Читать книгу A Dad At Last - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

CHAPTER ONE

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“IF YOU KNOT those fingers together any tighter, we’re going to have to call in one of the doctors from the hospital to surgically untangle them.”

Startled, lost in her thoughts, Lacy Clark looked up to see Megan Maitland standing beside her in the living room, smiling compassionately at her. She hadn’t heard the older woman approach.

Self-consciously, Lacy realized that she’d been knotting and unknotting her hands, an outward sign of the inner turmoil that had been going on for what seemed like half an eternity. Ever since Connor and the others had left to meet the kidnappers.

She’d pleaded to go with them so she could see what was happening firsthand instead of having her imagination run riot. But Connor had insisted that having her there would put them all at risk, so she’d agreed to stay behind, dying a little more with each tick of the grandfather clock in the hall.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

Lacy dropped her hands to her sides. Her fingers might no longer be tangled, but that didn’t relieve the knot in her stomach. She couldn’t stand being in the dark like this anymore. She’d been in the dark for so long now, about so many things, this added uncertainty was almost intolerable.

Where were they? Where was her son?

Pressing her lips together, she looked toward the door. Her whole world was out there somewhere, beyond her reach. Beyond her ability to do anything about it. Somewhere, lost in the night, was the baby who had been missing from her life these past eleven months while she’d wandered through a haze of amnesia, thanks to Janelle. The baby who could very well continue to be missing forever if Connor and the others didn’t succeed with their plan.

What would she do if she never saw Chase again? Her heart felt as if it was twisting around in her chest.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about.” Megan gave Lacy’s hand a warm squeeze, knowing what the young mother must be going through. “They’ll bring him back to you, I promise.”

They’d set up vigil here in the Maitland house, Megan, her daughter Abby, her daughter-in-law Camille, Shelby Lord and Lacy, to wait for the men who had gone to retrieve that one small, lost child and bring him safely back.

To bring back the grandson Megan hadn’t found a way to acknowledge yet. Not without upsetting life as everyone here knew it. A life that had already suffered so many storms, so many onslaughts these last few months. It seemed almost more than one family could endure.

But they would. That was what made them strong and made them Maitlands.

“And if that scum manages to escape somehow,” Abby said to Lacy as she came up on her other side, “there isn’t a rock in this state big enough for Janelle and Petey to crawl under. We’ll find them, Lacy. I promise.” She added her vow to her mother’s.

Shelby joined the tight group, her indignation at the kidnapping riding another fresh wave. Both her brothers, Michael and Garrett, were with Connor tonight. She laid one hand on Lacy’s shoulder and one on Abby’s. “Hell, with our combined resources and efforts, we could find a red ant in a mile-wide strawberry patch. One bitch, her henchman and a baby shouldn’t be any problem.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Camille softly warned them. She looked at Lacy. “There isn’t any reason to believe that Jake, Connor and the others haven’t been successful.”

Lacy knew what they were trying to do and she was grateful to all of them. But it still didn’t quell the uneasiness she felt. The uneasiness that continued to grow.

“If they’ve been successful, why haven’t they called?” She heard herself demanding.

Strong, terse, the voice hardly seemed to belong to her. But she’d been through a great deal these past few months.

This last year and then some, she amended mentally. She’d had Connor’s baby in secret, only to be forced to leave him on the doorstep of Maitland Maternity Clinic for his own good. And she’d lost eleven months out of her life when Janelle had assaulted her in that alley behind the hospital, leaving her for dead. Leaving her to wander through the misty, cottony world of amnesia when she came to, with no knowledge of herself or the child she’d left unguarded.

Lacy looked accusingly at the silent telephone on the coffee table. “Why isn’t the phone ringing right now?” It didn’t seem like an unreasonable request. “There’re five of them. One of them’s got to have a cell phone—or change for a public phone.” She knew the answer to her own question. “They’re not calling because something went wrong.”

Watching Lacy, sharing her agony, Megan felt her heart contract.

She’d been like that once, Megan thought. Forty-six years ago, pregnant, unmarried and deserted by her baby’s father, she’d been just like Lacy. Scared, frightened and not knowing where to turn. So she had turned inward and somehow found the will to go on. Like Lacy, she would have kept her baby once he was born. But unlike Lacy, someone she’d trusted with all her heart had taken her baby from her at the moment of birth and lied to her. A lie that would come back to haunt her.

Her father had told her that the son she’d had as a result of a young, impetuous romantic interlude with Clyde Mitchum had been stillborn. After she’d cried an ocean of tears, she’d pulled herself together and found the strength to continue. Not just continue but eventually win the heart of William Maitland and, with him, forge a dynasty of her own.

Now that wonderful family she and her late husband had created were there to offer their support to her whenever she needed them.

Megan couldn’t help wondering how far that support could be stretched. Once they knew Connor was not her long-estranged nephew but rather her long-lost son, would that support break down? Or would it rally and grow stronger still for the adversity the situation represented?

She could only pray for the latter. One way or another, she would have her answer soon enough.

But right now, it was her grandson she was concerned about. Her grandson who had to be rescued and brought back to the fold. The details and explanations could be handled later. First things first.

She slipped an arm around Lacy’s thin shoulders, feeling as if, in a way, she was somehow stepping into the past and comforting herself.

“There are dozens of reasons they haven’t called, Lacy, and none of them are bad.” A slight smile curved her lips. “And no matter what the television commercials would have us believe, not everyone carries around a cell phone in their hip pocket.”

“And even if they did,” Shelby interjected, “it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Garrett can’t remember to charge the one I gave him to save his life. Says it’s a nuisance.”

Lacy sighed, praying they were right. That it was just a matter of not taking the time or finding the opportunity to call. Maybe they were, even now, on their way home. Home with her son.

But she couldn’t calm down.

The agitation was growing steadily, threatening to consume her. “Well, right now it’s a nuisance I really wish he’d put up with.” She could only hope that didn’t come out as short as it sounded. Lacy knew that Connor didn’t own a cell phone, but that shouldn’t have prevented him from finding a way to call.

She looked at the telephone again, willing it to ring. It remained silent.

He wasn’t calling because something horrible had happened. She just knew it.

Unable to remain still, she began to pace again, her eyes all but riveted to the front door with every step she took. Why weren’t they back yet? The meeting was for midnight. It was past two.

Unable to remain on the sidelines any longer, Shelby checked her pockets for her car keys. “Maybe I’ll just take a ride up to the sugar factory to see if everything went the way it should have.”

Megan instinctively took a step to block her way. “No.” It was an order. “It’s too dangerous.”

Shelby looked at the Maitland family matriarch. Years ago Megan had taken Shelby and her brothers and sister under her wing when their own parents had abandoned them. Though she had arranged for the children to be adopted by friends of hers, Megan had always been like an aunt—or at times a second mother—to the Lord children. Shelby realized there was no point arguing, but she wasn’t happy about doing nothing.

Sensing the struggle she’d created within the younger woman, Megan mitigated her words with logic. “Besides, they might be on their way home already, and you’ll wind up missing them. No sense in driving up there for no reason. Better to stay put.”

“All right.” Shelby relented, slipping her keys into her pocket. “I’ll give them another half an hour, but after that I’m out of here.” As if to back up her position, she took out her cell phone and held it up for inspection. “And I’ve got a fully charged cell phone, so if they do show up while I’m gone, you can reach me the minute they walk in.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lacy told her. Megan opened her mouth to protest, but Lacy wasn’t about to be talked out of it. “I can’t take this waiting any longer, Mrs. Maitland, and if I pace anymore, you’re going to have a path worn through your tile.”

Megan shrugged carelessly. As if that mattered. “I was getting tired of that pattern anyway,” she quipped. “And I know how you feel.” Her eyes held the younger woman’s. She saw doubt. “I really do.”

There was something in the older woman’s eyes that spoke to her, though for the life of her, Lacy didn’t understand how Megan Maitland could have the vaguest idea what it was like to be an unwed mother whose child had been kidnapped. Megan, who together with her husband had founded the prestigious Maitland Maternity Clinic, where the country’s rich and famous came to have their babies, rubbing shoulders with desperate young women who had their backs up against the wall and nowhere to turn—women for whom the clinic had originally been created. But Megan Maitland was far removed from the world Lacy knew. She could easily buy and sell half the people in Austin without blinking an eye. How could she possibly know what it was like to be so destitute that she had nowhere to turn?

But she did have somewhere to turn, Lacy reminded herself. She had a job as a chef at Austin Eats Diner. Shelby Lord had taken her in and given her that job when she had amnesia. After a blow to the head had restored her memory, Shelby said nothing had changed. The job was hers for as long as she wanted it.

So she had a job and friends now, friends who had been eager to help reunite her with her baby. Friends who were willing to risk themselves and the ones they loved to do it. She might not have money like Megan, but she was rich in her own way. Rich in friends.

Lacy smiled. Maybe she had more in common with Megan than she’d thought.

“Wait.” Shelby held up a hand to stop the other women from talking. “Table the talk about driving over to the sugar factory, I think I hear a car. Two cars,” she amended.

Lacy was at the front door before Shelby finished speaking, pulling it open in time to see the two cars that had driven up and turned off their headlights.

“They’re back,” she cried, running out to meet them, her heart hammering wildly.

“Wait, Lacy,” Megan called.

Her back to the house, Lacy didn’t hear her. She didn’t hear or see anything but the tall man coming toward her.

Moonlight outlined his long frame and the tan Stetson he wore. In the dark it was difficult at first to see that he was holding something in his arms. Or what that something was.

Her mother’s heart told her even before her eyes could adjust.

Lacy didn’t remember crossing the last five feet to Connor. Didn’t remember her feet hitting the ground in a dead run. All she was aware of was that her eyes had filled with tears, making it difficult to focus.

She could have made her way to her son’s side blindfolded.

Lacy clutched Connor’s arm, looking into the face of her sleeping son.

“You found him,” she sobbed. “And he’s so big.”

The baby she remembered holding to her breast had been almost a newborn, certainly not this thriving child with his fair hair and rounded face.

As if in response to her voice, Chase opened his eyes, looking at her with wonder. A sweet smile moved the small, rosebud mouth.

Something warm opened up smack in the middle of Connor’s chest. He had trouble dealing with it. “He knows you,” Connor said.

Lacy wanted to say yes, even though she knew it was almost too much to hope for. She and Chase had been apart for so many months. Important months. But for the moment, she told herself that it was true.

“He had a very sweet disposition,” she murmured, taking her son into her arms.

It felt like heaven.

She hadn’t realized until this very second how much her arms had ached for this small weight. How much her heart had ached to feel the baby’s heart beating next to hers.

Happiness threatened to overwhelm her. It was almost more than she could humanly stand.

“Oh, thank you,” she murmured, raising her eyes to Connor and the men who were gathered behind him. “Thank you all for bringing my baby back to me.”

“Can we hold the thanks until we get into the house?” Garrett Lord requested. The month-old wound in his shoulder still ached, and he needed a painkiller.

Belatedly, Connor realized that Lacy had rushed out in her bare feet. Sometimes the woman didn’t have the sense she was born with. She could hurt herself on the stony drive.

“Get inside before we add a sprained ankle to the list of things that’ve gone wrong for you,” he ordered, slipping an arm around her.

Some things might have gone wrong, Lacy thought, but other things had gone very right. She had her baby back, and Connor, however temporarily, was in her life once more. There was no way she felt in the wrong tonight.

“Throw away the list,” Lacy told him. Without being conscious of it, she leaned into Connor as they walked to the house, absorbing the strength that radiated from him. “All that matters is that you found Chase and brought him back to me.”

“Not quite all,” Jake Maitland corrected, coming in behind them. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto the coatrack, snaring a hook. He wrapped one arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her toward him, pausing to kiss Camille before he continued. He noted that the women were all looking at him, waiting for him to continue. “I think equally important is that Janelle is finally behind bars, and if there’s any justice in this world, will never bother you or anyone else in this family—” he looked at his mother “—again.”

“What about Connor?” Abby asked, then immediately realized her mistake. “I mean Petey.”

“Well, he’s not going to be sharing a cell with Janelle, that’s for damn sure,” Michael told her.

Megan turned from Michael and looked at her youngest son’s face for confirmation. Jake grimly nodded. “He had a gun with him. When we showed up, Janelle goaded him into shooting it out with us instead of giving up. Petey didn’t stand a chance.”

“Petey?” Lacy echoed. She looked at Connor. “Was that his name?”

Connor nodded. “That was his name. Seems he was married to Janelle, the poor bastard.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s better off this way. No telling what she had up her sleeve for him next. That woman had him jumping through flaming hoops and swearing it was his idea.” He saw the quizzical look in Lacy’s eyes. “He talked a little before he died. What he didn’t tell us, Janelle did.”

Once she’d stopped cursing them all to hell, she’d made an about-face and confessed. Proudly. It left Connor mystified how the woman could be so proud of being so evil and spreading that poison into so many lives.

Megan shook her head. It all seemed like such a horrible waste to her. Greed and jealousy were terrible things. She cleared her throat, glad to be done with this chapter.

“The important thing is that it’s all over.” Megan’s eyes swept the young men and women in her home, her gratitude evident. For the first time in days, she felt like eating. “What do you say we all go into the kitchen and I’ll see if I can fix us a celebratory late dinner.” She thought of the time. It was close to dawn. “Or early breakfast, as it were,” she amended. “All this tension has helped me work up an appetite.”

Assenting murmurs went up, but Megan noticed that Connor began to distance himself from the others. Their eyes met, and she raised a silent brow.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon go up to my room and get some sleep right now,” he said. “I’m about ready to drop in my tracks.”

Megan felt a smattering of disappointment. Now that this major hurdle had been resolved to their satisfaction, she would have thought that Connor would want to remain with his son and his son’s mother, at least for a little while.

But she was well versed in reading expressions. One look at him told her not to push. Connor had his reasons for withdrawing. Maybe he needed a little time to assimilate all that had happened. From what she gathered, he hadn’t even known he had a son until just after the kidnapping had come to light and Lacy had regained her memory.

“Of course, Connor,” she agreed. “You must be exhausted.”

Maybe it was better if they all went to bed for what was left of the night. That way, they’d be fresh when she dropped her bombshell—and prayed for the best. Besides, the rest of her children needed to be here. She wasn’t about to go through that emotion-wrenching announcement more than once. It needed to be made to everyone at the same time. She felt bad enough that Ellie had accidentally overheard and had borne the weight of knowing her secret alone.

Megan had made up her mind. From now on, no more secrets of any kind, no matter how innocent.

“You all have to be exhausted,” she acknowledged, looking at the others. “Why don’t we postpone any sort of celebration until I can do this up properly?” Her eyes swept over Connor first, then touched everyone in the room one by one until they came to rest on Lacy. The mother of her grandchild.

“Sounds good to me,” Jake murmured. He slung his arm around Camille, his eyes drooping just a shade. “Care to prop up a hero? Help me up to bed and I’ll give you all the details, bit by bit.”

Before Camille could comment, Abby’s beeper went off, pulsing red numbers. Angling it away from her belt, Abby made out the telephone number. It was only vaguely familiar. She made a guess.

“Probably Mrs. Marlow. She looked ready to pop when I saw her in the office yesterday. Twins this time.” Two cups of coffee should give her a second wind, she estimated, sighing. “Another post-midnight delivery. Perfect ending to a perfect day.” On her way to the den and the telephone, Abby stopped long enough to brush a kiss on Connor’s cheek. “Nice work, cousin. Looks like you found the family just in time.”

He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the fact that, in being reunited with the Maitlands, he was able to get the help he needed to recover his son or if there was something else behind her words. All he did know was that the term she’d applied to him was incorrect.

He wasn’t her cousin, he was her half brother.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say something. But it wasn’t up to him to make the correction, he reminded himself. The words, whatever she ultimately chose them to be, belonged to Megan. He knew the circumstances surrounding his birth and his subsequent secretive adoption. He’d only learned them recently himself. Connor couldn’t even imagine what Megan must have gone through, thinking him dead all these years, only to have him turn up now, not her nephew, as she’d believed, but her son. Had to be a lot to deal with. He owed it to her to be the one to let the others know.

Or keep the secret to herself.

He had a lot to deal with himself, he thought, finding out he had a child of his own he hadn’t known about. He supposed in a way that gave him something in common with his birth mother.

It was going to be hard, making the transition. Thinking of Megan Maitland as his mother instead of Clarise O’Hara, the woman who had raised him. The mother he’d buried almost two years ago.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, Connor glanced toward Lacy. Part of him was tempted to remain with her. To say things to her that had occurred to him both before and after he and the others had rescued Chase. But he didn’t want to be hasty. There was a wealth of feelings churning inside him, feelings that had to be sorted out and examined before he did anything about them.

He had learned a long time ago not to say things in the heat of the moment or when he was too exhausted to think clearly. Anything worth saying would keep until morning, when he was more lucid and had the time to think things through. He didn’t want to say things to Lacy he’d only have to take back later, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to say them. She’d been through enough without having him add to her grief.

“Night,” he murmured, nodding at Shelby and her brothers, who were on their way out the door, then at Lacy and Megan. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lacy tightened her arms around her son, watching the only man she’d ever cared about, the only man she’d fallen in love with—not once, but twice—disappear up the stairs.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Megan. “I guess maybe I’d better be leaving, too.”

Megan shook her head. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no condition to drive anywhere tonight. Look at you—you’re flushed and your eyes look like they’re liable to close any minute. All we need now is to have you fall asleep at the wheel and drive into some ditch. You’re staying here tonight. The nursery’s still there for Chase, and you’re welcome to your pick of bedrooms.”

“I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you,” Abby advised Lacy with an affectionate wink. “No one’s ever won.”

Lacy smiled her gratitude. She was exhausted. “Then I guess I’m staying the night.”

Megan patted her arm. “Smart girl. Now let’s go and get you settled in.”

Though she liked the independence she had so recently embraced, it was nice, Lacy thought as she followed Megan up the stairs, being taken care of just this once.

A Dad At Last

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