Kitabı oku: «Midnight Choices», sayfa 2
He’d changed. Ben didn’t know what had happened on this last mission, but it had damaged more than Duncan’s arm. “It must be close to freezing out there,” he said in the most reasonable tone he could muster.
“Believe it or not, the army doesn’t make us stay in at night when the weather’s bad. But we aren’t going to talk about my sins tonight. We’re going to talk about yours.” His pause was brief. “Her car is gone.”
Ben’s empty hand closed and opened again. This was going to be hard. “I offered Gwen a room here, if it’s any of your business. She preferred to stay at a hotel.”
Duncan just looked at him. He’d never been one to fill the air with words, and seldom used two when one would do, or one word when a nod or a glance was enough. Right now, though, his silence felt crammed with accusation.
Ben’s scowl returned. Damned if he was going to put up with any lectures—silent or otherwise—from his younger brother. “She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know the boy existed.”
“I know that,” Duncan snapped. “There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s yours?”
Duncan’s irritation reassured Ben. At least he hadn’t needed to be told that his older brother would never have ignored his son if he’d known the boy existed. He answered Duncan’s question by crossing to him and handing him the photograph.
Duncan’s eyes widened, then clouded with some emotion Ben couldn’t read. After a long moment he handed the photo back. “Poor kid. He looks so much like you it’s scary.”
“Yeah.” Ben couldn’t say anything else right away. He didn’t know what to do, what to think—his emotions were so full, so contradictory, he was afraid he’d start cursing. Or maybe bawl like a baby. He cleared his throat. “Not that I would have thought she was lying, even if he hadn’t turned out to look like me.”
“You knew her well, then?”
There was a subtle insult in the tone. Or maybe the insult lay only in Ben’s mind. “No. Not exactly. Hell.” He ran a hand over his hair. “It was pretty much a one-night stand, all right? We met, we hit it off, and… You remember that vacation Annie nagged me into taking a few years ago? Gwen and I met then. We spent a couple days together.” And one night.
“Then you walked away without realizing you’d fathered a child.”
“She could have told me.” Ben began to pace. “She should have told me. I’ve missed so much… He’s four. Four and a half years old.” His voice held wonder and loss and anger.
“So why didn’t she tell you?”
Ben felt all the weight of his own guilt in those softly spoken words. “That’s between her and me.”
“When I think of all those Friday-night lectures you used to hand me and Charlie about responsibility and safe sex…” Duncan’s mouth tightened. “Dammit, Ben. What the hell happened? How could you not know there was a chance you’d started a child in her?”
The disillusion in Duncan’s eyes was harder to face than his anger. Ben stopped by the big picture window. He’d forgotten to pull the drapes, and his own reflection stared back at him from the night-darkened glass—a big, dark man in worn jeans and an old flannel shirt. “I knew,” he admitted gruffly. “We used protection, but…” He couldn’t bring himself to go into detail, but the fact was, she’d put the condom on him. Only she hadn’t gotten it on right, and he hadn’t noticed until afterward, too intent on what he felt, what he wanted.
Just the sort of thing he used to warn Duncan and Charlie against.
He grimaced. “The odds of her getting pregnant were pretty small. When I didn’t hear from her, I assumed everything was okay.” He’d convinced himself of that. He hadn’t wanted to think about her. Or the way he’d ended things between them almost as soon as they began.
Duncan didn’t say anything. It was Ben’s own reflection that stared back at him accusingly from the dark glass. The image wasn’t clear enough to show the touch of gray that had appeared in his hair lately, but his mind supplied that. He was pushing forty, and he was alone. It wasn’t how he’d ever thought his life would work out.
But he had a son. He straightened his shoulders and turned to face Duncan. “She’s coming here with Zach in a couple weeks. They’ll stay here to give me a chance to get to know him, let him get to know me.”
“I can go back to the base.”
“Hell if you will! This is your house, too. Your home. And—” he grimaced “—maybe it will be easier if we have someone else in the house. She and I have a lot to work through.”
“A single night together doesn’t exactly constitute a relationship. There can’t be that much to work out.”
“I’m going to marry her.”
Duncan’s eyes went blank. After a moment he turned away, shrugging out of his jacket as he spoke. “She came here because she wants you to marry her? It seems…belated.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Irritation at his brother’s denseness eased some of the other feelings. “That isn’t why she came here, and I haven’t asked her yet.”
“But you think she’ll agree?”
“She’s the mother of my child.”
For the first time that night, there was a hint of humor in Duncan’s voice. “She might not see the two as being equivalent.”
“That’s why we’ll have a lot to work out.”
Duncan looked as if he might say something more, then shook his head and headed for the hall to hang up his jacket.
Ben was starting to feel better. They’d gotten through some of the worst of it. He remembered the drink he’d poured earlier and went to get it. The liquor tasted warm and mellow, but there was a bite beneath the smoothness. Tonight he needed that bite. When Duncan came back into the room, Ben swirled the amber liquid in his glass without looking up. “So, are you going back to the base, or are you going to stay here where you belong?”
“Do you need me to stay?”
Ben almost snapped out something about wanting and needing being different, but stopped himself in time. Duncan was the one who needed help, not him. But he was too stubborn for his own good. He’d hang around if he thought Ben needed him, though. “Yeah,” he said, though it wasn’t easy.
“All right. Ben…” Duncan seemed to struggle for words. “For God’s sake, think about this. You spent a couple days with her five years ago. You didn’t even recognize her.”
“She looks different now. Her hair was long then.”
“You didn’t know her,” Duncan repeated. “And now you want to marry her.”
“She’s got my son.”
Duncan turned away. “How old is she?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you even know?”
Ben searched his memory. “I think…probably close to thirty now. Maybe.”
“At least you didn’t rob the cradle,” Duncan muttered. He still wouldn’t look at Ben. “You have feelings for her, or do you just plan on using her to get custody of your son?”
It was strain Ben heard in his brother’s voice, not anger. He reined in his own temper as firmly as he could. “I don’t use women.”
Duncan turned slowly to face him. His eyes were winter-gray and unreadable. “If you didn’t want her enough to hang around five years ago, what kind of marriage can you have?”
“Things have changed. She didn’t need me then. She does now.”
“Because of the boy.”
“That’s part of it.” Ben took a deep breath, let it out and got the rest of it said. “Twenty months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Chapter 3
Andrews, Florida, three days later
Gwen tucked the letter neatly back in its envelope. She took a deep breath, striving for calm.
The moist air carried the taste of home into her lungs—Florida air, flavored with hibiscus and jasmine. Outside a mockingbird welcomed the evening. The orange-gold rays of sunset streamed at a familiar slant through the windows of the porch. An easy profusion of light filtered through the leaves of the big bay tree to dapple the wooden floor, the glass table where she sat and the long white envelope with the Colorado return address.
Ben had booked and paid for the flight for her and Zach. He’d sent a terse little note to let her know, sent it overnight mail. Dammit. She pushed to her feet and started pacing.
She’d agreed to come to Highpoint with Zach. She’d agreed to stay in Ben’s house so he and Zach could spend normal, everyday time together. But she hadn’t agreed to letting him pay for their airfare.
He’d done it anyway.
Well, he was a proud man. A proud, stubborn jackass of a man. She rubbed her temple. This probably wouldn’t be the only time they butted heads over money. Benjamin McClain had a real problem with the fact that she had more of it than he did. She’d known that.
She hadn’t known she was still so angry with him about it, though.
At the other end of the house, the front door slammed. “Mom! Mom! Guess what! Where are you, Mom?”
She stopped moving, a smile easing the tight muscles of her face. “In the Florida room, honey.”
Feet pattered, light and swift, down the uncarpeted hall toward the sun porch where Gwen waited. “We went to see the seals, Mom, and I fed one!” Three feet, one inch of towheaded tornado whirled into the room, legs pumping.
“You did?” She hunkered down and held out her arms. Her son hurled himself into them. “All by yourself?”
“Mostly.” Zachary was ever judicious in his assessment of truth. “I got to hold the fish myself, and the man held me. I told him he didn’t have to ’cause I’m four now, but he did, anyway. And their teeth are really big, Mom. Did you know that?”
“Big teeth, huh? Bigger than mine?” She made chomping noises and pretended to bite him. He giggled, and her arms tightened.
Oh, God. She wanted so much for him, so much….
“You’re squishing me, Mom.” He wriggled.
“Sorry, light-of-my-life. Tell me about the seals.”
“The man said they’re called seal-ions, not just seals. And they bark like dogs. Like this.” He demonstrated.
Her mother spoke from the French doors, her voice dry. “He did that all the way home.”
The muscles across Gwen’s shoulders tightened. “The condition of his clothes tells me he had a good time.”
“We both did.” Her mother gave Zach the soft, faintly surprised smile that only her grandson seemed able to elicit.
All her life, Gwen had heard how much she resembled her mother. It was true. Her nose lacked the symmetry of her mother’s, due to the time she’d fallen out of a tree when she was seven. Otherwise, looking at Deirdre Van Allen’s face was too much like peering into her own physical future—the same eyes, mouth, chin, even the same small ears tucked flat to their heads. The same wheat-pale hair and easily burned skin. Aside from age, there was only one obvious difference between the two women: their height. The fine bones and flat chest that made Gwen look like an undernourished child were transformed on Deirdre Van Allen’s taller frame into a model’s willowy elegance.
Sometimes Gwen had rebelled against the resemblance, sometimes she’d taken comfort from it. These days she mostly just hoped she’d be around to find out how accurate that genetic mirror turned out to be.
Two sticky hands seized her face and turned it toward a small, square face with dark eyes and a determined chin. “I want a dog.”
Her mind snapped back to the moment. “You do, huh?”
“I been telling you and telling you that.”
“Mmm-hmm. And what have I been telling you?”
His mouth drooped. “That I can’t have one till I’m older.”
“That’s right.” He looked so sad, with that pouty lip. And so stubborn, with those frowning eyebrows. And not like her at all. Her heart hitched in her chest. For a long time she’d managed to forget that Zach had come from two sets of genes, not one. She couldn’t do that anymore.
“But you never say how much older. I’m getting older all the time.”
“So you are. What did your grandma stuff you with, anyway?” She poked his T-shirt-clad tummy. “I see a purple spot, a red spot…”
He giggled. “That’s grape drink and ketchup.”
“And was that ketchup on something or did you take it straight?” She scooped him up and stood—and God, but it was good to be able to do that again, to rise easily with the warm weight of her son in her arms. The radiation had left her so weak, tired all the time.
All that was in the past. “I also see a bath in your very near future.”
He frowned, considering that. “With bubbles,” he informed her. “An’ my army guys.”
“Sure thing.” She glanced over her shoulder at her mother as she started for the French doors that led to the rest of the house. “There’s a pot of decaf in the kitchen, if you’d like a cup.”
“Wine sounds better right now.”
“You know where it is.”
Several minutes later she left Zach in a tub that was more bubbles than water, surrounded by battalions of “army guys.”
She would tell him about his father tonight. Oh, she’d had reason enough to wait until she’d seen Ben, spoken with him, but she’d returned from Highpoint two days ago. There was no excuse to delay any longer. Ben had made it clear he wanted a relationship with his son.
How would Zach feel about suddenly acquiring a father?
Her stomach clenched with nerves. She saw that her mother had poured her a glass of merlot and left it on the counter. She picked it up and took a sip, letting the rich taste of the wine linger on her tongue.
It was so important to handle this right. She’d tried to prepare herself for the questions Zach would ask, including the big one: why hadn’t she told him about his father before?
Unfortunately she still didn’t have a good answer for that one.
Sighing, she looked at the open doors to the Florida room. Might as well get this over with. Her mother wouldn’t leave without making one last push to change Gwen’s mind.
“Battles are being waged,” Gwen announced as she stepped into the sun porch. “Campaigns plotted, and bloody war declared. I think the green guys are going to win again, though.”
Dusk had replaced the warm colors of sunset. Her mother stood in silence and dimness, her back to the house, looking out at the shapes and shadows of the garden. Her back was as straight as ever, but the way she hugged her arms to her made her look oddly vulnerable.
“Mom? Is something wrong?”
Deirdre turned, her face pale in the dying light. “I saw the letter from him. You’re going through with this, aren’t you.”
Gwen grimaced and flipped the light on. “It wasn’t addressed to you.”
“I didn’t read it,” her mother snapped. “But I couldn’t help seeing the return address.” She waved at the glass table, where a glass of wine sat next to the envelope with McClain Construction in the upper left corner.
Gwen took a deep breath. Arguing with her mother wouldn’t help. It was probably inevitable, but it wouldn’t help. Her throat ached as she crossed to her mother. “Yes, I’m going through with it. Everything is arranged—we leave on the tenth and will stay with his father for two weeks. I’ll tell Zach tonight.”
“Oh, Gwen.” Deirdre closed her eyes tightly for a second. “I don’t understand this obsession of yours. For heaven’s sake, you had to hire a detective to track the man down!” She shuddered delicately. To Deirdre Van Allen, anything connected with a detective was implicitly sordid.
“That was partly my fault. I’ve told you that.”
“The way you make excuses for this man worries me.”
Was she doing that—making excuses? Wearily Gwen rubbed her temples, where a headache was starting. “This is about Zach, not me.”
“Is it? I don’t think so. With all that Zach’s been through in the past eighteen months, the last thing he needs is another major change to deal with.”
Gwen turned and headed for the kitchen. Deirdre followed. “We’ve been over this and over this. You know how I feel.”
“And this is about your feelings, isn’t it? Not mine. Not your son’s. You’re cherishing some sort of romantic pipe dreams about this man, a man who walked out on you without a backward glance.”
Gwen wanted to scream. She wanted to just stand there and yell as loud as she could, but that would be as cruel as it was childish. It would frighten her mother and Zach.
Her mother was already scared. Gwen understood that; fear lay behind the protests and opposition. So she carried both their glasses to the sink, emptied them and rinsed them and opened the dishwasher. “This man has a name, you know. And a son. He deserves to know his son.”
“And what does Zach deserve? To have his life turned upside down for the sake of some man you picked up in a bar?”
Gwen’s breath sucked in. The jolt of pain came as a surprise. It shouldn’t have, she thought, yanking a paper towel loose from the roll, then bending to grab the spray cleaner from under the sink. Her mother had never put it quite so bluntly before, but then, she wasn’t one to give up without using any and all weapons within her grasp.
There were always fingerprints to be cleaned from the refrigerator. She moved there quickly, sprayed and wiped.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Deirdre came up behind Gwen. “For heaven’s sake, Gwen, sit down. It’s difficult to hold a conversation when you’re bouncing all over the place.”
“I can’t think when I’m sitting still. You know that.”
“You’re not thinking now. What happened five years ago was an aberration on your part. But this man—”
“Ben,” Gwen said, angry. She turned to face her mother. “His name is Benjamin McClain. And it was an aberration for him, too.”
“No doubt that’s what he told you.” Deirdre’s lips thinned. “Be realistic. He’s a construction worker. Picking up women in bars is no doubt quite normal for him.”
She drew a deep breath, struggling to find a measure of calm. “No, Mother, he isn’t a construction worker. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he owns a construction company. Though he likes swinging a hammer when he gets a chance.”
“I suppose he told you that, too.”
“Yes, he did. And guess what? The detective confirmed it. And the letterhead you peeked at should be a clue, too.”
Most of the details of that long-ago night were smudged, like a charcoal drawing left out in the rain. But Gwen had been forced to salvage what she could of those neglected memories when she’d gone to the detective two months ago. She’d remembered Ben saying he preferred working on a site to shuffling papers. He’d looked like a man who enjoyed working with his hands, too—a big man with broad, callused hands, the kind of man a woman could depend on.
Appearances could be deceiving.
Deirdre’s gaze didn’t waver. “Is he married?”
“No. And he wasn’t married then, either.”
Her mother looked down, rubbing her forehead with a pianist’s long, slim fingers. When she spoke, her voice was unusually quiet. “I’m worried about you.”
Why did her mother always do this—pull back just before things went too far, say the one soft, right thing that crumpled Gwen’s defenses? Gwen hugged her arms around her middle and wished she knew whether the skill was intentional. “You raised me to do the right thing, even when it hurts. I know this is right.”
“Mo-om!” came a singsong cry from inside the house. “Come get me! I’m ready to get out!”
“Coming, sweetie,” she answered, relieved to have a reason to end the conversation.
“Let me get him ready for bed,” Deirdre said.
Gwen hesitated, wondering…but that was unfair. Her mother had never let their own difficult relationship spill over onto the little boy they both loved. “All right.”
“Gwen—” Deirdre surprised Gwen by laying a tentative hand on her arm “—you’re searching for something, I can tell. Ever since…well, you’ve had reason to question your life, your choices. But please don’t act hastily. Promise me you’re not going to sign away any of your rights to this man.”
Gwen met the green eyes so like her own and saw all the feelings Deirdre Van Allen would never put into words—fear, anger, frustration…and love. She didn’t doubt that her mother loved her.
“Mom.” She laid her hand over her mother’s. “I don’t know how things will work out. I’m trying not to make plans, not to expect things to go a certain way. But whatever happens, you can’t lose Zach, not really. You’ll always be his grandmother—his only grandmother, as it turns out. Ben’s parents are both dead.”
Though he had brothers. She’d met one of them—a dark, watchful man whose pale gray eyes seemed to be stuck in her memory like a burr.
Deirdre’s breath sighed out. She stepped away. “You mean well, I know. I’d better go get Zach out of the tub.” She left the room, moving with the angular grace Gwen had always envied—like an egret, Gwen thought, striding long-legged and slow through murky currents.
The currents had been murky enough tonight. Gwen rubbed her temple. They often were, between her mother and herself. It was amazing how two people who loved each other could misunderstand each other so thoroughly and so often. Though her mother had surprised her tonight, showing an insight Gwen hadn’t expected. She’d said she knew Gwen was searching…and it was true.
What woman raising a child alone wasn’t searching? Of course she wanted more. The comfort of a man’s body next to hers at night—yes, she wanted that. The passion, too, she admitted. But she wasn’t indulging in romantic pipe dreams. Maybe the thought had crossed her mind once or twice that something might develop between her and her son’s father. There had been a connection between them once—surely she hadn’t imagined that. And Ben had asked her if she was seeing anyone.
But she wasn’t pinning her hopes on a fairy-tale ending. Childhood dreams of happy-ever-after might be hard to give up, but she was too much of a pragmatist to mistake wishing for reality. And the reality was that Zach needed to know his father…just in case.
The surgeon had removed the lump along with part of her breast. It had been very small, very close to the surface of her skin. Radiation should have killed any lingering cancer cells. Statistically, her chances were good. But no one could say for sure. Cancer cells might be lurking somewhere in her body right now, malignant fugitives hiding in some organ, waiting for some unknown trigger to start them growing again.
Her mother was sixty-one. She loved Zach and would do her best for him if Gwen died, but when Zach was fifteen his grandmother would be over seventy. Gwen had no other close relatives. Oh, she had friends—one in particular whom she’d trust with her son. But the courts gave preference to close relatives. If Deirdre fought for custody of Zach, she might well win.
She wouldn’t win against Zach’s father.
Gwen glanced around the spotless kitchen. It was much too soon to make any decisions, but she’d put things in motion. Her mother knew that and hated it, and Gwen couldn’t blame her. But she had to think of Zach first.
There wasn’t a blasted thing left to clean, so she headed for her study, where work of another sort waited.
The law was a tidy goddess, and it suited Gwen. Not criminal law. There, the stakes were too high, and she knew herself too well. She could be seduced by the clarity of order and lose sight of the greater good the law was intended to serve—justice. Nor, in spite of her father’s pressure, had she been drawn to corporate law. He’d been bitterly disappointed when she told him she wouldn’t be working for Van Allen Produce, Inc.
Surprisingly her mother had supported her choice. Perhaps Deirdre understood how well real-estate law suited Gwen. It called for patience, thoroughness and attention to detail. Gwen loved the historical sweep of performing a title search, the feel of the law stretching backward in time, the digging through old records. She liked bringing her findings to the present by checking statutes on environmental protection, wildlife habitats, zoning requirements, native lands—all the written code, the regulations both federal and state, that a developer had to observe.
Since becoming a mother, she’d especially appreciated being able to do a large part of her work from home, plugged into various databases.
Gwen’s chair was already occupied by what looked like a shabby fur pillow. The pillow opened its eyes and blinked balefully at her. “You know what I’m going to do now, don’t you, Natasha?” Gwen said. Careful of old bones, she scooped the cat up and deposited her on the floor.
Natasha glared and stalked to the window, where she levitated onto the broad sill and began licking her ruffled fur back into place. Gwen smiled a little sadly. Natasha was old, cranky and set in her ways, no pet for a lively four-year-old boy. But the cat had been with Gwen for almost sixteen years, ever since she finished high school. She was one of the reasons Gwen hadn’t given in and gotten her son the puppy he craved.
Natasha wouldn’t appreciate being deserted for two weeks, but she’d be all right. Gwen’s mother might be deeply unhappy with her decision to go to Highpoint, but she’d never refuse to take care of the cat. She’d done it before. The two of them had an understanding. Natasha let Deirdre know what she wanted, and Deirdre gave it to her.
Gwen smiled as she settled in front of her monitor. The old cat was the one being other than Zach who pretty much always got what she wanted from Deirdre Van Allen.
Gwen turned on her computer. Distantly she could hear water splashing and Zach giggling. Natasha had turned herself into a purring lump again. The computer hummed.
But what she saw as she brought her fingers to the keyboard was the careful sterility of a doctor’s examining room. She remembered the chart opposite the examination table—why did doctors always put up those colorful drawings of people’s insides for their patients to brood over? The paper covering the exam table had crinkled every time she moved.
She’d shifted a lot.
Sitting at her desk with the cursor blinking imperatively at her, Gwen’s heart raced as it had that day. Her palms felt clammy.
Until the diagnosis, she hadn’t known fear. Not really. Now the two of them were intimate. Gwen inhaled slowly: I breathe in and my body is calmed; breathe out, and I smile.
According to the therapist who led her cancer support group, meditation kept you anchored in the moment, and anxiety was reduced or eliminated when you dealt only with the present moment. So far Gwen hadn’t had much success with it. Meditation required stillness, and that didn’t come naturally to her. She was working at it, though. Even the stodgiest western medical practitioners these days agreed that the mind affected the body.
After a moment, her heartbeat slowed.
Maybe I am getting better at it, she thought, pleased, and called up the land plat she was researching.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the day she’d been diagnosed with cancer that had come back to her so vividly just now, but the day of her last checkup. When Dr. Webster had told her everything looked good. That was the day she’d broken down and bawled like a baby, her nose running and sobs choking her.
It was also the day she’d known she had to make some changes in her life. The day she’d decided to find her son’s father.
Maybe it wasn’t so odd, after all, that she would remember that day.
Gwen took another slow breath and started to work.
