“The doctor was right. Children are amazingly resilient.” In contrast, Charity had been an emotional wreck. Whenever she’d dozed off last night, thoughts of this moment had startled her awake like a bad dream coming true. “I’ve told him to stay in bed, but he’s already getting restless.”
“Should we take him in to see the doctor? Maybe there’s something—”
“Really, he seems fine. It’s just that his back was all scraped, and when he rolls over...” The lump that had been in her throat since the accident nearly cut off her air. “It could have been so much worse. If you hadn’t been there...”
Placing his hand at her nape, he kneaded the tense muscles of her neck. She knew she ought to move away. Making a full confession wasn’t going to be easy, and the difficulty would be compounded if she was distracted by how good it felt to have him touching her.
With a force of will, she walked to the edge of the porch and sat down on the steps.
“You can’t put it off forever, Charity.”
She lifted her head to look up at him and squinted at the bright sky that formed a backdrop of blue around his head. The sun glanced off his hair like it was a field of ripe wheat. She drew a lungful of air, warm and scented with his fragrance and that of the nearby snapdragons and roses, then exhaled slowly.
“After that night at the lake, I was terribly embarrassed by what I’d done. That’s why I didn’t return your phone calls. I didn’t think I’d be able to face you. It was more than a month later when I realized...” Still wanting to deny the truth, she broke off her story.
“You were pregnant,” he finished for her with an insistent tone. “Go on.”
“I wasn’t paying any attention to the calendar. Pretty stupid of me, particularly considering I was having trouble keeping my breakfast down. I thought I had some kind of a flu. And then Gramps had his stroke.”
Garrett hunkered down next to her on the top step. “You must have been scared out of your wits.”
“I was. I was terrified Gramps might die, and I didn’t want to tell anyone I was going to have a baby, not right then. It would have just added to Grandma’s worries.”
He hesitated a moment as though he hated to give voice to his thoughts. “You could have gotten rid of the baby.”
She gazed at him levelly, knowing exactly what he was asking. “I never even gave that a thought.” She hadn’t wanted to be pregnant, but after the shock had worn off, she’d wanted his baby. More than he would ever fully understand.
With the back of his hand, he smoothed a few flyaway strands of hair from her face. She hadn’t braided it yet that morning, and it hung loosely about her shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
His expression of gratitude eased her fears more than anything else he could have said or done. At least he didn’t hate her for carrying his baby to term, for loving and raising his child. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be angry to know that all this time she’d harbored a secret—that she’d loved not only his child but Garrett, as well.
“I didn’t know how to reach you, or really if you’d want anything to do with me. Or the baby.” Pursing her lips, she remembered how much courage she’d needed to take that next step. “I went to your house to ask for your address, thinking I’d write to you at school and tell you what had happened. Your father—”
“You talked to my father?” His eyes widened in stunned disbelief.
“He was the one who answered the door. I think that was when your mother was so ill.”
“She had chemo that fall. I wanted to stay home, but Dad insisted I go back to school and play out my senior season. He wanted me to get the Heisman so bad he could taste it.” He shifted his position to sit on the step beside her. When he stretched out his leg, he rubbed his knee, and Charity wondered if he’d reinjured it saving Donnie. “Mother died that next spring.”
“Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.”
He acknowledged her sympathy with a nod. “Are you telling me Dad knew you were going to have my baby?”
“He didn’t know then. And I certainly didn’t tell him. When I showed up he recognized me, of course, and just sort of laughed at me.” Hugging herself, she shivered at the dreadful memory. Even if he hadn’t known about her pregnancy, Douglas Keeley made it quite clear she wasn’t a suitable candidate for the mother of his grandchild. Or even to be seen with his son. “He said I was the third or fourth girl who’d been looking for you and that you must have had a hell of a good time that summer. That I’d have to get in line.”
Garrett swore under his breath. “Why’d he tell you a stupid thing like that?”
“You mean it wasn’t true?”
He had the good grace to flush slightly. “Well, I might have been sowing a few wild oats during the summer, I admit. But it wasn’t as bad as all that. And it still doesn’t explain why you had to keep it a secret that I’d gotten you pregnant. Did you really think I’d turn my back on you and not take some responsibility for what had happened?”
“I didn’t know what to think at that point. The whole house was in a turmoil because of Gramps. Then we had two cases of TB among the pigs. We had to destroy the entire herd. On top of the huge loan Gramps had taken out to modernize the farm, we were going to lose everything. Then your father came to see me.”
“My father came here? Why, for God’s sake?”
“Apparently he’d heard I was pregnant and he was afraid I would name you the father and ruin your football career.”
“Why would he think that? I sure wouldn’t have been the first jock to get some girl pregnant by mistake.”
She winced but knew he was right. He certainly hadn’t intended to get her pregnant. “Your father seemed to think I was going to force you to marry me. I wouldn’t have done that, Garrett. I swear I wouldn’t.”
He speared his fingers through his hair, sending the waves into disarray. “He should have told me, dammit! It was my decision to make, not his. If you’d only written me, I would have—”
“I couldn’t write you. Not after I agreed to your father’s proposition.”
His head whipped around, his eyes blazing. “Dad propositioned you?”
“Not like that.” She laid a calming hand on sunwarmed denim and felt the muscles of his thigh tense beneath her palm. “He offered me enough money to pay off our bank loan and establish new breeding stock. The catch was, I had to swear I’d never, ever tell anyone that you were my baby’s father. Including you.”
“My dad bought you off? My God...” He shot to his feet; his hands clenched into fists as if he wanted to hit someone. “And you went along with that? How the hell could you?”
“I didn’t have any other choice, Garrett.” His anger propelled her to her feet, too, prepared to defend her decision whether he liked it or not. “If I hadn’t agreed to your father’s plan, we all would have been thrown out in the street. Gramps was so sick he could barely talk and was bedridden, Grandma was wearing herself to a nub taking care of him, Bud was still in school. The only possible way I could save the farm—and my grandparents’ homo—was to accept your father’s offer. So that’s what I did.”
Garrett swore again, low and succinctly.
“And the fact is,” she continued, “even now, if you so much as hint that you know you’re Donnie’s father, he can still take the farm away from us.”
“No. You can’t be serious.”
“Seriously stupid, is probably more accurate. I convinced Grandma to sign a note to your father. He’s threatened that if you ever learn the truth, he’ll record the note, and foreclose if we can’t pay it off—which I assure you, we can’t, even though I save every penny I can. And the farm will be his.”
“He’d foreclose on his own grandson? I don’t believe—”
“You can believe anything you want because you don’t have anything to lose. I do.”
“I’ve already lost seven years of my son’s life. I’m not about to miss another minute if I don’t have to. An
d I want my son to know he has a father.”
“Oh, my God, Garret. I thought you’d understand.” Panic sliced through her. “Because you saved his life, you had a right to know the truth. But you can’t destroy the only home Donnie’s ever known.” Her home, too.
“I’m not going to destroy anything. I’m going to—”
“Hey, Mom, can I have some—?” The screen door swung open, and Donnie stood there in his pajamas. “Hi, Garrett. Did you come to play checkers with me?”
“Go back inside, honey,” Charity ordered quietly, though she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. She never should have told Garrett the truth. Never! And now she’d come close to inadvertently revealing the secret to her son, as well. “I’ll be right there.”
“I just wanted some orange juice. I can’t get the lid open.”
“I’ll get you some in a minute.” She met Garrett’s gaze, silently pleading with him not to risk turning her son’s life upside down. And her own.
Slowly Garrett pulled his gaze from Charity to Donnie. His son! Anger pulsed through his veins, and adrenaline spurted through his system, pumped there by Charity’s revelations. His father had denied him the right to know his boy, a beautiful child who was a whiz at checkers and a damn fine soccer player. An athlete with lots of natural talent. The boy might not look anything like Garrett, but he’d managed to pass along a few of his genes.
Fury blurred his vision bloodred.
His father had interfered in his life before, demanding he excel at football, insisting he take an interest in a factory that he found far less compelling than a history book about the American Civil War.
But this was a giant step beyond simple interference.
Douglas Keeley had denied him something beyond measure. His son.
With his emotions so volatile, Garrett didn’t think he could manage a quiet game of checkers. Other things came first.
Under his breath, he asked Charity, “How big is the note?”
She paled, then told him an amount he understood she would find staggering on her income.
“Give me a rain check on the checkers game, son,” he said. “I’ve got some things I have to do.”
“Betcha you’re afraid I can beat ya.” Donnie grinned broadly, a smile Garrett now thought might be a lot like his own.
“I’ll get you, kid. It may just take me a while.” He turned to Charity. “I’ll be back,” he said, low and rough.
“Please, Garrett, don’t—”
He didn’t wait around to listen to her plea. He had a man to see.
He hoped to God his anger would simmer down before he got there. Because, at the moment, he wanted to punch the hell out of his own father.
HE DIDN’T BOTHER to greet Arabelle at the reception counter. That didn’t stop her from calling out, “Congratulations, Garrett, I heard the good—”
Shoving through the security door, he went up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He walked past his father’s secretary, only vaguely aware she’d said “Congratulations.” The closed door to his father’s office didn’t slow Garrett down a bit. Hell, he would have knocked it off its hinges if the damn thing had been locked.
His father was alone, papers and spreadsheets strewed across his usually neat desk. He looked up, and a big smile crossed his face.
“For a new employee, you’re a hard man to find, son. Tommy’s been looking all over for you.”
Garrett put on the mental brakes. “Tommy? What does my agent want?”
His father’s grin broadened. “Orlando, son. They’re picking you up as their first-stringer. They’re ready to sign on the dotted line.”
Momentarily distracted by the good news, Garrett let the possibilities sink in. Not a Canadian team but Orlando wanted him, an up-and-coming expansion franchise with enough backing to hire topfliglit players. Within five years—or less with the right quarterback—they’ d be contenders. Skilled coaches. Young but talented players.
He hadn’t been sure he’d actually get a second chance. But there it was, assuming his knee held up. He still could snatch that coveted Super Bowl ring.
For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine the luxury of showing off that ring and that brought him up short.
Show it off to whom? he wondered. His son lived in California, not Florida. And so did Charity.
His earlier anger seethed again and he focused on his father. “I’ll call Tommy later. Right now I want to know why you didn’t tell me about my son.”
Douglas Keeley’s smile dissolved. He narrowed his eyes, and his lips tightened before he spoke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Charity told me, Dad.”
“Has it occurred to you that woman might have been lying to you?”
“What about the loan you made to her? And your threat to foreclose if she told anybody the truth? Is that a lie, too?”
He paled slightly. “What I did, I did to protect you, son. She’d come to the house once, looking for you, upsetting your mother, and I knew you wouldn’t want—”
Garrett exploded with a string of epithets. “What the hell gave you the right? He’s my son, dammit!”
Under Garrett’s verbal assault, Douglas shoved his chair back from the desk and stood. “She would have ruined you. Wrecked your career before it even got started.”
“How? Because she was carrying my baby?” Maybe he and Charity would have spent more time together; maybe Garrett would have been on the receiving end of all that love Charity had to give.
“I’ve never wanted you to know this, son. But the truth is, I was forced into marrying your mother. I’d gotten her pregnant...”
That stopped Garrett’s fury as effectively as if he’d run head-on into a three-hundred-pound defensive tackle. “Are you telling me you never loved Mother?”
“I tried. At first I even imagined I did. But dammit, if I hadn’t had to marry her, I might have won the Heisman. I could have been a star in the NFL. Instead—” he gestured vaguely around the office “—I ended up running a damn candy factory like my father.”
Garrett stared at him stupidly. God, he’d never realized his parents hadn’t loved each other, or that his father had resented him so much. No wonder Garrett had never figured out how to love someone else. No one had shown him.
Except Charity.
With a shake of his head, Douglas said, “You ought to be thanking me for getting rid of that woman so you’d have the chance I missed.”
“You lied to me. You kept me in the dark about something I had a right to know.”
“Dammit all! I kept you out of jail!” Douglas bellowed. “Give me some credit for that!”
“What are you talking about?” he asked tautly.
“My God, son. What were you thinking? The girl was only seventeen when you got her pregnant.”
Garrett felt like he’d taken an unprotected punch to the gut. That night at the lake he hadn’t been thinking about Charity’s age, only about how he loved to see her smile and hear her laughter, how much he wanted to make love to her. Sure, he’d been filled with raging hormones, but he’d cared about her, too. He’d never intended it to be a one-night stand.
“If you weren’t thinking,” his father continued, “her brother certainly was, and he made the situation abundantly clear to me. And the risk I was taking with your future if I didn’t step in to take care of matters.”
“Bud? What the hell does Bud have to do with all the lying and secrets?” Garrett had understood from Charity that no one knew who was Donnie’s father, not even her brother. She’d been sworn to total secrecy.
“He tried to blackmail me, the conniving, nogood pig farmer.” A vein pulsed at Douglas’s temple, and his face turned red. “How do you think he got his job here? And why do you think he’s a rabble-rouser with that damn union of his? He hates me because of what you did to his sister.”
Garrett’s head spun. Charity’s brother had known who had gotten her pregnant and had used the infor
mation to blackmail his father? Garrett had never considered that bizarre twist. But it certainly explained the animosity between his father and the union steward—the whole Arden family, for that matter.
He clenched his fists and walked to the window, staring grimly toward the distant mountains, invisible in the haze of summer. Charity had had no part in the blackmail scheme. He was as sure of that as he was that the Sierra Mountains were hidden behind the curtain of dust and clouds.
“I had the impression Bud was a pretty good mechanic,” Garrett said, “and knew more about the factory than anyone else in the company. I was even going to suggest he be promoted to factory manager when Harry Baumgarten retires.”
“Over my dead body,” Douglas muttered.
Garrett turned back to his father. “Have you noticed Harry forgetting things lately that he really ought to be keeping track of?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “We’re both getting old. And tired. Why do you think I wanted you to start learning the ropes around here? If you hadn’t gotten this chance with Orlando... It’s time for me to pass the reins to someone younger.”
“Not to me, Dad. I’ll sell pencils before I take over the factory. Since you’ve apparently hated the place all these years, maybe you can understand my feelings.”
“But your office—”
“I wanted a way to hire Charity to do the catalog work.” And so he could spend more time with her. He’d never expected to discover her son was also his own flesh and blood.
“Now that you’ve got the chance to start over, you’d be a fool to get involved with her again. You should have married Hailey. She’d have made you a good—”
“I don’t think so, Dad. And I want the note you’re carrying on Charity’s property torn up.”
“That cost me a chunk of change, boy. Real money. The Ardens were heavy into debt. I can’t just hand over—”
“I’ll buy it from you, including all the interest she owes. I won’t have that threat hanging over Charity’s head any longer. Or my son’s. And the whole town is going to know Donnie is mine and I’m damn proud of him.” Though Garrett wondered if he’d ever be able to make it up to the boy that he hadn’t been there for him all these years. He hadn’t been there for Charity, either, he realized. She’d been the real victim in all of this, manipulated by both her brother and Garrett’s father.
The Hog-Tied Groom (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #3) Page 17
