by Debra Webb
“I’m banking on it.” He winked and pushed his way through the crowd until he stood before the gazebo. His mother sat in the place of honor, a glass of champagne in her hand.
Beth moved along the fringes until she was closer. She wanted to see and hear every moment of this. Zach looked so handsome in his navy suit. Her chest tightened at how the events about to unfold were likely going to affect him. And they were definitely going to unfold. There was no way Mrs. Ashton could keep this secret. She knew it and so did Beth now.
The news that Laurie Ellroy was his sister and that Zach most likely possessed the power to save her life had almost floored Beth. Her mother had told her about the conversation between Mrs. Ellroy and Colleen. Colleen had then insisted that Beth tell her everything she knew about Laurie. It was no wonder Colleen looked ready to fall apart any moment.
Beth could only imagine how it felt to be in Colleen’s shoes. Beth felt badly enough knowing she’d played even a small part in keeping the truth from him. She could only pray that he would forgive her. Beth thought of her other predicament and wondered what else could happen?
With the first line out of Zach’s mouth complete silence overtook the crowd. Viola fingered the keys adding only a hint of melody to accompany his deep, rich voice. The tender yet strong way he sang the words combined with the sincere expression on his face tugged at Beth’s heart. Mrs. Ashton looked captivated. Tears rolled down Beth’s cheeks. Hard as she tried she just couldn’t hold them back. All their lives were about to change for one reason or another and nothing would ever be the same.
Life as Zach knew it was about to end. All that he believed about himself and his family would come into question. She prayed that he would allow her to be there for him. She didn’t even want to think about how the other news she had was going to affect him.
Beth shook off her haunting thoughts and focused all her attention on the man she loved and his heart-rending act of affection for his mother.
When he finished, everyone remained silent for one long moment, awed by the sweet sentiment. In that moment of calm, Zach bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Happy birthday, Mother. I love you.”
A roaring ovation followed. Beth could hardly hear herself think for the cheers and thunderous clapping. Zach bowed to the crowd, then to his mother, blowing her yet another kiss.
Colleen stood, the look of pain on her face sent Beth running toward the gazebo. She could hear Zach asking his mother if she was all right, or maybe Beth read his lips. The cheering and clapping faded into the background as she pushed through the crowd. Just as she reached the steps leading to the gazebo, Colleen collapsed in her son’s arms.
Chapter Thirteen
“Just tell me what it means,” Zach demanded.
Beth tried to be calm for him, but it was hard. She wanted to cry…she wanted to hold him, but he’d slipped into his attorney persona the moment the cardiologist came out and announced that Mrs. Ashton needed emergency surgery. The attending E.R. physician had called in the same cardiologist who had cared for Mrs. Ashton last time. Now the necessary preparations would be made and then Zach would be allowed to see his mother briefly before they took her to the operating room.
“It means,” Beth began, struggling for composure, “that your mother opted not to have surgery after her first cardiac episode even though her doctor recommended it—”
“She what?” he roared. “Did you know about this?”
Beth shook her head. “No. If I had I would have called you.”
Zach flung his arms out in exasperation. “Why does she have to be so damned hardheaded?”
“Anyway, now it’s no longer an option. She has to have the surgery or…” Beth sighed.
Zach closed his eyes then pressed his fingertips there. “When are they going to let me see her?” He raked his fingers through his hair and started to pace again.
“I’m sure it won’t be long.”
Helen was almost as bad as Zach. She was pacing, wringing her hands and pacing.
Beth knew that at Mrs. Ashton’s age the surgery was a little riskier, but her chances of recovery were very good. Beth knew how Zach felt. She trekked her mother’s nervous pacing. If it was Helen in there…
In all the havoc that had followed Mrs. Ashton’s collapse, Beth had forgotten, for just a little while, the terrible secret weighing so heavily on the three of them. The additional stress hadn’t helped Colleen. Beth wished she had known about the suggested surgery before. Maybe she could have prevented this emergency procedure.
“Mr. Ashton.” A stout nurse stepped from the trauma room. “You may see your mother for a few moments. But be very careful not to overexcite her.”
Zach nodded his understanding. With a fleeting glance at Beth he rushed into the room where Mrs. Ashton was being medicated in preparation for surgery.
Beth turned to her mother then. Helen shook her head. “What are we going to do?” she asked wearily.
“I don’t know.” Beth put her arms around her and drew her close. “I just don’t know.”
HIS MOTHER looked so pale and fragile. Nothing like the woman he’d known his entire life. He wanted to somehow protect her from all this. Zach surveyed the array of beeping medical instruments and wires and tubes attached to his mother. He closed his eyes and said another quick prayer. He wasn’t ready to lose her. Not yet.
“Zach.”
His eyes opened at the weak whisper of his mother’s voice. He took her hand in his and smiled. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. The doctor said—”
She shook her head. “Listen to me. I don’t have much time.”
“Don’t say that,” he protested gently. “The doctor—”
“I have to tell you,” she interrupted again. Every word was a struggle.
The sedative was obviously already doing its work. “Okay,” he relented. “I’m listening.”
She licked her lips and tears brightened her eyes. Zach’s heart squeezed. He didn’t want her to cry. “Please don’t cry,” he pleaded.
“Do you know how much I love you?” she whispered.
He nodded, suddenly unable to speak.
“Your father and I loved you from the moment we laid eyes on you. You were everything we’d ever wanted.”
“I know.” He couldn’t fathom why she was telling him this right now, but he would listen to whatever she had to say.
“But we were wrong.” She took a shuddering breath. Zach tensed. “We made a mistake.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t talk anymore,” he offered, his worry increasing with every hampered breath she took.
She smiled faintly. “But we thought we were doing the right thing. We really did.”
Maybe the sedative was making her brain fuzzy.
“But it was wrong. I know that now.” She clutched his hand. “Promise me that you’ll love me anyway.”
“Of course I’ll love you,” he insisted, then laughed. “Hey, would I have made a fool of myself in front of the whole town like that if I didn’t love you?”
She shook her head. “I mean after you know the truth. Promise me you’ll love me after you know the truth.”
His brow furrowed. “Truth? What truth? I don’t understand.”
“It was the right thing,” she murmured. “I know in my heart that it was…but we should have told you. Helen warned me.”
“Mr. Ashton.”
Zach looked over his shoulder to find the nurse who’d allowed him into the room waiting at the door. “Can you give me another minute?” he pleaded.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ashton, but the doctor’s waiting. We really need to get Mrs. Ashton to surgery now.”
Zach kissed his mother’s forehead and squeezed her hand gently. “I love you. Please be strong for me.”
She drew him back when he would have moved away. “Helen will tell you,” she murmured, her voice almost too thick to understand now. “She knows. Make her tell you the rest.”
Zach st
ood back as his mother was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled out of the room. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and followed her into the corridor. He could only stand there after that and watch them take her away. There was nothing else he could do.
“She’s going to be all right.” Beth came up beside him and put her arms around him.
He draped his arm around her shoulder and thanked God that he had her. He wasn’t sure he could do this alone.
“Why don’t we go get some coffee,” she suggested. “We’re in for a long wait.”
“Just a minute.” His mother’s strange comments surfaced through his worry. Zach turned to Helen. “Mother tried to tell me something, but the sedative had made her too drowsy. She kept telling me that she’d made a mistake.” He shook his head. “None of it made sense. She said you would tell me.” He looked down at Beth, confusion ruling his whole universe.
Beth froze. This was the moment she’d dreaded since her mother told her the truth. There was no way to take back the fact that she’d kept this horrible truth from Zach.
“We’ll need to sit down,” Helen suggested. “You don’t want to hear this standing up.”
The three of them made their way to a private waiting room on the floor. It was the one provided for families who needed privacy to make the kind of decisions no one wanted to think about much less face.
The upholstered chairs sat in a kind of circle, allowing all seated to make eye contact without having to turn to look at the person seated next to them. Beth suddenly wished she didn’t have to see what would be in Zach’s eyes when he heard what Helen had to say.
But she had no choice. He knew they were keeping something from him. There would be no bowing out gracefully.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Zach,” Helen began. “But the short of it is that your mother couldn’t have children. So she and I made a deal with a young woman who was unmarried and pregnant. That’s how you came to be an Ashton. Colleen and Zacharius brought you home from the hospital when you were four days old and you’ve been theirs ever since.”
Zach shook his head. “That’s impossible.” The whole concept was ludicrous. She couldn’t mean…
Helen sighed. “I’m afraid it’s the truth. That’s what Colleen and I have been at war about. I thought she should tell you and she didn’t.”
This was insane. Zach stood. He shook his head again. “You’re telling me that I’m adopted.”
“Well, not exactly. There was no adoption. Your birth mother signed in at the hospital as Colleen Ashton, so as far as the rest of the world knows you are an Ashton.”
Zach laughed, the sound choked and dry. “So I was purchased from an unwed mother?” He felt numb or cold…or maybe both.
Helen nodded resignedly. “That’s about the size of it.” She fixed him with a firm gaze. “But Colleen and Zacharius loved you like their own and gave you anything you ever needed or wanted, and don’t you ever forget it.”
He shook his head again in an effort to clear it. “You’re serious?”
Helen nodded a second time.
Zach scrubbed a hand over his face and turned to Beth who’d remained conspicuously silent thus far. “Did you know about this?”
“Yes.”
He swore…one of those crude four-letter words he rarely used. The woman he’d been making love with all week knew his whole life was a sham and she hadn’t bothered to tell him.
“How did you know when I didn’t?” he demanded.
Beth jerked at his sharp tone. “I only found out a few days ago,” she explained.
A dozen emotions twisted inside him, combining then erupting into one fierce bolt of fury that instantly replaced the numbness. “And it never once occurred to you while we were making love to tell me this little seemingly insignificant fact.”
“Zach, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to keep it from you, but—”
“It’s not her fault,” Helen cut in. “We were both obeying your mother’s wishes. If you can fault us for that, then have at it.”
“And this birth mother,” he spat savagely. “What became of her?”
Helen looked at Beth, who looked downright stricken.
“I want to know,” he commanded. “Who the hell is the woman who gave birth to me?”
Beth stood then, meeting his gaze with a kind of resignation that tore at his heart. Dammit, why had everyone been keeping secrets from him? This whole thing was nuts.
“Your biological mother is Jenny Ellroy. Her daughter, Laurie, is your sister. I didn’t know until today.”
Zach blinked, stunned. The dying girl was his sister? The woman who’d acted so strangely from the moment he told her his name was his birth mother? This couldn’t be happening. He knew who he was. There had to be a mistake.
“And,” Beth went on, a tremble in her voice, “you’re probably one of the few people on earth who might be able to save her life.”
Zach shook his head, fury, hurt, disappointment, disbelief all exploding inside him like a Fourth of July fireworks display. He was thirty-eight years old. He knew who he was…where he’d come from. His father and his mother had always been there for him. There’d never been any question.
“I’m so sorry you had to hear it this way,” Beth said, dragging his attention back to the tiny waiting room.
The walls seemed to close in around him. He felt sick to his stomach. He shook his head in denial of it all. “I…” He backed toward the door. “I don’t want to know this.”
THE CAFETERIA was practically deserted when Beth finally made her way there. She wasn’t hungry, but a cup of hot chocolate was definitely in order. Helen had gone back to the house to see that Betty and Mayor Chadwick took care of everything. She’d insisted that Colleen would not want to go home to disorder. Beth knew her mother simply needed to be doing something. Colleen would be out of surgery any time now. And then Beth would have to face Zach again. As she settled at one of the empty tables, she prayed the hot, creamy liquid in her cup would somehow shore up her courage for their next encounter.
She hadn’t seen him since he walked out of that private waiting room. She knew he wasn’t far away. But he obviously didn’t want to see or talk to her. She swallowed at the lump rising in her throat. The thought of the child they’d conceived made her want to cry all over again. But she’d already done that. She had to hold herself together at this point. She stared into her cup as if it held some sort of answer.
For hours now she’d berated herself for not telling Zach the truth as soon as her mother told her. But how could she? He would surely have confronted his mother and perhaps brought on the very episode she’d suffered today. Zach would never have been able to live with that kind of guilt. Beth had done the right thing…but what would she do now? He might never forgive her for not telling him the truth whether it was the right thing to do or not. Not to mention she had this other secret hanging in the balance. He was so confused right now. Everything he’d ever thought to be true would come into question if only in his own mind.
How could she throw him this new curve?
She couldn’t.
Not right now anyway.
Beth massaged her temples with her fingertips. Her head was pounding. Her stomach felt as if it was tied in a thousand knots. What was she going to do now?
“Is this seat taken?”
Her breath caught as she looked up to find Zach. She shook her head. “No…it’s not taken.”
He looked so tired but like heaven on earth to her weary eyes.
“Where’s Helen?” He sat down in the chair directly across from her.
At least he was talking to her. “She went back to the house to make sure everything was cleaned up and secure.”
He nodded. “Good.”
He stared at her cup for so long Beth was sure he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. “Would you like some hot chocolate or coffee?” she suggested.
Seemingly startled, his gaze connected with hers. “No. I’m
fine. She’s in recovery now,” he added almost as an afterthought. “The doctor said everything went exceptionally well. I can see her in a little while.” He resumed his steady stare at the white foam cup on the table.
Relief flowed swiftly through Beth. “Thank God.” She tried not to tag any significance to his calling Colleen “she” and “her” rather than “mother.” He was just confused. Zach was strong, extremely intelligent and one of the most compassionate men she’d ever known. He wouldn’t let this ruin his relationship with Colleen. Beth believed that with all her heart. Though she couldn’t be sure where she stood with him.
“This will all work out, Zach,” she felt compelled to say after an awkward moment of silence.
He lifted an emotionless gaze back to hers. “I know.”
She suddenly wanted to tell him everything. That she loved him more than anything else in this world and that they’d made a baby. She moistened her lips and tried her level best not to let him see her tremble. She blinked back the tears that wanted to well in her eyes. Now was not the time.
“She’ll die without a suitable donor?” he asked suddenly.
She. Not Laurie, not my sister. She. Beth could only imagine how much he was hurting inside. Those somber blue eyes gave nothing away. The light that was Zach Ashton was so very dim right now, it was like looking at a stranger.
“Yes,” she told him. “Laurie will die.” Beth knotted her hands together in her lap to keep from reaching out to him. He didn’t want her right now…he might never again. “She could still die even if a suitable donor is found. But, slim as it is, it’s the only chance she has.”
His haunted gaze remained steady on hers. “What’s the chances of my being a suitable donor?”
Beth tried not to get her hopes up. She wanted so badly for Laurie to have this chance at life, but at the same time she knew what this was costing Zach. “The chances are excellent. You share the same…biological mother and father. It’d be a fluke if you weren’t compatible.”
