The Sergeant's Secret Son

by Bonnie Gardner

  “Thank you, Miz Johnson. I’m sure Gramma enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my idea. I just sort of went with the flow.”

  Miz Johnson gave him sort of a prim smile. “Well, I had a right good time.” She hurried on.

  Hoo-ah! he cheered mentally. Go with the flow. Hoo-ah! That was it, Block realized. He’d have to sit back and see what happened. He’d wanted it all too fast, too soon. He’d wanted to snap his fingers and make everything instantly work out right. He’d learned patience on duty. He guessed he’d have to apply it to his personal life, as well.

  THE DARKNESS around Macy was comforting and complete. It wrapped around her like a thick, heavy blanket. The only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock and the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. No wonder she’d found herself wide-awake…and thinking!

  When she and Alex were together it was like spontaneous combustion, and she’d enjoyed every moment of their lovemaking. Only when they were apart did she seem able to deal with her worries and her doubts.

  She and Alex were going to have to come to some sort of agreement or she would be a walking basket case, she concluded as she tossed and turned. The last thing the people of Lyndonville needed was a zombie for a doctor.

  She wasn’t as much frightened about whether Alex would take Cory away from her as she was that she would lose herself in her all-consuming love for him. She realized that now.

  She’d always assumed that love wasn’t for her. That she was somehow not worthy of it. But she knew now that she loved Alex. Real love. Not the puppy variety that had kept her going as a girl. Of course, as much as she hoped it, she didn’t know whether Alex felt the same.

  In the last week she’d learned so much more about Alex Blocker than she’d ever known. She’d seen Alex as he must have been in battle when he’d worked to clear the ravaged trailer park. She’d seen him kind and thoughtful when he’d brought her lunch that day at the clinic. She hadn’t realized it then, but it had been quite clever for him to have worked himself in as a patient to get her attention and to make her take the time to eat.

  Most of all, she’d seen him with Cory. And his grandmother.

  He appeared to be a complex man who felt things deeply, not the one-dimensional military man she’d once thought him to be. She liked this new version of Block so much better than the hero she’d worshiped from afar as a girl. So much more even than the man who’d comforted her after C.J.’s funeral, making a baby with her.

  Macy was finally seeing Alex as a whole man.

  And the more layers she uncovered, the more she found to like about him. To love.

  Now all she had to do was to make him see her the same way, and that was far easier said than done.

  If she’d thought she and Alex would come to any sort of resolution about Cory any time in the near future, Macy could plainly see that she’d been wrong. Now she realized that Cory was not the issue and never had been. Her feelings for Alex were. And his feelings for her.

  She hadn’t thought that Alex would care one way or the other that she’d had his child, but obviously he cared very much. What she’d thought of as nothing more than a matter of child support and money, he’d reacted to with real feelings and emotion. Dare she call it love? Yes. At least where Cory was concerned.

  She sat up in bed. That was it! If she could get that man to realize that he loved her as much as she loved him, the Cory issue would work out all by itself.

  MACY HAD SLEPT through the alarm this morning, and she was already late, but at least, for a change, she’d awakened fresh and rested. She hurried Cory into his clothes and ushered him out the door.

  She was so rushed that she’d almost forgotten to think about dodging Alex, until she ran smack into him at the front door as she hurried in without taking the time to knock.

  “Hello,” Alex said pleasantly. “What has you in such a hurry that you can’t look where you’re going? And it isn’t like I’m a target that’s hard to miss.” He smiled at her, then turned his head and winked at Cory.

  Macy loved it when Alex was like this. If he’d acted like this all of the time, she might not have made the stupid decision she’d made all those years ago, but still, she’d make the best of it now. “I’m sorry,” she said, breathless, not so much from rushing but from the nearness of Alex. She tried to will her heart to beat at a slower pace. “I overslept.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” Alex said, winking about their shared secret, she supposed. Macy couldn’t help wondering what he was up to. “I can’t stay to talk this morning. I’m having breakfast with my folks before they head back to D.C.” With that, he made a salutelike gesture and stepped outside.

  Macy turned and watched him leave, puzzled at his apparent good humor after their encounter last night. He wasn’t acting like himself. At least, not the man she’d once thought him to be. Maybe he was acting like himself, and she’d only just realized it.

  She’d spent too much time focusing on the military man and not on Alex as a complex person. Still, she couldn’t help appreciating the way he looked this morning as he strode out to his car. He was wearing a dark blue Polo shirt that stretched across his chest, making his muscles apparent to everyone. His shirt was tucked into perfectly pressed khaki trousers that gave her a wonderful view of his well-shaped buttocks as he walked away. She might be late, but she had time to enjoy the view.

  She was so engrossed in looking that she almost didn’t hear him call to her.

  “Will you be home tonight, Macy?” he said, almost as if it were an afterthought as he opened the door to his SUV.

  Macy nodded mutely. Now she knew he was up to something for sure.

  “There is something I need to talk to you about. I’ll drop by after supper.” With that, and leaving her no time to ask questions, he slid into the car and slammed the door.

  Macy watched him drive away, her mind awash with questions about what Alex wanted. Did he still want to talk about custody arrangements? Was he still contemplating taking away her child after all that had gone on between them in the past few days? Macy sagged against the doorjamb. And she had to wait all the way until tonight to find out exactly what he wanted.

  THE AFTERNOON in the clinic had been long and slow, leaving Macy plenty of time to wonder what Alex had wanted to speak to her about. Of course it would have to do with Cory. She just wondered what the exasperating man would come up with now.

  In the old days, Dr. Cranston would have taken Wednesday afternoon off in exchange for staying open on Saturday morning, but as the only doctor in town, Macy felt it was more important to be available to her patients in case of emergencies. There was no such thing as a Wednesday afternoon tee-off time for her.

  She never scheduled appointments for Wednesday afternoons, but if people walked in, she wouldn’t turn them away. She used the time to catch up on the endless stream of paperwork that seemed to attach itself to even the simplest procedure. Too bad her mind was somewhere else this afternoon.

  At quarter to five she started to pack up her belongings. Five minutes later, Macy heard the front door open to let in the sounds of a hysterical woman and a screaming child.

  Macy hurried out of her office into the reception area. The woman’s face was ashen as she tried to explain what the problem was between bouts of tears and sobs. In her arms was a child about Cory’s age, his hand wrapped in a blood-soaked towel.

  Macy took the child out of the woman’s arms and soothed him with calm words and a soft lullaby. “Hello, William. Can you tell me what happened here?”

  William sniffed and swallowed a sob. “I cut m-myself.”

  “I only left him alone in the kitchen for a minute to answer the phone,” Mrs. Armstrong wailed. “He couldn’t wait for me to finish cutting up the vegetables for potato salad and he cut himself.” She clutched her hands together. “It’s all my fault.”

  Apparently Mrs. Armstrong was more upset than William, and her hysterics had transferred themselves to her son. “Don’t
worry, Thelma. Accidents happen. And I’m sure I’ll have William fixed up in no time.”

  After she’d sutured William’s finger, Macy instructed his mother on how to care for the wound. “You bring him back in about ten days, and we’ll take the stitches out.”

  Mrs. Armstrong thanked Macy profusely, collected the bloody towel and William, who was amusing himself with the Chinese finger trap he’d selected from the reward box. She turned to the door muttering about how she was going to get the stain out of her good towel.

  Macy chuckled. At least it had turned out well. And it had served to pass the rest of her day. She turned to the clock, surprised to see that it was nearing six. Darn, she’d hoped to get home before Willadean left for church to get a little advice from her about how to deal with her multifaceted grandson. Now she was going to have to figure that all out by herself. Normally, Willadean would take Cory with her if Macy was late, but Macy assumed that Alex would be watching him while he waited for her.

  She’d also hoped to stop by the grocery store and pick up something good to cook because she wanted to invite Alex to eat supper with them. Perhaps a home-cooked meal would be a sort of peace offering, the beginning of a truce.

  But now there wasn’t time. She’d have to stop for some kind of takeout from the one fast-food place in town. That wasn’t exactly the way to impress a man with her culinary expertise—not that she had that much—but it couldn’t be helped.

  She just hoped now that Willadean hadn’t decided that her two men would starve to death without her to cook for them and insist that Cory and Alex go to the regular Wednesday-night church supper with her.

  BLOCK PACED Gramma’s living room like a caged tiger. He forced himself not to watch out the window, but dammit, Macy was already late. The documented proof of what had happened to Cornealius Jackson that Jennifer Larsen had found for him had finally arrived and Block was eager to show it to Macy. It had to be the breakthrough that would start Macy and him seeing eye to eye.

  At the least, it would prove to Macy that people didn’t keep leaving her because they wanted to.

  Gramma had told him to expect Macy home by quarter after five and it was almost 6:30. Did the woman take advantage of his grandmother like this all the time?

  No, he forced himself to calm down. He and Macy had some things to settle, and he needed to maintain a cool head. He didn’t want to heighten the already sky-high tensions between them by accusing her of neglecting her child. Correction—their child.

  “Can I please have a cookie?” Cory whined for at least the third time as he worked on a jigsaw puzzle on the floor.

  Block answered as patiently as he could. “No, son, it will spoil your supper. Your mother won’t be long now.” He hoped.

  Cory screwed his face up with anger and swiped his arm through the partially completed puzzle, sending pieces flying everywhere. “You can’t tell me what to do,” he shouted. “You’re not the boss of me. You ain’t my father!”

  Block felt as though he’d been shot through the heart at close range. He staggered slightly from the perceived blow. He caught his breath and barely managed to stop himself from correcting his son. His son.

  He silently counted to ten. Ten thousand would have been better, but he didn’t have time. “I’m in charge until your mother comes to get you,” he said in carefully measured tones. “That means that I am the boss of you until she gets here.” I am, too, your father, he wanted to shout.

  A car door slammed a short distance down the street. Block strode to the window, parted the drapes, and looked out in time to see Macy, laden with several shopping bags, hurry up the concrete walk to her house.

  Damn the woman. Had she gone shopping while her son was here waiting for her? Did she normally attend to her own needs when Cory’s should come first?

  Cory had followed him to the window, and when he saw the car parked by the road, he shouted, “Mama’s home.” He turned and flung open the front door and scurried to his house as fast as his short little legs could carry him.

  Block let the curtains drop back into place. He was tired of waiting for things to happen on Macy’s terms. He grabbed the Priority Mail envelope and, without stopping to lock up, strode out the door right behind Cory.

  “CORNEALIUS JACKSON. How many times have I told you not to come over here until I come to get you?” Hands on her hips, a censuring expression on her face, Macy glared down at her son. “What do you have to say for yourself, young man?”

  Cory had the good sense to hang his head, and Macy wanted to pull him into her arms and hug the stuffing out of him. But she wanted to see what had caused him to come running over here as if a pack of wolves were at his heels. Had Alex done something to frighten him?

  “I was hungry, and he said I couldn’t have a cookie so I wouldn’t spoil my supper,” Cory said, pouting. Under his breath, he added sullenly, “He ain’t my daddy. He can’t tell me what to do.”

  The words pierced Macy’s heart like an arrow. How had it come to this? She had to get beyond this seemingly impossible impasse and work things out with Alex. Though in the past it hadn’t seemed important that Alex know about Cory, now that she’d seen the way the man interacted with their son, she knew she couldn’t keep him from Cory any longer. And she needed for Cory to know that Alex was his father.

  But how do you tell a child something like that?

  “Alex was absolutely right, young man,” Macy said, trying to temper her impatience with Cory. “He was the adult in charge, and he had every right to tell you what to do. I have supper in these bags right now, and I was going to invite Alex over to share it with us.” She pointed at the shopping bags she’d placed on the table.

  Cory followed her gesture, and his eyes grew wide. Fast food was not a normal weekday dinner. He started for the bags.

  “Not yet, Cory,” Macy said as she headed for the kitchen to collect plates and glasses. “Don’t you think you have something to do while I get everything ready?”

  “Wash my hands?” Cory replied, a hopeful look on his impish face.

  Macy swallowed a smile as she closed the cupboard. “That, too, but don’t you think you owe Alex an apology?”

  Cory started to say something, but he seemed to be thinking. Macy could just imagine the little cogs turning in his mind. “But, Mom, he was mean to me.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He was doing his job as grownup in charge.” Macy paused from setting the table and waited a moment for the information to sink in. “I want you to march right over there and apologize for running off like that, and then I want you to invite him over here to eat dinner with us.”

  “Aw, Mo-om.”

  “Don’t ‘oh, mom’ me. Do as I say. The sooner you apologize to Alex, the quicker you can eat,” Macy said, cheering inwardly that Alex seemed to have taken his fatherly duties seriously.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cory said, dragging his feet as he turned toward the door. “I’ll go tell him.”

  Macy turned to finish with the table, placing cloth napkins under the flatware. It might be hamburgers and fries, but they weren’t heathens. They could use the good china and practice the manners she’d tried to teach her son.

  “Mo-om!” Cory called.

  Macy let out a sigh. “Cornealius Jackson, I thought I told you to go over and apologize to Alex!” she replied sharply without turning to see what her son wanted.

  “But, Mom—”

  “It’s all right, Cory. I’ll take care of this,” came a different, deeper voice than Cory’s.

  “Alex?” Macy turned to see him standing on the other side of the closed screen door. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to make sure that Cory made it safely home.” He paused. “Your young man and I had a little bit of a disagreement,” he said, then paused. “And I heard most of your discussion with our son.”

  Macy caught the word our but she didn’t think Cory had. It was not the time to get into that now; she had a point to make with Cory. She looke
d down at her son, caught like a rabbit in a trap between the two people who were his parents, even if he didn’t know it yet. “Don’t you have something to say to Alex?”

  Cory shuffled his feet and looked at Macy, then Alex, then back again. Macy nodded, a stern look on her face. Cory drew in a deep, wavering sigh. “All right,” he said slowly, obviously postponing as long as he could. “Mama said I hadda ’pologize to you for running off,” he said very fast.

  Alex arched an eyebrow, and Macy shook her head. Cory wasn’t finished yet.

  “And what else…?” she prompted.

  “Mama said could you eat supper with us. We got hamburgers,” he said, his expression brightening. He looked back to Macy.

  Macy gave Alex a “Lord preserve us!” look then nodded to Cory. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m hungry. Can we eat now?”

  Alex chuckled. “I accept. I have to admit that I was getting a little hungry, too.”

  Macy raised her hands in surrender and let out an impatient sigh. “I will never be able to teach that young man decent table manners at this rate.” She continued slowly. “Yes, we can eat now.” Macy gestured toward the table where she’d set the food bags and hurried into the kitchen for a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator.

  Cory climbed up into his chair and reached for one of the hamburger bags. Macy gave him a stern look as she set the tea on the table. “We must wait until our guest is seated.”

  Cory looked at her, a puzzled look on his face. “He ain’t a guest, he’s Unca Alex.”

  Macy rolled her eyes. Lord, give me patience! she prayed silently.

  Alex reached for a chair and pulled it out, gesturing for Macy to sit. “Thank you,” she replied, taking her seat. “At least one man in this family has some manners.” She almost stopped when she realized what she’d said, but she let it pass. Cory would have been more likely to notice if she’d made a big deal of it. They would have to tell him eventually, but she wasn’t quite ready yet.