The Second Family

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The Second Family Page 2

by Janice Carter


  “About the cruise?”

  Tess got up and poured the coffee, then carefully sat down again. She wondered if an evasive strategy would work with Mavis. “There’s so much work at the office right now. A big merger coming up. It’s all hush-hush so I can’t give you any details but…”

  “Tess, love, I’m not going to be calling up my stockbroker in the morning. So get on with it.”

  Her blue eyes zoomed in on Tess. Scratch the evasive strategy. Tess laughed. “I can’t keep anything from you, Mavis.”

  “And why would you want to?” Mavis’s voice assumed a tone of mock hurt. Then, reading Tess’s mind, she added, “I know you want me to stop pestering you—and I will—but I’m curious. I thought you and Douglas had made all the arrangements.”

  “We had,” Tess said, her voice low. She stared down into her coffee.

  “And?”

  There was no putting her off, Tess thought. She sighed and set her coffee mug down on the table. “I haven’t seen him for almost two weeks.”

  The eyebrow arched again, but Mavis said nothing.

  “The last time I saw him we had an argument and I’m afraid…well, I guess I said some pretty blunt things.”

  Mavis nodded thoughtfully. “Then what happened?”

  Did the woman ever give up? “Nothing. He hasn’t called.”

  “So the cruise—?”

  “I canceled my half.” Tess picked some fluff off her skirt, avoiding Mavis’s face. When she glanced up, Mavis was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I had cancellation insurance,” Tess murmured. “I got back most of my money.”

  “That’s not the point, dear. You need a holiday. You’ve been working ten- and twelve-hour days, six days a week, I’m sure, for the last six months.”

  “Comes with the promotion, Mavis. I explained that when they made me Vice President of Marketing.”

  “But Douglas? The lad dotes on you.”

  Tess glanced down again, this time to hide a grin. Douglas Reed—the company’s wheeling and dealing head lawyer—was no lad. Probably never had been, Tess thought, even when he was a kid. And the doting part certainly had applied a year ago, but not recently.

  How could she explain to Mavis what had happened when Tess scarcely knew herself? Douglas Reed’s aggressive, confident courting style had been exhilarating and flattering in the beginning. But over the past few months, Tess had suspected his feelings for her had more to do with image than true love. She knew from comments he’d made that dating an executive from Balfour International was important to his own career plans. His hints about a future together envisioned a team on a meteoric ascent—a couple who would earn a fortune between them and who’d devote their lives solely to one another. And, of course, their careers.

  Not that Tess didn’t want to have a great career. She’d worked hard, putting herself through university and then going on to acquire an MBA. Success was crucial for her. She just didn’t want someone else planning her future for her.

  And of course, there was the other thing. The part she couldn’t reveal to Mavis. When Douglas took her into his arms, she felt little more than a moment’s warmth. Worse still, after the first two or three times, their lovemaking had become an exercise of habit. There was no buzz, no sparkle, no whisper of magic—all the ingredients of a truly romantic relationship. Deep down inside, Tess craved the fantasy she’d imagined since she was a teenager—that someone, somewhere, was going to whisk her away.

  She sighed. It hadn’t happened yet. Probably never would. And, Tess was sure, it definitely would not happen with Douglas Reed.

  “Tess? Are you still with me, girl?” Mavis was leaning forward in her chair. “And what’s that sigh all about?”

  Tess felt her face heat up. “Nothing. It’s just that things haven’t been great between us for a while and…well, I thought we should give each other some space.”

  “In my day we’d call that breaking up,” Mavis commented. “Well, so be it. You know best what kind of man you want to settle down with.”

  Tess bit down on her lower lip. She knew the remark stemmed from love for her, but Mavis simply couldn’t accept that Tess’s aim in life was not merely to marry and produce a family. Some day, perhaps. But not anytime soon.

  After a long moment, Mavis asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about your father?”

  Tess stared down into her coffee mug. When she finally raised her head to Mavis, her reply was brisk. “No. There’s not much to say, anyway. I’ll dig that lawyer’s letter out of the wastebasket tomorrow or wait for him to call me back.”

  Mavis heaved a loud sigh, suggesting she knew when to give up. “I have a feeling you want to change the subject.”

  Tess didn’t answer. She drank the last of her coffee and stood up. “I should go home tonight, Mavis. I’ve got to be at work early for a meeting and if I stay here—”

  Mavis nodded. “I know, love. The distance adds more time to your day. Anyway, tomorrow’s my Friday to visit Sophie and I plan to leave first thing in the morning.”

  “How is she doing?” Tess asked.

  Mavis shrugged. “Well as can be expected, I guess. She likes the food there, anyway.” Mavis visited her sister once a month, spending the weekend at the retirement home outside Chicago where Sophie had been living for the past year. “I’m sorry to hear about the cruise. I hope you’ll still go ahead and take the holiday time, though.” Her eyes fixed on Tess. “Think about it. You need it more than you realize, believe me.”

  Tess mumbled a reply, though she thought this time Mavis didn’t know best.

  TESS LEFT the conference room and made a sharp right turn when she spotted Douglas exiting an office farther down the hall. They seldom bumped into one another in the eight floors of skyscraper space that the company rented in the John Hancock Center. Since their acrimonious parting two weeks before, Tess had made a point of avoiding the floor where his office was located.

  Today was not a good time for a first encounter, she decided. Not after yesterday’s stunning news. A face-to-face meeting when she was feeling vulnerable might end up with her agreeing to go on the cruise with him after all.

  An elevator opened as she approached the company reception area and she jumped into it, breathing a sigh of relief as the door closed. How long, she asked herself, are you going to keep hiding from him? Ashamed of her own cowardice, she vowed to face up to him the next time. That’s what comes of breaking your own rule, Tess my girl, about dating a colleague.

  As she entered her office, Carrie waved a handful of phone message slips. “Some lawyer’s been calling you ever since late yesterday afternoon, Tess.”

  “Lawyer? What about, do you know?”

  “No, but he’s calling from Colorado so—”

  “Oh, God!” Tess expelled a mouthful of air.

  “Not bad news, I hope?”

  “I’m not sure,” was all she said, grabbing the messages and retreating into her office. She plunked down into her swivel chair, set her elbows on the desk and lowered her chin into her cupped hands. She needed to calm down. Perhaps Mavis was right after all. A vacation might be the best thing for her now. Except that she’d canceled the cruise and had no place to go.

  Tess leafed through the phone messages. They were all from her father’s lawyer, Jed Walker, in Boulder. Jed. A picture came to mind of a rugged man in a big white cowboy hat puffing on a fat cigar, booted feet propped up on a desk. Or would that be a Texan? She frowned. Whatever, the guy’s persistence was annoying.

  She set the messages aside and skimmed through her notes from the executive meeting. The merger was proceeding well now and her part wouldn’t really happen until all the paperwork was finished, which could take another couple of months. Then she’d have to come up with some flashy ideas to promote the newly formed company, glossing over the reality that jobs would be lost as a result of the merger. The prospect worried her, though when she hesitantly raised the question at the meeting her
boss advised her not to dwell on the negatives.

  “Other jobs will open up with new manufacturing,” he’d reassured her before going on to the next item on the agenda.

  Tess had let the matter drop, thinking at the same time how someone like Mavis, underpaid and undervalued in the workforce up to her retirement, would have reacted to such nonchalance. Thoughts of Mavis took her back to the discarded phone messages on her desk.

  She had advised her to contact the lawyer, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. Tess picked up one of the slips of paper and stared at it. Could she seriously call someone named Jed without cracking a cowboy joke? More to the point, did she really want to pursue the matter of her father?

  Except for a birthday card months after he left, she’d had no word from him. Mavis had tried in vain to change Hannah Wheaton’s mind about accepting child support and trying to locate Richard. Hannah’s standard response had been, “He knows where we are if he wants to find us.”

  But he doesn’t, Tess had wanted to argue. Once they’d moved in with Mavis, all ties to the old neighborhood had been cut. When her mother died years later, Tess hadn’t bothered searching through their few boxes of belongings to find an address for her father. She’d finally managed to wipe out his memory.

  Her curiosity got the better of her. Tess clamped down on the receiver, about to pick it up, when the phone rang. She waited for Carrie to pick up and a second later, her voice came through on the intercom.

  “Tess? Call for you from Colorado—”

  “I’ll take it,” Tess interrupted. The lawyer. “Mr. Walker?” she said, after Carrie transferred the call. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to get back to you—”

  “Mr. Walker? Jed Walker? Hell, I’m no Jed Walker. I can tell you that much. That son of a—sorry, just don’t get me started on Jed Walker. I’d as soon—well, never mind that, either. Look, I’ve been trying to find you for about a week now and things have just gone from bad to worse here.”

  “Wait! Please. I don’t have the faintest idea who you are and what you’re talking about. I’m sorry if I mistook you for Jed Walker and obviously you’re acquainted, though not exactly bosom buddies, but—”

  A deep resonant chuckle sounded from the other end. “Well put, Miss Wheaton. Sorry about all the blathering there. The name’s Alec Malone and I’m—”

  “Mr. Malone, what can I do for you?” Tess snapped impatiently.

  “I’m a social worker here in Boulder. I guess Walker’s already contacted you about your father. That right?”

  Tess closed her eyes. Here it was. “Yes, I got a letter from him yesterday.”

  “A letter? And just yesterday? He’s known about you for more than a week.”

  “Look Mr. Malone—”

  “Alec. We don’t stand on formality down here.”

  “Whatever. Alec, then. My father left my mother years ago and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. So if his estate owes anyone any money, you can forget—”

  “Money’s definitely part of it but that’s not why I’m calling. Your father and his wife—well, I suppose she’d be his second wife—”

  Wife! Tess took a deep breath. Her past was snowballing toward her and she had no place to leap.

  “She was killed in the car crash, too, with your father. Maybe you didn’t know that.”

  The snowball doubled in size. Tess tried to speak, but couldn’t. A commotion from beyond her closed office door distracted her. She heard Carrie’s voice pitch indignantly.

  “You can’t go in there! She’s on the—”

  The door burst in and two people shot into the room. Two small people. Children. They lurched to a halt a few feet beyond the door and stared at her. Carrie, standing in the doorway behind them, raised her shoulders apologetically.

  Tess pressed down the hold button. Her gaze shifted from the taller boy with thick chestnut hair that edged the collar of his jacket to the little girl clinging to his leg. There was something familiar about her. The large, vibrant green eyes and the raven tousle of hair. The same heart-shaped face and a smaller version of a delicate nose. Tess could have been looking at a mirror image of herself at the same age.

  She released the hold, keeping her eyes fixed on them. Alec Malone was still talking. “Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that they left behind two kids who’ve just—”

  Tess jabbed the hold button again. “Who are you?” she asked them. “What do you want?” But she knew what the boy was going to say even before he spoke.

  “I think—well, uh—that you’re our sister.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “TESS?” Carrie asked.

  Their sister? Me? Dazed, Tess looked from the two youngsters to Carrie, standing behind them. Her secretary’s eyes were wide with surprise.

  “I’ll take any calls,” Carrie said at once, backing out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  The office was dead quiet. Tess’s labored breathing competed with the drumming at her temples. The little girl, clad in denim overalls and a nylon windbreaker, looked anxiously up at her brother, whose brown-eyed gaze never wavered from Tess’s face. He was a handsome boy on the verge of adolescence, his lanky frame awkwardly thin for the baggy jeans and jacket he wore. Without thinking, Tess released the hold button in time to hear Alec Malone drawling, “Somethin’ wrong at that end, Miss Wheaton?”

  Tess moistened her dry lips and cleared her throat to ask, “Would those two kids be a teenaged boy and a little girl?”

  A whistle of relief sounded from the other end. “They there?” His voice was low and urgent.

  “They just walked into my office.” Tess caught the sharp glance sent from boy to girl. A reassuring signal, she wondered, or a warning?

  “Thank God,” he said. “I’ve got foster parents on standby here, chomping at the bit to call the police. Those two put together one heck of a runaway plan and managed to bamboozle everyone.”

  “I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Mr. Malone,” she said.

  “Right you are. I’m getting to that. I don’t know if you’ve got to the introduction stage yet, but their names are Nick and Molly. He’s thirteen and she’s six. I’ve had their case file since they were placed in foster care right after the accident and—”

  “Why was that?” Tess interrupted.

  “No next of kin and no one close to the family able to take them. We didn’t know about you until several days ago.”

  Before Tess could respond, an exchange of hissed whispers interceded.

  “Excuse me,” the boy said, “but is there a washroom here? And a water fountain?”

  Tess frowned, clamping her palm across the receiver. “Are you thirsty?”

  He nodded. “And hungry, too. We only had some apples and crackers early this morning.”

  “One minute, Mr. Malone,” she snapped into the phone, then put him on hold while pressing the intercom button. “Carrie? Could you come back in here for a sec?”

  “She’ll take you to get some lunch…or dinner…or whatever it is for you,” Tess explained to the children. The door flew open as she was speaking. “Carrie, would you mind taking these two down to the concourse for a bite to eat? Hit the washrooms up here first—that may be the more urgent need.” She eyed the girl, hopping from one foot to the other.

  “I’d love to take them. C’mon, kids. So, I’m Carrie and you are…”

  “Nick,” the boy said. “She’s Molly.” A pause, then, “We’re Wheatons, too. Her brother and sister,” he added huskily, his voice trembling slightly.

  In case Carrie missed that bit of information the first time around, Tess was thinking. As soon as they left the office, she released the hold button.

  “Okay, Mr. Malone, how soon can you get here to pick up these kids and what am I supposed to do with them in the meantime?”

  There was a slight pause, punctuated by a heavy sigh. “I was afraid you might say that.”

  Tess felt the stirrings of a mig
raine. She closed her eyes, massaging her temples. “I don’t know what you mean by that, Mr. Malone, but obviously if people there are looking for the children, they have to be returned as soon as possible. You’re their social worker, surely you must have a plan. So what is it?”

  She thought she heard a low chuckle before he said, “Maybe we’re not as busy down here, ma’am, as you seem to be up there. Guess I was half hoping you’d offer to come back with them or, at best, keep them till someone can get to Chicago.”

  “What am I supposed to do with them? I’m at work right now and my day doesn’t usually end until eight at night. I don’t know much about kids, but I suspect that’s too long a day for them. Besides, I only have a one-bedroom condo here and—”

  “I get the picture, Miss Wheaton,” he interjected. There was another sigh, followed by a low mumbling that Tess suspected was swearing. “Look, someone—most likely it’ll be me—will be there as soon as possible but it may not happen until tomorrow. You think you can handle those two youngsters till then?”

  Tess grit her teeth. Nothing ambiguous about the sarcasm in his voice. “I don’t think it’s fair to get short with me, Mr. Malone. It’s hardly my fault the children ran away.”

  “Short? Would that be like short as in snotty? If so, then I apologize but I gotta admit, those kids took a helluva gamble to make that trip to Chicago on their own looking for a sister they just discovered they had. Kids who’ve never been outside Boulder, Colorado. I don’t have all the details yet, but I do know they got the whole thing together without any adult help and actually made it there in one piece. So if I sound a bit short as you put it, well yes, dammit all, that’s precisely what I am feeling.”

  It wasn’t often that Tess found herself speechless. A hundred questions swarmed her mind about how the children learned her identity and why they came looking for her. Tess sensed that firing off a slew of defensive inquiries would fuel an already heated conversation with the presumptuous social worker. Her business experience had taught her that obvious anger only made your argument weaker.

 

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