Читать книгу My Baby, Your Son - Anne Peters - Страница 9

Capstan, WA. One week later…

April hadn’t meant to stop at the school. She was on her way to Cliff House, which was to be her home for the next several months, at least. But driving by the school yard she’d noticed the Little League baseball game in progress and something had urged her to pull over and watch.

Nostalgia? Yes, but something else, too. Something less definable but more compelling. Something that had her threading her fingers through the chain-link fence and straining to see.

Just to the left of her, a scattering of spectating friends and family dotted the bleachers behind the backstop. Shouts of encouragement and advice for the batter blended with the twhack of the ball connecting with the catcher’s mitt and the umpire’s gravel-voiced call. “Steeerike!”

It was all so familiar, so very much like those other ball games during those other summers a decade and more ago, that April half expected to see her brother Mark in the dugout and Jared O’Neal winding up for the pitch. Why, even the blue-and-white uniforms of the Capstan Gulls hadn’t changed.

“Strike two!”

As jeers and cheers from the bleachers followed the um- pire’s cry, April stared transfixed at the young Capstan pitcher going through his spiel. Posturing and posing, look- ing this way and that before tucking his knee against his chest, he wound up for the next killer pitch. Watching, April experienced a sense of déjà vu so acute, she blinked to dispel the illusion that it was young Jared up there on the mound. The way the boy stood, moved, the way he tugged on the bill of his cap and cocked his head just that little bit…

Oh, God. Realization struck like a slap, making her body actually jerk away from the fence before her knees turned to mush and her fingers clung more tightly to the cutting cold wire for support. It was him, she thought wildly. It was Tyler. Her son. And Jared’s.

As if to confirm it, a raucous shout drew her attention to the left and she saw Jared O’Neal surge to his feet on the bleacher at the far side of the backstop. Cupping his mouth, he yelled something else to the boy, something April was too unnerved to try to decipher. Riveted, she watched him bend to the smiling woman next to him who had remained seated. He made some kind of comment and the woman nodded, smiling agreement.

Jared O’Neal. Betrayer of her love. Co-conspirator in the theft of her child. Still, seeing him unexpectedly like this, tanned and virile in frayed cutoffs and faded T-shirt with a Seattle Mariners’ cap covering most of his dark, wavy hair, April’s heart twisted painfully in her chest. He was grinning that crooked little grin that tugged one corner of his mouth up and the other down.

That grin, that she noticed with another painful tug on the heartstrings, was matched by an identical one from the boy on the field. Their son. Her baby…

The image blurred. April closed her eyes and willed back the tears. Pouring over Marje Bingham’s diary these past few days, she had done more crying than she’d known she had tears for.

The enormity of the crime that had been committed against her—for there could be no other way to describe it—had all but annihilated her emotionally. She had yet to deal with the ramifications, had yet to confront her mother and demand…what? To have the clock turned back? And herself made whole again?

It was the knowledge that it was too late, that something precious was irretrievably lost, that had had her crying all those tears until she was sick. But in the course of that grief she had come to realize that, for now, concerns of the pres- ent and the future—namely, getting her son back into her life—had to take precedence over those grievances of the past.

She had confided in no one but her attorney the real reason she would be staying at Cliff House. Let Grace think it was merely for the purpose of the good long rest Dr. Shimon had prescribed. Not even Marcus knew, for he would have felt compelled to come and take charge. And she was done with that, done with depending on anyone but herself. Done being a pawn of those who, for all their protests that they meant well and knew what was best for her, had run her life for far too long. Her mother. Her pub- lic. Her handlers. Her muse.

The time had come to take charge.

But, oh…April pressed her forehead to the backs of her hands still clutching the fence and let out a shivery breath. Here and now, confronted by the man and the boy in the flesh, she was forced to acknowledge that taking charge was not going to be as uncomplicated and straightforward as she had imagined.

For one thing, she hadn’t counted on the twist of pain and, worse, that tug of attraction she felt at her first sight of Jared O’Neal after nearly ten years. With everything that stood between them, all the hurt and the betrayal, she had convinced herself she hated him. Or, at the least, felt in- difference. Why, before reading the diary, she had barely even thought of him in years. Yet now….

Now she knew that they had a son. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Tyler. Eagerly, hungrily, April’s eyes sought him out once again. He was standing next to another boy who was stockier, shorter. He was off the field. Her heart swelled at the beauty of him. Her child. She caressed him with her gaze. How fine he looked. How perfect.

As perfect as his father had seemed to her once upon a time. And yet, not really so much like Jared at all. Except perhaps in his mannerisms, his posture and his…attitude.

April smiled to herself with a surge of something she thrilled to realize was maternal pride. That boy had attitude, all right. Out there on that playing field he was cocksure and all male, just like his father had been as a boy.

How incredible to think that this fine boy was something she and Jared had created. Together. And how much stranger still to have shared the ultimate intimacy with a man and to now realize that she had never really known him at all.

Disturbed by her curious thoughts and feelings, April redirected her attention to Jared once again. She saw that he was still on his feet, conversing now with a man on his right who looked familiar. Another face from the past— Conan O’Neal, Jared’s older brother. Jared was using his hands to make a point and April remembered that this had always been his way. She was struck by how large he seemed. Had he always been this tall? This…imposing?

Surely not. Though he’d always been athletic and well- muscled, maturity had filled him out. Life and the elements had carved lines into a face that was still handsome. More handsome than it used to be, if she were honest. Sunglasses shaded his eyes.

Wishing she were wearing hers, too, April knew the ex- act moment he became aware of her scrutiny. He stopped talking and abruptly swung his head in her direction. They stared at each other for what seemed to April like forever but was probably no more than a second or two.

April’s fingers grew numb, so tightly were they clutching the fence. Her heart beat so hard, she shook. Her breath became trapped in her chest as she watched an expression of outraged disbelief replace the shock of recognition on Jared’s face before, with a jerk, he turned away.

April stayed frozen for another heartbeat or two. And then, with an involuntary gasp of dismay, she spun away and blindly strode back to her car.

Jared O’Neal felt blood roaring in his ears, hazing his eyes. He couldn’t recall ever having been this shaken. April Bingham? Here?

Unwilling to accept what his eyes had seen, he gave his head a hard shake. And then he spun around to look for her once more. She was gone. If she had even been there in the first place.

“You all right?”

“Huh?” Jared blinked at his brother as if he’d forgotten the other man was there.

“You act like you’ve seen a ghost,” Conan said, follow- ing suit when Jared rather abruptly sat down.

“Maybe I did.” Propping his elbows on his knees, Jared blew into his nested fists as he struggled to put a lid on emotions that roiled and bubbled like lava in a volcano, ready to erupt. Get a grip, man, his mind cautioned, as fear and anger and—God help him—a lingering surge of heat threatened to completely unravel him. It couldn’t have been her. And even if it was, didn’t you always know she’d show up here one of these days? It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t know anything….

“Jared?”

“Yeah.” Jared slanted his brother a glance. He managed a semblance of a grin. “I’m probably crazy, but I thought I saw—Nah.”

He shook his head. He wouldn’t say it, wouldn’t even breathe her name. He took a deep breath, slapped his hands on his knees and sat upright. “Forget it. The heat must be getting to me or something.”

He turned to Addie Mansfield, sitting on his left. “Got any more sodas in that cooler of yours?”

“Sure.”

Inwardly wincing at her eager rush to dig out a can of pop and hand it to him, Jared forced another quick smile. “Thanks, Ad.”

Watching her hand another cold can to his brother, he almost wished he could fall in love with her. Addie was a good woman, a good mother to her boy, and with that mane of flaxen hair framing her wholesome girl-next-door face she wasn’t too hard on the eyes, either. In fact, she looked a whole lot like Regina.

And nothing at all like…April Bingham.

Suddenly the cola tasted like bile. He set it down on the floor boards so hard, it sloshed all over his runners. “Damn,” he muttered fiercely.

Only to hear his brother say, “Kid’s a pitcher, not a hitter.”

“What?” Jared stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Tyler.” Conan gestured impatiently toward the game. “So he struck out. That’s no reason for you to sit here cussing.”

“Oh, for—” Thoroughly exasperated, with himself most of all, Jared choked back the rest of the expletive and forced himself to watch the game. Or, at least, to look as if he were watching it. They were in the ninth inning. The Gulls were at bat. Tyler was back in the dugout…

And what the hell would April Bingham be doing back in town?

The question intruded on his honest desire to concentrate on the game because, when it came right down to it, Jared knew he hadn’t seen a ghost. It had been April, all right, over there by the fence. Ten years hadn’t really changed her much. She still wore that hair of hers—shades of ash streaked with gold—falling in waves from a middle part to halfway down her back.

And anyway, over the years he’d caught her on TV a few times. Concert specials with the likes of Pavarotti and other opera greats. The kind that took place in cities like London and Paris and Rome.

So what in blue blazes would the kind of star she had become want in a backwater like Capstan? To take stock of her recent inheritance? Behind the dark shades, Jared squeezed his eyes shut. Grinding his back teeth, he thought, Fat chance. The woman’s presence spelled trouble, pure and simple. He could feel it in his gut.

The feeling stayed with him through sundaes and banana splits with the team at the Dairy Queen. And it lingered during the subsequent drive home with his nine-sometimes- going-on-thirty-year-old son who seemed to have a weighty problem of his own to deal with, if his fidgeting was any- thing to go by.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?” Taking his eyes off the road a moment, and dragging his dark thoughts away from the subject of April Bingham, Jared sliced an inquiring glance toward his son.

“Tommy’s mom is real nice, isn’t she?”

“Real nice,” Jared concurred, wondering what was up. He didn’t have long to wait to find out.

“Any chance you’d wanna marry her?”

“Addie?” What the hell? Jared tossed his son another look. This one from beneath raised eyebrows. “Any, er, special reason you feel that I should?”

“Well…” Tyler, sprawled in a position only someone of his young years could assume, squinted into the sun. “Tommy’n me’ve been talkin’…”

“S’that so?”

“Mom’s been dead almost a year…”

“That’s true.” If only thoughts about Regina’s fatal car accident still haunted every waking hour of his days.

“An’ Tommy says his mom really likes you.”

“I like her, too.” Jared kept his eyes on the road and his face straight. The conversation and his son’s unsubtle efforts at matchmaking might seem amusing to him, but this was obviously something very close to Tyler’s heart. The question was how to make it clear to the boy— gently—that as far as he was concerned, he and Addie Mansfield were just good friends. Being single parents— and not by choice in either of their cases—they had a lot to talk about, a lot of notes to compare. And he really did like her.

But who knew better than he that, in the long run—or even in the short—friendship and affection were poor sub- stitutes for what his younger brother Sean called the “Big L”?

“It’d be kinda neat, havin’ a brother,” Tyler said wist- fully.

“I can see how you’d feel that way.” Being the middle child of a mixed bunch of six, Jared certainly could sym- pathize. “Having brothers and sisters is a lot o’ fun. Most of the time. On the other hand—”

“Tommy’d really like a brother, too,” Tyler interrupted Jared’s attempt at rationalization through platitudes. “An’ he says his dad wouldn’t mind if you married his mom on account of he divorced her to go farmin’.”

“Farming?” Jared frowned. Last he’d heard, Thomas Mansfield, Sr., was a traveling salesman out of Seattle. “You sure?”

“Yup.” Tyler’s nod was emphatic. “Miz Mansfield even said. She said, ‘That man’s always lookin’ for greener pas- tures.’”

“Oh. I see…” Jared cleared his throat. He briefly de- bated setting Tyler straight on those “greener pastures,” but decided to leave well enough alone. “You guys sure’ve been talking, haven’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Trouble is—” Jared cleared his throat once again “—people don’t just up and marry somebody just because their kids think it would be a good idea. I mean, I like Tommy’s mom a whole lot, but—”

“Tommy says she really likes you, too.”

Jared acknowledged the interjection with a smile and a nod, but continued to make his point as though Tyler hadn’t interrupted. “Like I said, it takes a heck of a lot more than liking each other for two people to get married.”

“Oh,” Tyler said dejectedly. “You mean like you gotta be in love, right?”

“That’s right.” Jared affectionately rubbed his son’s bristly short fair hair. “How’d you get so smart, anyway?”

But Tyler wasn’t to be diverted. He ducked away from his father’s hand, angling around in the seat and facing Jared with arms folded across his chest and his chin stuck out. “I know that Mom wasn’t my real mom.”

“So?” Puzzled as to where this unexpected turn of the conversation was leading, and unaccountably wary, too, Jared sent his son a frowning glance. “That’s never been a secret in our family, so what’s your point?”

Tyler returned the frown in spades. “I heard Grammy and Auntie Colleen talkin’ in the kitchen a while ago and Grammy said how sad it was that you weren’t ever really in love with Mom. So how come now you say people oughta be?”

“What?” The shock of what he’d just heard from his son made Jared almost put the truck into the ditch. What in the hell had his mother been thinking of, making a state- ment like that? Even though it was true, he damned well didn’t appreciate having his private life bandied about by a couple of gossip hens like his mother and sister. Within earshot of his son, yet.

Struggling to control the swerving pickup, he eased it to a stop on the shoulder. He rammed the gear into Park, draped an arm across the steering wheel and turned to his son. “Now listen, Tyler…”

“No, Dad,” Tyler shocked him by obstinately interrupt- ing. “I wanna know why can’t you just be with Miz Mans- field like you were with Mom?”

“Because it’s not that simple.” And one marriage with- out passion is enough in any man’s lifetime.

Engaging in a weighty exchange of glances with his tru- culent offspring, Jared wondered how he could ever have imagined he’d be able to raise this boy to manhood without ending up in a corker of a discussion like this at one time or another.

But…damn it. Jared wiped a hand across his mouth, then kept it there as he continued to contemplate his son and thought of how he never would have dreamed of tackling one or the other of his parents on issues like love, or sex, or any of the other off-the-cuff debates he suspected he and Tyler would engage in over the years.

Jared supposed it was because there’d been no need somehow when he was growing up. Things were as they were, as they always had been. Mom was Mom. Dad was Dad. Both of them had always been solid as the earth, and had been expected to be. Period.

Tyler’s young life on the other hand, for all Jared had done his damnedest to maintain a stable environment, had lately been a series of uncertainties and change. Inevitably, they had shaped the boy’s perceptions, made him wary. And while he, Jared, would do his utmost to shield him from further upheaval….

“Were you in love with my real mom, Dad?”

“Huh?” Involved in his own dark ruminations, Tyler’s softly voiced question completely blindsided Jared. He was still fumbling to regain his emotional equilibrium and for- mulate a response when Tyler’s next words knocked the pins out from under him again.

“I got a picture of her.”

Though Tyler whispered the words, had he yelled them at the top of his lungs, Jared could not have heard them more clearly. Nor been more staggered.

“Of my real mother, I mean,” Tyler added. “Mom gave it to me before she died. An’ she told me it’d be okay if I looked at it. An’ I do now, sometimes.”

Big and somber, Tyler’s brown eyes—so like April’s, Jared grudgingly conceded—met his own thoughtfully nar- rowed ones. “She’s real pretty.”

“Yes, she is.” What had Regina been thinking of, giving Tyler that photo? Which photo? Jared couldn’t remember keeping one around for her to find, never mind pass on to his son. “What kind of picture is it?”

“A real nice one. From outa a magazine.”

“Oh.” Jared was perplexed. Regina had obviously clipped the picture—she had known about April, of course. But what he couldn’t figure out was why she would have wanted Tyler to have it. For all intents and purposes she had always been Tyler’s mother.

“She’s never coming back here, is she?” Tyler said.

“Who, Mom?” Jared’s mind was still on Regina. “Re- member we talked about that. I thought you understood—”

“No,” Tyler interrupted with querulous impatience. “I don’t mean that. I mean the other one, the real one. The one in the picture….”

“Oh.” Jared heaved a sigh, thinking, That one is out here now, but you’ll never see her if I can help it.

“Well, son, it’s like this.” He stalled, furiously wracking his brain for an answer that resembled the truth but wouldn’t devastate his son. “And maybe Mom already told you—”

“That she’s famous,” Tyler interrupted glumly. “Yeah, I know.” His motions listless, he plucked at a loose thread on his shirt. His voice, usually so full of swagger and chal- lenge, grew small enough to break his father’s heart “Didn’t she wanna be my mom, Dad?”

“Yes, of course, she did.” Damn April Bingham to hell for causing all this grief. “It’s just that, well, she plays the piano way better than most anybody else and so people all over the world want to hear her play and that takes up all of her time. See, that’s what being famous is.”

“Is it better’n being a mom, Dad. Do you think?”

“No.” Almost violently, Jared reached across the seat and hauled the boy into his arms. “No way,” he said fiercely, willing conviction into his voice even as he damned the woman who had chosen fame over mother- hood.

And who’d better not have come back here to try to make up for lost time.

“Never,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep from giv- ing voice to the wave of protective tenderness and love that flooded him because he knew it would embarrass this tough little guy. But he hugged him hard. After all, in spite of his sometime swaggering ways, Tyler was just a grieving little boy who, less than a year ago, had lost the only mother he had ever known. And his grandfather, too.

“Being a mom or a dad is the very best thing in the world to be,” Jared declared in a voice rough with emotion. “And don’t you let anybody tell you different. You hear?”

“Okay.” The word was little more than a soggy snuffle.

Jared rubbed his chin on his son’s cropped head. “And about Tommy’s mom…” he murmured. “She’s a great friend and that’s exactly the way I’d like to keep things. Besides…” He tightened his embrace around the wiry little body, relishing the closeness while poignantly aware that soon adolescent pride wouldn’t allow him to hold his son like this anymore. “Aren’t we okay, you’n me and Grammy? Huh? Don’t we have lots of good times, the three of us?”

“I g-guess so.”

“Damn straight,” Jared enthused in a voice that even to him sounded just a shade too hearty. “And things can only get better.”

Two days later Jared wanted to eat those words. He and Tyler had spent one of those days—Sunday—in Portland visiting Regina’s mother as well as seeing to a few things at their house, which as yet was unsold. Which was no wonder since Jared had not yet been able to bring himself to put it on the market. In fact, everything in it had been left exactly as it was when he, Regina and Tyler had made their home there.

Walking through it, watching Tyler rejoice in rediscov- ering this or that treasured toy, Jared fleetingly debated if the most effective way to avoid April Bingham might not be to move back there. But he just as quickly nixed the notion for two reasons. One, the house was like a monu- ment to the bittersweet sterility of his marriage to Regina. And two, it had never been his way to run from a problem.

Or at least, it was not anymore—courtesy of the painful lesson he had learned ten years ago.

His busy Monday had been punctuated by bouts of anx- iety. In fact, it got to the point where he’d been on the verge of dropping everything and tearing over to Cliff House to demand…what? That April Bingham explain her reasons for coming to her own house?

Ridiculous. You’re getting paranoid, Jared, m’boy. Lu- dicrous, to be obsessing over a problem that, for all he knew, existed only in his mind! The woman had a house here. She was on vacation.

And still he didn’t believe it.

So now it was Tuesday, and somewhere in the course of his morning rounds to the neighboring farms he had man- aged to convince himself that April would have contacted him by now if she was going to. In this somewhat improved state of mind, he stopped at the post office, which was actually no more than a large cubicle partitioned off from Mulrooney’s Supermarket.

He was collecting his mail, or trying to. Jean Ivers, Cap- stan’s aged postmistress and gossip queen, was making it difficult Little got by old Jean, who had made it her business to eyeball every piece of mail, coming or going, for as long as Jared could remember.

“Your Popular Mechanics came today,” she was saying as she handed Jared the magazine. “And you might want to take a look at this here big white envelope right off.”

“It’s from a lawyer,” she added after an expectant pause during which Jared said nothing as he turned the envelope over. “Out of New York City.”

“So I see.” Jared pocketed the letter, ignoring Jean’s visible disappointment with a flash of amusement that was quickly replaced by a rekindled feeling of unease. What the hell could a New York City lawyer want from a small-fry country veterinarian like himself?

Whatever it was, Jared’s gut told him he wasn’t going to like it.

He was not about to share his apprehensions with Jean Ivers, however. “How’s old Mouser handling that thyroid medication I prescribed?” he asked, directing a pointed glance at the huge tabby snoozing on a shelf by the back wall. “Any side effects?”

“None I can tell.” Jean flipped through the rest of Jar- ed’s mail, clearly dissatisfied with his evasiveness but, as he immediately found out, not so easily put off.

“We’ve got us a celebrity in town,” she said with a speculative glance from above her half-moon glasses. She handed him a couple more pieces of mail like a miser dol- ing out alms to the poor. “I’d say these are bills.”

“Looks like.” Jared pocketed them, too.

“April Bingham’s the celebrity,” Jean went on. “She gets mail from New York, too.”

“S’that so?” No way was Jared going to give the old bag the satisfaction of appearing intrigued. “Well, it’s a big place.” He pushed away from the counter, one hand outstretched. “I’d best take the rest of my mail now.”

Jean reluctantly handed it to him. “She got herself a letter from that same attorney.” she said. “Ain’t that pe- culiar?”

Her words arrested Jared’s movement. A letter from the same attorney?

“You two wouldn’t happen to be in business together or somethin’, would you?”

“Come again?” Jared’s brows snapped together. What was the woman talking about?

“Well, it coulda been,” she said defensively. “I mean, the two o’ you were pretty thick there, a while back,” she noted pointedly.

“Good grief, Jean,” Jared snapped, mentally wishing all the gossips in the world to the moon. “We were kids then. And anyway, you’re thinking of Colleen. She and April—”

“Oh, no, sonny boy! None o’ that.” Jean waggled a finger. “It wasn’t just your sister the gal was friends with, though I do recall them being like two peas in a pod. No, I’m thinking of that one summer in partic’lar. An’ I recall the entire town gettin’ such a charge out of watchin’ you and that Bingham girl spoonin’ and carrying on…”

She sighed, an expression of indulgent reminiscence re- aligning the network of wrinkles on her face. “Ever’body thought the two of you were so cute.”

Cute. Given what he and April had felt for each other at the time, Jared shuddered at the description.

Jean sobered. “‘Course she never came back after that.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Until now.” Jean’s shrewd eyes narrowed on Jared who was grinding his back teeth in frustration.

“Guess she had bigger fish to fry,” Jean commented while studying Jared with that speculative gleam he knew all too well, and detested. Times like this he wished he had stayed in Portland, that he hadn’t come back to Capstan after the accident, though he knew it had been the best solution all around.

“Guess she did. So.” Jared slapped his palm on the counter. “Gotta go.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Ivers.”

Jared froze.

“Speak o’ the devil,” Jean said sotto voce.

Jared ignored that. He stood rigid with tension and grit- ted his teeth as, preceded by a subtle scent that brought on an immediate rush of memories, he sensed and smelled April Bingham’s approach. Her voice, more husky than he remembered, held a tentative note that hinted at uncertainty. It reminded him of how shy she used to be. How easily hurt and sensitive….

Yeah, but not so sensitive she couldn’t dole out a whole lot of pain to a whole lot of people.

Damn her to hell.

Drawing up every ounce of self-control, Jared forced himself to calmly turn and face her. She stood about a foot away, looking sleek as an ocelot in something as mundane as jeans and a shirt. And for all her hesitant manner, she met and held his gaze with her head held high.

“Hello, Jared,” she said.