My Baby, Your Son

“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.

Chapter Two

April was proud of the steadiness of her voice. Inside, she was aquiver with nerves. These past two days at Cliff House had been as much heaven as hell. Heaven was find- ing it as warmly familiar as a cozy old blanket. Hell, the fact that Marje was no longer there to make it home.

Heaven had been the nostalgia, the memories of glorious summers that seemed so much more real and immediate here, now. Hell were those selfsame memories for they in- cluded—no, prominently featured, Jared O’Neal.

Thinking of him had invariably started her agonizing once again about how to approach him about Tyler. Should she go with her feelings, those of outrage and hurt at his betrayal, and coldly demand an accounting? How could you not have let me know that our child is alive? And living with you? Should she corner him, pin him down? Insist he give her an answer, demand access to her child?

Or should she go with the advice of her attorney, which was to keep past grievances out of it and negotiate?

Her legal position, short of a messy lawsuit, was shaky. Her signature was on the document giving the child up for adoption. Jared O’Neal was the name she had declared as the child’s father on the birth certificate. He had every right to the boy, whereas she….

“I have every right, too,” she had exclaimed. “I didn’t know….”

“Which is why in this instance ignorance just might be an excuse under the law,” her attorney had mused. “If it should come to a suit But be warned, the cost in terms of publicity and emotional trauma will be high for all con- cerned.”

By this morning, April had made up her mind to ap- proach Jared with an olive branch in hand. After all, he had always been a reasonable, a most compassionate, person.

Now, however, confronted by the mask of ice that was Jared O’Neal’s face, and raked by a gaze that was clearly intended to freeze her out, April wanted nothing so much as to turn tail and run, to let her lawyer have at him.

But through years of performing before an audience, pre- ceded by a lifetime of the strictest discipline, she had per- fected the ability to appear poised and serene in even the worst of circumstances.

And so she managed to maintain a pleasant smile as the postmistress said, “We were just talkin’ about you, Miz Bingham. Weren’t we, Jared?”

Jared’s reply was a noncommittal mutter. He still hadn’t returned April’s greeting.

When April realized that he had no intentions of ac- knowledging her presence at all, the stab of hurt this caused both angered and surprised her. She would have thought her defenses stronger than that. She had worked so hard to shore them up. As an entertainer, having her work con- stantly scrutinized and torn apart by fans and critics alike came with the territory. She’d had to develop an elephant’s hide or perish as an artist.

So why would the rudeness of this one man cause her even a moment’s discomfort?

The answer was as obvious as it was immutable—the man was the father of her child. That made him, if no longer special, at least different from every other man in that he had once possessed her heart and body. They had been in love.

Or, at least, she had been—if indeed that fairy-tale state existed. In those glorious days that long-ago summer, sev- enteen years old and incredibly naive, she had believed it did.

But now, at twenty-eight, she knew better than to put her faith in fairy tales. First Jared O’Neal and, later, Montgom- ery Cedars, had shattered her girlish illusions.

Still, she had hoped that the bond between Jared and herself, tenuous though the events of the past might have made it, would enable them to deal with each other civilly. At least where Tyler was concerned.

And so, maybe the twinge of pain Jared’s barely veiled contempt was causing her was merely disappointment at having that hope dashed. Not that she would let him see he still had the power to wound her.

“I’m glad to run into you here,” she told him, keeping her tone civil, though it took some effort. “I was going to call you later today.”

“Really?” His tone was one of complete disinterest. “A sick pet?”

“No, of course not. I—”

“In that case, you’ll excuse me.” Brushing past her, Jar- ed strode out the door without a backward glance.

Stunned, April almost let him get away with it. But then she recalled the promise she had made to herself, the prom- ise to take charge. “Jared!”

Leaving the postmistress looking intrigued, April hurried after him. She caught him out on the sidewalk. “Jared.”

He neither turned nor stopped walking.

April half ran to come abreast of him. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“There’s not a word you can say that I want to hear.”

“Oh, really?” April snapped, his scorn blasting the last of her good intentions to smithereens. Gritting her teeth and blessing her long legs, she grimly matched his stride. “How does the word ‘conspiracy’ strike you?”

No response.

“Or maybe the term ‘kidnapping’ would be more appli- cable.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

April stalked past him, then spun around. Folding her arms across her chest, she met his glare without waver. “I will have you charged with either or both,” she said. “If you force me to.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Maybe.” She angled her chin in a gesture of challenge.

Jared ground his back teeth.

Neither blinked as they stared coldly into each other’s eyes. April was damned if she was going to give him even a glimpse of her shattered nerves because she knew she’d be lost if she did. He would emotionally flatten her like a steamroller for the simple reason that he could. After all, she was the vulnerable one in the showdown to come. She wanted what he already had.

“Kidnapping what?” he finally demanded, as though he didn’t already know the answer, ludicrous though it was. “Or who?”

“Tyler.” The name came out of April’s constricted throat in a croaky whisper. Angry with herself for the innate cowardice that even now made her want to retreat from this confrontation, April cleared her throat. “I want Tyler.”

“Tyler is nothing to you,” Jared growled, doing his ut- most to control a burgeoning rage he knew was caused by fear as much as anything else. “Nothing.”

“He is my son.”

“Your son?” The harshly whispered pronoun was laced with such bitterness and suppressed rage, April instinctively shrank back.

But not far enough. Jared gripped her arm. Jerking her out of the path of other pedestrians, many of whom were eyeing them with avid curiosity, he all but dragged her into the relative privacy of a recessed store entrance. There, his formidable bulk shielded April from inquisitive glances. She doubted, however, that he’d arranged it that way out of chivalry. He was clearly livid.

“Now you listen to me,” he snarled, impaling her with his eyes. “That boy is mine. Only mine.” His face was as close as a lover’s, but there was nothing in the least lov- erlike in his expression. “You gave away any claim you had when you got rid of him like so much excess bag- gage.”

“No!” With a strength fueled by desperation, April yanked her arm out of Jared’s grip and raised her hands beseechingly. “Jared, for heaven’s sake. You know I never did that. My mother—”

“Ah, yes,” Jared interjected with a grimace of distaste. “Your mother.”

“Did what she thought was best,” April defended out of habit. Certainly not out of conviction. “But believe me, I knew nothing about any of it.”

“Yeah, right.” Jared averted his face so he wouldn’t have to look at her to see the distress that could almost make him believe she was telling the truth. Almost. “Poor April, always the innocent victim.”

“No!”

“Damn straight, no!” Jerking his face back toward her, Jared spoke through clenched teeth. “As in no way. No way do I believe you, and no way are you getting your hands on my son. He is not a thing you can keep or reject like the ring you tossed back in my face.”

“The ring?” April stared at him, bewildered. He could only mean his fraternity ring. She’d been on cloud nine the day he had given it to her as a token of his love. And she had sunk into the depths of despair the day it had disap- peared.

Which had been the same day she had confessed to her mother that she was pregnant. Her last day at Cliff House. Because the very next morning, her mother had put her on a plane to London. Marjorie had written in her journal that day.

I think Grace is overreacting. And my little April is so distressed that I telephoned Joshua in London and pleaded with him to intervene on his daughter’s behalf. I am heartbroken but not really surprised that, as usual, my brother shirked his responsibilities and refused…

Reading it all these years later, April had cried. Her fa- ther was dead and could answer no questions, but she had often wondered why he’d been so seemingly content to give her mother free reign.

Perhaps if he’d taken a stand, she would not now be in this untenable situation with Jared O’Neal.

“What are you talking about?” Biting her lip, April blinked back the moisture that had risen into her eyes. In his present frame of mind, Jared would probably see her tears as a sign of weakness and guilt. “I never tossed that ring—”

“Of course you didn’t. That would have taken courage.” Jared’s jaw flexed, remembering. “No, you had your mother do it for you.”

“You’re wrong.” April felt as though she were in a quagmire of misunderstandings and trickery, and sinking fast. What was he talking about? When would her mother have done this? Why? Grace had sworn to her that she hadn’t seen the ring.

And she had also sworn, as she’d hustled the heartbroken and hysterical April to the airport, that she hadn’t seen Jar- ed. More lies?

Oh, Mother. April’s shoulders sagged beneath the weight of so much treachery, so much manipulation. “Jared…”

“Spare me.” Jared didn’t want to hear her excuses, her lies. “I don’t give a damn, about you or the ring. Though just for the record, it’s in my desk drawer. Come by and check it out. Or, better still, I’ll mail it to you since I can’t stand the sight of it.”

Or of you. Though he didn’t say it, it was there in his face for April to see. She shivered. “Then why do you keep it?”

“To remind myself never to get into a situation like that again.”

“Did it work?” April was surprised to hear herself ask. She fully expected Jared to snarl some scathing reply.

But he didn’t. He contemplated her in brooding silence for several long seconds during which April could hear every one of her heartbeats as loud as a drum. Such a ter- rible pain clouded his eyes that April couldn’t help but be touched by it. She reached out to him with her hand, un- formulated words of regret, perhaps even apology, on her lips.

But before she could either touch him or speak, Jared pivoted and walked away.

It struck her anew then, the enormity of all she had lost. And she ached. She grieved. She mourned the loss of in- nocence—her own as well as Jared’s—that inevitably was the legacy of betrayal.

“Oh, Jared,” she murmured, and her throat burned like acid from her unshed tears. To hide her emotions, she turned to stare without focus at the window display in front of which she found herself. It consisted of tools of some sort. Nothing April would have recognized even had she tried. Or cared.