D'Alessandro's Child

by Catherine Spencer

  He knew he ought to refuse and get out of there. The more time he spent with her, the more he liked what he saw—and so far that day, he’d seen a lot! Before they sat down to eat, she’d put on a long print shirt over her swimsuit, but she was still showing plenty of leg. On the other hand, there was a lot he still didn’t know about his boy’s life, so why pass up a heaven-sent chance to fill in some of the gaps—particularly those relating to the absent “father”?

  “We can take our tea by the pool. It’s cooler down by the water,” she said, apparently mistaking his silence for reluctance.

  As if he needed bribing!

  Not only was the pool Olympic size, with a bridge and a mini-waterfall at one end, and a children’s wading area off to one side, there was at least an acre of lawns surrounded by massed flower beds beyond the brick-paved deck.

  “How do you manage the upkeep on all this?” he asked, joining her on a long cushioned swing shaded by a striped canvas awning. “Do you have a gardener, or does your ex-husband help out?”

  Dumb question, of course. Any fool could see the grounds were professionally maintained, but he had to start somewhere, and if she thought he was a dim bulb for asking, she was too polite to let it show. “I have gardeners come in twice a week. My ex-husband hasn’t been near the property since our divorce.”

  Interesting! “Is that your choice, or his?”

  “Both. We stay out of each other’s way. Our breakup wasn’t exactly amicable.” She toed the swing into motion and looked at him over the rim of her teacup. “What about you? Were you and your ex-wife able to remain friends?”

  “We’re…not enemies.” But they would be, if Kay wasn’t in such sorry shape that he couldn’t bring himself to ream her out for the mischief she’d wrought!

  “So why couldn’t you make it work between you?”

  You’re more married to that company of yours than you are to me, Mike D’Alessandro, and I’m tired of it. I have ambitions, too, and they amount to something more exciting than reading a set of blueprints. My talent’s being wasted in this backwater. You could still build award winning houses if we moved to L.A.….

  My work is here, Kay. You knew that when you married me.

  And you knew I wanted a career in show business!

  “We were looking for different things and ended up going in different directions to find them.”

  “It doesn’t sound like much of a reason to end a marriage. Couldn’t you have worked out a compromise?”

  “Could you, when you saw your marriage going down the tubes?” he snapped, irked by the implicit censure in her question.

  She held his gaze a moment. “I had more compelling reasons to file for divorce which involved more than just me and Todd. I had a baby to think about.”

  “Most people consider that a good reason to fight to save a marriage.”

  “I did fight. For over five years. But it was a battle I couldn’t win.”

  “Five years? You mean to say, you and your ex were having trouble before you adopted Jeremy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what the hell right did you have to bring an innocent baby into the middle of it?”

  His anger caught them both by surprise. He bellowed, and she flinched. But the pink flush staining her cheeks told him she’d asked herself the same question and suffered agonies of guilt over the answer, which made it easier for him to swallow his outrage and say, “Sorry, Camille. I didn’t mean to shout like that and I’ve got no business judging you. I’m sure you thought you were acting in everyone’s best interests at the time.”

  She stared across the lawns to the sun-baked hills in the distance. “I thought having a baby would improve things. I called him my miracle child. But he wasn’t able to fix what had gone wrong. I suppose, when I realized that, I should have given him the chance to be adopted into a better home, with two parents who wanted him, instead of just one. But it would have broken my heart.” She bit her lips, clamping down on them until they flattened into a thin line of misery. She closed her eyes, but not before he caught the sheen of tears. “I loved him so much—too much, some people might say. He’s my whole life.”

  “I don’t think a child can ever be loved too much,” Mike said, feeling lower than dirt for raking up memories which caused her such obvious pain—but not enough that he could ignore the growing list of questions gnawing at his mind worse than an aching tooth. Damn it, if his boy had been bought to plug the holes in a leaking marriage, Kay wasn’t the only one with a lot to answer for! He’d seen the agreement she’d signed and he didn’t need to be a lawyer to know she’d been dazzled more by the money she stood to gain than any thought of what would be best for her baby. “And it’s not as if he doesn’t still have two parents.”

  “But he doesn’t have two parents, Michael, that’s the pity of it.”

  “Why not? Your ex isn’t dead, is he?”

  “No,” she cried, “though, God forgive me, I sometimes wish he was!”

  He’d slumped back into a corner of the swing, feigning the sort of mild interest a stranger might find in her story, but this latest turn in the conversation had him jackknifing to attention again. “Why?”

  “Oh, it’s a long, pathetic story, and not one you want to hear.”

  Wrong, sweetheart!

  But it wouldn’t do to appear too eager, so he forced himself to remark as casually as he knew how, “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  She made a face. “Todd has what’s politely called ‘a substance abuse problem.’”

  “You mean, he’s a lush?”

  “To say the least.”

  Uh-oh! He didn’t like where this was leading. “Are you saying he’s into more than just booze?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drugs?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  And you allow him unsupervised visits with my son?

  How he didn’t yell the words aloud, he hardly knew. He wanted to hit something. Something? Hell, he wanted to break every bone in Todd Whitfield’s body! As for his son’s adoptive mother…!

  Bitterness welled up in him, so strong he could taste it, and this time it was directed at her. Did she have any brains behind that pretty face, any backbone at all? Afraid of what he might say, of the recriminations he was tempted to fling at her but which would blow his cover if he did, he lunged off the swing and strode up and down the length of the pool deck until he’d recovered enough control that he trusted himself to phrase his next question with a semblance of detachment. “I gather we’re talking about more than the occasional aspirin for his hangovers? That he’s into the illegal stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that doesn’t worry you?”

  “No. It’s no longer my business or my concern.” She wiped her fingers across her face and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m not his baby-sitter. Not anymore.”

  But you’re my son’s, damn it!

  He took a calming breath. “How the blazes do you leave a helpless child with a man like that and sleep at night, Camille? Or isn’t that any of your concern, either?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I wouldn’t let him within a mile of my son. Jeremy hasn’t seen Todd since the day we went our separate ways. I doubt he even remembers he ever had a father.”

  The weight inside Mike’s chest eased a little. “What if Todd suddenly decides he wants visitation rights?”

  “I’d move heaven and earth to prevent it. But it won’t happen. He relinquished all claim to Jeremy at the time of the divorce. I have his written promise that he’ll never try to interfere in my son’s life.”

  And if it was anything like the adoption agreement he’d drawn up, it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on! “What guarantee do you have that he’ll abide by such a promise?”

  “We’ve been apart over two years, Michael, and he hasn’t even phoned, let alone tried to come to my house. He no longer lives in California. I think that spells out
pretty clearly that he’s not interested in resuming any sort of relationship with his son. I can see from your face that you’re having a hard time believing this, but if you’d lived with one, you’d know that addicts don’t care about anything except their addictions.”

  “I know they can kick the habit and resume useful, productive lives if they put their minds to it. And it would seem to me that having a son I wasn’t allowed to see would be incentive enough to stay clean.”

  “You’re assuming Todd cares about Jeremy, but he doesn’t.”

  “Then why the devil did he agree to the adoption?”

  “Because he wanted me, and he thought, if he found a way to give me the baby I longed for, that he’d be able to keep me. He knew I was ready to leave him and he was desperate to give me a reason to make me stay.”

  “So he bribed you by buying you a child?” Try as he might, Mike couldn’t keep the sneer out of his voice. “Gee, what a novel concept! But I guess when a woman’s got more money than she knows what to do with and a man wants to impress her, a string of pearls or a diamond ring don’t cut much ice.”

  “Is that the kind of person you think I am? Do you really believe I’m so selfish, so…capricious that I’d use anyone, let alone a helpless baby, like that?”

  The stricken look she turned on him left him feeling as if he’d kicked a puppy, but the facts as she’d related them were pretty incriminating. “If I’m missing something here,” he said, hardening his heart against the misery she couldn’t hide, “clue me in. Because unless I’ve misunderstood, you knowingly stayed in a bad marriage just so you could get your hands on a child.”

  Neither of them noticed they were no longer alone until her mother’s voice cut across the conversation. “I’m not sure by what right you feel justified in badgering my daughter like this, Mr. D’Alessandro, but since she’s obviously too distressed to point out the obvious, I’ll do it for her. Nothing about her life is any of your business. She owes you no explanations for the choices she’s made, and if you had half the brains that you have brawn, you’d have arrived at that conclusion without my having to spell it out for you.”

  “We’re having a private conversation, Mrs. Younge,” he snapped, in no mood to tolerate her insults on top of everything else. “Take a hike!”

  Vibrating with outrage, she scoffed, “Private? I could hear every word coming out of your mouth the minute I stepped from my car. I imagine half the town could.”

  “Oh, Mother, please!” Spots of color on her cheekbones heightened the pallor on Camille’s face. She really did look about ready to keel over. “Stop exaggerating and don’t interfere. Michael and I are having a perfectly harmless conversation.”

  “Really? Try telling that to Jeremy. He might be only three, Camille, but his hearing and eyesight are every bit as good as mine, and it might interest you to know that when I arrived, I found him watching you from the terrace.”

  Camille looked up at the house, her expression horrified. “I expected he’d still be napping. How long had he been there, do you think?”

  “Long enough to ask me why Mr. D’Alessandro was making you cry.”

  “Damn!” Much though he hated to admit it, the old bat had a point. Judging from the little Camille had revealed, Mike guessed the boy had lived through enough emotional turmoil already, without his adding to it. “Camille, it might be best if I left.”

  “But we haven’t finished—!”

  “For once, I must agree with your guest.” Her mother, bristling like a guard dog about to attack, stepped between him and Camille. Behind her, the pool glimmered turquoise in the sunlight. “You can find your own way out, I’m sure, Mr. D’Alessandro.”

  Oh, yeah! And one wrong step on my part, you over-bleached string bean, and you’d be in the water with your high-priced silk skirt floating up around your ears, and wouldn’t that be something to see!

  Grinning at the image he’d conjured up, he nodded at Camille. “I’m out of here. Thanks for the lunch.”

  “Will I see you again, Michael?”

  “Not if your mother sees me first,” he said. “Sayonara!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SOME twenty yards from Maddox Lodge, the guest house where Michael was staying, she found a place to park. A slight hollow only, it sloped away from the paved surface of the road at such a steep angle that when she backed into it, she feared for a moment that the car might flip over.

  It served the purpose though. A bend in the lane behind hid her from anyone watching from the house. A stand of trees immediately ahead shielded her from an approaching vehicle yet allowed her to see the warning sweep of headlights turning off the main highway. Killing the engine, she settled down to wait.

  It was almost nine-thirty, well over seven hours since she’d sent her mother packing, and almost eight since Michael had left. But it had taken most of the intervening time for Camille to find the courage to follow her instincts and go after him. She’d left Nori in charge at home, and driven to the guest house with her heart knocking against her ribs in nervous anticipation.

  But, “He’s not here,” Susan Maddox had said, when she came to the door. “I haven’t seen him since he left this morning.”

  “Left? You mean, he checked out?” The panic came out of nowhere, leaving Camille fighting for breath.

  “No, all his stuff’s still in his room. I just meant he’s not here right now, which isn’t unusual. He’s gone most days and seldom gets back before dark.” Susan had regarded her curiously. “You look a bit frazzled, Camille. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets in?”

  She’d have said yes, if she’d thought he’d comply, but although the anger in his voice when he left her house that afternoon had been directed mostly at her mother, the disgust in his eyes he’d reserved solely for Camille. She thought it unlikely he’d initiate further contact.

  “No, thanks,” she’d said. “I’ll wait and catch him later.”

  How much later, though, was the critical question. Whether it was instinct or fear she couldn’t say, but something told her that his time in Calder was coming to an end, and the thought of his leaving filled her with inexplicable desolation.

  Her mother would tell her she was crazy, and no doubt she must be, lurking in the dark like some third-rate private investigator on a stakeout, but she couldn’t let him go, not yet, and certainly not with the way they’d left things that afternoon. Too many things remained unsaid between them, too much…emotion unexplored.

  What kind of emotion, Camille? her rational self mocked. And please don’t tell me you’re so far gone that you’re deluding yourself into thinking you’re in love with the man. If you’re determined to make a fool of yourself, at least act your age and recognize lust when it’s staring you in the face!

  Was that really what tonight’s escapade boiled down to? Instead of being snug at home where she belonged, was she sitting in the dark waiting to accost a man who might well laugh at her—or worse, reject her outright—all because she was starving for a little male attention?

  No, there was more at risk than that. Her integrity was on the line. Jeremy had seen and heard too much of that afternoon’s exchange between her and Michael, and the conversation resulting from it hadn’t been easy, not for Camille or for her son.

  Why don’t I have a daddy, Mommy?

  Well, darling, some little boys just don’t, that’s all.

  But Andrew has a daddy. He sleeps at their house all the time. Why can’t I have one, too?

  She’d tried to satisfy his curiosity by steering a middle road between outright lies and complete disclosure of a truth too sordid and complex for a child to grasp. But the task, coming so soon after Michael’s probing interrogation, had left her with an urgent need to make the man, as well as the child, understand that she’d tried to act in everyone’s best interests.

  Michael D’Alessandro might be nothing more than a stranger passing through her life, but they shared something special and she would
not soon forget him. The impressions he took away with him mattered to her a very great deal. She couldn’t let him leave believing she was a selfish, unfit mother. She had to clarify to him, face-to-face, all the reasons why she’d felt justified in going ahead with the adoption. She only hoped he’d show more inclination to listen than he had when he’d stormed out of her house that afternoon.

  And if he refused?

  Her car, a roomy BMW 750, felt too close and confining suddenly. She opened the sunroof, lowered the seat to a full reclining position, then lay back and took deep breaths of the flower-scented air.

  Of course he’d listen!

  Night noises—the chirp of crickets, an owl’s eerie call, a dog barking in the distance—competed with the nervous thud of her heart. Overhead, stars blanketed the sky and reflected pinpricks of light on the slack surface of the river. A lover’s moon rose behind the trees.

  And she, holed up in her car on the side of the road, sat waiting for a man who probably hadn’t spared her a second thought since he’d marched out of her house that afternoon. If her mother knew what she was up to, she’d have her committed!

  Folly on top of folly had been how Glenda Younge described Camille’s behavior, during their confrontation earlier. “Explain to me, if you will, your fascination for a man about whom you know absolutely nothing but the most superficial details,” she’d demanded, as the sound of Michael’s car faded away. “What sort of hold does he have over you that you’d share with him confidential information about your marriage?”

  At a loss, Camille had turned away. How could she explain something she didn’t herself understand? To try, especially to someone of her mother’s skeptical nature, was to invite nothing but ridicule.

  As though regretting having spoken so bluntly, her mother had touched her shoulder. “Not that I care one iota what the man thinks of you, dear, but you must know that, to an outsider, your reasons for bringing Jeremy into your home appear self-serving, if not downright immoral! You’ve said yourself, often enough, that if you’d had the slightest inkling of the extent of Todd’s problems, you’d never have gone ahead with the adoption.”