Child of Their Vows

“Would you like to visit my home and meet Kelly and your half sisters?” The words were out almost before he knew he was speaking, but he didn’t regret them, not when he saw Randall’s eyes light up.

“Oh, boy! Could I? When? I’ll go ask Mom and Dad right now.”

His heart telling him he’d done the right thing, Max followed his son back inside the house.

“YOU WHAT!” Kelly stared at Max. She was still coming to grips with the fact that he’d gone to Wyoming against her wishes.

Max sighed through gritted teeth and took the position that offense was the best form of defense. “I invited Randall to spend his summer vacation with us. Is that so hard to understand?”

“What’s hard to understand is why you think I would agree,” Kelly said, pacing the bedroom. “I told you I don’t want anything to do with this kid.”

Seated on the edge of the bed, Max followed her with his gaze. “I know I should have asked you first, but if you’d seen that boy you would have done the same thing. He lives with an elderly father and a wheelchair-bound mother. They’re nice people and they’re doing their best, but Randall has few friends. He’s lonely. If he doesn’t come to us he’ll spend the summer in his room in front of the computer.”

“My heart is breaking.”

“Kelly, this sarcastic attitude isn’t like you. If you only met him—”

“I don’t want to meet him. What about me and the girls? Or don’t you care about us anymore?” She stopped in front of the closet and took out her jacket.

“Of course I care. What are you doing?”

She ignored his question. “Having secret children and illicit love affairs isn’t like the man I thought I married.” Shrugging into her jacket, she stopped in front of him. “I thought I knew you. Now I realize I don’t know you at all.”

“Don’t get sidetracked. We’re talking about Randall. Please, Kel, give yourself time to get used to the idea.”

“Are you serious? School gets out in a month. I’d need a lifetime to get used to this. Summer has always been family time.”

“Randall is family, Kelly, whether you like it or not.” He paused. “Where are you going?”

Kelly slipped her feet into a pair of loafers. “Gran’s house.”

“Can’t we talk about this?”

“I’m too angry and upset to talk. I’ll see you later. Maybe.”

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN KELLY GOT TO GRAN’S house she was surprised to see both her sisters’ cars parked out front. She knocked once and let herself in the front door.

“Hello? Anybody home?” Lights burned in the living room to her left and she heard her sisters’ voices.

“Is that you, Kel?” Erin, her eldest sister, called. “We’re in here.”

Kelly dropped her purse on the hall table and went through to the living room of the big Victorian house where Kelly and her sisters had grown up after her parents were killed in a car crash. Her younger sister, Geena, held her sleeping baby across her lap, and Erin’s toddler was curled up in a portable cot Gran kept around for her great-grandchildren’s frequent visits.

“You guys having a party without me…?” Kelly began, then stopped short at the sight of Gran, seated in her rocker with one leg propped up on a stool and an ice pack over her ankle.

“What happened?” Kelly demanded, hurrying across the room to her grandmother’s side. “Are you all right, Gran?”

“Nothing serious. I just twisted my ankle while I was on my power walk this evening,” Gran said, adjusting the ice pack.

“The ankle’s badly swollen,” Erin elaborated, pushing back her long blond hair. “I came by to drop off some homemade strawberry jam and found her crawling on her hands and knees.”

“It’s nothing,” Gran insisted fretfully. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m taking you to see Ben first thing in the morning,” Geena said, referring to her husband, a local G.P. One hand rested lightly on little Sonja’s rounded diaper-clad bottom. “I’d have brought him with me tonight, but he’s doing an emergency appendectomy.”

“You should have called me,” Kelly scolded her Gran. She lifted the ice pack and winced at the swollen mottled skin. “Hang on and I’ll get an Ace bandage from the first-aid kit in my car.”

When she got back inside, Erin was administering anti-inflammatory tablets to the resistant septuagenarian. Kelly pulled up a stool before Gran’s chair and expertly wrapped the elderly woman’s ankle in a neat herringbone pattern.

“You’re good, Kel,” Geena said, admiring her sister’s handiwork. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I take a refresher first-aid course every couple of years. With four kids you’ve got to be ready to handle anything.” The minicrisis of Gran’s ankle had pushed Max and Randall from her mind, but mentioning her children brought it all back in a rush.

Gran must have seen something in her face. “What’s wrong, Kelly?”

Kelly rose, walked a few paces and sank into an overstuffed chair. “Nothing.”

Geena, sitting opposite, brushed wispy auburn bangs off her face and looked Kelly over closely. “Yes, there is. Your eyes are swollen and red. You’ve been crying.”

“Tell us what’s the matter, Kel,” Erin said.

Kelly stared into the empty fireplace, not knowing where to start. Then she released a deep sigh. “Max and I had a fight.”

“Pass me my knitting, Geena, honey,” Gran said in a low voice.

“Did you argue about your work again?” Geena asked sympathetically as she handed Gran a tapestry bag stuffed with yarn and needles.

“No…” Although she’d learned about Max’s son two weeks ago, she hadn’t yet confided in her sisters or Gran, hoping the whole nightmare would blow over. Now she could use some moral support. “Max had an affair the summer after high school with a girl on a dude ranch,” she began, and went on to tell them the whole story.

“Oh, Kelly, sweetie,” Geena said when Kelly finally finished. She put a hand over her sister’s and squeezed. “This is dreadful. I can’t believe he didn’t tell you long ago.”

“I can’t believe this is Max we’re talking about,” Erin said, equally shocked. “You and he have been together since your junior prom.”

Gran knit quietly. So quietly Kelly had to ask, “Did you know about the baby, Gran?”

Gran’s soft brown eyes were thoughtful behind her oversize blue plastic glasses. Slowly, she shook her head. “No. And frankly, I’m surprised they managed to keep it quiet in a small place like Hainesville. At the time I did think it odd that Max and his parents were making so many trips out of town. I knew you were serious about Max so I was worried he was in some kind of trouble. But he went off to college as expected and nothing seemed amiss.” She paused to count stitches, then turned her needles and started another row. “One thing I never doubted was that he loved you.”

“He should have trusted her, too—enough to tell her the truth,” Erin said.

“Well…he didn’t want to risk losing me.” Kelly caught herself defending him and hardened her voice. “And he was right to worry.”

She slumped her aching head into her propped-up hand. “He invited Randall—that’s his son’s name—to stay with us for the summer…without even asking me!”

“You two need to sit down, calmly and rationally, and work through your problems,” Gran said, glancing up from her knitting.

“How can she be calm when she’s hurting so badly?” Erin demanded. “I love Max like a brother, but I think he’s way off base for even suggesting a visit before clearing it with Kelly. It’s adding insult to injury.”