Читать книгу His Secret Son - Stacy Connelly, Stacy Connelly - Страница 8

Chapter Two

She’d survived.

Her first run-in with Ryder Kincaid on only her second day back in town, and she’d survived.

Lindsay blew out a breath, still more shaken by the split-second encounter than she liked to admit. Ten years. Ten years! She was supposed to be over him. She was over him. Just not quite over the shock of seeing him, that was all.

Glancing around the pizza parlor play area, she felt her heartbeat settling as her gaze landed on Robbie. She’d quickly agreed to his request to play the video games while they waited for their order. She needed a moment to herself, and she’d hoped he might have a chance to talk with some of the other kids racing between newer video games and older throwbacks from when she was a kid—foosball, air hockey, even a tiny basketball hoop and net. But Robbie had locked in on conquering alien invaders and had barely done more than lift a skinny shoulder in a halfhearted shrug when one of the other boys stopped to talk to him. Within a few seconds, the boy wandered off and Robbie hunkered down over the joystick, his bangs falling over the frames of his glasses.

Her heart ached for her son. For the all-too-familiar shyness that made something inside him shut down when he tried to talk to kids his own age. Lindsay remembered the feeling so well. The fear, the panic of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. And the self-consciousness that made it seem that no matter what she did or what she said, it was always wrong.

She knew she couldn’t expect too much. She and Robbie would be in town for a few weeks—just long enough for her to convince her grandmother that it was time to sell the house and move to Phoenix to be closer to Lindsay and her parents. But during that short time, she hoped Robbie would find some kids to hang out with. Clearville was a tourist town, always filled with summer visitors—most of them families with children. It would do him so much good to make new friends, and maybe the short time frame would help him be more open to the possibility. It was something she’d encouraged on the trip up from Phoenix, not that her suggestion was well received.

“I already have a best friend,” Robbie had insisted stubbornly.

“I know, but would it be so bad to meet some new friends?” she’d asked, careful not to bring up the reminder that his best friend had recently moved across the country.

Scott Wilcott and his family had been their next-door neighbors for the past three years—a lifetime for little boys. The two had bonded instantly, and Lindsay had been so grateful, not only for Robbie’s friendship with Scott, but also for the time her son got to spend with Scott’s father. She knew how important it was for her son to have a male role model in his life. Gary Wilcott had helped fill that void by including Robbie in their family outings and making the boy feel as welcome in their home as he was in his own.

With the Wilcotts moving away, Lindsay worried as much about Robbie missing Gary as she did about him missing Scott.

“Lindsay? Lindsay Brookes?”

Starting at the sound of her name being called out amid kids laughing and bells and whistling going off in the gaming area, she turned in the small booth to see a short, curvy blonde woman heading in her direction.

“Cherrie... Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Ten years!” the other woman agreed.

And yet not nearly long enough, Lindsay thought as she kept her smile firmly locked in place. Along with Brittany Baines, Cherrie Macintosh and a handful of other girls had ruled the school back in the day. The popular kids who could make life hell for anyone not in their small circle. As a shy bookworm, Lindsay had mostly escaped their noticed.

Mostly.

“Did you hear Lindsay Brookes got herself knocked up?”

“I’d have thought that girl would die a virgin!”

“They always say it’s the quiet ones who surprise you.”

“She must have done it on purpose to trap Tony Pirelli.”

“Well, it’s not like a guy that hot is hanging out with her for her brain!”

“Goodness,” Cherrie remarked, “if I hadn’t heard you were coming to town, I don’t think I would have even recognized you. I mean, you were such a mousy little thing back then, weren’t you?”

Yes, she had been. But that was a long time ago, and she wasn’t that girl anymore. She had five years under her belt working for a high-profile PR firm in Phoenix. She could put on a smile and spin the truth with the best of them. Reminding herself of that, she slid from the booth.

In high school, she’d hated her above-average height. Hated anything that might make her stand out in a crowd, and she’d spent most of those years hunched over—even when her nose wasn’t buried in a book. But she’d learned—heck, studies proved—that tall people were often seen as smarter and more successful than people of a lesser stature. And even in low-heeled sandals she’d chosen to wear to run for pizza, she towered over Cherrie. “You’re right. I was. Thank goodness we aren’t all still the people we were back in high school.”

Cherrie blinked as if trying to figure out the subtle dig behind Lindsay’s words. “Oh, sure. I mean, that was, like, forever ago, right?”

Was it Lindsay’s imagination or had a hopeful note entered the other woman’s voice? As if Lindsay might have forgotten the cruel gossip that had shadowed her those last weeks before she and her parents left town.

Without Brittany and the rest of the squad around her, Cherrie didn’t look all that intimidating. If anything, she appeared a bit needy and eager to please. Someone who would have gone along with the other kids as a way to fit in.

Lindsay wouldn’t have expected to feel sorry for anyone in that old group from high school, but maybe that also proved how much she had changed. “You’re right. All water under the bridge now.”

“Yeah, sure. It is. And it will be great to catch up with everyone at the reunion next month. You’ll still be here then, won’t you?”

Lindsay could think of few things she wanted to do less than attending her ten-year reunion. Reminiscing over four years of pure hell? Yeah, that sounded fun. “I’m not sure if I’ll make it or not,” she said to Cherrie.

“Oh, well...” The other woman gave a small laugh. “It’s funny, though, if you’d been here a few seconds earlier, we could have had our own minireunion. You just missed seeing Ryder Kincaid. You know he’s moved back, right?”

“I’d heard something about that.” Under the bridge or not, Lindsay wasn’t about to churn up that water by admitting to Cherrie—who still seemed to enjoy spreading a bit of gossip—that Ryder’s presence had prompted her own return to their hometown.

Leaning forward, Cherrie said, “He left Brittany, you know. Out of the blue. Total surprise. Brittany and I, we’re still, like, best friends, though we don’t see each other much. I had hoped she’d come back for the reunion, but she said it would be too hard. All those memories of her and Ryder together, you know? She’s trying to be strong, but you can tell she’s devastated.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Lindsay said, the words not entirely untrue even if her concern wasn’t so much for Brittany.

“I mean, they were together forever,” Cherrie stressed, “the perfect couple and the marriage everyone thought would last!” Lowering her voice a bit more, she added, “Ryder’s not talking, but what can he say? To just walk away like he did...”

The buzz of her words blended in with the laugher and sirens from the play area. What did Lindsay really know about Ryder? In all truthfulness—despite what her teenage heart had believed back then—she’d hardly known him as a boy. She didn’t have any idea what kind of man he was now. What kind of father he might be...

When she heard about his divorce and that he’d moved back to Clearville, Lindsay had taken it as a sign—after a decade of secrets, half-truths and out-and-out lies—it was time to come clean. But this couldn’t be simply about doing the right thing. Telling the truth had to be about doing the best thing for Robbie. Her son mattered most, more than the guilt she’d carried for so long, more than Ryder’s rights as a father. Robbie came first.

Every story had two sides, and while Brittany’s still-best friend, Cherrie, would know Brittany’s side, Lindsay needed to hear Ryder’s. She needed to know the kind of man she was letting into her son’s life. Needed to know that he wouldn’t turn his back on her son the way he apparently had done on his wife and marriage.

Lindsay swallowed hard even as nerves swirled through her stomach. After more than a decade of loving and at times hating Ryder Kincaid from afar, it was time to get up close and personal.

* * *

“Now, there’s the granddaughter I know and love! I was wondering when she might show up.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes at her grandmother Ellie’s teasing as she stepped into the kitchen and self-consciously ducked her head. She pushed her heavy glasses farther up her nose, wishing she’d had time to shower and do her hair and makeup, not to mention put in her contacts before coming down for breakfast.

Back home, Robbie would fix himself a bowl of cereal and some fruit during the week and was content to play video games or watch television on the weekends, giving Lindsay the time she needed to get ready in the morning. But as she’d learned on her first day, Ellie didn’t believe cold cereal and a banana was an adequate meal for a growing boy.

By the time Lindsay came down, her grandmother had fixed a spread worthy of an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. And while Ellie insisted she loved to cook, Lindsay was there to help take care of her grandmother, not to be taken care of.

So on this morning, as soon as she heard sounds coming from the kitchen, she’d hurried from the bedroom after doing no more than brushing her teeth and putting on the glasses she needed to keep from killing herself on the way down the stairs. She smiled wryly as she saw the vast ingredients her grandmother had already compiled in that short amount of time.

Flour, eggs, sugar and blueberries for homemade pancakes, potatoes for hash browns, a thick slab of presliced bacon, a kettle of fragrant chamomile tea already brewing on the stove and in the middle of it all, her grandmother. Ellie Brookes was a tiny woman with the type of petite build Lindsay had always envied. Her silver-streaked blond hair was pulled back into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck and she wore a ruffled apron over her beige capris and pale blue T-shirt.

Anyone who mistook her grandmother’s small stature as a sign of fragility would quickly change their minds when they witnessed her sharp wit disguised behind a sweet smile on her round, slightly lined face.

“This isn’t the real me, Gran,” Lindsay said with a glance down at the pink pajama bottoms decorated with shoes and a matching T-shirt that read If the Shoe Fits, Buy It! “Not anymore.”

“Of course it is, dear. You’re hiding the real you behind those fancy clothes of yours, same way you used to hide behind all those books back in high school.”

Lindsay’s jaw dropped a little even as she stepped up to the worn Formica counter and reached for the loaf of bread. “That’s not— Those fancy clothes as you call them are the real me. I’m a professional now. I have an image to maintain. It’s an important part of my job.”

A job that was still hers—at least for now. With the PR firm going through a buyout by their main competitor, she’d heard plenty of rumors that no one was safe.

“An image,” her grandmother murmured beneath her breath as she expertly cracked eggs into the mixing bowl. “You are more than an image.”

“I’m not saying that’s all I am. Only that—”

“It’s all you allow people to see,” Ellie interrupted before flipping on the mixer to punctuate her statement and have the last word.

Lindsay shook her head at her grandmother’s undeniable hardheadedness. Had she really thought this would be easy? she asked herself as she bent toward the lower cabinets for a skillet. She pulled at the cupboard door once, then again and almost lost her balance and tumbled backward when it finally gave way.

“Careful, dear,” Ellie called out over the high-pitched whirl of the mixer. “That door sticks.”

“So I noticed,” Lindsay muttered but not so loudly that her grandmother could hear. She’d also noticed the uneven brick path out front, the sagging porch steps, the crooked outlets, the cracking grout on the bathroom floors. She shuddered slightly to think of all she couldn’t see. What about the wiring, the plumbing, the actual structure holding up the charming but aging Victorian?

With such an old house, maintenance was a full-time job—one her grandfather had gladly taken on after retiring from the local post office. But while Robert Brookes had been a wonderful man, loving husband, doting father and grandfather, a handyman he was not. As his various attempts proved to Lindsay’s untrained eye.

Her parents had warned her that the house would need serious work before they could put it on the market, and she had to tread carefully—both about the quality of the work Ellie’s late husband had done and about selling the house Ellie loved.

Her grandmother was far too smart not to have figured out the reason behind Lindsay’s visit, once the phone calls from Lindsay and her parents failed to do the trick. So far, Ellie had changed the subject anytime Lindsay so much as discussed all the benefits of moving to Phoenix. Even the best, most convincing argument Lindsay could think of—“you’ll get to see more of me and Robbie”—had been met with Ellie’s patented smile.

“Something I could do right here if you and my great-grandson would move back home.”

Stubborn, Lindsay thought with a sigh. But so was she.

“Just needs a bit of elbow grease,” Ellie said, and for a split second, Lindsay thought her grandmother was talking about what might be needed to get her to move from the home she loved.

Still, Lindsay grabbed at the opening while she could. “You’re right, Gran. A little bit of elbow grease and some TLC. I know it’s been hard for you to keep up with everything since Granddad died,” she added gently.

Ellie sighed as she shut off the mixer. “Your grandfather loved puttering around the place. He was always happier when he had a project to work on.”

“Like you’re always happier when you have someone to cook for,” Lindsay said as she reached out to set the skillet on the stove and steal a handful of blueberries on the way back.

“Those are for the pancakes,” Ellie scolded as Lindsay knew she would. “And you’re right. Upkeep on this place was your grandfather’s love, not mine.”

Lindsay carefully swallowed the juicy bite-size fruit, almost afraid of ruining the moment. Was her grandmother starting to see things her way? “It’s a big house, Gran. A lot of work for one person.”

Ellie nodded as she wiped her hands on her apron. “That’s why I’ve made a decision.”

Pinpricks of tears stung Lindsay’s eyes. How hard it must be for her grandmother to realize she couldn’t stay in her own house. The place where she’d lived with her husband and young children. The place where she’d raised her family, grown old and said goodbye to the man she loved after over fifty years of marriage.

A pang hit her chest as Lindsay admitted she, too, would miss the old house where she’d spent some of the best parts of her childhood. She loved her parents, of course, but going to Grandma and Grandpa’s had always been such a treat.

But a house was just a house, and once Ellie moved to Phoenix, their family would see each other far more often. “It’s the right thing to do, Gran.”

“Oh, I know. It’s time,” Ellie said, her voice cheerier than Lindsay might have expected. But then again, once Ellie made up her mind, there was no going back.

The ringing of the doorbell interrupted before Lindsay could get too emotional, and she quickly blinked back tears as her grandmother turned toward the sound. “Can you watch these pancakes while I get that?” Ellie asked, already stripping off her apron and passing the spatula to Lindsay.

She could hear the low sound of voices—her gran’s familiar sweet tones and a lower, undeniably masculine murmur—as she watched the pancakes, waiting for the bubbles to rise to the top.

She’d flipped the first, somewhat successfully, when the voices grew louder. Her grandmother wasn’t— Oh, yes, she was. Ellie was leading whoever was at the door straight to the kitchen.

Lindsay didn’t need to look around to know there was no escape. She was still in her pajamas, for goodness’ sake! She didn’t even want to think about her hair or her glasses.

Panic started to build despite the deep breaths she took. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. This isn’t me anymore!

Bookworm Brookes—the geekiest girl at Clearville High.

But it was too late to do anything but grin and fake it. To put the best spin possible on the situation. A situation that grew so much worse as her grandmother stepped into the kitchen with a smile...and Ryder Kincaid following on her heels.

A nightmare, Lindsay thought. It had to be. Like the ones where you were naked in front of a crowd. But instead of naked, she was in her cartoon pajamas and thick-framed glasses. Which, as she met Ryder’s amused grin, was almost worse.

“Lindsay, dear, you remember Ryder Kincaid, don’t you?” Ellie asked as she slid the spatula from Lindsay’s nerveless fingers and took over at the stove.

“I, um, yes. I remember.” And though there was nothing remotely suggestive in her voice or in the moment, Lindsay swallowed as her gaze locked with Ryder’s. In an overwhelming, soul-stealing rush, she remembered...everything.

She’d been so nervous and yet so eager when Ryder kissed her that first time. Her heart had pounded so hard she was half-afraid it was going to leap right out of her chest. Every kiss, every touch had felt like magic, and she’d known her life would never be the same...

And oh, hadn’t she been right about that even if she’d been so wrong about everything else?

“Hey, Lindsay.” Was it her imagination or did Ryder’s voice sound a little deeper, a little rougher around the edges, as if he, too, was suffering from some flashbacks of his own? “Good to see you again.”

Her stomach twisting into knots, she asked, “What...what are you doing here, Ryder?”

His familiar grin was back, and Lindsay resisted the urge to slap herself. Hadn’t he proved time and again that that night had meant nothing to him? He’d hardly spoken to her in the weeks that followed, striding through the high school halls with Brittany Baines on his arm. Prom king and queen, the school’s golden couple. He’d forgotten all about her in the time it took to drop her back on her front porch and drive away.

“Your gran invited me.”

“What? Why?” For a split second, the room spun as her world tilted. Her grandmother couldn’t possibly know—no one knew about her and Ryder. No one except for Tony Pirelli, the boy—man now, though Lindsay hadn’t seen him since the summer after she graduated—whom everyone believed to be Robbie’s father. And even then, Lindsay hadn’t mentioned Ryder’s name when she confessed her terrifying secret.

Only that she’d been so, so stupid and was so, so scared...

“I don’t know what to do, Tony. I can’t tell the father. I just...can’t.”

“So don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t say anything. Anyone asks about the father, tell ’em it’s none of their business.”

“But you know people will think—”

“People can think whatever the hell they want. The trick is learning not to give a damn.”

It was a trick Tony Pirelli could give lessons in. He’d already angered his parents, first by dropping out of college midway through his second semester and more recently with his intention to join the marines.

“But what...what will you tell your family?”

He’d grinned at her—his typical indolent, almost insolent smile. “That’s easy. I’ll tell ’em the last thing they’d ever believe.”

“What’s that?”

“The truth.”

His plan had worked. The more he protested his innocence and hotly denied responsibility, the guiltier he sounded. Before long, everyone accepted he was the father of her baby—including his family. And for all these years, for the sake of their friendship, Tony had carried the weight of their disappointment so that she could keep the true identity of Robbie’s father a secret.

“Didn’t you know, Lindsay?” Ellie was asking. “Ryder moved back last year.”

“Yes, I’d heard. But that doesn’t exactly explain why you invited him over for breakfast,” Lindsay answered back in an aside that must have been loud enough for Ryder to hear, judging by the way one side of his mouth kicked up.

Ellie laughed. “I didn’t invite him for breakfast—though you’re welcome to join us,” she called over her shoulder to the man in question.

“Love to.”

Of course he would, Lindsay thought as she drew in a breath. Nightmare. Really, really had to be a nightmare. “Then why did you invite him over, Gran?” she asked even as habit kicked in and she reached for the plates to set the table.

“To take a look at fixing up the house. Isn’t that what you and your parents have been trying to get me to do for months now?” Ellie’s expression seemed a shade too innocent, but Lindsay was too caught off guard by her words to focus on the meaning behind them.

“But Ryder—” Her protest died on her lips as she realized she didn’t know exactly what Ryder had been doing for a living since he returned home. He’d worked at his in-laws’ firm in San Francisco, building billion-dollar, award-winning high-rises. Not something there was much need for in Clearville.

Still... “You’re...you’re a handyman?” Lindsay asked as she carried the plates toward the eat-in nook.

A very small nook she couldn’t get to without stepping way too close to Ryder. She tried to squeeze by, but he moved directly into her path and reached for the plates. “I do like to consider myself handy.”

Lindsay didn’t want to remember all the places those skilled hands had once touched while standing in her grandmother’s kitchen. Didn’t want to remember—ever. But she did. She remembered every touch, every kiss, every mistaken belief that what she was feeling—what they were both feeling—had to be love.

And that Ryder seemed to want her to remember was just...cruel. Like tossing her foolishness for falling for him, for thinking making love with him meant something, back in her face.

The stoneware plates, still caught between both their hands, rattled as her hands shook. “Hey, Lindsay,” Ryder said softly, his eyebrows pulling low. But whatever else he might have said was lost by the thump of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Mom, what’s—”

Robbie’s typical question of “what’s to eat?” cut off as the boy slid to a stop in the kitchen doorway, his gaze shifting between his mother and Ryder. Lindsay jerked back so quickly only Ryder’s fast reflexes saved the plates from crashing to the tile floor.

“Hey, honey.” Reaching out, she restrained herself from pulling him into her embrace. Instead she took small comfort in resting a hand on her son’s narrow shoulder. He wasn’t big on hugs anymore, at least not when other people were around. And she no longer had the power to kiss an owie and make the hurt go away. It was all part of growing up, she knew. Part of changing from boy to man, a transition she knew nothing about.

And seeing the two of them—father and son standing side by side for the first time—she felt a wave of dizziness rock her. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, drowning out all other sounds and blurring the edges of her vision until she could see nothing else but her boy and the man in front of her.

Everyone had always told her how much Robbie took after her. But then again, everyone also thought dark-haired, dark-eyed Tony Pirelli was her son’s father, and he and Robbie looked nothing alike. So little wonder people saw the resemblance between mother and son in their dark blond, wavy hair, blue-green eyes and slender builds. It was all Lindsay ever saw—until now.

But now, with Robbie and Ryder together, wasn’t there a similarity in the shape of their chins, their wide foreheads, the arch of their eyebrows? Even, heaven help her, the cowlick at the part of their hair, far more noticeable in Ryder’s short style than in her son’s too-long bangs.

Not a mirror image by any means. More of a time progression of what Robbie might look like in another twenty years...

“Who’s that?” Robbie murmured, his head lowered so far he might have been asking the question of the racecar speeding across the front of his shirt.

“Robbie, this is...”

Your father.