by Sara Wood
And Sam would be left alone, dying by inches, without the care of the people who loved him.
‘I can’t bear it!’ he croaked.
A hand unpicked his fingers, which were digging into his face in brutal punishment. Sam’s face loomed close and Morgan jerked his head away, too ashamed to meet the older man’s accusing eyes.
‘This pains you,’ Sam said in a surprisingly gentle voice.
He nodded, the self-castigation unendurable. ‘How did you know about Jack?’ he managed to rasp in a voice he didn’t recognise as his own.
‘Observation. I’m an architect. I see things clearly. You look at Jack with a special tenderness and protection. You’re besotted with him. When my brain was less fuddled by drugs I realised why that might be so. Morgan!’ Sam said unhappily. ‘Talk to me! Don’t beat yourself up! Tell me! Why have you deceived me?’
Wretchedly he dragged together the tattered remnants of his self-control, bracing himself for the ordeal of confirming Sam’s suspicions.
‘I didn’t know until I saw Teresa after her accident. I didn’t want to tell you when you were so ill,’ he began haltingly. ‘I couldn’t. Even now…I don’t know how—’
‘Start at the beginning and continue till you reach the end,’ suggested Sam. The startling kindness in the older man’s eyes merely served to twist the knife of Morgan’s shame. ‘Trust me,’ Sam added softly. ‘I care about you, Morgan, and I can’t bear to see you like this. If your motives were right then I will be content. You’ve given me years of happiness by being my surrogate son. I’m not going to turn away from you now. I believe in you and I think you care for me. Logic tells me there’s a rational explanation somewhere.’
The two men stared at one another. Morgan saw compassion in Sam’s eyes and felt a little calmer. Falteringly he began to explain the situation. It took a while before the whole story was out. And even then Morgan stuck to the promise he’d made Teresa. He didn’t say that Jack was his child. But the truth was glaringly obvious.
‘You fool! You utter fool!’ Sam rebuked huskily.
‘I’m sorry! I’d give anything not to have hurt you—’
‘So you pussy-footed around, breaking your heart, compromising your own integrity for my protection! I don’t blame you. I don’t blame Teresa. I understood her very well. I loved her, though I knew her ability to love anyone in return had long been damaged by her past. We’re all flawed, Morgan.’ Sam sighed. ‘What a hell you’ve been in!’
‘I hated deceiving you!’ he said vehemently. ‘We’ve always been frank with one another.’
‘I would have liked Jack to be my son,’ Sam acknowledged. ‘But I do have you, and you’re very close to my heart. We could say that Jack is my surrogate grandson, couldn’t we?’
‘Sam…are you sure it’s all right? You’re not too devastated? Do you feel—?’
‘I feel fine. I’m proud of you, of everything you’ve done to care for me. I owe you a great debt and I haven’t lost Jack at all, have I? All I want is your happiness, Morgan. That’s the most important thing.’
He embraced Sam, moved by the deep love between them. Both were unable to speak for a moment as emotion claimed them.
Sam swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘Just make sure you bring Jodie to me,’ he said jerkily.
Still overcome, Morgan rose, a lump in his throat. He felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. His eyes grew bright and his heart raced. ‘I’ll bring her,’ he croaked. Embarrassed, he made a show of adjusting Jack’s rucked-up jacket. He found himself grinning with relief and saw that Sam looked more relaxed and happy than he had for a long time. ‘Brace yourself,’ he advised with a fond laugh. ‘She’s dazzling—in every way!’
Her hand gripping Morgan’s tightly, a silent and pale Jodie walked up the stairs of the nursing home towards her father’s room. Pushing the baby buggy beside her, Morgan squeezed her hand in sympathy.
‘I want him to like me,’ she said nervously.
‘He will, darling. He appreciates the use of colour!’ Morgan joked with a grin, eyeing her tangerine wool dress and the fuchsia cardigan she was wearing. ‘You look wonderful. Here we are. If you look through this small side window you can see him. It’ll give you a chance to prepare yourself.’
Unable to speak, she nodded. Through the observation window she saw the painfully thin figure of a tall man, wrapped in a cheerful tartan rug, sitting in a reclining chair. Her father.
Tears sprang to her eyes and Morgan’s arm came firmly around her shoulders as her thoughts and emotions churned chaotically.
‘I love him already,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘Particularly after his reaction to you when he realised you were Jack’s father. I admire him more than I can say. And I desperately want to make him happy.’
‘You will,’ Morgan answered. ‘Can you see how impatient he is to see you?’
She smiled through her tears. Her father kept glancing towards the door and then at his watch. He pushed back the heavy lick of white hair that had fallen onto his forehead and smoothed it with his hand, then checked the way his open-necked shirt sat, tweaked it, and sat erect.
Her heart went out to him. He was nervous too, anxious that she should like him. Deeply touched, she lost her anxiety and headed for the door, giving a discreet tap and hesitantly opening it. She looked up at Morgan uncertainly. He returned her glance with reassuring tenderness, put his hand in the middle of her back and pushed her forward.
‘Jodie!’ Sam cried, holding open his arms.
In a delirium of delight, she gave a low cry, then ran to her father and gently kissed his wan cheeks. She felt his bony arms around her, heard the breath catch in his throat as he spoke her name again, and buried her face in his neck, too overcome to talk.
‘Let me look at you, sweetheart,’ he whispered.
Sniffing, she moved back and sank to her knees beside him, scrubbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I can’t t-tell you how I feel about seeing you…!’ Her voice gave out and Morgan passed her a handkerchief, touching her arm solicitously.
‘From what Morgan’s told me, I’m sure you will, when you get your second wind,’ he teased with a smile.
Jodie laughed, and shot Morgan an amused glance.
‘Morgan!’ Affectionately Sam held out his hand.
‘You’re looking well,’ Morgan said warmly, clasping it in his.
‘I feel wonderful. Hello, Tiddler. Still keeping your father up half the night?’ Sam murmured, stroking the baby’s sleepy face. He looked up at Morgan with brimming eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said passionately, ‘thank you for my daughter. For everything.’ Earnestly he turned to Jodie. ‘This man is like gold. He’s the best.’
‘I know.’ She smiled happily and looked up at Morgan again, her gaze lingering lovingly because he looked as if he might do cartwheels at any moment.
‘I thought you might. So when are you two getting hitched?’ her father asked with studied casualness.
They both gasped. Morgan began to laugh as Jodie’s mouth dropped open. ‘How…? Who…?’
‘Dozy old man I might be,’ he said drily, ‘but it doesn’t take a psychic to recognise an engagement ring and mutual adoration. Do you two know you hardly take your eyes off each other?’
‘No!’ Giggling, she kissed him. And, delighted by his chuckle, kissed him again.
‘I adore her, Sam,’ Morgan said, his hand caressing Jodie’s head.
‘Of course you do. She’s eminently adorable. Takes after me, doesn’t she?’ her father countered.
‘Egocentric, arrogant old man!’ muttered Morgan, the twitch of his mouth betraying his amusement.
‘Arrogant enough to assume I’ll be giving the bride away and not too old that I can’t stuff myself into Father of the Bride gear,’ he muttered, pretending to grumble. ‘And, before you suggest it, I refuse to go down the aisle in a wheelchair.’
Jodie glanced at Morgan in alarm, but he didn’t look concerned. ‘The
n you’d better get off your backside soon and get walking again, you old faker,’ he drawled.
Her father laughed. It started as a thin and reedy sound, but gradually became deeper, and she realised the value of healing laughter as the colour came into the sunken cheeks and the thin, pinched mouth filled out.
‘Shall we send the wretch away, Father?’ she suggested impishly.
‘My dearest girl,’ he said with a feigned sigh, ‘without Morgan and his ridiculous mixture of gentle coaxing and flagrant bullying I wouldn’t be alive today. So we’ll let him stay and he can continue to gaze at you soppily while you tell me about yourself. To pass the time he can work out a fitness plan for me.’
‘I have the very thing,’ Morgan said airily. ‘Based on a Marine assault course—’
He ducked to avoid the grapes that Sam was lobbing his way and his heart lurched to see the helpless laughter in Sam and Jodie’s faces as they exchanged glances.
Sam was on the mend. He knew it would be a brief respite, and that the future was brief, but it would be happy. He and Jodie would see to that. Even now she was plumping up his cushion and deliberately calming down the conversation, talking quietly about her childhood.
Morgan drew up a chair and watched them both in relief. The three people he loved most in this world were in this room and they were happy. That was all he wanted. His hand stole into Jodie’s. Their eyes met.
She saw the glisten of tears there and knew she was filling up too. Her father’s hand tightened in hers and she heard a sniff from his direction.
‘I’m so-o-o ha-appy!’ she jerked hopelessly.
The two men laughed fondly, and as they swept her into their embrace she felt a deep sense of serenity. There were three men in her life. And she had more love than she could ever have imagined. She kissed them all: her father, Morgan, Jack. And blissfully settled down to catch up on the past, and to plan the future.
EPILOGUE
TO JODIE’S profound pleasure, her father lived for nearly three years, his mind wandering only a little towards the end. The doctors had expressed amazement, but Jodie and Morgan knew that it was happiness and the sound of laughter in the house that had kept him alive for longer than expected.
‘I still can’t believe that he didn’t suffer,’ she said soberly, when they were reminiscing about him, some six months after his death.
Morgan held her close. ‘Nor I, my darling. He loved every day, was grateful for each hour that he was alive.’
‘I’m so proud of him. He was a wonderful, adorable man.’
‘He was proud of you and your ambition to be an architect.’
‘Dadad!’ came an imperious little voice.
Morgan’s face softened and he picked up his small son, swinging him easily into his arms. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Shall we go and listen to Mummy reading to Jack?’
Little Tom nodded enthusiastically. ‘Baby come,’ he said, pointing to Jodie’s faintly swelling stomach.
‘Baby come,’ Morgan repeated tenderly. ‘Baby can listen too.’
Jodie took Morgan’s hand. Her father’s death had left a huge hole in her life. But she had Morgan, and her studies, and their work with the homeless, and she had her beloved babies.
‘Coming, Jack! Ready or not!’ she called in warning.
There was a familiar squeal as the little scamp raced from the bathroom, where he was supposed to have been doing his teeth—but had probably been lining up his ducks in the sink.
Jodie and Morgan laughed and made their way upstairs to sit together on the bed: Jack all scrubbed, his dark, curly hair temporarily smooth and tidy, little Tom tucked up beside his adored half-brother—who kindly pointed to ducks and jam-eating bears—Morgan, his arm around as many of his loved ones as would reach, and Jodie, dressed in stunning scarlet silk palazzos and a low-cut beaded citrus top, her eyes shining, her heart full of love, as she read to the family she’d always longed for.
‘Love you, Mummy,’ said Jack when the story had ended. ‘Love you, Daddy. ’Night, Tom. ’Night, Baby.’
Morgan grinned. ‘Gruesome! It’s like the Waltons, isn’t it?’ he whispered.
Jodie glared. ‘Penalty,’ she decided.
His eyes lit up. ‘Oh, good!’ he murmured. ‘Bed, Tom.’ Morgan kissed their son. ‘Bed, Mummy,’ he drawled, his eyebrows outdoing Groucho Marx.
Jodie giggled, kissed the boys, hugged them and kissed them again. She tucked under Morgan’s arm, where she fitted perfectly, and switched off the light.
And on the landing he kissed her. ‘I love you,’ he husked.
‘Down, boy!’ she reproved.
At once the elderly Satan obediently slumped at the bottom of the stairs, grumbling.
Morgan laughed with Jodie as they wandered towards their bedroom. ‘It is possible to have everything,’ he said, pulling her to him on the high four-poster. ‘I have you and the children. It’s all I could ever want.’
‘You’d go without supper? Hot showers? Races up to the Long Man?’ she murmured.
‘Shut up and kiss me,’ he growled.
She smiled a dreamy smile. Their mouths met and she lost herself in his arms, surrendering to the deepest joy any woman could know: the unshakable love of her family and an enduring, overwhelmingly sweet passion for them all…
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0290-0
MORGAN’S SECRET SON
First North American Publication 2001.
Copyright © 2001 by Sara Wood.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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