The Seven Year Secret

by Roz Denny Fox

  “Two eleven. I can see that number in my sleep, sir. The senator, Mr. Mark and I helped Miss Mallory carry a hundred boxes up those two flights.”

  “No elevator?”

  “Of sorts. We’re in the historic district, sir.”

  “Why didn’t she have movers?”

  “Apparently because she didn’t think she had much stuff to move from Forrest House. Movers did transfer the furniture she had in storage, though.”

  “Huh. So, did Alec Robinson pitch in and help?”

  “No. It was a family affair, sir. Why?”

  “No reason.” Nevertheless, Connor whistled as he bypassed the ancient-looking elevator and lunged up two flights. He thought the jog would give him a few moments to organize his thoughts. Too soon he found himself staring at Mallory’s door—and he couldn’t explain a sudden urge to turn tail and run. His hand was less than steady when he knocked.

  Light footsteps approached the door. Double locks turned slowly, and the door opened the width of a chain. One of Mallory’s eyes and a portion of her rumpled hair came into view. “Connor? Wh-what are you d-doing here?” Her hand came up to clutch a silky robe under her chin.

  “Sorry to barge in without calling.” He braced a hand on the molding. “I’m in town on a whirlwind visit. But you probably know that. I just…just felt like seeing Liddy Bea.” He was careful not to say he also felt like seeing her.

  “Who’s at the door, Mommy?” Liddy Bea peered from behind her mom, trying to see their caller.

  “It’s Mr. O’Rourke, baby.”

  “Yippee! I knew he’d come see where I keep my lucky frogs. Let him in, Mommy. I wanna show them to him now. Uh…oh…do we hafta make my bed?”

  Mallory laughed at her child’s adult-sounding concerns. “I’m sure Connor’s seen an unmade bed before, Liddy.” She unfastened the chain and opened the door. “I look like a mess, but at least I can offer you a cup of coffee.”

  “I can only stay a minute.” He stepped over the threshold while checking his watch. “Ten, tops. I barely have time to do more than take a gander at those f-frogs.” Connor happened to glance up and his tongue stumbled over the last word. Backlit by sun streaming through the living-room window, Mallory, dressed in a red satin robe, seemed to have caught fire. “You’re no mess,” he blurted. “God, Mallory, you’re more beautiful than ever.”

  She blushed furiously while Liddy Bea giggled. “I think she is, too. Grandpapa says I’m going to look ’xactly like her some day.”

  Tearing his gaze away from Mallory, Connor muttered, “That you are, Miss Lydia. That you are.” Feeling a decided tilt in the floor beneath his feet, he rested a hand on his daughter’s baby-fine hair. “Uh…your mom and grandfather are going to be beating boys off with a big stick about the time you turn sixteen.” Dammit, he wanted to check out the boys who came calling on his daughter, wanted a say in what she did and whom she saw. He couldn’t very well do that if he lived in Miami and she resided in Tallahassee.

  “Connor, you look as if you might keel over. Are you feeling okay?” Mallory plucked at his shirtsleeve.

  “No, I’m not okay.” He jerked from her loose grasp, suddenly angry with Mallory again. “If you must know, my life’s been a roller coaster since the night you showed up at my apartment.”

  Her pale hands fluttered to her waist, where she nervously tightened the sash of her robe. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wish things had been different, Connor.”

  Liddy Bea wedged between the couple, her big eyes taking in first one, then the other. She slipped her small hand in Connor’s larger, sweaty one. “I’m taking Connor to see my room. Oh!” Her eyes grew even larger. “Is it okay if I call you that, or do I gotta say Mr. O’Rourke?”

  A nerve in Connor’s jaw jumped erratically as he ground his teeth to keep from telling Liddy Bea to call him Daddy.

  Mallory read his uncertainty and a few other emotions he probably didn’t know he was revealing. Fortunately, Liddy Bea was unaware of his tension. “Connor’s fine for now, baby. Another day, when there’s more time, he and Mommy will have to settle on what you should call him.” She turned to Connor. “If you’re going to see what Lydia’s done with the frog band you gave her, you two had better scoot. I think Davis just tooted the horn. It’s his five-minute warning.” She pulled aside the curtain and waved to Davis.

  Her matter-of-fact approach to their serious dilemma knocked the stuffing out of Connor as few other things would have. He simply nodded and fell into step with his daughter. Just being here with this fantastic kid he’d helped bring into the world jumbled his thoughts. Especially since his daughter didn’t even know him for who he was…

  Liddy Bea’s bedroom was any little girl’s dream. White antique furniture. A canopy bed with lacy covers. Shelves spilling over with toys. A closet stuffed with frilly dresses, and also clothes for play. Connor noted with a lump in his throat that his gift of funny glass frogs claimed a prominent place on a stand beside her bed.

  “Grandpapa said I should name them Accordion, Clarinet, Saxophone and Conductor, ’cause that’s what they’re doing.” She giggled. “They’re special, so I gave them special names.” She touched each one. “Brad, Fredric, Mark and Connor,” she whispered. “That’s a secret. ’Cause I’m not s’posed to use grown-ups’ first names.”

  “They’re your frogs, kitten. You call them whatever you like.” He was decidedly pleased that she hadn’t named one Alec. “I’ve got to run, Liddy Bea. I have an important appointment, and I can’t be late.”

  “’Kay. But I wanted to show you Mommy’s bedroom. Come see where she keeps Ellie, the pink elephant my daddy gave her.”

  The mere thought of setting foot inside Mallory’s bedroom sent hot and cold chills racing up Connor’s backbone. Based on experience, he knew that the scent of her perfume would linger there, subtly pervading the entire room.

  “Davis is probably getting impatient,” Mallory called from the hallway. “Dad told me about your possible transfer, Connor. Do you think you’ll accept it?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  The direct question caught her off guard. Again her fingers flew to her throat, this time to twist the top button of a sleeveless blouse. She’d used the time Connor spent with Liddy Bea to throw on a blouse, a pair of shorts and to run a comb through her hair. Recovering belatedly, she murmured, “That’s for you and Claire to decide, isn’t it?”

  “I think it involves you, too. Or did you imagine once you brought me kicking and screaming into Lydia’s life, I’d just slink away without a whimper?”

  “Connor, please.” Mallory’s hands shook as she clamped them on Liddy’s shoulders. The girl had her head tipped back. Her puzzled gaze moved from Connor to her mother.

  “You did think that.” He made the assessment, looking deep into Mallory’s shocked eyes. And he was, in turn, furious. “Having lived most of your life with a lawyer, I can’t believe you’d be that naive.”

  She marched to the door and flung it wide as Liddy ran into the adjacent room to peer out the window. “Are you warning me to hire one?”

  “If you figured I’d pop in, leave a kidney and silently disappear again, then yes. I hadn’t decided until this minute, Mallory, but I want to be more to Liddy Bea than a kidney. I will be more.”

  Mallory shook all over now. In a stab at control, she wrapped both arms around her waist and asked in a quavering voice, “Are you planning to wage a custody war?”

  “If I have to.” He felt exhilarated at having reached a conclusion, and he also felt like a heel. The last time he’d seen Mallory in such a state was the night he’d gotten his master’s degree and announced he’d be leaving town.

  Now that scene flooded back. He’d refused to hear of her following him to the South Seas. Grasping at anything to make her stay, while at the same time assuaging his guilt for following his own dream, he’d said she should forget him and take up with one of the lawyers Beatrice was forever parading past her. Mallory
had worn this same shell-shocked expression then. She hadn’t stood her ground. She’d run. It’d been the last time he’d seen her for seven interminable years.

  Davis gave the horn a quick blast. Connor had no choice but to leave things hanging.

  Mallory gladly escorted him out. In fact, she slammed the door so hard, his entire body jerked at the sound.

  Panting from his mad dash downstairs, Connor jumped into the limo. “Sorry I took so long.” Glancing up as he shut his door, he saw that Mallory and Liddy Bea had parted the curtains. Tears streaked Mallory’s face. That was the picture Connor took with him into the breakfast meeting with the meteorology department heads.

  In spite of that, the meeting went well. The men were sincere about everything in their offer. Connor stared at the dotted line for several minutes. If he returned to Miami without this position, he was convinced that Mallory would fight him over his parental rights. But if he lived here, they might not need a court to work out an amicable agreement. Almost certain that Claire would misunderstand, he uncapped the pen and scrawled his name on all three copies of the contract.

  Two professors walked him to the reception area, where Davis waited to take him to his appointment with Dr. Dahl. “We’ve already cleared office and laboratory space for you, Dr. O’Rourke. We’ve freed up James Kirkpatrick, our most promising field studies senior student. He’s available to help set up your equipment anytime.”

  Connor clasped the men’s hands, one at a time. Breathing deeply, he marveled at the freedom he already felt. Under Jay Durham in Miami, he felt stifled. “Gentlemen, I plan to give notice in Miami tomorrow. By afternoon, I’ll start shipping equipment. I don’t want my transmitters to be off-line for more than a day or two at most. Tell Kirkpatrick to prepare for the first shipment in a couple of days.”

  “Very good. We’re anxious to see how this system of yours works. We’ve allowed you the entire summer to work at your own pace. Your first classes are scheduled in the fall. But be aware, O’Rourke—there are some in the scientific community here who are skeptical about your results.”

  The warning, one he’d often heard before, gave Connor pause for thought as he headed toward his next meeting. Should he have been so hasty? Maybe he was trading one jerk of a deputy director for a whole host of naysayers.

  AT ELEVEN-FIFTEEN, Fredric Dahl received Connor into his office without a smile. “If my being late has pressed you for time, I can switch my return flight to a later one,” Connor offered genially.

  Fredric shook his head. “Be seated, please, Dr. O’Rourke. I’m afraid I don’t bear the good news we’ve all been hoping for.”

  “What?” Connor found himself falling into the chair across from Dahl. “I’m Liddy Bea’s natural father. Surely my blood matches hers.”

  “Blood isn’t the problem.” Sighing, Fredric handed Connor a cross-cut, colorful picture of a bean-shaped organ. A kidney. Turning aside, he snapped on a magnifying light set up to display X rays. Presumably Connor’s.

  “My films?” Connor asked, squinting into the light.

  “Yes. Normally a kidney has one renal artery and a renal vein passing blood through the organ. You have double veins attached to both kidneys. It’s not a totally uncommon anomaly and poses no threat to you. But the veins don’t match Liddy’s.”

  Dr. Dahl fell silent as both he and Connor stared at the aberration someone had circled on Connor’s X rays with a red Hi-Liter.

  Dahl stirred first. “In adults, I’ve seen cases where a transplant team piggybacked one vein on top of other. Or they’ve used a T connection of sorts. Not all of these procedures fail, but there’s a higher risk and any possibility of failure concerns me. Especially as Liddy Bea has already endured one rejection. We can’t afford another. I’ve already broken the bad news to Mallory. She knows we have to wait for a match on the national donor list.”

  “But…but…but…” Connor sputtered. “So this is it? We’re not even going to try?” His stomach knotted so painfully he couldn’t think what questions to ask. He felt a crushing weight pressing in on him.

  “Don’t you think I’d attempt it if I thought her chances were better than half?” the doctor snapped. “Sometime you need to sit down with Mallory and have her explain everything Liddy’s already gone through. Right now she’s stable. Until that changes, or until an appropriate donor kidney becomes available, we’ll leave things as they are.” Clearly signaling the end of their meeting, Dahl rose and headed for the door, leaving Connor slumped in his chair, dabbing moisture from his eyes with a handkerchief he’d fumbled from his breast pocket.

  It took Connor a while to gather his wits—until he knew his legs would support him. He still felt disoriented as Rhonda appeared at the door, a sad expression marring her ordinarily smooth skin. “Would you like a cup of strong coffee before you leave, Dr. O’Rourke? Or I can give you one to go. The senator’s driver is waiting to take you to the airport. For what it’s worth, I’m really, really sorry about this. We all had our fingers crossed.”

  “Yes,” Connor mumbled. “So am I. Damned sorry. Does Senator Forrest know?”

  “Yes, I believe Dr. Dahl contacted him.”

  Connor expelled a tight breath. “So, now we just wait for a miracle? Tell me, Rhonda, how long do miracles take?”

  “The most dire cases go to the head of the donor list. Liddy Bea’s right up there. If a match shows up anywhere in the U.S. it’ll have her name on it. There’s just no guarantee it’ll be today, tomorrow, next week or even next year.”

  “I see. You’re not very encouraging,” he said, finally forcing himself to leave. He didn’t blame Dr. Dahl for disappearing. Mallory and Liddy Bea were counting on him, and he’d let them down. On top of that, he’d arranged to move to Tallahassee. Would Mallory or Bradford ever be able to stomach seeing him again?

  Walking out, Connor doubled his fist and smashed it into a pillar. The pain radiating up his arm didn’t compare to the agony that gripped his heart.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAVIS SAW CONNOR and emerged quickly to open the limo door. “Goodness, sir! Your hand is bloody.”

  Belatedly feeling the pain, Connor realized he must have skinned his knuckles. Patting his pocket, he found the tear-damp handkerchief to wrap around his hand.

  “You didn’t…ah…strike Dr. Dahl, did you?” Davis asked in hushed tones.

  “No. None of this is his fault. I guess you heard…I have a…defect.”

  The old driver’s face fell sadly. “It’s disappointing for everyone. After Miss Mallory gave her a kidney, Miss Liddy was like a new girl. We all prayed you could make it happen again. But don’t blame yourself. You did everything you could. Shall we get you to your flight, sir?”

  “Yes. No.” Connor shook his head. “I can’t go without seeing Mallory. What kind of man slinks off to lick his wounds and leaves his family hurting?” he muttered.

  Davis perked up considerably. “Very good, sir.”

  Connor’s brain, briefly numbed by Dr. Dahl’s blunt words, had begun to function again. In the eyes of the law, Mallory and Liddy Bea technically weren’t his family. But over these last weeks, he’d laid claim to his child—in his mind and in his heart. And by association…Mallory.

  Only—there was someone who took priority. Claire.

  Finding his cell phone, Connor listlessly punched in her work number. If he actually got her and not her voice mail, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

  Claire did answer her own extension. Her groggy voice suggested she’d gotten too much scuba diving and not enough rest.

  “Claire, it’s Connor. I’ve seen Dahl.” His throat worked spasmodically as he waited for her to ask what he couldn’t bear to admit—the result of his tests. She said nothing. Unable to keep his voice from cracking, Connor explained in brief terms that he wasn’t a match.

  “That’s fantastic!” Claire seemed to rally. “Now you can get your body back to Miami where you belong, and forget those people. We’ll res
chedule the wedding. Soon as we hang up, I’ll call Janine, Lauren, Greg and Paul. We’ll cobble together a celebration of sorts for tonight—invite our friends and colleagues. What time do you get in?”

  “Celebrate? I said I can’t give my daughter the kidney she so desperately needs, and you see that as a reason to celebrate?”

  “Yes,” she said warily. “Don’t you understand, Connor? That frees you from any real or imagined sense of obligation. You can quit feeling guilty.”

  “Claire, I can’t believe you said that. Lydia Beatrice is my child. Part of me. She’s named for my mother. I may not be the donor she needs, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to turn my back on her.”

  “So, what are you saying, Connor?”

  He shut his eyes and shifted the phone to his other ear. “I, uh, want to be in her life. It’ll mean some sort of partial custody.”

  Claire sucked in a lungful of air. Then the line cracked for a moment with static. “We never discussed having children, Connor. I’m not ready to take on that chore yet. If and when it’s time, I want kids of my own. I don’t see myself in the role of stepmother.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. If you loved me, you’d try to make room in your life for Liddy Bea.”

  “Wrong, Connor. If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to welcome your illegitimate child with open arms.”

  “Don’t do this, Claire. Don’t force me to choose.”

  “That’s exactly how I see it. Me or a kid you don’t know from Adam.”

  “I’d hoped we could sit down and talk about this and a few other things when I got home, but…” He hesitated ever so briefly. “This morning, I signed on with the university here in Tallahassee. I’m relocating my project. Part of the reason for making this change, is to give me a chance to know Liddy Bea. If you have a problem with that…”

  “I do. A big problem. I guess…it’s over between us. But if you think I’m handing back my engagement ring, think again. You owe me, Connor. You’ve humiliated me in front of our friends, co-workers and my family. I hope you rot in hell!” She slammed the phone down in his ear.