wonderful man like you.”
    He ignored the compliment and went for the second button.
    “Ach, no. Secret first.”
    “My father was already married when he got my mother pregnant,” he said, not wanting to talk about any of this, but hungry to press his lips against Moira’s heated flesh. “She worked as a maid in his house. Give me another button.”
    She held her fist closed