A Dad At Last

“Not quite all,” Jake Maitland corrected, coming in behind them. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto the coatrack, snaring a hook. He wrapped one arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her toward him, pausing to kiss Camille before he continued. He noted that the women were all looking at him, waiting for him to continue. “I think equally important is that Janelle is finally behind bars, and if there’s any justice in this world, will never bother you or anyone else in this family—” he looked at his mother “—again.”

“What about Connor?” Abby asked, then immediately realized her mistake. “I mean Petey.”

“Well, he’s not going to be sharing a cell with Janelle, that’s for damn sure,” Michael told her.

Megan turned from Michael and looked at her youngest son’s face for confirmation. Jake grimly nodded. “He had a gun with him. When we showed up, Janelle goaded him into shooting it out with us instead of giving up. Petey didn’t stand a chance.”

“Petey?” Lacy echoed. She looked at Connor. “Was that his name?”

Connor nodded. “That was his name. Seems he was married to Janelle, the poor bastard.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s better off this way. No telling what she had up her sleeve for him next. That woman had him jumping through flaming hoops and swearing it was his idea.” He saw the quizzical look in Lacy’s eyes. “He talked a little before he died. What he didn’t tell us, Janelle did.”

Once she’d stopped cursing them all to hell, she’d made an about-face and confessed. Proudly. It left Connor mystified how the woman could be so proud of being so evil and spreading that poison into so many lives.

Megan shook her head. It all seemed like such a horrible waste to her. Greed and jealousy were terrible things. She cleared her throat, glad to be done with this chapter.

“The important thing is that it’s all over.” Megan’s eyes swept the young men and women in her home, her gratitude evident. For the first time in days, she felt like eating. “What do you say we all go into the kitchen and I’ll see if I can fix us a celebratory late dinner.” She thought of the time. It was close to dawn. “Or early breakfast, as it were,” she amended. “All this tension has helped me work up an appetite.”

Assenting murmurs went up, but Megan noticed that Connor began to distance himself from the others. Their eyes met, and she raised a silent brow.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon go up to my room and get some sleep right now,” he said. “I’m about ready to drop in my tracks.”

Megan felt a smattering of disappointment. Now that this major hurdle had been resolved to their satisfaction, she would have thought that Connor would want to remain with his son and his son’s mother, at least for a little while.

But she was well versed in reading expressions. One look at him told her not to push. Connor had his reasons for withdrawing. Maybe he needed a little time to assimilate all that had happened. From what she gathered, he hadn’t even known he had a son until just after the kidnapping had come to light and Lacy had regained her memory.

“Of course, Connor,” she agreed. “You must be exhausted.”

Maybe it was better if they all went to bed for what was left of the night. That way, they’d be fresh when she dropped her bombshell—and prayed for the best. Besides, the rest of her children needed to be here. She wasn’t about to go through that emotion-wrenching announcement more than once. It needed to be made to everyone at the same time. She felt bad enough that Ellie had accidentally overheard and had borne the weight of knowing her secret alone.

Megan had made up her mind. From now on, no more secrets of any kind, no matter how innocent.

“You all have to be exhausted,” she acknowledged, looking at the others. “Why don’t we postpone any sort of celebration until I can do this up properly?” Her eyes swept over Connor first, then touched everyone in the room one by one until they came to rest on Lacy. The mother of her grandchild.

“Sounds good to me,” Jake murmured. He slung his arm around Camille, his eyes drooping just a shade. “Care to prop up a hero? Help me up to bed and I’ll give you all the details, bit by bit.”

Before Camille could comment, Abby’s beeper went off, pulsing red numbers. Angling it away from her belt, Abby made out the telephone number. It was only vaguely familiar. She made a guess.

“Probably Mrs. Marlow. She looked ready to pop when I saw her in the office yesterday. Twins this time.” Two cups of coffee should give her a second wind, she estimated, sighing. “Another post-midnight delivery. Perfect ending to a perfect day.” On her way to the den and the telephone, Abby stopped long enough to brush a kiss on Connor’s cheek. “Nice work, cousin. Looks like you found the family just in time.”

He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the fact that, in being reunited with the Maitlands, he was able to get the help he needed to recover his son or if there was something else behind her words. All he did know was that the term she’d applied to him was incorrect.

He wasn’t her cousin, he was her half brother.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say something. But it wasn’t up to him to make the correction, he reminded himself. The words, whatever she ultimately chose them to be, belonged to Megan. He knew the circumstances surrounding his birth and his subsequent secretive adoption. He’d only learned them recently himself. Connor couldn’t even imagine what Megan must have gone through, thinking him dead all these years, only to have him turn up now, not her nephew, as she’d believed, but her son. Had to be a lot to deal with. He owed it to her to be the one to let the others know.

Or keep the secret to herself.

He had a lot to deal with himself, he thought, finding out he had a child of his own he hadn’t known about. He supposed in a way that gave him something in common with his birth mother.

It was going to be hard, making the transition. Thinking of Megan Maitland as his mother instead of Clarise O’Hara, the woman who had raised him. The mother he’d buried almost two years ago.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, Connor glanced toward Lacy. Part of him was tempted to remain with her. To say things to her that had occurred to him both before and after he and the others had rescued Chase. But he didn’t want to be hasty. There was a wealth of feelings churning inside him, feelings that had to be sorted out and examined before he did anything about them.

He had learned a long time ago not to say things in the heat of the moment or when he was too exhausted to think clearly. Anything worth saying would keep until morning, when he was more lucid and had the time to think things through. He didn’t want to say things to Lacy he’d only have to take back later, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to say them. She’d been through enough without having him add to her grief.

“Night,” he murmured, nodding at Shelby and her brothers, who were on their way out the door, then at Lacy and Megan. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lacy tightened her arms around her son, watching the only man she’d ever cared about, the only man she’d fallen in love with—not once, but twice—disappear up the stairs.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Megan. “I guess maybe I’d better be leaving, too.”

Megan shook her head. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no condition to drive anywhere tonight. Look at you—you’re flushed and your eyes look like they’re liable to close any minute. All we need now is to have you fall asleep at the wheel and drive into some ditch. You’re staying here tonight. The nursery’s still there for Chase, and you’re welcome to your pick of bedrooms.”

“I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you,” Abby advised Lacy with an affectionate wink. “No one’s ever won.”

Lacy smiled her gratitude. She was exhausted. “Then I guess I’m staying the night.”

Megan patted her arm. “Smart girl. Now let’s go and get you settled in.”

Though she liked the independence she had so recently embraced, it was nice, Lacy thought as she followed Megan up the stairs, being taken care of just this once.

CHAPTER TWO

CONNOR FELT like hell.

He probably looked it, too, he surmised, making his way down the back stairs. It was early, and the others, he assumed, were still asleep. Just as well. He preferred it that way. Fewer people to interact with. He wasn’t exactly at his social best at the moment.

He hadn’t gotten more than a thimbleful of sleep before he’d given up and gotten out of bed. There was so much on his mind, so many emotions running rampant through him, demanding to be addressed, that when his body had finally surrendered to exhaustion, the sleep that had come to him had been fitful, leaving Connor more tired, if possible, when he awoke than when he’d finally fallen asleep.

He was no fresher this morning than he had been hours before. And therefore, he concluded, he was in no better condition to make decisions now than then. Worse, if he were being honest.

So when he stumbled down the stairs, led by instinct to the kitchen and, he hoped, mud-strong coffee set on a timer, and came across Lacy and Chase instead, the reaction that suddenly came over him was not one he fully trusted. Likely, it had more to do with his physical state than his emotional one.

But it was the emotional one that was responding.

A feeling of awe and something Connor couldn’t quite put a name to filled him, pushing its way to every corner of his being like late morning sunshine seeking to chase out the last remnants of the night’s shadows.

Lacy, her back to him, was feeding the baby. Connor leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and quietly watched this tiny, shining moment of motherhood in action.

He’d always kept his own counsel, playing everything so close to the chest, it was almost completely undetected by the average person who passed through his life. No one could ever have accused Connor of being an emotional man. He had always believed that emotions got in the way of things. To give in to them undermined your stamina, your resolve. The way to face life was stoically, shouldering responsibilities that came along and moving ahead one day at a time. If that sort of philosophy made the road lonely, at least the terrain was negotiable. And, ultimately, that was the most important thing.

But this, whatever “this” was, didn’t fit into his way of life. This feeling didn’t even have a name, at least not one he was willing to affix to it. But it had breadth and texture and substance nonetheless, looming suddenly rather large in his world.

And it had to do not only with the small being who had come into his life less than twelve hours ago, but with Lacy, as well.

Connor straightened, trying desperately to straighten his thinking, as well. This thing he was struggling with was just responsibility under a different guise, nothing more, he told himself. That was what was nagging at him, defying definition. Just an overwhelming sense of responsibility.

After all, he’d never been a father before. Fatherhood brought with it a wealth of obligations. Not the least of which was an obligation to the child’s mother.

Lacy.

He knew he had to do the right thing, by her and by the child. It was wrestling with what exactly the right thing was that was troubling him.

And no wonder. He was forty-five years old, a hell of a time to have his world upended and find himself a father for the first time.

Damn, a revelation like that, especially without warning, would have thrown a bigger man than him off, Connor reasoned.

Lacy didn’t bother looking over her shoulder. Instead, she finally asked, “Are you going to hover by the doorway all morning, or are you going to come in and take a look at your son in the daylight?”

Feeling slightly foolish, like a man caught where he shouldn’t be, Connor cleared his throat as he walked into the kitchen. “You knew I was there?”

Her mouth curved. She’d sensed his presence even before Connor had reached the bottom of the stairs.

Funny how someone who had been such a huge part of her life once had vanished from her mind for those long, lonely months she’d spent groping for her lost memory. Lacy would have sworn that nothing would have been able to erase Connor O’Hara from her thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t as indelibly imprinted there as she’d once believed. She hadn’t even recognized him when he’d first come into the diner.

As she looked back now, that astounded her, amnesia or no amnesia. So much of her heart had been and still was tangled up with Connor.

It always would be, she thought, now that she had Chase.

Spooning some more cereal past her son’s very messy lips, she smiled. This felt so right. She blessed all the books on early child rearing she’d devoured once she knew of her condition. At least there would be no awkwardness with her son the way there was with his father.

She glanced over her shoulder at Connor. He looked as if he hadn’t slept. Was that because of her? Or was it just because of everything that had happened last night?

She told herself not to nurse any false hopes. She’d been that route before and been sorely disappointed. “You’re not exactly invisible, you know. Why didn’t you just come into the kitchen? There’s certainly room enough.”

There was room enough in the kitchen for a minor convention. Megan—his mother, he amended—liked it that way, he’d heard. Enough room for everyone in the family to gather and bring a friend if they felt like it. Megan considered the kitchen the heart of the house. As if such things were possible, he thought, dismissing the notion as foolish.

Connor shrugged. “You seemed busy with Chase, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Letting Chase feed himself a finger of toast, she turned to look at Connor squarely. God, but she did love this man, no matter what. She knew she always would. But that was her problem, not his.

“You’re not,” she told him briskly, then softened. He did look like thirty miles of bad road, but even so, he was as handsome as they came. “He’s yours as well as mine. He wouldn’t be here right now if not for you—twice over,” she added, her mouth curving in a whimsical smile.

Last night had been a team effort. There was no way he could have gotten Chase away safely if not for Jake, Michael and Garrett.

“I didn’t do that much. The others— Oh.” The full impact of her words finally hit him. She meant fathering Chase. “Yes, well…”

His voice trailed off, led away by fragments of memory that drifted in then faded again, incomplete. He paused, grappling with questions, with things that needed clearing up.

The time, he decided, was probably never going to be more right than now. If he didn’t ask, the opportunity would only drift further and further away from him.

He moved so that he was beside her and could see her face when she spoke.

Connor shoved his hands into his jeans. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She raised her eyes to look at him. “About Chase. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant when you found out, and that the baby you were carrying was mine?” Against his will, he remembered the single night they’d shared. How soft, how delicate she’d felt in his arms. Like a dream that had descended to earth for the duration of dusk to dawn.

Her hand tightening on the spoon, Lacy unconsciously raised her chin. She pretended to be completely engrossed in feeding Chase, coaxing another spoonful of food between his lips. “I didn’t want you to think I wanted anything from you.”

“I could have helped you with the bills—”

Her face clouded. Didn’t he understand what she was saying? It wasn’t his money she’d wanted or needed. It was his love. And that she couldn’t have, so the rest never mattered.

“I didn’t want that.”

He pulled a chair around, straddling it so that he faced her. She wasn’t making any sense. “Yet you left the baby on the steps of the hospital because you couldn’t take care of him.”

She flinched at the accusation in his voice. It was something she’d berated herself for a hundred times over.

“I’ll never forgive myself for that.” Her voice was solemn, hollow. “But it was one unpardonable moment of weakness, because Janelle was after me and I was afraid she’d hurt the baby.” She bit her lip. She’d been desperate, with nowhere to turn, her back to the wall. “Still, there was no excuse for doing it that way.”

Frustrated, he dragged his hand through his hair. That wasn’t the point. The torment in her eyes sparked his guilt. Damn it, it wasn’t his intention to make her blame herself. “I didn’t mean—God knows you paid for that.”

“Not enough.” Lacy blinked back tears that had suddenly risen to her eyes. She could have lost Chase forever. She looked at the face of her son. The wide, happy grin was smeared with custard-colored cereal. With the edge of his bib, she wiped the stains away. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to him—if I can.”

Damn it, why wasn’t this coming out right? He wasn’t trying to accuse her of anything, just trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning, or what passed for it. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”

But she shook her head, refusing to accept absolution. “If something had happened to him, I couldn’t be hard enough to make up for that—”

He sighed. They were veering off track. “Lacy— I had a right to know.”

Her eyes met his for a moment before she began feeding Chase again.

“Yes, you did,” she replied quietly. “I know that now and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I didn’t want to spring a baby on you, not after what you’d told me. If you recall, at the time you said things like we weren’t right for each other and that I deserved someone who could give me a family. Something you made quite clear you weren’t willing to do. That’s why I believed that letter Janelle gave me, claiming you wrote it. The one that gave me the brush-off.”

“This isn’t about Janelle. She duped both of us, not to mention the family and she’s going to be made to pay for everything she’s done. I wouldn’t have left you a note, but in a way…”

“In a way?” She prodded him, feeling the heat of anger rising within her.

This wasn’t coming out right. Talking wasn’t his long suit. He was just thinking of Lacy. “Forty-five’s a little old to start all over again.”

Age was just a number to her. Other factors meant so much more. “Only if you want it to be. Twenty-five’s old if the circumstances arrange themselves that way.”

She was trying not to let her temper get the best of her, but it was becoming very hard not to give in. Connor had deliberately turned his back on something wonderful because of a number.

“The trick is not to let it be. The real trick is to want something so much that age or any other obstacle has nothing to do with it and isn’t allowed to get in your way.” She shrugged, telling herself it didn’t matter. Knowing she was lying. “You didn’t want any of this.”

What he’d professed he’d wanted had no bearing on what was now a reality. “Still, it—he,” Connor amended, annoyed with himself at the slip, “is here and I have a responsibility—”

Responsibility. It took everything she had not to scream. “God, you couldn’t have come up with a colder word if you tried, do you know that?”

Women were creatures Connor knew he just couldn’t begin to fathom. He was better off with horses. At least there were manuals about dealing with horses. “What cold word? What are you talking about? The father of a child has certain responsibilities to that child—”

Lacy fought tears. He didn’t have the vaguest idea what it took to be a father. What hurt was that he didn’t realize it. There was no point in getting angry, she thought. What was involved was beyond his comprehension.

“Not any you’d understand,” she said dully.

She was rambling again. He caught her hand as she was about to give Chase the last bit of the cereal. “What?”

Her eyes on his, she waited him out. He released her hand. “You’re talking money, aren’t you?”

Exasperation threatened to undo the calm exterior he was trying to maintain for the sake of the baby. “Yes, I’m talking money.”

She started to say something, then thought better of it. It was like trying to explain the nuances of a piano keyboard to a man who was utterly tone-deaf. “No, thank you.”

She was a little too quick to turn her back on his offer. It galled him.

“And just how do you intend to pay for his food? His clothing? His education when the time comes?” Connor demanded, his voice rising. “The tooth fairy isn’t going to magically make it happen. Only money takes care of things like that—and I have money.”

And apparently nothing else, Lacy thought. She looked at him, sorrow deep in her eyes.

He didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. He settled for annoyed. “What?”

Lacy pressed her lips together, shaking her head slightly. “Nothing. It’s just that for a little while back there, when I saw you walking from the car with our son in your arms, I thought you had something else to offer.”

More fool she was for thinking so, she upbraided herself. When was she going to learn that she’d had a happier outcome than most? Her baby was alive and well and so was she. That was the most she could hope for. Happy endings only existed in fairy tales, and Connor had made it very clear what he thought of things like that.

He blew out an angry breath. “Can’t barter with ‘something else.’” Connor wanted her to see reason. Was that too much to ask? “Money is what counts in this world.”

An iciness slipped over her heart. Had she been so blind? So wrong about the man Connor O’Hara really was? “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t a slave to money and it wasn’t his god, but he knew what the world was like, what happened to people who couldn’t pay. They did without and grew bitter in the end. Look what the desire for money had driven Janelle to do.

If he only knew how much it hurt to hear him say things like that, Lacy thought. She’d been right to leave his ranch when she found out she was pregnant. There was no love in Connor’s heart, no compassion. And those values she wanted passed on to her son.

Very quietly, she slipped the spoon into the bowl, then wiped the last of his breakfast from Chase’s face. “Then I guess there’s not much difference between you and Janelle, is there?”

Now what was she talking about? He swore silently, feeling he couldn’t follow the conversation without a road map. Here he was, trying to make sure that Chase and she were provided for, and she was behaving as if he was trying to have her stoned in the town square as an undesirable. “I wouldn’t try to steal it.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re much too honorable for that.” And that was just the problem. She didn’t want him being honorable, she wanted him being passionate, being moved that he had living, flesh-and-blood proof that he existed, that he could love.

She supposed she was being naive again. Just like the last time.

Connor resented the way she twisted what he was trying to say and do. “Why do you make honorable sound as if it’s a dirty word?”

Megan picked that moment to sweep into the kitchen, curtailing the conversation.

Drawn by the sound of Connor’s and Lacy’s raised voices, she’d debated turning and leaving, then had decided against it. The two had been through a great deal, both separately and together. By all rights, their emotions probably bore an acute resemblance to Swiss cheese by now. What they needed as they stood there swiping at each other was not a referee, but time out. Time to heal.

She intended to give it to them.

“Hello, I thought I’d find you here,” she said to Lacy. “But not you.” That had been for Connor. Looking from one to the other, she deliberately kept her expression blank. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Connor growled, turning away from them toward the counter. A coffee urn, filled to the brim, stood to the side, all but forgotten in the heat of the moment. “I just came down for coffee.”