Free Hidden Legacy by Sylvie Kurtz Page B

Rather than take the chance of being rejected, she’d turned her back on him, walked away, and she’d kept his child from him for all these years.
    Briana was missing. His first sight of his child might be as a corpse.
    Fire spread through his veins. His jaw ached from the force of grinding his teeth. His muscles quaked with the seismic force of his anger. He wanted to shake Juliana. He wanted to blister her with his rage. He wanted to whip her with his words until she explained why she’d been so stupid, so cruel.
    As if she sensed the depth of his fury, she recoiled from the window and disappeared.
    “Hey, you still there?” Harris asked.
    “Yeah, I’m here.” She could try to hide from him, but she wouldn’t leave. Not while her— their!— daughter was missing. He would get his answers—all of them. “What else do you have?”
    “That’s about it for Juliana Shales. Clean record. Clean finances. The rest of the names you gave me are a bunch of all-American white bread. Not so much as a speeding ticket on any of them, except one.”
    “Who?”
    “Albert Tilton.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 6

     
    Lucas found Juliana in the kitchen. She sat at the table, chair drawn tightly under her. Her elbows rested on the white-washed wood, her hands splayed flat on the table top, her gaze stared straight ahead. Striding forward, he had every intention of demanding answers, but couldn’t find his voice through the thick lump of anger.
    He leaned his fists on the table, pushed his weight onto them and skewered her with his gaze. Trying to sort through the maze of his emotions, his all-consuming need to understand came out as one word. “Briana.”
    The pulse at Juliana’s throat jangled irregularly. “What about her?”
    “She’s mine?”
    Juliana’s eyes were bleak, gray like clouds heavy with rain. She nodded.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” The question ripped from his throat.
    “I-I thought…” Her features contorted. She shook her head helplessly.
    “What, Juliana, what did you think? How dare you keep such a thing from me? How can you possibly justify your actions?”
    She lowered her gaze, laced her fingers together. “I thought it was the best thing to do—for all of us.”
    At that moment, he hated her with all the passion and fury he’d hated the man who’d shot his father for the five hundred and sixty-eight dollars in a teller’s drawer.
    He was out of control. He needed to calm down, cool down. With his temper at full throttle, he’d do or say something he’d regret, and lose whatever chance he had to get to know his child. But he couldn’t completely let go.
    “I want a picture of her.”
    Juliana nodded once, then scraped the chair back. He followed her stiff gait to the living room where she crouched beside a cedar chest. The cover creaked. From beneath a red, white, and blue quilt she extracted a resin frame decorated with sculpted alphabet blocks. She pressed the frame against her heart, then slowly rose, tears streaming down her face.
    She had kept his daughter from him. She had deliberately hidden her.
    “Juliana.” The plea for an explanation croaked from him, harsh and raw.
    She flinched. Her body braced against his fury.
    He grabbed the picture frame from her hand, then swerved and left.
    Once in the car, he sat with the frame upside down in his lap. Part of him couldn’t wait to look upon his daughter’s face; part of him feared the moment.
    He reached overhead and turned on the dome light. Blobs of red, blue and yellow stained the cream-colored resin along the back edge of the frame. He ran a finger along the bumps, then holding his breath, he turned the frame over.
    He took in the background first. Snow. A hill. Tracks in the snow. A purple sled. A turquoise jacket and snow pants. Pink hat. Pink mittens. A young girl’s smiling face.
    His breath came out in a tortured groan.
    She looked like his sister Nadya had when she’d been a bratty five—only Nadya had worn two