Page 92 of Sin With Me

Chapter23

Cameron

“Jack?”she repeated. I saw the expression on her face shift from surprise to anger, and then all that red color faded from her skin. Her lips trembled and her knees weakened. I caught her in my arms as she was about to fall over. She wriggled out of my grip with disgust, pushing me away. That’s when it dawned on me why she’d said my father’s name with so much bitterness in her voice.

“Your father’s name is Jack?” she repeated and I reached for her. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again.”

“Kate, please…”

“You knew I was looking for Jack, and you didn’t say anything about your father?” Her face again darkened withrage.

“Do you know how many Jacks there are in the country? Why would I think that your mother had anything to do with my father?”

“I don’t know, Cam. Why did I trust a priest?”

I recoiled.

“Sounds like there are some more questions you can’t answer, Cam,” she spat out. Despite her anger, her spirit awakened something inside me. Kate had that feisty spark that had drawn me to her in the first place and made me want to grab her, throw her over my shoulder, and take her to the bedroom. Fuck, if it were just the two of us here, I’d take her in the same spot she was standing and I’d make her take her anger out in a differentway.

“Hold on a minute.” My father raised his arm to interrupt. “Hope, why were you looking for me? How is Anna? How is Xavier? Where are they?” He sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside him. Kate looked like she could tolerate him at the moment more than me, so I let itgo.

“How do you know my parents?” she asked.

Keen to know the answer myself, I stepped closer. She shot me a warning look before her attention shifted back to my father, so I kept my distance.

“Xavier was my best friend. I’ve known him since childhood. Your mother ran away from Pace when she was pregnant with you. I found her almost dead, and since Xavier used to be a doctor, I called him in. That’s how theymet.”

“She ran away from Benjamin Cortez. Father John told us that she burned a house down – butwhy?”

“Father John?” my mother asked. She exchanged a quick glance with my father, and I knew what they were thinking. They’d confirmed what I’d been thinking all along. They confirmed what Kate was probably afraid to talk about.

“Ahm, yes. Wait, if you knew my mother when she was pregnant… was…” she stopped, fidgeting. I saw her the vein at the side of her neck pulse quicken and followed its downward path to her cleavage. She caught my stare and I immediately felt like a jerk. Here she was, looking to me for assistance in asking the inevitable question, and I was thinking about licking down that vein all the way to her pink, ripened nipples.

“Who’s Kate’s biological father?” I finally asked.

“Stop calling her Kate. She’s Hope,” my mother scolded.

Kate glanced at me and for a moment I thought I saw sympathy in her eyes. Did she still like me calling herKate?

“John didn’t know your mother was pregnant. He covered Anna’s tracks when she fled. Anna was afraid Ben Cortez would take away her unborn baby because she burned down his house.”

Kate swallowed hard, and all I wanted to do was to take her in my arms and comforther.

“My father’s a priest,” she whispered, and my parents nodded. I was afraid that after this ordeal, Kate would have trouble trusting any priest.

After long enough pause to let the information sink in, my father continued. “She wanted to go back to tell John the truth, but she stayed with us instead. A series of events, including both your births, prevented her from traveling back to John. She sacrificed herself for our newborn son. She saved Cameron’slife.”

I thought back in time to when I was little and my parents always told me about Auntie Jo, who had saved my life when I was an infant by donating one of her kidneys. I’d never met her. I was only told me that it was impossible to meet her, and by the time I was old enough to understand my father’s line of business in bounty hunting, I also knew that some subjects were off the discussion table, Auntie Jo’s location being one ofthem.

“Is Kate’s mother my donor?” I asked. “You called her AuntieJo.”

My mother confirmed my question with a slight bob of her head. I’d heard the story a thousand times and still couldn’t believe it. “You were young. We couldn’t take the chance of anyone connecting us. It was safer thisway.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that I knew Kate as a child?” My eyes grew wide. Both my parents smiled.

“You shared your first cookie.”

I caught Kate’s quick glance and what I thought was a smile aswell.

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