Shani didn’t correct her, wanting to hold the golden moment to herself. Wanting to believe that maybe Mrs. Singh spoke the truth.
They quickly made up the bed, then moved on to the other rooms on the second floor, another guest room and bath and a rarely used study. The time went quickly as they discussed what they’d do to convert the second guest room into a nursery—replace the floral wallpaper with an airplane print, exchange the dark wood dresser for something lighter to match the crib Shani had picked out. They’d have to move out the desk to make room for a changing table.
Shani had decided to leave the twin bed in the room so she could sleep in here when the baby was still small if he was having a bad night. Of course, Logan would likely squeeze in that bed with her, so it might be best to move the double bed in here.
The ringing of the phone pulled Shani from her musing. There wasn’t an extension in the guest room, so she had to run back to the master bedroom to answer it.
“Hello,” she gasped out when she grabbed up the phone.
There was a pause, then a vaguely familiar male voice with a trace of an Irish accent asked, “Mrs. Singh?”
“This is Mrs. Rafferty,” Shani told the man.
Another pause, then a soft chuckle. “So, he married you.”
A prickle of caution crawled up Shani’s spine. “Who is this?”
“This would be Logan’s father, Colin. I don’t imagine he’s told you about me.”
“Not much.” But I’ve heard plenty, Shani thought.
“How’s the little bairn?”
She wasn’t about to tell him about the baby. “What do you want?” She winced inwardly at her rude tone, but Mrs. Singh’s stories were still fresh in her mind.
“I’d like to speak to my son, Mrs. Rafferty.” He gasped out the last few syllables, then she heard the muffled sounds of coughing. “If you’ll put him on,” he added more raggedly.
Shani wanted to tell him Logan was out, that he’d have to call back. But she couldn’t quite voice the lie.
“I’ll get him,” she said, then hurried from the bedroom.
She found Logan and Patrick on the front porch, deep in conversation. Logan must have seen something in her face, because he moved immediately toward her. “What is it?”
She held out the phone. “It’s your father.”
His expression darkened as he took the phone. “What do you want?” he barked out. A glance at Shani and Patrick, then he strode down the porch steps and along the gravel walkway.
Feeling an involuntary need to protect her baby, Shani locked her fingers across her belly. Patrick scrutinized her, his gaze intense. “The baby’s doing well?” he asked.
The personal question surprised her. “We got a glowing report at the six-month checkup.”
Pain flickered in those green eyes as he looked off across the estate’s rolling verdant lawn. “Keep yourself safe.”
With that cryptic comment, he descended the stairs and started toward the front gate. As she watched, he walked along the high stucco wall, beginning his rounds of the property.
Logan returned, his expression grim. “I have to leave. Probably be gone overnight.”
Shani rubbed her stomach, doing her best to relax and send soothing thoughts to her son. “What is it?”
“My father’s in the hospital.” He let out a heavy gust of air. “He’s just been diagnosed with liver cancer.”
“Oh, Logan, I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him. He embraced her, as well.
“I shouldn’t care,” he murmured into her ear.
“Mrs. Singh told me…”
“About what a prize father he was?” Anger edged his tone. “Why the hell should I go to him?”
“For you, Logan, not for him. Say whatever you need to say while he’s alive. I wish I had the chance to do that with my own father.”
She could feel his nod. “I might end up staying overnight. Patrick will be here, or one of his men.”
He kissed her then, so tenderly a knot tightened in her chest. In that moment, she realized she couldn’t let him go without revealing what was in her heart.
She drew back, tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “I’ve tried to keep this to myself…” She couldn’t hold back a smile. “I can’t anymore, Logan. I love you. With every ounce of my being.”
His gaze on hers didn’t falter, but she couldn’t read the message in his eyes. He bent to kiss her again, his mouth lingering on hers for a long time.
They went inside, Logan heading upstairs to pack an overnight bag. Back downstairs, he scooped up his car keys.
“I’ll call you when I know more,” he said. One last kiss, then he left.
Shani puzzled over his reaction to her admission. He didn’t deny or reject her love, didn’t react with anger as she thought he might. But what he did feel inside behind the barrier he put up between them was a total mystery to Shani.
Of course, he had to be preoccupied with his father’s illness, with the prospect of seeing the man. When Logan returned, hopefully some of his old history with his father would be put to bed, and he would be in a better frame of mind to talk. And talk they would; she would insist on it.
It was nearly six by the time Logan reached the Alameda County Medical Center in Oakland, where his father had been admitted. As it was a hospital where the indigent and uninsured could get medical care, Colin Rafferty’s presence here meant his father had run through the money Logan had given him last year.
He found his father in a room with three other patients, closest to the window, the last one in a row of beds. From the door where Logan lingered, his father looked sunken and pale, much smaller than his six-foot-plus height. His hair had thinned, gray crowding out the dark strands. Logan hadn’t laid eyes on the man since Arianna’s funeral a year and a half ago. He looked decades older.
Logan stepped aside for the nurse entering the room and his father turned. He smiled, the grin not so broad as Logan remembered. Logan walked toward him, feeling much like the little boy who for years had so desperately tried to please his father.
“Come to watch me die?” Colin said.
Logan tamped down his knee-jerk anger, keeping his voice even. “You asked me here.”
“I guess I did.” He plucked at the sheet, setting into motion the tube running from the back of his hand. His skin looked yellowed and paper-thin. “I passed out. On the damn street. They brought me here.”
“How long have you known about the cancer?” Logan asked.
His father shrugged. “A month. Been feeling lousy for longer than that.”
Logan remembered how his father had sounded last November when he’d called. No doubt there’d been something wrong even then. When his father didn’t call again in the intervening four months, Logan had been relieved. It had never crossed his mind to wonder if his father was okay.
Guilt gnawed at him. “How much longer…?”
“You don’t care,” Colin snapped. “Why even ask?”
Except he did care, damn it all to hell. Despite the pain his father had caused him. Even though Colin Rafferty had abandoned him in more ways and more times than he could count.
With a sudden burst of insight, Logan realized why it mattered—because of Shani. Because she’d opened his heart to compassion, to empathy. Because if she was here, she would pour out her kindness, her graciousness, over this pitiless old man and make him just a little bit better inside.
What would it cost him to make peace with his father? Certainly not pride; Logan didn’t give a damn about that. Maybe by treating his father the way Logan would have liked to be treated all these years, he would be able to transfer to his own son something better than his father had given him.
“How long are they giving you, Dad?” Logan asked again.
His father’s eyes flickered to Logan’s face. “Not long. Few weeks. Maybe less.”
Logan let that reality settle in on him. He pulled over a chair and lowered himself in it b
eside the bed. “I don’t know if it’s in me to forgive you, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
His father stared down at his hands, frail and lax in his lap. His Adam’s apple worked as he swallowed, emphasizing the gauntness of his throat.
When he finally looked up at Logan, despair had hollowed out Colin Rafferty’s eyes. “I just don’t want to die alone,” he whispered.
The impact of those simple words wiped away Logan’s bitterness. Nothing in his father had changed—he was still a man who had inflicted far too much hurt on too many people. But Logan realized he could step back from the personal debt his father owed and simply treat him as a dying man who deserved some dignity in his last days.
Because Colin Rafferty had no one. His wife was thirty years dead, his string of women gone, as well. He’d estranged his only son.
But Logan…he had everything. Shani and a beautiful son on the way. A successful business. He could at least give his father some of his time.
“When you’re stable, I’ll have you moved closer to me,” Logan said. “Put you in hospice care.”
“Can I meet that wife of yours?” Colin asked eagerly. “That grandson of mine?”
“Sure,” Logan said, although he doubted his father would last long enough to see the next generation arrive.
They sat quietly after that, Logan imagining Shani beside him, holding his hand, supporting him. Loving him.
As he loved her.
Chapter Sixteen
Shani was already in bed, curled up with a mystery, when Logan called to update her about his father. He’d be staying overnight, then tomorrow would have his father transported to a hospice-care facility in Sacramento.
“I probably won’t be home until late afternoon,” Logan told her. “I’d like to take you out to dinner. Talk about something.”
“I’ll be here.” She wished she could reach through the phone and touch him. “I’ve got to get back to the homework I put off today.”
“Shani…” he said softly, with a quiet peace that surprised her.
Something of tremendous magnitude shimmered between them, as if it had traveled along the phone lines from him to her. “Yes?”
He sighed. “Tomorrow. See you then.”
They said their goodbyes and Shani set aside the phone, thoroughly unsatisfied with how the conversation had ended. She was certain the wait until Logan’s return would drag on forever.
She slept well, despite the anticipation, then spent all morning and a good portion of the afternoon plowing through the two essays due before spring break and looking over the comments her adviser had made on her senior thesis. Logan called twice, once in the morning, again just after two. The warmth in his tone tantalized her, teased her curiosity. The call left her smiling, aching for Logan to be home.
The phone rang an hour later, waking Shani from a nap. By the time she snatched up the receiver, the answering machine had picked up. She could hear the echo of the machine recording her sleepy hello.
She didn’t recognize the tenor voice. “Mrs. Rafferty?” the man said.
“Yes?”
“You don’t know me, but I’m calling about your friend.”
“My friend…you mean Julie?”
“Yes, yes. Julie. I’m afraid I have some bad news. There was an accident.”
Shani’s heart thundered into overdrive. “Is she all right? Where is she?”
“It’s bad, Mrs. Rafferty. She’s on her way to the hospital. I have an address.”
He rattled off numbers and a street name in Auburn, about fifteen miles northeast of Granite Bay. Shani fumbled for a small pad of paper on the nightstand, in her haste knocking the scrap Arianna had used for her bookmark to the floor. She scribbled the address on the pad and ripped off the top sheet.
“Turn right on Bell Road,” the man said. “It’s a shortcut to the hospital.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she told the man, then hung up.
Her fingers trembling, she punched out Logan’s cell number. Voice mail cut in immediately; he must have turned his phone off while he was in the hospital. She left a hurried message, then hung up.
Mrs. Singh was in Fairfield visiting her grandchildren. Patrick Cade’s man was no doubt somewhere on the premises, although Shani had no idea where. She couldn’t waste time looking for the man. She’d just leave a note.
Grabbing the pad again, Shani wrote hurriedly, Emergency—Julie in hospital, Auburn. She dropped the pad in the middle of the bed, grabbed her purse and ran for the door. As she waited for the gate to roll open and allow her to drive through, she saw Cade’s man beside the house. She waved as she left the estate.
It took Logan longer than he’d anticipated to get his father settled in a private room. There was a pile of paperwork, including a power-of-attorney form and an advance-health-care directive that needed notarizing. His father was exhausted by the time he was safely in his new room and wanted Logan to spend just a few more minutes with him.
On his way to his car, Logan pulled out his phone and switched it on to call Shani. She didn’t pick up at home, nor did she answer her cell. Worried, he called the cell number Patrick used for his security staff and reached the man on duty patrolling the estate.
“Your wife left a few minutes ago, Mr. Rafferty,” the man said.
“Do you know where she went?” Logan asked.
“She didn’t say.”
Logan hung up, worry eating at him. Shani was free to go out any time she wanted. She probably needed a break from her work. She’d be back to go out to dinner with him. He’d have his chance then to tell her what he’d been holding inside since yesterday—that he loved her.
As he pulled up to the house, he saw Mrs. Singh outside the guest cottage. Spotting him, she waved him over. Leaving the car in the drive, Logan covered the distance to the cottage on foot.
“I thought you were visiting your grandchildren today,” Logan said.
“They were both sick and cranky. I left so my daughter could get them into bed.” She gestured inside the cottage. “Could you help me turn another mattress?”
They went inside where Mrs. Singh had piled the bedding on the living room floor. In the bedroom, Logan hefted the double mattress from the box springs, holding it up on one edge as he waited for Mrs. Singh’s direction.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a stack of papers centered on the box springs.
Arianna’s flowing script covered the top sheet. From the size and color of the pages, they looked as if they could have come from her diary.
“Grab them. I’ll look at them in a minute.”
Once he got the mattress in place, he took the pages and wandered from the cottage. One glance at Arianna’s writing told him that the first several pages were indeed from the diary. Tucked underneath were sheets folded in half. When he unfolded the bottom pages, he realized they were printed-out e-mails, all of them addressed to Arianna.
Logan stopped short, halfway between the main house and cottage as he read the first e-mail. You belong to me.
What the hell? Hurrying along the walk, he sat on the porch steps and quickly read through the stack of e-mail.
Stop saying you don’t love me…He’s not the man for you…I’ll have you or no one will…
A chill seeped into Logan’s veins. Setting aside the e-mails, he worked his way through the diary entries. The more he read, the sicker he felt inside. Why won’t he leave me alone?…I have to tell Logan…no, I can handle this myself…
His cell phone beeped, announcing he had a voice mail message. He dialed in to retrieve the message.
“Julie’s been in an accident, Logan. I’m on my way to the hospital. I’ll call when I know more.”
Unease settled in the pit of Logan’s stomach. Clipping his phone back on his belt, he grabbed his overnight bag from the Mercedes and headed upstairs. A glance at Shani’s desk told him why she hadn’t answered her cell—there it sat, connected to the charger. Dumpi
ng the bag on the bed, he spied the pad of paper.
Emergency—Julie in hospital, Auburn.
As he swept up the phone to call the hospital, a slip of paper crackled under his foot. He picked it up as he dialed information for the hospital number. Using it to write down the number, his gaze fell on the e-mail address penned on the slip in Arianna’s handwriting.
With a shock, he recognized the address—the same one as the author of the e-mails he’d found under the mattress. With half his mind on that further mystery, he dialed the hospital and asked about the status of Julie Mendoza. There was no record of anyone by that name being admitted.
His skin prickling, he called the hospital in the more northern town of Grass Valley with the same results. Unplugging Shani’s cell from the charger, he flipped through her contacts list for Julie’s number.
When Julie answered on the first ring, Logan’s heart stopped. The story spilled out—Shani’s voice message, the note. Julie assured him she’d been home all day. She begged him to let her know Shani was okay as soon as he found her.
Hanging up with Julie, he registered the blinking light that told him there was a message on the answering machine. Instinct told him to press the playback button. He listened, riveted, from Shani’s first sleepy hello to her hurried, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Then he ran from the room, yelling for the security guard the moment he opened the front door.
By the time Shani passed the golf course, about a mile and a half down Bell Road, she knew she must have missed the shortcut for the hospital. She’d have to pull over, call the hospital to get better directions. Spotting a small country road, she turned left, then stopped so she could dig her cell phone from her purse. But just as she zipped her purse open, she remembered leaving the cell plugged into the charger.
Fine, she’d just go back to town, get directions there. Glancing in the rearview mirror in preparation for turning around, she saw a dark green sedan directly behind her. It had stopped at an awkward angle, nearly filling the width of the narrow gravel road so that it would be impossible for Shani to get around it and back to the main road. She turned to look over her shoulder and realization slammed into her—it was the same Nissan she’d seen following her last fall, the one she’d seen at the crepe restaurant.
His Miracle Baby Page 17
