Читать книгу The Secret Baby Bond - Cindy Gerard, Dianna Love, Шеррилин Кеньон - Страница 11

For two years, Michael Paige had been a dead man. To some, he was a dead man still. In actuality, not only was he alive, he finally remembered the many things that he’d forgotten.

He remembered what he’d had.

He remembered what he’d lost.

And he wanted it back.

From a distance, from behind dark glasses, he watched Tara—the wife he’d lost even before the world had decided he was dead—while his wildly beating heart reminded him how very much alive he truly was.

Sitting quietly on the park bench, while the early September sun shined brilliant and pure through the shifting oaks and the scent of summer’s last roses drifted on the breeze, he watched. And he remembered the way she moved, the way her short, sleek cap of stylish black hair felt sliding like silk between his fingers, the way her violet eyes clouded to misty lavender when he made love to her. Two years ago. A lifetime ago.

She smiled, her face full of love for the child who toddled by her side. The boy wore tiny running shoes, a baby-sized Chicago Cubs jacket and cap and stared up at his mother through laughing gray eyes.

Through his eyes.

A lump formed in his throat that he couldn’t swallow.

He had a son.

He had a son whose name was Brandon, whose face he’d seen and whose name he’d learned for the first time just two weeks ago. Michael buried his hand in his jacket pocket and clutched the dog-eared piece of newsprint. The photo of Tara in the grainy gray print of a tabloid newspaper had caught his eye in a Quito, Ecuador supermarket and blindsided him with a staggering rush of memory. So had the dramatic account of his own death.

A shooting pain stabbed through his right temple. He touched two fingers to the scar there and rode it out. It would pass soon and until it did, he focused on reality.

The reality of his wife. The reality of his son.

An ache swelled and grew and filled his chest with a love and a longing so profound that he almost went to the boy then. Just to gather him close. To feel that robust and healthy little body warm and real against his own. To look into his liquid silver eyes and see a reflection of himself there. To cement into fact that the amazing miracle he and Tara had made together was not a cruel trick of his imagination. And to confirm, unequivocally, that he really was alive.

But the man who had been Miguel Santiago for the past two years couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not here. So he stayed where he was and accepted that this was not the time. This was not the way. He couldn’t just walk up to his child—his child who didn’t know him. He couldn’t just smile and say to his wife, “I’m not dead. I was just lost for a while. And I’ve missed you.”

He couldn’t say any of those things because to Tara, he was dead. And because, just before he died, she’d told him she wanted a divorce.

So he sat, unable to move, unwilling to leave as his son tumbled to his back with a shriek of gurgling laughter—and the man at Tara’s side bent to pick him up and lift him into his arms.

Then the three of them walked away together. Tara, his son and the man who would take his place—or so said the tabloids.

It was only after they’d faded to a memory that he realized his hands were clenched into fists inside his pockets, that his eyes were staring blankly.

“Mister… Hey, mister, you okay?”

He looked up abruptly, squinted against the crisp September sun. A tall, gangly teenager frowned down at him. The boy had a basketball tucked under his arm and freckles bridging his nose. He wore baggy pants, a sloppy Chicago Bulls T-shirt and an expression that mixed wariness with concern. Even from where he stood, a cautious couple of yards away, Michael could smell the salt and sweat and vitality of him.

“Man,” the kid said. “You’re white as a ghost.”

A ghost.

It should have been funny.

If the kid only knew.

Michael took one last look at the spot where his wife and son had disappeared. Then he rose and started walking.

This time he promised himself that when he walked, it would be out of the shadows. This time he would walk toward the living, not away.

He wanted his life back.

He wanted his wife back.

He did not want to be dead any longer.