“I told you.” Rebecca’s smile twisted. “He was thrilled.”
He was luckier than he deserved. One hell of a lot luckier. Daniel had a flash in which he wondered again how he would have reacted if she’d told him back then that she was pregnant. His shock would undoubtedly have showed. He hoped he wouldn’t have said something cutting, like, “Did you decide it was time to move our relationship forward?” Maybe it was just as well neither of them would ever know.
Malcolm tore back out, triumphantly bearing a package wrapped in sparkly paper with a shiny bow. “I found it! Can we go now?”
Laughing, Rebecca said, “We can go. See?” She held up her hands. “I didn’t even bring my purse. So I don’t have to worry about it while we roller-skate.”
The rink, it developed, was brand-new, thus explaining its popularity as a venue for birthday parties.
“The high school has a roller hockey rink, you see,” Rebecca said. “They share it with the Boys & Girls Club. That stirred interest, I guess. Now everyone wants to skate. The Skate Inn opened just two months ago.”
New or not, inside the place looked about like the roller-skating rink Daniel vaguely remembered from his own childhood. One of those mirrored balls rotated above the rink, and the place was crowded with kids and adults both circling all in the same direction to the beat of tinny music. More stood in line to rent skates or sat putting on their own Rollerblade skates. A concession bar sold the usual burgers, fries, hot dogs, licorice ropes and ice cream. A few glass-fronted rooms with long tables were presumably designed for parties.
“There’s Chace.” Malcolm jumped up and down and waved his hand.
The other boy and his mother stopped.
“This is my dad,” Malcolm told them, pride ringing in his voice.
Rebecca laid a hand on his shoulder. “Daniel, this is Chace and Judy Dunhill.”
“Daniel Kane,” he said, shaking the mother’s hand.
Her glance was speculative—she evidently knew Malcolm had never before had a father anywhere to be seen—but her bruiser of a son was completely uninterested. “I want to get skates. Can we do that now?”
“Yeah!” Malcolm agreed. “Can we?”
“No,” Rebecca said. “We’re going to go wish Noelle a happy birthday first, and leave the present in the room. We’ll find out whether cake and present opening comes first, or whether there’s time to skate now.”
The boys, groaning, conceded. There had to be fifteen kids in the room designated for Noelle’s birthday party, at least as many adults, and a table heaped with gifts. Skating, Rebecca learned after a brief parental conclave, was to come first. Each child was given a certificate for a free rental.
Daniel and Rebecca opted for roller skates rather than blades. Malcolm wasn’t given a choice. They sat down in a row and laced up, Daniel hoping he remembered how to do this. Falling on his butt would probably sink his status irreparably in Malcolm’s eyes.
Turned out he was initially awkward but stable. Rebecca moved with ease. Malcolm clunked along, trying to walk, hanging on to his mother with one hand and Daniel with the other.
They’d made one round when the birthday girl’s mother waylaid them. “Any chance you could help Lydia skate, too?” she asked apologetically. “Her mom couldn’t stay, and I need to be in the room.”
Rebecca smiled at the girl clutching the railing. “Are your skates all laced up? Oh, good.” She held out a hand. “Here we go.”
“I didn’t fall down even once,” Malcolm assured her. “It’s easy.”
Daniel coughed to disguise his laugh. Rebecca shot him a glance, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“Tell you what,” she suggested. “Why don’t I skate with Lydia, and Mal with you, Daniel? If we try to go four abreast, no one will be able to pass us.”
“And some of the kids go fast,” Malcolm said. He let his mother’s hand go, gripping Daniel’s even harder. “I wish I could go faster.”
“Hey, no sport is easy when you first take it up,” Daniel told him. “Give yourself a couple of years and you’ll be tearing around.”
“Yeah!”
Ahead, Lydia wobbled and lurched. Rebecca kept them moving forward. Half listening to Malcolm’s chatter, Daniel watched her smile gentle encouragement at the little girl. Her neck, bared by the ponytail, was long and elegant. She skated the same way she walked, with effortless grace. His body tightened as he remembered nuzzling her nape below the heavy fall of hair, kissing his way down her throat. Wrapping his hands around her slender waist. He kept seeing her naked, her dancer’s body pale, her smile luminous. The next second, Malcolm’s chatter would register, and he’d realize they were at a birthday party, that she’d given birth to their son since he’d seen her lying on his bed, waiting for him to plant a knee between her thighs and bend to suckle her small breasts. That their son, like the birthday girl, would be five years old this summer.
And then she slowed and stopped by the boards. Her glowing smile, so much like the one he remembered, touched first Malcolm and then him. “Are you having fun?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Malcolm said. “I’m getting better. Right, Dad?”
His son’s irrepressible optimism and Rebecca’s smiling approval worked some kind of bizarre spell. All Daniel knew was that he felt…different. Lighter.
“You’re doing great. And we are definitely having fun,” he agreed, and damned if he didn’t mean it.
He couldn’t remember that many times in his life when he had realized he was actively, genuinely happy. Not just triumphant, because he’d rammed through permits he wanted or gotten a sweet deal on a chunk of acreage. Not just sexually satisfied, not amused at a turn of conversation. Happy. Big grin trying to break free. Wanting this moment to go on and on. The whole shebang.
All brought to him by a particular boy and his mom, the woman he’d been idiot enough to let get away.
CHAPTER TEN
DANIEL CAME HOME TIRED and irritable after an inspection found shoddy electrical work on houses he was building in the East Bay. He’d walked through them with the electrical subcontractor, who had nothing but excuses. Daniel despised people who didn’t take pride in quality workmanship, and he wouldn’t tolerate any black mark against Kane Construction. He fired the guy on the spot and had to call in another electrical firm. Too little, too late. The development would now be delayed.
He grabbed his mail on the way in the door and tossed it on the kitchen table. What would be quick to make for dinner? He was too hungry to be patient. Daniel had gotten as far as opening the refrigerator door before the return address on one of the envelopes fanned across the table registered. MarTech Labs. The company running the DNA test.
He swung back and stared at the envelope. After a long moment of not reaching for it, he grimaced. What? Was he afraid if he opened it a lethal white powder would spill out?
No. Just confirmation that he wasn’t who he had always believed himself to be: a Kane, construction in his blood.
So which answer would he prefer? To find out he’d been fathered by a man who never acknowledged him? Or that he was the son of a man who’d given him his name, his profession and not a hell of a lot else?
He swore, the sound of his own voice startling in the quiet of the kitchen. Open the damn envelope. Yea or nay, neither result changed anything meaningful.
Daniel grabbed it and tore it open. He skimmed, glad he’d read up on DNA testing enough to more or less understand the report. The conclusion was clear enough, though; he and Isabelle Carson were indeed related. Robert Carson had to be his father.
He’d expected this result. So why did he feel as if he’d just taken a fist to his gut?
He stood there, reading the report over and over until the words jumbled incomprehensibly. The pages fluttered from his hand back to the table, and he gripped the back of a chair.
Apparently, he thought with grim humor, it didn’t require a near-death experience for your life to flash before your eyes. B
ecause that’s what was happening to him right now. Calling, “Daddy, Daddy!” and seeing a look on his father’s face so remote, it might have been dislike. Sitting at the dinner table with Vern and his new wife and knowing he didn’t belong. Waiting for the phone to ring when Dad had promised. The conversation with Mom when she’d expressed regret for her failings as a mother, but never said, “I panicked and married a man I didn’t love because your real father, who I do love, is married and not willing to leave his wife.”
Anger scalding him, he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t told him. Why take that secret to her grave? Didn’t he have a right to know who his father was?
Well, now he did, no thanks to her. No thanks to anything but the merest chance—Belle Carson bending to pick up the earring.
If not for that, Daniel was unlikely to have spent much time with her in the future. To see her in a bikini, say. Maybe Joe would have; it was possible Joe would have noticed the birthmark and thought, Wait a minute, isn’t that like…? But maybe not; he hadn’t seen Daniel’s in years.
Still in turmoil, Daniel flipped through the rest of the mail, then went back to the refrigerator. He still had half a jar of salsa and decided to make quesadillas. They didn’t take long to cook, and despite his turmoil he was hungry.
It was a couple of hours before he’d fully wrapped his mind around the news. Daniel tried to work, gave up and tried to read. Couldn’t concentrate on anything.
He was tempted to call Rebecca. He didn’t even know why. Would she listen only to be polite? Even assuming she gave a damn, what could she say that would help?
Finally he glanced at the clock and decided to call Belle. She was the one of the new relatives who seemed to care the most, even though the news would hardly be earth-shattering to her. She knew who she was, had grown up the secure and likely pampered granddaughter of Robert Carson.
He scrounged in his wallet to find the slip of paper with her phone number, then dialed. She answered after just a couple of rings. “Hello?”
“Belle, this is Daniel. Uh, Daniel Kane.”
“Oh!” She sounded breathless. “You finally heard?”
“Got the results today. Probably not a surprise. It would appear you can start calling me Uncle Daniel.”
She laughed with apparent delight. “I’m so glad!” There was a pause. “Except…”
“Except?” he prompted.
“You must have terribly mixed feelings.”
He hesitated, unsure if he wanted to talk about those feelings with this young woman, a near stranger. And yet, she’d clearly given some thought to how this would affect him, and he remembered that strange moment when they’d looked at each other after comparing birthmarks. Something had…clicked. He’d already found out that Sue Bookman was his niece, and felt nothing special. This relationship wasn’t any closer, but those matching birthmarks had inextricably tied them together.
“You could say that,” he admitted. “I thought I was prepared for this. What other reasonable explanation was there for our having identical birthmarks, especially such oddly shaped ones? But when I opened that damn thing tonight, I was still stunned and—” he pinched the bridge of his nose “—angry. How did my mother screw up her life so badly, and so many other people’s along with hers?”
“I suppose love makes us reckless.”
“You mean, stupid and heedless of consequences?” he said harshly.
“Foolish, maybe. If Matt had already been married…” She stopped. “I hope I would have had the sense not to let myself fall in love. Or not to act on it. But it’s hard to be sure.”
He only grunted.
“And Grandad deserves as much or more blame! Think about it. Wasn’t he taking advantage of your mom right after the war? I mean, there she was, a new widow and vulnerable. He was supposed to be taking care of her, and what did he do but sleep with her!” Indignation rang in her voice. “And it wasn’t as if they were swept away, that it was one crazy moment with unintended consequences. Oh, no. Instead of…well, helping her get on with her life, he kept her as his mistress. If he ever intended to leave Grandma, he decided not to after she got pregnant with my dad. But he wanted to have his cake and to eat it, too. I think what he did is nearly unforgivable. I mean, it doesn’t sound as if he even provided financial support.”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “Once I paid her outstanding bills and probate was over, I dumped Mom’s papers in cardboard cartons and haven’t looked through any of it. It’s possible he did, at least in the early years.”
“What about after you were born?”
There was the question. Had his mother married Vern Kane because she couldn’t bear the stares and whispers of a less tolerant era, and the stigma of illegitimacy that would follow him? Because she’d already been dating Vern and knew him to be a thoughtful, steady man who would make a fine husband if only she could bring herself to love him? Because Robert Carson hadn’t offered financial support and she was desperate?
Or because she was equally desperate to keep him from ever knowing that she had become pregnant after one tempestuous night?
God. He hoped one night. He hoped like hell the two of them hadn’t continued an on-again, off-again affair over decades. He wanted to think better of his mother than that.
“I might do some research,” he said, realizing the idea had been in the back of his mind for a while. “All this might settle better if I had some answers.”
“I think all of us will be better off to know more. I suppose Sue and Joe and I are one step removed. It’s got to be more traumatic when it’s your mother and father, not your grandparents. The funny thing is, Aunt Jenny has taken all this in stride.” She gave a little laugh. “Well, I guess it’s not funny—it’s her. She’s nothing like Sue. I doubt she agonizes.” She sighed. “The one who has taken it hardest is Dad.”
“So I gather. What I’ve never understood is why. He’s the only one of us who didn’t get any surprises.”
“I think he grew up arrogant. Jenny was adopted, he was the oldest kid. Maybe Grandma and Grandad made too much of him being the Carson. Or maybe it was all in his head.” She paused. “Do you know he and Mom are separated now? He’s…Well, a difficult man. I’ve spent too much of my life rebelling. That stupid diamond necklace has become a huge symbol to him.”
The Carson family necklace, a treasured heirloom that Sam Carson had assumed would be his after his mother died, threatened to tear the family apart. Sarah Carson had left it to Jenny instead—recompense, maybe, for all the lies. The way Daniel understood it, Sam had lost the last round in his lawsuit to reclaim possession, but nobody believed he’d given up.
“He’s brooding” was how Joe had put it.
Pip, part of that conversation, had scrunched up her nose. “Sulking, you mean.”
Daniel had seen that Sam could be charming. He didn’t know him well enough to venture an opinion on his current state of mind.
Belle, too, was still thinking about her father. She said, “Dad hated that he wasn’t the oldest son, that Adam was. Finding that out seemed to diminish him. Which is silly.”
“Has he heard about our birthmarks?”
“I’m hardly speaking to him at the moment. But I will tell him about you. That…wow. He has yet another brother.”
“News that will thrill him.” Daniel found he was grateful that Belle and Sue were glad to welcome him to the family. He hadn’t needed family, God knows, but it would have been worse to learn none of these new relatives wanted anything to do with him.
Sure, he mocked himself. Say that again with conviction when you’re stuck at a huge Thanksgiving get-together with kids running around screaming and the men faking camaraderie while they watch football in the living room.
Yeah, but he did like Joe. And Pip. With that soft New Zealand accent, she was starting to feel like someone he could relax with. Trust to make Joe happy. And Belle and Sue were okay, so maybe he would like their husbands, too, once
he knew them better. Hey, he and Joe, along with Sue, would be the first to bring children to family gatherings. So he couldn’t complain much. He did like the thought that he had some family to offer to Malcolm, especially since Rebecca was estranged from her parents.
“Who cares what Dad thinks?” Belle said cavalierly. “I think it’s very cool that you’re my uncle Daniel, and so does Sue. And you’re young and hot, which makes it even better.”
He was surprised into a laugh. “Not so young. I’m thirty-eight.”
“Yes, but Dad is fifty-eight. So you’re closer in age to us than to our parents. And you can’t tell me women don’t fling themselves at you wherever you go.”
Damn it, now he was embarrassed. “Not that many women on construction sites.”
“Really? I thought lots were going into the trades these days. You must employ some, don’t you?”
“Mostly in the office. I did contract a female electrician today. So, yeah. They’re around.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m sure, in your position, Dad wouldn’t.”
“He doesn’t sound arrogant so much as insecure.”
“That may be, but either way I’m tired of it.” There was a note of finality in her voice. “I’m proud of Mom for leaving him.”
“We are a screwed-up family.”
“Do you know,” she said, “the funny thing is that I’d have sworn Grandad and Grandma loved each other. That she missed him terribly after he was gone. I felt…safe with them, if that makes sense. Maybe they had a bad patch when Dad was just a little kid and that’s when he became insecure about how important he was. And maybe when Grandad first brought Jenny home he thought he might be the only one who’d love her, so he paid her too much attention right when Dad was feeling like his place in the family was shaky. Kids do, when a new baby comes along.”
Yeah, Daniel supposed so, although by the time his mother had taken in Joe, Daniel hadn’t felt threatened. He’d closed himself off already. He hadn’t been jealous of how much Mom had been able to give Joe.
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