Adopt-a-Dad

by Marion Lennox

“There were five messages on our phone when Dylan and I got home,” she said. “Five! All complaining about Socks and demanding that someone in the family do something. So I left Dylan holding the baby and went to fetch him. Missed him by inches.” She smiled happily at her sister. “Guess that was you, huh? Got there before me and rescued Socks. You always were the lucky one.”

  “So I get the dog hair and muddy paw prints all over my passenger seat,” Shelby said morosely. “As well as dog slobber on my windshield. While you get to carry baby clothes.”

  “I figured while I was there I might as well bring them over,” Lana said virtuously. “And besides, I wanted to see…” She turned to look at Michael, and it was very clear what she wanted to see.

  “Mmmfff,” said Michael, and they all burst out laughing. Finally Garrett took pity on his brother and went over to haul the adoring mutt onto the floor. Socks immediately shook his wet self from stem to stern, spraying everyone. He looked adoringly at his master and then flopped down, exhausted, at his feet.

  “What a dog!” Garrett said admiringly. “Now no one needs a shower.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Shelby said darkly, wiping mud from her nose. “Ugh. Anyway, enough of mutts. Michael, how’s Jenny and the new little one?”

  “Asleep.” Michael cut his reply short, and Shelby stared, laughter fading.

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  “No, but…”

  “But he doesn’t know if she loves him,” Garrett finished for him, and Michael glared.

  “Butt out.”

  “Of course she loves him.” Lana ignored Michael entirely. She was talking only to Garrett and Shelby.

  “She’s called her son Gary,” Garrett told them.

  “Gary?” Shelby’s mouth dropped open, and her voice was shaky. “Gary,” she quavered. “Oh, Michael, that’s lovely. She must love you to bits.”

  “But Jenny promised her husband on his deathbed that she’d allow his son to be brought up as a little earl,” Garrett continued, ignoring Michael’s dark looks. “So she’s going through all sorts of conscience barbs trying to come to terms with bringing him up here in the States. Seems that’s getting in the way of her relationship with Mike.”

  “You mean she can’t love Mike because she’s broken a promise to her dead husband?” Shelby frowned over this one.

  “That’s crazy,” Lana said, but Shelby shook her head.

  “No. I can see that. Too much has happened too fast to Jenny. Widowed, pregnant, remarried, hounded by her mother-in-law, changing countries, worrying about money, giving birth, getting to know Michael… Her head must be spinning off her shoulders.”

  “So he should just give her time?” Lana demanded.

  “Hey, excuse me,” Michael said in a voice that boded ill for the fate of his siblings. “This is my love life we’re talking about.”

  “Of course it is,” Shelby said kindly. “So shut up, Mike, and let us get on with it.” She swiveled to face Garrett. “So Michael definitely loves her?”

  “Of course he loves her.” Garrett tossed a laughing look at his younger brother. “You ever seen someone so besotted as our Mike?”

  “Nope.” Shelby grinned. “Can’t say I have. You, Lana?”

  “Not me.” But Lana was thinking fast. “This is tricky, though, Garrett. Jenny can’t take Gary back to England. I’ve met Gloria. She’s a horror. But if Jenny’s feeling so guilty, she just might.”

  “No!” Michael said, but he was ignored.

  “We have to face it as a possibility,” Lana decided. The Lord siblings were nothing if not a team, and they never worked so well as when one of the brood was under threat. Garrett and Shelby and Lana were totally focused, and Michael might as well not have been there. “So what do we do?”

  “Keep her promise,” Shelby said, and everyone stared at her, even Michael

  “What?”

  “What exactly did she promise?” Shelby demanded, and Michael shook his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hasn’t she told you?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then think. Remember. It’s important. Come on, Michael, you’re trained to remember details. Think!”

  “Okay, okay.” Michael’s brow furrowed. He was way out of his league here, emotionally exhausted, but he knew his siblings too well to think they’d let go.

  What had she promised? He thought back, and suddenly the words were right there. “‘He made me promise to bring our child up as he ought to be raised-as the next earl,’” he told them. “That’s what Jenny said.”

  “No specifics?” Shelby demanded. “Like promising to live in a castle for nine months a year and keep ten foot-men, thirty maidservants and a butler or six?”

  “I hardly think so.” They thought it was a joke, Michael thought grimly, but he wasn’t laughing. “Peter was dying when he made her promise. I can’t imagine a dying man would be into specifics. He’d just ask for what he wanted most-that the kid grow up enjoying his inheritance.”

  Shelby’s smile faded, just as his had.

  “Then where’s your problem?” she asked gently. “Gary Lord can be brought up to be Earl of Epingdale right here. You teach him about his inheritance and his history from day one. You teach him everything he needs to know to take over his father’s mantle-when and if he ever wants it. And once a year you use some of that ill-gotten cash you have floating around to take him over to visit his family seat.”

  This was crazy. “But…”

  “But what?”

  Michael stared, his mind racing a mile a minute, discarding one thought after another. One thing stood out above all. “Gloria will never agree.”

  “I don’t see Gloria as having a choice,” Shelby said bluntly. “As far as Gloria is concerned, it’s that or nothing.”

  “She’ll give Jenny hell if she goes to England.”

  “Not if you’re beside her,” Shelby said triumphantly. “And all the other little Lord kids you intend having. They’ll play baseball in the ancestral halls. You can raise the Stars and Stripes from the ancestral flagpole. Hey, you could even invite us! Garrett, Lana-how do you feel about visiting a real live English castle?”

  “We could do it,” Lana breathed. “For Jenny.”

  “Of course we could do it-for Jenny,” Shelby said soundly. She took Michael’s hands and reeled him in to give him a hug. “And for Mike, too. So what do you say, brother mine? Give it a go? Or not?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  J ENNY WOKE to flowers. Flowers as far as the eye could see. There were flowers by her bed and there were flowers on the blanket box at her feet. Vases and vases of them. By the window there were stands-maybe a dozen stands-and every one had a vase with maybe thirty blooms in it. Their smell was all around her.

  The window was open. There were more flowers in the gardens beyond the terrace, and the smell of rain-drenched flowers was everywhere.

  There was the faintest murmur beside her, and Jenny looked down to see her son stirring in his sleep. His tiny fist was just touching his rosebud mouth, and his bottom lip was trembling. Her son! Gary. With one wondering finger she touched his cheek. His eyelids fluttered open, his face turned momentarily toward her, and he stared at his mother with a look that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

  And then Gary Richard Lord decided it wasn’t time to stir yet. He had more important things to do. Like sleep.

  “He’s a real sweetheart,” a voice whispered, and Jenny’s eyes flew to the door. Katie was standing there. Katie, the nurse who’d been with her every moment of her labor.

  It was true, then. It had all happened.

  “I thought it must have been a dream,” Jenny said wonderingly, and she winced when she moved. “Well, maybe not. Maybe it really is real.”

  “You feeling sore?”

  “Like I’ve been steamrollered.”

  “He makes a great little steamroller.” Katie looked at her small charge. “He
has the best set of lungs in the state. Ford and I have decided it’s just as well he was born here. Maitland Maternity would have given him his marching orders for disturbing the peace.”

  “I think I did my own bit of yelling last night,” Jenny said ruefully. “I sure messed up the party.”

  “Well, that’s a heap of nonsense,” Katie told her, smiling. “Megan hasn’t had such an exciting party for years.” She eyed Jenny closely. “You really hurting?”

  “Only when I laugh.” Jenny’s eyes drifted to the couch at the side of the room. Katie saw where she was looking and she shook her head.

  “Abandoned,” she said mournfully. “That’s what happens to the women of the tribe after they’ve produced the son and heir. You’ve been deserted by the man you love. He’ll be off handing out cigars and practicing his chest puffing.”

  “But I don’t-”

  “Hey, he’ll be back,” Katie reassured her. “I bet he’s gone to get more flowers. As if these aren’t enough. He’s been gathering them for hours. Where he’s gotten them all from, I don’t know.”

  “Michael brought all these?” she asked in amazement.

  “I sure did, and you deserve every one of them.” Michael’s gruff voice came from across the room, and she turned her head on her pillows. Her husband was coming in through the French windows-and yes, he was carrying more flowers.

  “Holy cow, you’d think it was a wedding.” Katie grinned.

  Michael dumped the flowers on an armchair and crossed the room to take Jenny into his arms and kiss her senseless before she could remember a single reason he shouldn’t.

  Jenny didn’t have the energy to fight him. Well, maybe she did, but she didn’t even try. She lay back and let herself be soundly kissed, and just for a moment she let herself believe this was how it should be. Her wonderful, beloved husband kissing her after the birth of their child. What could be more perfect than this? One baby plus one husband.

  Plus a ghost.

  Peter was still there, and as Michael finally released her, he saw the echoes of her past lingering in her eyes.

  “Jen?”

  “Michael, your flowers are wonderful,” she said softly but quickly, as if to make things more formal. “I… Thank you. But how did you get them? You haven’t stripped Megan’s garden?”

  “Your son snores,” he said, smiling into her eyes with a look that made her heart do back flips. “There was no way I could sleep. Katie stayed in calling distance, so I went rose hunting.” He grinned. “There’s not a garden on the street left untouched.”

  “You stole them!” That shook her. She sat up and fixed him with the same look she’d used when he was trying to impose his will on her as a secretary. “Michael Lord, are you nuts? You’ll be arrested.”

  “I left twenty bucks and a thank-you note in every mailbox,” he told her virtuously. “There was no way I was waiting for the florists to open.”

  “You’re still nuts.”

  “But nice nuts?” he asked hopefully, and she chuckled, then withdrew imperceptibly. He saw it, and didn’t take things further. He had a plan, and it involved a bit of careful persuasion. Plus a lie or two. Pushing things wouldn’t work.

  “Jenny, I’m here to take your Gary Richard away for a bit,” he told her. Then, at her startled look, he turned to Katie. “Tell her, Katie.”

  “Jenny, Megan wants you to stay right where you are for a few days,” she told her. “We think it’s best. If you’re happy to do that.”

  “Of course. But Megan-”

  “Megan thinks it’s just wonderful,” Megan said, coming into the room as if on cue. It was still before nine in the morning. It had been three before Megan had slept the night before, but she looked as immaculately dressed and as fresh as if she’d had a full night’s sleep. “As CEO, I should be telling you to get yourself into Maitland Maternity, but we’re big enough now to cope with losing the business of one mother and babe.”

  “So you’ll stay here?” Michael said to Jenny as he eyed his aunt doubtfully. They’d clued Katie in on what was going on, but Megan didn’t know.

  “Of course, I’d love to stay here. If it’s okay.” But there was a furrow between Jenny’s eyes. “But why do you need to take Gary away?”

  “Ford wants to check him,” Michael said promptly-a bit too promptly, and Jenny’s frown grew. She knew this man.

  “But last night Ford said he was okay.” Her eyes flew to her son, and panic flared. “There’s nothing wrong?”

  “Of course there’s nothing wrong,” Katie said reassuringly, but Jenny was still suspicious.

  “Then why?”

  “I imagine Ford wants his bilirubin levels taken for jaundice, and a heel prick for thyroid function,” Megan volunteered, and all eyes veered toward her. Good grief, Michael thought. What was she going to say? Had she guessed?

  “I don’t understand,” Jenny said.

  “I don’t suppose you do, child,” Megan told her graciously. “But all newborns are required to have their bilirubin levels taken, though your little Gary doesn’t look jaundiced to me, and their heel test needs to be done for thyroid malfunction. They’re simple tests that take only a few seconds, but they need to be done in a hospital with the right equipment. I imagine Ford would be unhappy about delaying it.”

  Michael held his breath. He looked at Katie-and saw she was holding hers. Was Megan really saying this?

  “Will you be long?” Jenny asked, still looking at her tiny son. “Can I come with him?”

  “There’s no way you’re going anywhere,” Megan told her sternly. “And it takes all of ten minutes to get to the hospital. An hour at most for the test-that’s if there’s a wait-and back here by a little after ten. You’ll have the little one back by then, right, Michael?”

  Michael, stunned, could only nod.

  “Of course. And I’ll take the best care of him.”

  “I know you will,” Jenny whispered. “It’s only…” She looked at her tiny son, and her eyes welled. “I don’t like to be away from him for a minute.”

  “An hour only,” Michael said softly, and bent and kissed her on the lips.

  “MEGAN…”

  “I don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t want to know,” Megan told him as Michael carried Gary out of the room after Jenny had fed him. “What I don’t know I can’t tell. You just get him back in an hour. You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “And Michael…” Megan’s eyes creased into a smile.

  “Megan?”

  “Good luck.”

  THE HOTEL was the grandest in Austin. Michael had guessed she’d be here, but he’d phoned first to make sure. “Certainly,” they’d said at seven this morning. “Her ladyship is booked to the end of the week.”

  He’d half expected-feared-that she’d gone back to England, which would have made it so much harder. Now, though, everything that should be said could be said. Right now.

  But not alone. He wasn’t a fool. Michael remembered the thugs, and he remembered Gloria’s threat of a private jet. Gary was too precious to risk.

  So he waited in the foyer as planned, and two minutes after he arrived, Garrett and Lana and Shelby came through the revolving doors to meet him.

  “She let him go! Well done.” Lana was first to reach him, and her eyes devoured the newborn Gary. He was so swaddled in his blankets, all she could see was one pink nose. Michael was taking no risks at all. “And Ford said it was okay to bring him?”

  “Ford met me at Megan’s. He’s given me the all clear, and he’ll cover us if Jen starts asking questions. But we only have an hour.”

  “So let’s do it,” Garrett said. He looked at his three siblings and grinned. “Four Lords and one baby Lord against one old lady. Poor old lady.”

  THERE WAS NOTHING poor about Gloria. Garrett hadn’t met her. He did the knocking while Michael stayed in the background.

  Michael had paved the way with a call.

  “Gloria, it’
s Michael Lord, and I’d like to talk to you. There are things you and I need to discuss.”

  He almost saw the curve of satisfaction play on Gloria’s mouth as she’d taken in what he said. She’d be expecting some sort of proposition. A request for money.

  Every man had his price. That was the way she worked, Michael knew, and she wasn’t to know the Lords had a different set of values entirely. Like absolute loyalty.

  So she’d given him her room number, and Michael stood back while Garrett faced her, Shelby and Lana flanking him.

  “What on earth…” Gloria’s breath whistled in as she saw the group by the door. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m Garrett Lord,” Garrett said smoothly. “I’m Michael’s big brother. Gary’s uncle, in fact. And these are Michael’s sisters, Lana and Shelby. Gary’s aunts.”

  Gloria stared at them, contempt mixing with confusion on her face. Behind her, in her luxury hotel suite, Michael caught sight of her two lackeys solidly behind her. They weren’t thugs for hire by the hour, then. She had them at her beck and call-and she must have summoned them fast at Michael’s phone call.

  He was right, he thought. He’d have been a fool to bring Gary here alone. How would she react now, with Gary surrounded?

  She was confused. “I don’t know any Gary, and I have nothing to discuss with Michael’s-” Then she caught sight of Michael. Her voice stopped with a sharp intake of breath as she saw what he was holding. She took an involuntary step backward, and her jaw dropped about a foot.

  “We’re here to introduce you to your grandson, Gloria,” Michael said gently, taking a step forward to stand beside Garrett. “Gary Richard Lord was born last night, and we’d like to know what you intend to do about it.”

  SHE INTENDED NOTHING. Not yet. For a long, long moment Gloria couldn’t speak at all. She stood, totally flummoxed, while her hirelings came up behind her, looking almost as confused as she was.

  “Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Garrett said at last. He was sizing up the group before him and acknowledging Michael’s wisdom in setting this up. Last night he’d thought it was stupid, bringing four people to face this woman. But one look at the thugs behind Gloria and he knew that Michael had done the right thing.