Cherokee Dad

Justin said “um” after every bite. Did that mean yum? Michael couldn’t imagine that the kid actually thought mushy veggies and jarred meat were yummy.

As Heather wiped his messy face, he scrunched his nose in disapproval, then squealed after he was clean. Next he drank from a bottle, tipping it himself.

When Justin looked curiously at Michael, Heather followed the boy’s gaze. Michael shifted in his chair, wishing the scrutinizing would end.

Finally, it did.

She placed Justin back in the portable crib, which apparently doubled as a playpen. A handful of toys followed him into the little cage.

It wasn’t a very fancy cage, Michael noticed. Although clean, it appeared old, possibly purchased from a secondhand store.

“Tell me the rest of the story,” he said, suddenly feeling bad for the kid. He remembered surviving on hand-me-downs, at least until his wealthy uncle had showed up.

Heather drew a breath. “I wanted to say goodbye to Reed in person. To see him before he vanished. He told me that once he and Beverly took off, he wouldn’t be able to contact me again.”

So she’d arranged a bogus trip to L.A., Michael thought. Allowing him to believe she was attending a conference. “You weren’t supposed to keep in touch with Reed to begin with. You promised me that you’d cut him out your life, that you’d stay away from him.”

“I know, but I couldn’t. Not this time.”

Not anytime, he realized. She’d been secretly conversing with Reed all along.

“When I arrived in L.A., all hell broke lose. I went straight to my brother’s downtown loft and found Beverly there, crying over Reed. He was on the floor, unconscious. He’d been severely beaten. A warning from Beverly’s father to stay away from her.”

Justin made a humming sound as he stacked colorful blocks. When they fell, he laughed and clapped, unaware of the distress in Heather’s voice.

“I tried to dial 911,” she went on to say. “But Beverly begged me not to, even though Reed was a bruised and bloodied mess. I didn’t know what to do.” She paused, as if recalling her terror. “Then Beverly asked me to help her get him out of town. To tend to his injuries.”

“And that’s what you did?”

“Yes, but the ordeal didn’t stop there.”

“What ordeal?”

“We ended up on the run.”

“From who? Beverly’s father?”

“Yes.” She looked up and met his gaze, her voice haunted. “Her father isn’t an ordinary man. He’s—”

Frustrated, Michael moved to the edge of his seat. “He’s what?”

“An L.A. crime boss. We were on the run from the West Coast Family.”

As her words registered, Michael’s heartbeat blasted his chest. “You mean the mob?” The guys who ran racketeering and extortion rings? Smuggled drugs? Pumped their enemies full of bullets?

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “The mob.”

Two

“I was trapped,” Heather said, praying Michael would understand. “I couldn’t contact you. I couldn’t risk a phone call.”

“You mean to tell me that Reed couldn’t have scrambled your location, kept the mob from tracing the call?”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t have been enough. The conversation still could have been bugged, even if the eavesdropper couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.”

“So?”

“So we had no idea what they’d do. The mob doesn’t normally take hostages or harm innocent people, but this was different.”

Unconvinced and much too macho, he squinted at her. “You were afraid they’d hurt me?”

“Or threaten someone close to you. Try to find out how much you knew.”

His eyes narrowed even more. “They could have done that anyway.”

“There’d be no need. Not unless they suspected you’d been in touch with me. That you were involved somehow. Maybe even helping Reed.”

“So you let me suffer? Wonder where you were? Why you’d left?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was the only thing I could do to ensure your safety.”

He didn’t respond, so she continued. “My brother was in severe danger. Not only was he trying to go straight, to end his affiliation with the mob, he’d fallen in love with the boss’s daughter. That’s a fatal combination.”

“Where is Reed?” Michael asked.

Heather stole a glance at the baby, who amused himself with a musical pony. “He’s still on the run.”

“But you’re here, with his son.”

“Yes.” She studied the pony. Reed had purchased it for Justin just weeks before he’d been born. It was the only toy the child owned that hadn’t come from a thrift store.

There was another lullaby pony, she thought. Buried near a cabin in Oklahoma.

“Tell me about Justin’s mother.”

She reached for the bitter coffee Michael had brewed and took a sip, hoping to calm her quaking hands. She still dreamed about the other pony. Still cried sometimes in her sleep.

“Beverly wasn’t doing well. She had a difficult pregnancy. I was concerned about the delivery, if there would be complications.”

“Were there?”

“No. It was fine. A long labor, but fine.”

Heather thought about the leather-wrapped bundle Reed had buried. The Cherokee prayers he’d chanted would remain forever in her mind, in her heart.

“But soon after Justin was born, Beverly became ill. She assumed it was stress. We were constantly on the move, and that took its toll on everyone.”

How many states had they passed through? How many nights had they slept in their vehicle? Washed up at gas stations and launderettes? Jumped from campsite to campsite, living on the fish Reed caught? “Beverly got a cough that wouldn’t go away. But no matter how fatigued she was, she refused to see a doctor.”

“Why? Because she was afraid of drawing attention to herself?”

“Yes.” She could still see Beverly, pale and tired, letting Heather care for her son on the days she couldn’t manage him. “Reed did everything he could to convince her to see a doctor. But she was determined to get well on her own. To try homeopathic remedies.”

Michael’s voice turned hard. “What in the hell was Reed planning on doing? Being on the road forever?”

“He and Beverly had originally intended to go to Mexico, but Reed’s contact in Mexico City said the mob was already searching for them there.” She glanced at her hands, at her nervously chewed nails. “We had no idea where else they were searching. So we just kept running.” Struggling to make the money last, she thought. Her brother taking day labor jobs when he could. Using fake IDs. Switching vehicles, registering them to an alias.

“So, who is Beverly’s father? What’s his name?”

“Denny Halloway. The FBI calls the West Coast Family the Hollywood mob. Halloway, Hollywood. It’s a play on words, and he has connections in the entertainment industry.”

Michael sighed. “I don’t know anything about the Mafia. Other than what I’ve seen on TV. The Italian guys in New York. Or New Jersey or wherever.”

“The West Coast Family isn’t an Italian outfit.” And Heather knew more about the Mafia than she’d ever dreamed possible. Reed had been a “made” man. He’d sacrificed his soul for organized crime. “My brother was working on a way to send me home. To fake his, Beverly’s and Justin’s deaths. To stage an accident where I was the only survivor. But Beverly got sick and everything changed.”

“He should have sent all of you home. He shouldn’t have kept two women and a baby on the run.”

“Beverly didn’t want to return to her family. She’d always detested what her father represented, the high-powered criminal lifestyle he led. Besides, she loved Reed and wanted to be with him. He was her husband. Her Cherokee husband,” Heather clarified. “Reed performed a blanket ceremony. It wasn’t legal, but it was binding.”

Michael shook his head. “You wanted me to do that with you when you were sixteen. It was crazy.”

Her chest constricted. “I was young and romantic. I wanted you to pledge yourself to me.” To make a commitment, to swear off other girls and be with her, even though she wasn’t of age. But he’d refused. He’d been an eighteen-year-old boy still sowing his sexual oats, still parading a slew of blondes through his bed.

They sat in silence for a while, caught in the past. Then Justin rose and held on to the edge of his crib, grinning at Heather, waving his pony with one hand, nearly losing his balance.

Refusing to cry, she smiled back at him. She had a child to raise, a son to consider. She had to stay strong.

“Did Beverly die?” Michael asked.

“No, but she probably won’t live much longer. When she got worse, Reed insisted on taking her to a clinic. After a series of tests, they discovered she had small cell carcinoma of the lung, a rapidly progressing cancer. Without treatment, the median survival rate from diagnosis is only two to four months.”

She continued to look at Justin. He was such a good baby, so easy to care for, so happy. Yet his mother was dying, and his father was running for his life.

“We made a decision. Beverly had to return to her family. She needed urgent medical care.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, sympathy lacing his voice.

Heather turned to study him, to absorb his sincerity. She knew his mother had died of cancer, that he’d watched her grow pale and weak. Just as she and Reed had watched Beverly deteriorate, without realizing the magnitude of her illness. “Beverly is only twenty-two. A nonsmoker. Lung cancer never occurred to us.”

He merely nodded, a frown marring his brow. “Why didn’t she take her son home with her?”

“She didn’t want her father to have any part in raising him.”

“And what about Reed?”

“He couldn’t care for Justin, not living on the run. Reed knew that Beverly’s father would never quit searching for him, that he’d always be a target. So they both decided to relinquish their child, to give him a chance for a clean, safe life.”

And she remembered how devastated they’d been, how they’d held Justin and cried. They were losing each other and their baby. “We fabricated a lie. It was the only thing we could do. The only answer.”

“What lie?” he asked, watching her through dark, penetrating eyes.

She glanced away, afraid those eyes could look into her soul and unmask her secrets. The other pony. The leather bundle. The Cherokee prayers.

“I was to become Justin’s mother in every way,” she said, still dodging his gaze. “Beverly wouldn’t tell her family that she had a son. They didn’t know that she was pregnant, and there were no hospital records, nothing that proved she’d given birth to him. He was born in a cabin in Oklahoma, with only Reed and I in attendance.”

“And her father bought the lie? He never suspected that Justin was his grandson?”

“Why would he? Who would assume that a girl dying of cancer would have given birth to a healthy baby just ten months before?”

Michael wondered if it could be that simple, if a crime lord could be fooled that easily. “What about you? Does this mobster blame you for helping Beverly and Reed?”

She shook her head. “No. I took Beverly home, returning her to her family. They didn’t hold me accountable. But they made it clear that they’d never forgive my brother. He was part of their organization. He understood the consequences of his actions. He was warned to stay away from Beverly, and now that she’s sick, they blame him for not taking care of her. For all those months she didn’t receive medical treatment.”

Michael cursed beneath his breath. Trust Reed to get caught up in the mob, to fall for the boss’s daughter, to lure Heather into a web of deceit and danger.

“Who does the mob think Justin’s father is?” he asked, although he already knew. Heaven help him, he knew.

“You,” she said.

Yes, him. Who else could it be? He was Heather’s only lover, the only man she’d ever given herself to. And he was dark-skinned and dark-eyed, just like the baby.

He gazed at Heather, at her blond hair and fair complexion, at the sleek, simple clothes hugging her curves.

In the old days, she had been his best friend’s little sister, a sweet, skinny kid with big blue eyes, tagging along like a homeless filly.

Then she’d begun to mature. By the time she was sixteen, she’d blossomed into a lean, leggy beauty, an obsession eighteen-year-old Michael could barely control.

But as willing as she’d been, he hadn’t touched her. He’d promised Reed that he wouldn’t.

Michael could still recall the day Heather had confronted him, the sunny afternoon she’d challenged that promise.

They’d been at the edge of the lake, skimming stones across the water. She’d been wearing shorts and a halter top, her hair shimmering in glorious waves.

“Why haven’t you ever kissed me?” she’d asked.

He’d dropped the stone in his hand, plunking it in the water.

“You’re still a kid,” he told her.

“No, I’m not.” She came toward him, as fresh as the Hill Country air, as graceful as a palomino. “I’m all grown up.”

Blood rushed from his head to his feet. She was everything he wanted. And more. “You’re jailbait.”

She frowned, and he could see that he’d wounded her. He knew she had feelings for him, an attraction that had deepened over the years.

But she was dangerous. He spent too many nights thinking about her. Fantasizing. Driving himself crazy with what he longed to do to her. “You’re Reed’s sister. I promised him I’d stay away.”

“You and Reed hardly get along anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was still a promise. I can’t go back on my word.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his damnedest not to touch her, to hold her, to feel her heartbeat stumble against his. “Come see me when you’re eighteen.” When her brother couldn’t interfere. “Ask me to kiss you then.”

Instead she’d asked him to marry her, right then and there, in a secret Cherokee ceremony. Then they could be together, she’d said, no matter how old she was.

For an instant, one torturous instant, Michael had been tempted. Just to be with her, just to take what she was offering.

In the end, he’d told her it was a crazy idea. But so was trying to get her out of his system.

He’d spent the next two years, the next twenty-four months dating other girls, other blondes who never quite filled the ache—the desperate, sexual consumption.

Then finally, on Heather’s eighteenth birthday, she’d come to him. Without the slightest hesitation, he’d made love to her, taking her virginity, making her his.

Yet no matter how many times they joined, how many hot, torrid nights they climaxed in each other’s arms, he feared the obsession, the emotional power she wielded over him.

Michael didn’t want to fall in love. He’d seen how it had affected his mother, the destruction it caused. The only man she’d ever loved, Michael’s freewheeling father, had kicked her square in the heart.

The way Heather had eventually done to him.

He should have never asked her to live with him. He—

“Michael?”

He cleared his mind. Or tried to. The past still seemed like the present—the frustration, the emotional turmoil, the fear. “What?”

“I need your help.”

He squinted. “With what?”

“With the baby.”

He glanced at Justin. The kid tested the perimeters of his confinement, holding on to the sides and rattling the cage. “How so?”

“I need you to commit to being his father.”

Michael’s pulse shot up his arm. “You said the West Coast family already thinks I am.”

“I know, but everyone else has to think that, too. If we don’t keep up the pretense they might find out the truth.”

“You have no right to ask this of me. To expect me to raise your brother’s son.”

“I’m not expecting you to do it forever. Just for a few months.”

He almost glanced at Justin again, then decided not to. What if the boy flashed one of those big, goofy grins? Smiled at him the way he’d smiled at Heather?

She set her coffee aside, and he suspected it had gone cold. As cold as the blood flowing through his veins. He didn’t want to play papa to Reed Blackwood’s baby, not even for a short time.

“I’ve worked out the details,” she told him. “I’ll stay in Texas for a few months, and we can feign a reunion. But our attempt to renew our relationship will fail, and I’ll leave town to start a new life. For appearance’s sake, we’ll keep in touch about the baby. You’ll be the concerned father without having to get too involved.”

He gave her an incredulous look. Did she think that feigning a relationship wasn’t getting involved? Or publicly claiming a child who wasn’t his?

“What makes you think I don’t have a new woman in my life, that I’m not dating someone?” he asked, reminding her of how long she’d been gone.

Her voice quavered. “Do you? Are you?”

“No.” But he was glad to see the suggestion had rattled her, that he’d planted a seed to make her wonder. The way he’d wondered for eighteen grueling months if she’d run off with another man, if that had been the reason she’d disappeared.

“You should have risked a phone call, Heather. You should have called me. Just once.”

“I wanted to. So many times, I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t.”

She glanced at the mist-fogged window, at the overcast light shadowing the room. “I thought about you every day.”

He’d thought about her, too. She was always there, the beautiful ghost from his past, the girl who’d disappeared.

She twisted her hands on her lap, and he noticed her nails were bitten to the quick. He considered apologizing for the barb about another woman, but decided he would sound like a wuss, like he was still obsessed with her.

He held his ground. “Why didn’t you think about me before you took off to California? Before you got tangled up in this mess?”

“You wouldn’t allow me to see my own brother. What was I supposed to do?”

Michael turned cynical. “Everything is always about Reed.”

“This is about Justin. An innocent child.” Her eyes turned watery. “Please understand. This is important. More important than you can imagine. Beverly’s dad will probably keep an eye on us, just to see if we hear from Reed. He’ll probably try to lure information from people we know. So I need to make sure everyone we socialize with believes Justin is our baby. If a rumor leaks that he could be Reed’s son—”

He cursed before she could finish her sentence. What in the hell was he supposed to do? Ignore her plea? Let the mob take the boy away from her?

“Two months,” he said. “And I’m explaining the entire farce to my uncle.”

“No!” She nearly flew off the sofa. “You can’t tell anyone. Not another living soul. This has to be our secret. The lie we take to our graves.”

“It isn’t right.” He hadn’t lied to his uncle since he was a kid, a smart-mouthed youth who hadn’t given a damn about anyone but himself.

“Please.” She went to the baby and picked him up. “Please.”

Michael frowned, and Justin took that moment to smile, to blow bubbles at him.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“All right,” he said as the boy’s slobbery grin tunneled an unwelcome path straight to his cautious, it’ll-be-over-in-two-months heart.

The day passed quickly, but as evening rolled around, Heather grew more and more anxious.

Michael had gone to work that morning and that was the last she’d seen of him.

She’d kept busy, baby-proofing the house the best she could, moving Justin’s crib, unloading her rental car, preparing the guest room for Justin and herself.

She’d cleaned everything. She’d even dusted the third bedroom, the one filled with junk Michael had been storing for years.

And like Suzy-homemaker, she’d organized the kitchen cupboards, too.

Then she’d gotten the brilliant idea to fix dinner, believing quite foolishly that Michael would come home in time to eat.

The table was set and the food had gone cold. It wasn’t a fancy meal, considering the simple contents in Michael’s fridge, but she made a pretty good meat loaf. And he liked mashed potatoes, with pools of melting butter instead of gravy.

She sat at the table and fidgeted with a bowl of wilting green beans. She’d lost her appetite hours ago. Deciding to clean up, she headed to the kitchen for aluminum foil and plastic containers.

What was she doing? Trying to resume where they left off? If he hadn’t loved her then, what made her think he would fall in love with her now? That the next two months would change her life?

She needed Michael to help her set the stage, to establish Justin’s paternity, but beyond that, she had no right to expect anything more.

Want it, crave it, but not expect it.

She wrapped the meat loaf and scooped the potatoes into a plastic bowl, closing the vacuum-sealed lid. Then the front door rattled, and her heartbeat tripled.

Michael was home.

Should she greet him? Or continue clearing the table? Cursing her quaking hands, she chose the table. How could a man she’d known for over half her life make her so nervous?

Because she’d loved him for over half her life, and he’d always given her butterflies.

She heard him moving around in the living room. Removing his hat, most likely, brushing the moisture from his clothes.

She pictured him, as he was, tall and dark, amid the homespun furnishings. Michael had inherited the old farmhouse from his mother, a hardworking waitress who’d acquired it from her ancestors—German immigrants who’d settled in the Texas Hill Country.

The house bore hardwood floors, paned windows and hand-stenciled trim that dressed up door frames and plain walls. A live oak in the front yard stood guard throughout the year, and bluebonnets blanketed the ground every spring.

As Heather made a face at the green beans, wondering if she should toss them out, Michael entered the dining room.

“You made dinner?”

She looked up. His hair was long and loose and slightly damp. “Yes.” She wished she’d thought to remove the two place settings, the scented candle still burning. The romantic ambience, she thought. “Are you hungry? It’s cold, but I can reheat it.”

“I grabbed a bite in town.”

“Oh.” She fidgeted with a fan-shaped napkin, suddenly embarrassed that she’d folded it that way. “So you went out?”

“Yeah. Did you think I was working all this time?”

She shrugged as if his whereabouts didn’t matter. Then she couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Where’d you go?”

He shifted his stance. “To have a few beers.”

“At the Corral?”

“Yes.”

So he’d gone to the local honky-tonk. “What’d you do there?”

“I just told you. I had a few beers.”

He didn’t play pool? Or dance? Or flirt with the country barflies? The bimbos with their big hairdos and tight jeans? “So that’s all you did?”

He peered in the foil-wrapped package, checking out the meat loaf. “Yep. That’s all.”

“I cleaned the house,” she said, changing the subject, hating herself for feeling like a suspicious lover.

“You didn’t have to. I don’t expect you to pick up after me. I never did.”

“I needed to baby-proof the place.”

“Oh.” He broke off a corner of the meat loaf, ate it, then caught himself. “I guess I worked up another appetite.”

Doing what? she wondered. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

“This is fine.” He took a few slices and devoured them cold. Next he uncapped the mashed potatoes and ate a large portion directly from the bowl.

Hardly the intimate meal she’d planned. “Did you tell anyone about me and Justin?”

He tasted the soggy green beans. “No.”

“Not even Bobby?”

“My uncle was busy today.”

“Too busy to talk to you?”

Now it was Michael’s turn to shrug. “I didn’t feel like going into all of it.”

An ache, as solid as the hills, slammed into her heart. He hadn’t felt like talking about her, the woman he’d lived with, the woman who still loved him. “Seems to me that a man whose girlfriend just returned to him with his baby would’ve explained the situation to his family instead of going out for a few beers.”