Their Child? Read online

  “Mornin’.” Lena poked her head in the bedroom door. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. It’s ten o’clock and it’s too dark in here.” Lena bounced into the room and flung the curtains wide. Lori groaned at the brightness of the harsh morning light. “There, now, isn’t that better?”

  “Not particularly.” Lori scooted to a sitting position, squinting her good eye as it adjusted to the brightness. Since the other eye was swollen shut, the morning glare didn’t bother it at all.

  Lena dropped to the bed. “How you feelin’, hon?”

  “Not so great.”

  “We’re off to the airport in an hour. And you’ve got a real shiner there. All purple and swollen up. Not too attractive.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “Get over here.” Lena held out her arms.

  Lori went into them. “You have a terrific time, okay?” She gave her sister a good, hard hug.

  “Oh, I will. Bahama-mama, that’s me. I can’t wait till Dirk sees this itty-bitty thong bathin’ suit I have bought. Oh, my, and the lingerie…I got a trunk full, been buying it for months now. Me and my darlin’ and Victoria’s Secret are going to have ourselves one fine ol’ time.” Lena took her by the shoulders and held her away.

  Lori pulled back, met her twin’s bright eyes and thought how much she loved her. “You know…”

  “Say it.”

  “All these years, I thought you’d be so mad at me, when you found out.”

  Lena shrugged. “Well, I probably would have been. Way back when. But now? Honey, it was so long ago. I look back and I don’t feel a thing—well, except sympathy pains. It must have been so terrible for you, on your own and pregnant, keepin’ that secret, having to tell all those lies…”

  Lori sat up straighter. “I didn’t have to tell them. I chose to.”

  “Well, you were seventeen and—”

  Lori put up a hand. “Don’t make excuses for me. I’ve made too many for myself.”

  The sisters shared a long look of perfect understanding, then Lena asked, “So what the heck’s going on with Tucker, anyway? Mama said he didn’t come by all day yesterday.”

  Lori stiffened. “What did you tell her?”

  “Relax. Not a dang thing. For once, I am keeping out of it. I told Mama if she wants to know about you and Tucker, she’d better ask you.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “I certainly am.”

  Lori slumped back among the pillows. “As far as Tucker and me, I don’t know…”

  “You should call him today.”

  “I already did, yesterday. I tried to tell him I just want to talk about everything now, to get it over with. He wouldn’t listen. He says he wants me feeling good—when he lays into me.”

  “Maybe that’s smart—that you wait till you’re feeling a little better, I mean.”

  “Oh, Lori. This is bad. I mean, really bad. He’s so mad and he won’t talk to me. It’s awful.”

  Lena gave her a chiding look. “Well, hon, you have to admit he’s got a right to be mad.”

  “I know he does.”

  “You just be patient, now. You’ll work it out.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know…”

  Lori stewed all day about whether or not she should be downstairs to greet Tucker when he showed up to get Brody. In the end, she decided against it. She looked truly terrible—her forehead, on the left side, beneath the bandage, was all black and blue, her left eye big and purple as a ripe plum. She just didn’t want him to see her that way. She knew he’d feel sorry for her.

  She could do without his pity, thank you very much.

  He showed up at five on the dot and whisked their son off in the back seat of a big black Cadillac. She stood in her bedroom window and watched the car drive away.

  Four hours later, she was waiting in the same spot, watching for their return, with the window open a crack. At two minutes after nine, the big car slid up to the curb and Brody jumped out before the chauffeur could get around and open the door for him.

  “It’s all right, Jesse,” she heard Brody say to the driver. “I like to open doors for myself.” The driver went back around the front of the car as Brody leaned in the still-open rear door. “Bye, Tucker. See you Wednesday…”

  So, then. Wednesday was a go.

  She knew it was a good thing, for her son to finally get to know his natural father. She was glad for that.

  She honestly was.

  Everything else, though?

  What an awful, ugly mess.

  Tuesday, Enid took her to see Doctor Zastrow. The doctor removed her bandages, prodded the healing gash at her temple and told her things were looking good. As he bandaged her back up—a much smaller bandage than before—she joked that he must be blind, considering that the top half of her face on the left side bore a startling resemblance to an eggplant.

  He told her what she already knew: the swelling would go down, the stitches would be absorbed, the scar would heal and the bruises would fade. “Give it time. And if in six months you’re not happy with that scar, a little minor plastic surgery will have you looking as beautiful as ever.” She realized he was right on the verge of flirting with her.

  She broke eye contact. And not because he seemed like the kind of man who flirted as a matter of course—though he definitely did. No. She looked away because of Tucker. If she was going to do any flirting, she wanted it to be with him. Which, considering the way things stood between them, was right next-door to pitiful.

  On the way back to the house, Enid daintily tried to find out what had happened between her daughter and Tucker.

  “Lori, hon, your father and I have been wondering—”

  Lori cut her off at the pass. “Is this about Tucker, Mama?”

  Enid nervously clenched and unclenched her slim hands on the steering wheel. “Well, sweetie, he did save your life and he seemed so attentive and then—”

  “Not now, Mom. I can’t talk about it now.”

  Enid didn’t press her further. Lori was grateful for that.

  Wednesday, she decided she was through hiding in her room. When Tucker arrived for Brody, she answered the door herself.

  His face, all ready with a smile of greeting, went blank at the sight of her. “Lori.”

  “Hello, Tucker.”

  “That eye looks pretty bad.”

  She drew herself up. “It’s better than it was. In fact, I’m feeling pretty good. By tomorrow, I’ll be ready for that long talk we need to have.”

  “We’ll see—Brody here?”

  “You know he is.” She stepped back so he could enter as Brody pounded down the stairs.

  “Hey, Tucker!”

  The look on Tucker’s face at the sight of his son made her heart squeeze up tight in her chest. “Hey, bud. There you are. Let’s get the heck out of here.” He turned and headed down the front steps.

  “Okay!” Brody flew by her, close on Tucker’s heels. Halfway down the walk, he paused to look back at her. “Mom? You could go with us, if you want…”

  Tucker stopped in midstride and turned to face her again, his eyes flat, giving her nothing.

  She beamed a thousand-watt smile at her son. “Uh. No. I’ll stay home tonight. You have a great time.”

  Brody ran back and hugged her. “Love you, Mom…”

  She was careful, not to hold him too tight. “Love you, too…”

  His arms dropped away and he was off again, racing down the steps and along the walk, yanking open the rear door of the big black car and sliding inside.

  Lori stepped back into the house and quickly shut the door. She was simply unable, at that moment, to watch the gleaming Cadillac drive away from her carrying her child.

  She turned from the shut door to see her parents standing together near the foot of the stairs wearing twin expressions of sad bewilderment.

  In their loving, confused faces she saw her secret reflected. She saw what the secret had done to her family, how it had ripped right t
hrough the fabric of it, tearing a ragged hole of hurt and misunderstanding every bit as wide as the one that yawned now between her and the father of her child.

  Her dad and mom—and Lena—they were her people. And she had deserted them, left them behind. She’d made a new life for herself without them in it.

  Because she was a coward unwilling to face the consequences of the huge mistakes that she had made.

  No more, she thought, the words as loud and final as gunshots inside her head. No more secrets and no more lies.

  She lifted her head high. “Mama, make a fresh pot of coffee. You and me and Daddy have to have a little talk.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The kitchen was way too quiet when Lori finished revealing the truth behind all the lies.

  Finally, her mother said, “Oh, hon. What a terrible mess. I am so, so sorry…”

  Her dad hung his big head. “Lori—girl, I’ve always wanted to tell you, but I never knew how…”

  Lori couldn’t get over how light she felt, suddenly. Unshackled. Released at last from the dragging weight of the secret and all the lies and evasions that had followed after.

  “Tell me now, Daddy,” she said. “Because I promise, I’m listening.”

  He raised his head and looked at her through haunted eyes. Her heart went out to him. For the first time she understood how much he had suffered for his part in what had happened eleven years before.

  Heck said, “I always used to worry…back when you and your sister were growing up. I worried about Lena. All the boys were after her. I was sure she was headed for trouble. But you? I never lost a wink of sleep over you. You were always so smart and quiet, with no time or inclination to tease and flirt and string the boys along. And you had straight-As and all those colleges were after you, throwin’ scholarships at you…” Heck folded both arms on the table and paused to look down at the big Rolex watch he always wore with such pride. He seemed to study that watch, as if the face of it could tell him more than the time.

  Enid reached over and brushed his shoulder—a light and tender touch of wifely reassurance. “Go on, honey. Tell her. She wants to hear it.”

  Heck looked up again and met Lori’s eyes. “I guess I kind of went crazy, when you turned up in the family way. I didn’t know how to handle it. I was not prepared. I wanted so much for you—expected so dang much of you—more, I see now, than I ever expected of your sister. I was hopping mad and I scared you to death, with all my shouting, my hard threats and carrying on.” He repeated, “I scared you to death. And then I sent you away. I sent you away—” His voice broke. He looked down again and that time, it was obvious he wasn’t looking at his watch. His thick shoulders shook. “And you never came back. I am sorry. I never should have sent you away.”

  Lori reached across the table and clasped her father’s beefy arm. “Daddy,” she said. “I forgive you. And, I did come back. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  He lifted his head then. Tears tracked down his ruddy sun-creased cheeks. He swiped them away with the back of his hand and blustered, “Will you look at me? Bawlin’ like a damn baby. Don’t know what the hell’s gotten into me.”

  “I’m here, Daddy,” Lori softly said, once more. “I really am.”

  Her father looked straight at her, then. He was smiling through his tears.

  Later, around the dinner table, Enid asked about Tucker.

  Lori confessed, “I don’t know any more than you do. From his actions, I’d say it’s pretty clear he intends to be a real father to Brody.”

  “Brody hasn’t said a word, so I’m guessing he doesn’t know yet…that Tucker’s his dad?”

  Lori shook her head. “Tucker wants Brody to have a chance to get to know him first. He wants to break it to him gently. I’m going to try to respect Tucker’s wishes on that. So unless Brody asks you directly, please keep what I said tonight to yourselves for a while.”

  Enid said, “Whatever you need from us—but if he does ask?”

  “Then tell him to come and talk to me. I don’t want Brody lied to.”

  Her father nodded. “We understand.”

  Enid said, “And what about you and Tucker? It did seem, until just lately, that you two were…becoming close.”

  “Mama, I just don’t know. Right now, between Tucker and me, it doesn’t look too good.”

  Thursday afternoon at four-thirty, Tucker sat behind the desk in his study at the Double T, a whiskey on ice in a crystal glass at his elbow and Lori on his mind. He reached for the phone—and it rang.

  Impatient to get rid of whoever it was and get on to the phone call to Lori, he pushed the talk button and put it to his ear without checking the display. “Tucker Bravo. What?”

  “It’s Lori.”

  He wrapped his hand around his drink—and then let go of it. “Beat me to the punch, huh?” It came out sounding lazy and a little bit mean. Just how he felt right then—at least the mean part.

  He heard her suck in a breath. Then she rattled off, as if she’d been rehearsing it, “Tucker, I’m fine now. I’m well enough to talk. And we do have to talk. We have to come to some sort of reasonable arrangement about Brody and the future and what we intend to—”

  He didn’t need to hear it. “Lori.”

  There was a silence down the line. And then, tightly, she asked, “What?”

  “Come out here, to the ranch.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. Now. Come to the front door of my wing, the South Wing.”

  “I—”

  “Yes or no?”

  Another silence, then, “Yes. Twenty minutes.” He heard the click. Score two for her: she’d called him. And she’d hung up before he could hang up on her.

  The blood pumped hard and fast through his veins. He felt ready for battle. Impatient and exhilarated.

  Probably a bad sign.

  A woman Lori didn’t recognize answered her knock. The woman led her through the high-ceilinged foyer and into the beautiful, spare-looking South Wing living room, an airy space done in golds and browns, accented with black. That other time, two weeks ago, the room had seemed so relaxing and welcoming.

  Not now.

  Tucker sat on a coffee-brown sofa. He didn’t get up. “Thank you, Mrs. Haldana,” he said to the stocky, grayhaired woman. He picked up the full glass from the side table at his elbow. It had a watered-down look about it, as if he’d poured it a while ago and then decided not to drink it. “Want something—whiskey? Water? Both?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “All right, then.” He set the drink down without bringing it to his lips and turned to Mrs. Haldana. “I won’t need you anymore tonight.” The woman nodded and left them. He turned his shuttered gaze on Lori again. “Sit down,” he said.

  She almost refused, but then realized he would probably take it as an offensive move. She really, truly did not want to fight with him. So she perched across the glass coffee table from him, on a sofa identical to the one where he sat.

  He said, “That eye still looks pretty bad. How are things under the bandage?”

  She shrugged. “It burns and itches, alternately, which means it’s healing, so I’m not complaining. I’m feeling better every day. And that’s not what I came here to talk to you about. I…” She drew a complete blank. There was so much to say, she hardly knew where to begin.

  He didn’t help her out. He just sat there. Watching. Waiting.

  She forged ahead again. “I know, I truly do, that there’s nothing I can say that will excuse my not telling you that you have a son. I was wrong, and I know it. I knew it all along. I…well, I did try, to get a hold of you. When Brody was a baby, I found out where you lived in Austin. I went down there. You were gone by then, though, and the guy who answered the door didn’t know where you went. I wrote letters. More than one. But you went off to Europe and I didn’t know where to send them. I tried the Austin address, hoping it might be forwarded. It came back. So I sent one here, to the Double T, thinking your grand
father would send it on to you. I guess he did. But that letter never reached you, either. It came back to me with French postal marks all over it, unopened, and I—”

  His low growl of fury shut her up. He demanded, “What about just gutting it up and getting your butt out here, to the ranch? What about telling my granddaddy that you’d had my baby? Did you try that?”

  “No. I—”

  “‘No’ about says it all. You didn’t come here and talk to my grandfather—though we both know damn well what Ol’ Tuck was like. If he’d known he had a grandson, Granddaddy would have tracked me down. He’d have gone to the ends of the earth to get me back home and married to the mother of my child.”

  Lori knew he was right. She had no excuses, yet somehow she couldn’t stop herself from trying to make him see how it had been for her. “Oh, Tucker, I was so young. And I felt so alone. I was scared of Ol’ Tuck. Everybody was. You know that. And really, I didn’t even know you. That night, the night of the prom, I—”

  “Yeah. That night.” He sat so still, a frightening stillness, one that radiated cold rage. “Now you mention it, there was that, too, wasn’t there? That night you took your sister’s place. That night you let me call you Lena, over and over and over again. That night you smiled and sighed and went with me to that motel room. That night you let me take your clothes off you and touch your naked body and lay you down and call you Lena some more, while I was buried inside you. What about that night?”

  She had nothing to say. There was nothing to say. “I was wrong. I know it. I should have—”

  “Do you think I give a good damn about what you should have done? I’m not there yet. I’m still back with what you did. I’m back with calling you Lena while I was loving you, I’m back to that second time, when I’d used my one condom, when I was so gone on you, I had some crazy idea it didn’t matter, if we made a baby. It didn’t matter because I was staying right here, in town, because we’d be getting married anyway. Oh, yeah. I’m still back with what you did. Still back with the day after that night, when I came to your door and you let Lena answer it and send me away.”