Good Girl Gone Plaid(50)

The guilt on her mother’s face showed she’d known exactly what she was doing. What she’d risked.

“So, you’re Emily?” Kenzie asked brightly, as oblivious to the tension among the group as Emily was. “You must be Sarah’s daughter who I’ve heard so much about.”

“Yeah.” Emily nodded and pulled away from Sarah, but still gripped her hand. She stared up at Kenzie curiously.

“Well aren’t you pretty?” Kenzie grinned. “You’ve got that long pretty hair, just like your mom. And those green eyes… Wow, you almost could pass for a McLaughlin…” Her voice trailed off and her brows knit. “Wait. How old are you?”

“She’s ten,” Ian said flatly.

Kenzie’s gaze darted from Emily and then up to Ian, before finally back to Sarah.

“Sarah?” There was accusation in Kenzie’s tone. Disbelief.

The world spun around Sarah. Bile rose sharply in her stomach as panic clawed at every inch of her being. Instinct had her trying to step around Ian, to rush to the house with Emily, but he stepped in front of her.

His green eyes—the same eyes as Emily—shimmered with a thin layer of shock, but more than that there was such a fierce rage that had her trembling.

“Kenzie, do me a favor and take Emily and Ana down to the ice cream shop for a cone.” Ian’s words were remarkably calm. Soft even. “I need to have a chat with Sarah for a bit.”

Kenzie was quiet for a moment, still completely flummoxed. “I…ugh, yeah. I can do that. Do you like ice cream, Emily?”

“Do fish like water? Ugh, yeah, I do. Bring it on!” Emily tugged on Ana’s hand. “Come on, Grandma.”

Ana gave a slight nod and moved to take Emily’s hand again.

“Mom, are you sure you don’t want to come?” Emily asked.

More than anything. Actually, she wanted to grab her daughter and run like hell for the next ferry off the island.

She tried to speak past the lump in her throat. “You go and have fun. I’ll spend time with you soon, Em.”

“Okay.”

Sarah didn’t move. Likely couldn’t have, as she watched the three trudge back down the street toward the ice cream shop.

Ian didn’t say a word, but she could feel his stare. She nearly quaked under it.

“Ian—”

“Back to the house. We’re not going to do this here.”

He turned and strode back to the house, leaving her no choice but to follow.

Do this. She didn’t even want to imagine what do this entailed. She’d feared this moment. Had gone almost eleven years without having to face it, and had naively assumed it would never occur.

And then one trip back to the island unraveled everything.

She wondered if being left the house, and its stipulation, had been part of a bigger plan of Gran’s. That maybe it had very little to do with being left property, and everything to do with tying up loose ends between Sarah and Ian.

Gran, tell me this wasn’t your plan all along.

Ian opened the door and let her walk in first before closing it behind him.

She wasn’t sure what she expected. Not violence toward her. Not from Ian. But she didn’t doubt he wanted to throw his fist through a wall or something.

“Why?” It was just one question, so heavy with disbelief and pain. A hard shrug accompanied it as he stared down at her.

She wasn’t even sure how to answer. Struggled to find an acceptable one.

“You didn’t tell me about my own child,” he ground out. “She is my daughter, isn’t she? I will hear the truth from your lips.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Emily is your daughter.”

“Fuck.” His curse was a roar that resonated through the house, and she cringed instinctively.

There was silence for a moment, heavy and swelling, as he paced the room and shook his head.

“You were so damn calculating. You flat out told me she was almost eight the other day. ‘She’s eight, almost nine’. You said it so casually, as if you weren’t blatantly lying. You planned that, didn’t you? If I asked.”

“Yes.” She couldn’t deny it. That had been her plan for anyone on the island who asked.

It was why she didn’t post pictures of her daughter online. Why she didn’t even carry them in her wallet here. Emily had her frame, and she was on the smaller side. She could pass for eight, but those McLaughlin green eyes were a dead giveaway who her father was.

“Did you feel no guilt at all for withholding the fact that the child in front of me was mine? That for eleven years you’d never bothered to tell me you got pregnant?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”