The Daddy Secret

There stood Lucas, the kid Rick had met earlier, the boy with blue eyes and a cowlick like Rick’s.

Of course, Rick might be connecting imaginary genetic dots, but how likely was that?

“Hey! Dr. Martinez. Where’s Buddy?”

Rick’s first instinct was to launch into an interrogation of Mallory, but he needed to control his gut reaction. Why take out his anger and frustration on the poor kid?

“I’m afraid I left Buddy at home this evening,” he said.

Mallory, her eyes wary, her cheeks flushed, looked as if she’d just picked up the wrong end of a hot branding iron. She glanced at Rick, then at the boy. Her son. “I didn’t realize you two had met.”

Apparently not. Would she have mentioned anything about even having a son if the boy hadn’t come downstairs?

“We met today,” Lucas said. “While I was at Mrs. Reilly’s house.”

Mallory took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, clearly at a loss and probably trying to buy time in order to gather her thoughts—or maybe to fabricate a lie.

How about that? If there was one thing he could say about Mallory Dickinson, at least the Mallory he’d once known, it was that she was as honest as the day was long.

But it didn’t take a brain surgeon to see the writing on the wall. She’d kept the baby she was supposed to have given up for adoption, and she’d let more than nine years go by without telling him.

Betrayal gnawed at his gut, and anger flared in a swirl of ugly colors. He ought to challenge her right here and now, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it in front of the boy. Apparently, she no longer saw a reason to bar him from entering the house because she stepped away from the door and allowed him in.

“Lucas called you a doctor,” she said, arching a delicate brow.

The fact that she found it surprising that Rick had actually made good ought to set him off further, although that was pretty minor in the scheme of things.

Still, he couldn’t quite mask his annoyance in his response. “I’m a veterinarian. My clinic is just down the street.”

As she mulled that over, Lucas sidled up to Rick wearing a bright-eyed grin. “Did you come to ask my mom about Buddy?”

No, the dog was the last thing he’d come to talk to Mallory about. And while he hadn’t been sure just how the conversation was going to unfold when he arrived, it had just taken a sudden and unexpected turn.

“Why would he come to talk to me about his dog?” Mallory asked her son.

Or rather their son. Who else could the boy be?

Rick’s emotions, which he’d learned to keep in check over the years, spun around like a whirligig, and he was hard pressed to snatch just one on which he could focus.

Lucas, whose smile indicated that he was completely oblivious to the tension building between the adults, approached Mallory. “Because Buddy needs a home. And since we have a yard now, can I have him? Please? I promise to take care of him and walk him and everything. You won’t have to do anything.”

Mallory drew a hand to her chest, just below her throat where her pulse fluttered. “You want a dog? I don’t know about that.”

“Why not?” the boy asked.

She seemed to ponder the question, then said, “We’ll have to talk about it later. However, to answer your question about the Legos, I put them on the shelf in the linen closet just outside your bedroom.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He flashed Rick a smile, then turned and headed toward the stairs.

As Lucas was leaving, Rick’s gaze traveled from the boy to Mallory and back again.

Finally, when he and Mallory were alone, Rick folded his arms across his chest, shifted his weight to one hip and gave her a pointed look.

“Cute kid,” he said.

Mallory flushed brighter still, and she wiped her palms along her hips, tugging at the fabric of her robe.

Nervous, huh? Rick’s internal B.S. detector slipped into overdrive.

Well, she ought to be.

When he’d found out about her pregnancy, he’d only been seventeen, but he’d offered to quit school, get a job and marry her.

However, her grandparents had decided that she was too young and convinced her that giving her child up for adoption was the only way to go. So they’d sent her to Boston to live with her Aunt Carrie until the birth.

Yet in spite of what she’d promised him when she left, she hadn’t come back to Brighton Valley. And within six months’ time, he’d lost all contact with her. She might blame some of that on him, but he didn’t see it that way.

Either way, she’d had a change of heart about the adoption. And about the feelings she’d claimed she’d had for him.

At the thought of Mallory’s deception, something rose up inside of him, something dark and ugly and juvenile, something that reminded him that he might always be prone to bad genetics and a lousy upbringing. But he tamped it down, as he’d learned to do in recent years, and glared at the woman he’d once loved instead.

As a teenager, Mallory had attended church regularly. Now she stood warily in the center of her living room looking as guilty as sin.

“Excuse me for being blunt,” Rick finally said, “but your son looks a lot like my brother Joey did as a kid.”

“It’s not what you think.”

What he thought was that she’d lied to him, that she’d kept their baby. Was she saying that she hadn’t?

“If I’m off base, suppose you set me straight.”

She glanced upstairs. “Not here. Not tonight.”

Rick wasn’t sure if Lucas could hear their conversation or not. But she was right. Any further discussion ought to be done in private.

“All right,” he said. “Another time. Preferably tomorrow. You tell me when.”

“I...” She bit down on her lip, then glanced upstairs again. “I have a job interview at two o’clock and have already lined up Alice Reilly to babysit. I’ll ask her to keep Lucas longer. Would that work for you? We can meet here in the late afternoon.”

He had a pretty full schedule at the clinic tomorrow, as well as a couple of minor surgeries. “That’s fine, as long as it’s after five.”

“Okay.” She started for the door, signaling that it was time for him to leave.

All right. He’d go for now.

Mallory might have shut him out of her life when they were teenagers, deciding she’d rather raise their son on her own, but a lot of things had happened since she’d been gone. A lot had changed.

When Rick stepped out of the house, she closed the door behind him, shutting him out once again, it seemed.

But he was going to get to the bottom of this once and for all. He intended to learn more about the baby they’d conceived.

And about the boy who looked like Rick and who called Mallory Mom.

* * *

“Excuse me, Dr. Martinez. But there’s a lady and a little boy asking to see you. She said her name is Alice Reilly and that you told them to stop by.”

Rick, who’d just placed a plastic cone on a German shepherd’s head so he couldn’t chew at his sutures, glanced up at Kara Dobbins, his receptionist. “They’re here? Now?”

“Should I tell them to come back another time?”

Rick glanced at his wristwatch. It was 2:25. “Is there anyone in the waiting room?”

“Just Mrs. Reilly and the boy. Tom Randall called and cancelled his two-thirty appointment. He said Duke seems to be doing much better today.”

“Tell them I’ll be right there. I need to put Samson back in the kennel until the Hendersons come to pick him up.”

“I can do that for you,” Kara said.

Rick knew he’d told Alice she could bring Lucas to visit the clinic, but he hadn’t expected them to show up so soon. Besides, he’d hoped to have that talk with Mallory first. But apparently that wasn’t to be. So he’d have to keep his rising suspicion at bay and play things by ear.

When he entered the waiting room, Lucas, who’d been sitting next to Alice, jumped to his feet. “Hi, Dr. Martinez. Thanks for letting us come see your office and all the animals.”

“I hope this isn’t a bad time,” Alice said. “I really hadn’t meant to bring Lucas today, but he was so insistent.”

“That’s fine,” Rick said. “Come with me. I’ll show you around.”

After a tour of the exam rooms, as well as the hospital boarding area, where Lucas met several of the recovering furry patients, Rick showed him the pharmacy area and the lab. He then let them peer through the glass window into the operating room.

“When I grow up,” Lucas said, “I’d like to be a veterinarian, too.”

An unexpected sense of pride surged through Rick. Apparently they both shared a love of animals. Did they share anything else?

It’s not what you think, Mallory had said.

Oh, no? Then, if Lucas wasn’t Rick’s son, what had happened to their baby? Had she given it up as she’d said she was going to do? And if so, why did the boy look more like a Martinez than a Dickinson?

According to what Lucas had told Rick yesterday, he had a father. When we lived in the city, my dad said it wouldn’t be fair to an animal to keep him cooped up inside all day long.

So who had Mallory married? Did he look like Rick? Did he have dark hair and an olive complexion?

Were they still together? Had he moved to Brighton Valley with her?

Rick didn’t think so. She hadn’t been wearing a ring yesterday. He’d checked again last night. When she’d stood behind the door—hid behind it was more like it—he’d checked out her left hand again. And just as it had been earlier, her ring finger had been bare.

Is that why she’d moved home? For a fresh start?

Probably so. That’s why she’d gone to Boston and stayed there, wasn’t it? To put Rick behind her?

Alice’s voice drew Rick from his musing. “I think you’d make a good veterinarian, Lucas. How good are you in math and science?”

“Pretty good, I guess.”

Before Alice could respond, her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her purse and checked the lighted display. “Uh-oh. This is a dear friend whose husband is having some serious health issues. I need to speak to her, Doctor. Would you mind if I left Lucas with you and talked to her in private?”

“No, go ahead.”

As Alice stepped through the door that led to the waiting room, Lucas sidled up to Rick. “Where do you keep Buddy?”

“He’s in the back, near where I live. Come on. I’ll show you.” Rick took Lucas out the door that led to the yard enclosed by a chain-link fence.

As they made their way to the gate, Rick said, “I used to let Buddy have the run of the yard, but he kept jumping over the fence.”

“He must be a supergood jumper,” Lucas said.

“Yes, he is. So I had to lock him in one of the dog runs now, which he doesn’t like, but I can’t trust him to play in the yard without supervision.”

Buddy barked when he spotted them, then wiggled his rump and wagged his tail like crazy. The boy and dog sure seemed to have hit it off. But then, that’s the way it was with kids and pets.

But kids and adults?

That wasn’t always the case.

Maybe it was best that Rick wasn’t the boy’s father. How the hell would he ever relate to him? He hadn’t had any kind of role model growing up. Of course, even if the boy was his—and Mallory certainly had implied that he wasn’t—Rick didn’t have to become any kind of SuperDad. Maybe he could just be a friend or a mentor, like Detective Hank Lazaro had been to him.

If Hank hadn’t come along when he had and seen something worthwhile in Rick, something that was salvageable and worth tapping into, no telling where Rick would have ended up.

In jail or dead, he supposed.

Either way, that didn’t mean Rick wasn’t curious about the man who’d replaced him in Mallory’s life.

He’d save his big questions for her, but it wouldn’t hurt to quiz Lucas a bit—just a few random things that wouldn’t seem unusual for a neighbor to ask.

“Hey, Lucas,” he said. “I have a question for you. Yesterday, when we were talking in front of Mrs. Reilly’s house, you mentioned that your dad wouldn’t let you have a dog when you lived in the city.”

“Yeah, we had a big brick house but no yard. Now we have a little house and a big yard.”

They downsized, huh? “What does your dad do for a living?”

“He was a teacher, but he died when I was seven.”

Oops. Rick hadn’t seen that coming. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, me, too. People said it was a blessing when he died, since he was so sick. But I don’t know about that. I mean, why’d he have to get cancer in the first place?”

Rick, who had never been much of a churchgoer except for a couple of times with Mallory when he’d been stuck on her as a teenager, didn’t have an answer. And he knew enough not to try and blow heavenly smoke.

No answer had to be better than a wrong one, right?

“I know he’s in Heaven now,” Lucas added. “And that he has a brand-new body, with hair again and everything. So that’s good. But I still wish he was here with me. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do.”

Rick didn’t especially like the idea that Mallory had met another man that she’d fallen in love with, a guy she’d decided would make a much better husband and father than Rick would have made. But apparently the guy had been good to Lucas, so Rick was grateful for that.

And he was truly sorry the kid had had to lose his father, especially since the boy had obviously cared deeply for him.

As Rick opened the latch on the gate, Buddy let out a howl. The minute he was out of the dog run, he rushed out to greet Lucas as though the two were long lost friends.

“You missed me,” Lucas said, ruffling the fur on Buddy’s neck. “Didn’t you, boy.”

Buddy gave him a wet, sloppy lick.

As Rick watched the two wrestle and play on the grass, it was hard to guess who was happier—the kid or the dog.

“So, tell me something,” Rick said. “What was your dad like?”

“He was just a regular guy, but really nice. Know what I mean?” When Rick nodded, Lucas continued. “He worked at my school and would have been my fourth-grade teacher this year, but he died. So then I had to have Mrs. Callaway instead. And she’s cranky and yells all the time.”

“I guess it’s lucky that you moved to Brighton Valley then. I hear the teachers are much better here.” Rick, of course, had heard no such thing, but he wanted to say something to make the kid feel better, although he’d never been very good at stuff like that.

“Dr. Martinez?” Kara called from the doorway to the clinic. “Fred Ames is here with Nugget.”

“I’ll be right there.” Rick strode over to where Buddy was playing with Lucas and grabbed the dog’s collar. “I’m afraid I need to go back to work now, so we’ll have to put Buddy back into his pen.”

“Aw, man. That’s too bad. Poor Buddy. I’d hate to live in a cage like that.”

So would Rick. In fact, the idea of spending his life in confinement made him think about his uncle, who’d ended up in prison after the last time his drunken rage had turned violent. The neighbors had called the cops, and his aunt had spent a week in the hospital. The state had stepped in, finally, sending Rick and Joey, his younger brother, into foster care.

The whole thing had been pretty embarrassing, since it had been in the local newspaper. Rick had often thought that Mallory’s conservative grandfather, a minister, had decided Rick wasn’t good enough for Mallory because they figured he would grow up to be like the other men in his family.

To be honest, that was one of the reasons Rick hadn’t wanted to settle down, get married and have kids. He’d worried about it a bit, too. Hell, even Joey had run away and cut all ties to everyone who bore a drop of Martinez blood, including Rick.

A couple of years ago, Rick had hired a P.I. and tried to find his kid brother, but it was as if Joey hadn’t wanted to be found. He’d pretty much vanished.

Unless, of course, he was dead.

Rick raked a hand through his hair. At times like this, when the memories haunted him, he wondered if he’d really turned his life around or not. Maybe on the outside he had. But on the inside, he feared that he was still the same troubled little boy who’d been knocked around by his old man and called a loser more times than he could count, abandoned by his parents, left to the care of an alcoholic uncle and finally turned over to the state foster system until his eighteenth birthday.

After putting Buddy back in the dog run and locking the gate, Rick and Lucas headed back to the clinic, while Buddy complained with howls and barks.

“I feel bad for him,” Lucas said.

So did Rick, which was why he took Buddy for a run each evening and why he let him sleep in the house at night.

Buddy was a free spirit, a lot like Rick. He wasn’t cut out to live in a kennel or crate. But if he didn’t get his frisky behavior in check, he wouldn’t be cut out to be a family pet, either.

Maybe that’s why Rick had taken such a liking to the stray, why he’d felt inclined to keep him until he could find a suitable home for him.

Because in some ways, Rick and Buddy were alike. Loners who shouldn’t tempt fate.

* * *

Mallory’s job interview, which had been at the Brighton Valley Medical Center, had gone well, and she suspected the HR director would be calling her for a follow-up interview in the next few days. She had all the qualifications they were looking for in the social worker position, as well as experience at a renowned Boston clinic. In addition to the professional references, she’d also listed a few notable locals, including the former Wexler district attorney, who’d been her grandfather’s golfing buddy.

Speaking of Grandpa, she hadn’t gotten by to visit him yet today, so she’d have to call him this evening. When she’d told him her plans to adopt Lucas, he’d been a little apprehensive at first, but he seemed to understand. She wasn’t sure how much he’d told his friends and associates yet. Alice Reilly knew, so she assumed others did, too.

She still hadn’t introduced the two of them. With Grandpa’s health what it was, she wasn’t sure how taxing that initial visit might be on him. She was also concerned about the effect an awkward meeting would have on her son.

Lucas knew the Dunlops had loved him from the start. They’d chosen him. He’d been their dream-come-true baby.

The adoption, while open, was also child-focused. So Lucas had always known Mallory was his birth mother. But he’d been calling her by her first name ever since he’d learned how to talk, and she’d come to expect it, to appreciate it. Up until his adoptive mother had died, the two of them had a relationship that had been more been more like aunt and nephew.

Just recently, their relationship had begun to change, though, and he’d starting to call her Mom—like he had last night. And she couldn’t be happier. But it was all so new, so fragile.

Mallory loved Lucas, and he knew it. But he also knew that she’d given him up to the Dunlops when he was a newborn. She hadn’t wanted him to think that she hadn’t loved him. Or that she hadn’t wanted to be his mother. So she’d let him think that at least part of it had been due to her youth and her obedience to her grandfather’s wishes.

Every day she did her best to let him know, one way or another, that she’d never give him up again. That she loved him more than life itself. And he seemed to believe her—thank God, because she meant it from the bottom of her heart.

She was proud of the child he’d become. And she knew her grandfather would be proud of him, too—given the chance. When the two finally met, she wanted everything to be...perfect. And it would be. Soon.

After unlocking the front door, she let herself into the living room. It was nearly five o’clock, and Rick would be coming soon. She wasn’t looking forward to their little chat, but he’d been right. The sooner they got it over with, the better.

She left her purse and heels at the stairs, planning to take them to her bedroom later. Then she went to the kitchen, her bare feet padding softly on the cool hardwood floor. She’d no more than poured herself a glass of iced tea when the doorbell rang. That had to be Rick. She took several refreshing swallows, then left the half-full glass on the counter and went to let him in.

As she opened the door, her heart scampered through her chest at the sight of him. He appeared professional again, in a pair of dark slacks and a white button-down shirt. Yet his hair was a bit mussed and rebellious, his eyes wary, his lips still sporting the hint of a scowl.

Would she ever know which Rick she’d meet on any given day?

“Come in,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter. “And have a seat.”

He slowly sauntered toward the sofa and sat down.

Mallory glanced down at her bare feet, at the pink polish on her toes, but she could feel his eyes on her, angry, hurt.

She didn’t like disappointing people, failing them. And while she’d done her best to make up for the one big mistake she’d made ten years ago, here was Rick, stabbing at her guilt and stirring up the old memories, the emotions all over again.

When she looked up, her gaze met his. She saw the accusation in his eyes. You lied to me.

He must have read the answer in her own because he shook his head and said, “You told me you were giving our child up so I’d sign those forms and relinquish custody.”

“I did give him up.”

“But Lucas looks just like me. And he called you Mom.”

When he’d recently begun to call her Mom it had warmed her heart to know that their relationship had truly begun to morph into the real deal. But now, she found herself having to explain why something so good, so sweet, wasn’t a bad thing.

“I told you that I was going to ask for an open adoption, remember? I even mentioned Sue and Gary Dunlop, the couple who adopted him. She was a nurse, and he was a fourth-grade teacher. They’d been married for nearly fifteen years, and while they’d tried for a long time, they couldn’t have kids. You would have loved them, Rick. They were awesome. Sue taught Sunday school at their church, and Gary used to coach Little League and soccer. I couldn’t have chosen better people to raise Lucas.”

His expression, once hard, seemed to soften a bit, yet doubt still troubled his eyes. “Lucas told me his dad died, but I assumed he meant your husband.”

“No, he was talking about Gary.” Mallory’s eyes filled with tears, just as they always did when she thought of the unfairness of it all, and her voice wobbled when she spoke. “Gary was diagnosed with cancer when Lucas was in first grade. He died a year later.”

Rick raked a hand through his hair, mussing it all the more. “And Sue?”

Mallory opened her mouth to speak, but the words didn’t form right away. If truth be told, she and Sue had grown really close over the years. Sue had become the big sister Mallory had never had, the mother figure she’d lost as an adolescent. The best friend she might never replace.

“Sue was...” Mallory cleared her throat, hoping the lingering grief would allow her to get the story out. “She died in a car accident last year.”

When Rick didn’t comment, she went on to explain. “After Gary died, Sue was concerned about what would happen to Lucas if she passed away. Neither she nor Gary had any close family—at least, not any they wanted to raise their son. So she asked me if I’d be his guardian if the unthinkable should happen.”

“And so you told her okay.”

“Of course. I love Lucas. And I loved Sue and Gary, too. I never really thought anything would happen to either of them, and when it did, I was as crushed as he was. It’s been tough on both Lucas and me, but we’re making the best of it.”

She glanced across the room at Rick, watching him, gauging his reaction. He remained silent for so long, she finally said, “You’re not saying anything.”

“Yes, I know. It’s a lot to think about. And I’m not sure how I feel. Confused and overwhelmed, I guess. But in a way, I feel cheated.”

“Why is that? You agreed to give him up.”

Those blue eyes struck something deep inside of her, setting her heart on end. “I offered to marry you, Mallory.”