First-Class Father

by Charlotte Douglas

  “And Lily believed him?”

  “Charles Wilcox can be a very charming and persuasive man. He was also supposedly Talbot’s best friend, so Lily, not knowing Charles wanted Talbot to marry Irene, believed him.”

  “If Lily had already backed out of Talbot’s life, why did Charles kidnap her?”

  “Because she popped in again. When Jasmine was three, Lily’s sister became seriously ill. Lily had to quit her job to care for her, so she had no money. She wrote to Talbot, asking for a loan until she could return to work. When Talbot didn’t answer, Lily came to Dolphin Bay to see him.”

  “Had he already married Irene?”

  “No, he was still in love with Lily and elated when she appeared unexpectedly at his house. Charles, aware of her arrival, abducted Lily almost immediately, and Talbot never saw her again, until last year.”

  “How did he find her?”

  “Twenty-five years later, Lily’s letter, lost all that time, was returned to Jasmine. Only then did Jasmine learn who her father was. Together with Rand, they rescued her mother.”

  “So Charles tried to kill Jasmine before she identified herself as Talbot’s daughter?”

  He nodded. “Charles didn’t want another heir to the family fortune. Now he’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.”

  “What happened to Irene?”

  “She married Talbot after Lily disappeared. They had three sons, but their marriage was shaky from the start. Last year, after Lily was set free, Irene and Talbot divorced. She and her youngest son Blain moved to France. Her older sons, T.J. and Art, stayed here to work in their father’s company.”

  “And Lily?”

  “Lily and Talbot married a few months ago.”

  “That’s an incredible story.” Heather cast him a puzzled glance. “But aside from the attempt on her life and a similar birthmark, I don’t see what Jasmine and I have in common.”

  “Maybe nothing.”

  She impaled him with a stare. “I know that tone, Dylan Wade. What haven’t you told me?”

  “The rest of the story.”

  He’d come to the crux of his tale, and he suddenly lost his nerve. If his hunch was right, what he was about to tell her would turn her world upside down.

  “How about a cup of tea?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I want to hear how it ends.”

  “You may not like it.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re a creature of habit You don’t like change.”

  “Don’t be silly. How can a story change me? Tell me the rest.”

  Like a diver plunging into deep water, he drew a deep breath and continued. “During the brief time Lily spent with Talbot before Charles kidnapped her, she became pregnant Once hospitalized, she was constantly sedated to prevent her escape. She has no memory of giving birth or of her baby being taken away.”

  “How awful.” Her eyes misted.

  “A few weeks ago, a few of the baby’s clothes Lily had stashed away in a lucid moment were forwarded to Moore House by a former nurse. That’s how Lily learned about her other child.”

  As if uncomfortable, Heather shifted in her chair.

  “Is your arm bothering you? I can bring you a pain pill.”

  She shook her head. “Charles told them where to find the missing kid, right?”

  “He claims to know nothing. Talbot and Lily can’t find any record of the adoption, nothing to indicate the baby even existed.”

  “Maybe the nurse made the whole thing up and there was no baby.” Her voice and eyes were peculiarly bright.

  He’d always known Heather was a quick study. She’d guessed where he was headed and offered an alternative, as if hoping to avoid his conclusion.

  “A note about the baby in Lily’s handwriting was with the baby clothes.”

  With her bottom lip caught in her teeth and her hand plucking at nonexistent threads on her bandage, she lowered her head, avoiding his eyes. His heart ached for her, and he silently cursed the circumstances that had forced this conversation.

  “When your folks arrive, we’ll have some answers.”

  The stubborn tilt of her head and the defensiveness in her voice announced her resistance to his conclusions. “What kind of answers?”

  To break through her denial, he’d have to be blunt. “Whether they adopted you.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her. “That’s impossible. They would never have hidden that fact from me.”

  “I believe you are Talbot and Lily’s missing daughter.”

  “No!”

  Her anguished cry tore at his gut, and he hated the pain he’d caused her, but he’d hate himself more if the next attempt on her life succeeded. He couldn’t shield her from the possibility that she had been adopted, not when knowing the truth might save her life.

  “Talbot’s daughter stands to inherit one-fifth of a tremendous fortune.”

  Using her one good arm, she struggled to her feet. Her face twisted with anger and heartache. “I don’t care about Talbot’s money—”

  “Someone else obviously does.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Money is a prime motive for murder.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She refused to believe she’d been adopted.

  The possibility blew her world apart. The floor dipped, the room spun, and she flung her good arm around Dylan’s neck to keep from falling. Pulling her to him, careful of her injury, but hard enough to jolt the air from her lungs, he wrapped his arms around her.

  Cold with shock, she clung to him, welcoming his comforting heat, as drawn by his compassion as she was repelled by his adoption theory.

  Tears stung her eyes, and she choked back a sob. “My parents—”

  “They’ll always be your parents.” His breath fanned her cheek. “Nothing changes the love and care they’ve given you all your life.”

  “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “They must have had their reasons.”

  With a gentle swoop, he carried her to the recliner, settled with her in his lap and tucked her head beneath his chin. He stroked her hair, and his tenderness opened the floodgate of her tears.

  In her confused state, she didn’t know if she cried for her sudden loss of identity or her imminent separation from Dylan, whose strength she leaned on now.

  “I hated it.”

  She swallowed a sob. “Hated what?”

  “Having to tell you.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and set off a resonating tingle that vibrated across her shoulders.

  “I might not be Jasmine’s sister.”

  “There’s a good chance you are.”

  Silently she berated herself for rushing to judgment and assuming the worst Pushing away from him, she swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I won’t cry.”

  “Go ahead, if it makes you feel better.” He skimmed her cheek with his knuckles. The tender compassion in his eyes threatened to launch her tears again.

  “I won’t cry.” She grappled for control. “It’s nonproductive.”

  His soft chuckle surprised her.

  “What’s so funny?”

  His smile held no derision. “You are.”

  “Thanks for hitting a girl while she’s down.”

  “I was thinking how unchanging you are, pragmatic, tenacious, resilient. You feel stunned now, but you won’t let this defeat you.”

  She wished she had his confidence. Sliding her arm around his waist, she nestled her face against his throat and experienced a warm, enveloping calm. “This is part of your job, right?”

  “Cuddling attractive young females?” Amused surprise colored his voice.

  Without looking at him, she shook her head. “Making people feel safe.”

  His hand cupped her face, bringing her eyes level with his. “You’re not safe with me.”

  Before she could breathe, his mouth covered hers. The pressure of his lips drove hers apart, lengthening and deepening the kis
s, igniting a fire within her, a frenzied flame that leaped to match the feverish heat she felt in him.

  With a hunger too long unsatisfied, she melted against him and ran her hands over his face, broad shoulders and the hard, sinewy muscles of his arms. Need, wild and wanton, drove out every conscious thought but her yearning to meld her body with his in blood-pounding abandon.

  When he slipped his hands beneath her blouse and his fingers skimmed her breasts, a flash of heat, like summer lightning, zigzagged all the way to her belly. The hard, hot evidence of his desire pulsed beneath her thighs.

  As abruptly as he’d begun, he dropped his hands and lifted his head. “We’d better stop.”

  His sudden halt jarred her and restored her reason. He was right. They’d been down this road, and although the journey had been glorious, heartache lay at its end.

  She wriggled from his lap and adjusted her clothes.

  “Your parents will be here any minute.”

  Standing beside her, he straightened the sling that supported her bandaged arm. His breathing rattled in her ears, as rapid and ragged as her own.

  She stepped away to remove herself from temptation. Not only did she want him in the most primal way, she loved him beyond reason.

  God help me, I will never stop loving him.

  A sensation of terrible loss choked her with its magnitude. His attitude about marriage and commitment hadn’t changed. She’d almost lost her son and her life. And now, in a few minutes, she might discover that the couple she believed had given her birth weren’t her real parents after all.

  “Everything’s going to work out, Heather.” His voice, as warm and comforting as his arms, caressed her. “I promise.”

  He closed the gap between them and lowered his head to claim her lips again. His kiss was longer, deeper and infinitely more tender than the one before. Its potency weakened her knees and bolstered her flagging hope.

  With a shuddering breath, he broke away. “I promise.”

  She wanted to ask how he intended to keep that promise, but the crunch of tires on the driveway announced her parents’ arrival. Torn between happiness at seeing them and fear of what they might tell her, she walked outside to greet them.

  Her father climbed from the driver’s side of his new Saturn and, with the courtesy Heather always associated with him, hustled to open her mother’s door. As they approached her, changes, evident in just the few short weeks since Easter vacation, struck her.

  Both would soon be seventy, and although they followed a healthy routine vigorously, especially since her father’s heart attack, they couldn’t fend off forever the effects of aging. Her mother’s shoulders were more stooped, and her father’s hair had turned noticeably whiter.

  “Oh, Heather.” Her mother’s lips trembled at the sight of her. “We were so worried.”

  Bending to embrace her mother with her uninjured arm, Heather wondered why she’d never questioned how little she resembled either of her parents. Tall, slender, with light brown hair and green eyes, she looked nothing like Barbara or David Taylor, both short and stocky with dark eyes, and hair that had been coal black before age dulled its color.

  “I’m fine, Mother.”

  “But your arm?” Anxiety glittered in her mother’s deep-set eyes.

  “Once the stitches are out, it’ll be good as new. Hi, Daddy.”

  Careful of her injured arm, her father squeezed her in a bear hug. “You look great, pumpkin.”

  Heather hugged him back and smiled. His steady optimism had always provided a welcome buffer to her mother’s chronic apprehension.

  They climbed the porch steps, and Dylan opened the front door. “Hello, Barbara, David. You must be tired from your trip.”

  In the living room, her parents sat side by side on Dylan’s long sofa. Heather took the recliner, and Dylan straddled a hassock.

  Her father cleared his throat. “We appreciated your call, Dylan. Heather was trying to spare us worry by keeping us in the dark about the threats to her and Chip—” he flashed her a smile to show he understood “—but now that we know, we want to help.”

  Dylan also shot Heather a glance, encouraging her to inquire about her birth parents. She knew she had to ask, but the question lodged in her throat.

  Her mother came to her rescue. “Tell her, David.”

  Her father took her mother’s hand, as if for strength. “It’s a long drive from Fort Lauderdale, so your mother and I had plenty of time to talk. When Dylan called yesterday and told us about the threats, we knew we couldn’t keep our secret any longer.”

  “We spent the entire trip,” her mother added, “trying to decide the best way to say it.”

  “There’s no easy way, pumpkin,” said her father, a telltale moisture glistening in his eyes, “except to come right out with it.”

  Her mother nodded. “Especially when the knowledge might save yours and Chip’s lives.”

  “We’re not your natural parents.” Her father’s expression begged forgiveness.

  Disclosing the twenty-five-year-old secret was obvious agony for her parents, and although Heather expected her father’s confession, his words struck like a hammer blow.

  Thanks to Dylan’s preparing her for their news, she received it without falling to pieces. She communicated her gratitude with a bittersweet smile.

  He returned her glance with a smoldering look that brought a flush to her cheeks. Since the day after her attack, a subtle but significant change had occurred in their relationship. The invisible wall he had always raised between them, even in the heat of lovemaking, had disappeared by degrees, and a vital intimacy had taken its place.

  In spite of the joy this new rapport gave her, she knew better than to hope for permanent commitment. Her emotions were already raw from learning of her adoption. She refused to risk more grief by wanting what, even now, she doubted he was willing to give.

  She turned to her parents and prodded gently. “Maybe you should tell me the whole story.”

  “We wanted you so much,” her mother said with a quiver in her voice. “We’d been married fifteen years, and in spite of all our efforts, I couldn’t conceive.”

  “The older we grew,” her father added, “the less likely an adoption agency was to assign us a child. The ad in our local paper was a godsend.”

  “Ad? By an adoption agency?” Dylan asked.

  “No,” her father said, “from an unnamed attorney with a blind post office box. Applicants who wanted to adopt a child were to send their qualifications.”

  “The man who called on us was very nice,” her mother continued. “He said he was an attorney but refused to give his name. If we wanted the baby, he said, everything was to be transacted in the strictest secrecy.”

  As she spoke, her mother appeared to relax. Perhaps the fact that Heather had accepted the news without hysterics had made the telling easier.

  Dylan raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t the secrecy make you suspicious?”

  “You bet,” her dad answered without hesitation, “but the lawyer assured us everything was in order, that secrecy was only to protect the baby’s mother.”

  Her mother nodded. “He told a very touching story about a wealthy young socialite, pregnant as the result of an indiscriminate affair. She was able to hide her pregnancy from her husband, out of the country on an extended business trip, and wanted her child adopted before his return.”

  “We could adopt,” her father continued, “only if we agreed never to reveal to you that you had been adopted. Your natural mother, the lawyer said, wanted to insure that you wouldn’t show up on her doorstep and ruin her marriage.”

  Her mother shook her head. “And we believed him, because he was so charming and articulate. And because we wanted you so desperately.”

  Tears blurred Heather’s vision. “And that’s why you never told me?”

  She nodded. “We were afraid you might rush off searching for your real parents, and if you found them, they’d break your heart.”r />
  Heather rose and moved to the sofa between them. “You are my true parents. Nothing will ever alter that.”

  Her mom and dad embraced her, then her mother shed a few tears. When her father had yanked his handkerchief from his pocket and blown his nose, Dylan spoke.

  “What did this attorney look like?”

  “Slender, average height, glasses,” her mother said, “and his hair was starting to thin.”

  “We never learned his name,” her father added. “The only other information we had was from his car’s license plate. The tag was from this county.”

  “Surely the attorney isn’t the one who’s threatening Heather and Chip?” her mother said. “He seemed like such a nice young man.”

  Dylan scowled. “If he’s who I think he is, he’s serving a life sentence for kidnapping and attempted murder.”

  Shock and dismay registered on her parents’ faces.

  “Tell them,” Heather said to Dylan, “everything you told me about Jasmine and her family.”

  While Dylan repeated the story, Heather absorbed details she had been too stunned to grasp the first time. His account of Lily’s imprisonment and stolen baby brought tears to her parents’ eyes.

  “You believe Heather is Lily’s daughter, Jasmine’s sister?” her father asked when Dylan finished.

  “The secrecy of Heather’s adoption, her age and the matching birthmarks are strong circumstantial proof,” Dylan said, “but we’ll need hard evidence to be certain.”

  “How can we help?” her father asked. “We’ll stay as long as you need us.”

  Heather blanched at his offer. As living witnesses to her illegal adoption, her parents could be in as much danger as she was.

  Judging from the furrows between his eyebrows, she suspected Dylan’s thoughts were running in the same direction.

  “You could be the most help with Chip,” he said. “He’s with my folks up on the river. I know they’d appreciate a hand, and they’d enjoy seeing you again, too.”