Daniel slammed his fist again. Considering the rumors surrounding Thomas McAlister’s secret rendezvous, which were not nearly as secret as the man imagined, Daniel was surprised that a similar bundle had never been delivered on his father’s doorstep.
The high and mighty Thomas McAlister had dared to stand in his parlor that day, painting Daniel as the bad-boy, delivering his hypocritical speech, and then having the nerve to blame him for inflicting additional scandal upon the precious family name. As if disgrace number one—coming home as a stranger—was a dishonor he could have somehow controlled.
And, yes—the child could very well be his. The woman who had brought him food daily—leftovers destined for the garbage at the diner in which she had worked—often sat and talked with him. She was the first person he recalled seeing when he’d awoken after his gruelling escape from the army hospital. The doctors there had debated chopping his leg off above the knee, but he knew it wasn’t necessary—they had simply wanted to prescribe the easiest remedy because they desired to go home. The war was over, and pampering long-term patients would have kept them chained to the blood infested place longer than they wanted.
He’d run off in the night with his chart, and no one had come looking for him.
His rescuing angel appeared to have knowledge where healing herbs and remedies were concerned, and eventually, the dangerous black infection had eased off to a reddish-pink. The first few months, he had dropped in and out of consciousness, but when he had awoken, she was always there, tending to his injuries. When he was well enough, she moved him to an old shack on the edge of town that no one owned, for no one came around ordering him to leave the entire time he had called the dump his home.
He’d welcomed Shannon’s visits, never suspecting she’d known who he was all along. The stolen objects she’d left along with her son were proof of her deception. With the stolen locket, the family crest, and the picture, it must have been easy to track down his well-known, affluent family.
Regardless, without the stolen items in his possession, he’d been unable to attempt a search for his roots. And when it all became too much to bear, he’d surrendered and become dependent on the only familiar element in his life: Shannon.
At that point, he’d learned to be content with a leaky roof over his head. At times, the loneliness had suffocated him and brought on a death-wish, over which he’d managed to gain victory. With his depression at an all-time low, Shannon came to him that one night, wearing a fancy dress and smelling like a fresh strawberry patch, and Daniel had weakly succumbed to her womanly whiles.
Never once had he suspected trickery. Now, he reconsidered. Had she planned to trap him with a baby the entire time? No, for she hadn’t even stuck around for the benefits he would surely have offered to rectify the situation. He’d never knowingly dishonor a woman, at least, he hoped he wouldn’t. He recalled her timid approach when the Thomas McAlister showed up to bring his son home. Any con on the make must have flown out the window when the man had tossed her a few bills for her troubles and disappeared into the sunset with Daniel, killing any hope for any easy future—if deception had been intended from the onset. Yet, the thievery left him undecisive as to her motives.
His mind spun with unanswered questions.
Daniel doubted she could have known about the baby at that point as it was too early, yet, he’d seen the lioness in action when things did not go her way, for his caregiver could be as hard as nails one minute and soft and alluring as a kitten the next. She must have chalked up the whole experience as a useless, unprofitable endeavor once Thomas McAlister had departed from her small town, his head held low after discovering that she’d only rescued half of his son from the war. But that was before the baby.
He dropped into the chair and buried his face in the hollow of his folded arms. Tears threatened to fall, but he’d learned to push them away. They changed nothing, and in their shedding, revealed a weak, defeated man.
Where had he learned that twisted philosophy? Obviously, from a man who had never gone to war, more than likely, his father. Daniel’s emotions played somewhere in the depths of his soul behind the veils of well-preserved memories. When they spilled out, they came as angry frustration. That had become his lot in life. Even if he wanted to be a father, he’d ruin the youngster. Wealth and prestige did not make a man. The ones he honored lay in shallow graves or covered by weeds along river beds—even if he couldn’t put a name to their faces.
Daniel’s head shot up, startled at the memory, for he’d clearly seen the picture in his mind of soldiers lying in pools of blood, their twisted limbs tangled amidst others’. He groaned to think that his night terrors had visited the day, though it should have been counted as a victory, for he longed for the hidden years to come into the light of day. Yet the horror of it gave him cause to reconsider.
He thought of the child. He had the color of both he and his mother’s hair: light brown, like the hay fields growing around the shack outside of the small, backward town’s business section. Shannon used to hide among the tall crops and make him come find her. The game made his legs burn with
