Child by Chance

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Tanner had found the place for her.

  Not only had her counselor been at the hospital when Kent had been born, been there when he’d been taken from her to be given to Brooke and Sherman Paulson, who’d been waiting just down the hall, but she’d visited Talia several times during the following year, as well, to make sure she was doing okay.

  Her counselor, Lisette Swift, had helped her, along with the agency’s attorney, to form the agreement that had given her the right to know, at any time, the name and family name of her child, as long as she agreed to never contact her son without contacting his parents first. In the agreement, her son was to be given her contact information any time he requested it after the age of eighteen. And if he wanted it prior to his eighteenth birthday, the information could only be given to his adoptive parents. Until a time when her child made such a request, her contact information was not to be shared with his parents. She’d needed the anonymity. And also the hope for the future.

  The last paragraph had allowed for either party to rescind their contact information at any time without having to inform the other party of their choice to do so.

  In other words, if Sherman or Brooke Paulson had decided to keep Kent’s information from her, they would simply have had to contact Talbot and complete the necessary paperwork. And she wouldn’t have known unless she’d contacted the agency for the information.

  Just as Sherman Paulson would not be told what she was doing early Wednesday morning that following week when she should have been signed in to her online class lecture.

  Lisette was still there, ten years after she’d held Talia’s hand while her baby had been taken from her and whisked out of the room before she could see him.

  “Ms. Malone!” she greeted—exactly as she’d always addressed Talia—as though they’d been in touch over the years. She walked Talia back through a corridor she remembered as though she’d been there yesterday. The paint might be different. But that didn’t play in her memories of the place.

  Lisette’s office was at the end of the hallway. She motioned Talia in and shut the door behind them before moving to the couch and coffee table similar to the ones where they’d always conducted their business.

  “Thank you for seeing me.” She wasn’t a scared and heartbroken sixteen-year-old kid anymore. She was in control now.

  “Of course. I got your message and have the paperwork ready.” Looking from Talia’s blond bun, over her navy dress slacks, navy formfitting tank and short jacket, Lisette smiled. “You look great.”

  “Thank you.” She wished she felt great. “So do you.” The dark-skinned woman looked exactly the same as Talia remembered her. Same beautiful creamy skin and compassionate brown eyes. She’d gained a few pounds but they looked good on her.

  “I’m managing this place now,” she said with a look around the office.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. I guess I should have asked to see a counselor. I just assumed, when they said you were still here...”

  “No, darling, you should have done just what you did. I’m no longer counseling newcomers, but you’re mine, girl! I wouldn’t hand you off to someone else.”

  Something vital settled inside her. She wasn’t alone.

  And, on this score, never had been.

  “I have your paperwork right here.” Lisette opened a manila folder on the table. “When we’re ready to sign, I’ll call in a notary to witness it.”

  “I’m ready.” She smiled. No point in wasting this woman’s time. She had far more important things to spend her time on. Young girls who were in crisis...

  “Not so fast, girl,” Lisette said. “You’re all grown-up and looking fine, but we need to talk a minute.”

  She had the right to do this. She was certain she did. And it had to happen. Before she went to the symphony that night.

  Too many people stood to get hurt if she didn’t.

  “You realize that if you sign this paper, that baby you gave up will never be able to find you? Not ever?”

  Pain sliced through her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why would you do this, sweetie? You were so adamant that you wanted to have the possibility of future contact.”

  She and Tanner and Tatum had learned the hard way the cost of keeping secrets. Sometimes it was unavoidable, but whenever possible...

  “Because I’ve seen him, Lisette. And I feel absolutely certain that if he ever found out who I was he’d be devastated. He’s... His birth mother was killed.”

  “I know.” The other woman’s voice was soft. And oddly comforting. Just as Talia remembered.

  “I... After that time...I didn’t prosper like I promised you I would,” Talia said, her voice calm. Even. “I ended up stripping in Vegas. Doing pretty much everything you could imagine a stripper in Vegas might do. Other than the drugs and alcohol. That little boy doesn’t ever need to know that’s what he’s come from. It’s not a legacy I want to leave him. Which is why I gave him up in the first place.”

  “You gave that child up because you were sixteen, his father was going to prison and you wanted him to have a momma and daddy who could provide a stable life for him.”

  “I gave him up because I was the whore daughter of a whore,” Talia said. No more secrets where the truth could be told.

  “You loved his daddy. I saw it in your eyes, heard it in your voice and felt it in your heart.”

  She’d been a fool who couldn’t discern that when men looked at her they saw a body, not a person. “I need to do this, Lisette. I’ve thought it through completely. I’ve talked to my brother about it. And this is what I need to do.”

  Kent was too vulnerable for her to chance the possibility that Sherman could someday find out that the woman who’d taught his son how to collage had been duplicitous.

  “Does he know he’s adopted?” Lisette didn’t hand over the paper she held.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’ve been no requests from the family since the day they named their baby and took the boy home. I wouldn’t even have known about his mother’s death if I hadn’t heard about it on the news. Tragic accident, that.”

  She nodded. And itched to snatch the paper and get it done.

  Tatum was involved now, too. If Sherman found out that Talia had deceived them and refused to allow her near Kent again, Tatum would suffer, too. She had to wipe out that possibility. To protect everyone.

  “Some girls, I wouldn’t hesitate to do this,” Lisette said, “but you...I don’t feel good about you severing all rights and possibilities.”

  “It’s my choice, Lisette.” And she’d made up her mind.

  “The file will still be here.”

  “Sealed,” Talia confirmed.

  Without another word, Lisette pulled a cell phone out of her dress pocket and in less than a minute a notary was in the room, witnessing Talia pick up the pen. Reading the words on the paper in front of her.

  And signing her name.

  She was giving away any chance she might have had to be Kent’s biological mother. To ever acknowledge him as her son. To find the core-deep happiness she’d always craved. She was sentencing herself to a life of silent heartbreak.

  If Kent or his father ever came looking for her, they’d find the record of his birth sealed from them.

  Because it was best for him. And Tatum.

  And past time for her to put both of them first.

  * * *

  “NOT THAT TIE, Dad, this one.” Kent came up behind Sherman as he stood at the mirror above the double-sink vanity in the master bathroom knotting a black tie around the collar of the white shirt he’d worn with black pants to work that day. His jacket would cover the wrinkles.

  Kent held up a striped, slightly newer tie. “This one’s cooler,” said the young man still wearing the sweater ves
t and jeans he’d worn to school and to the Lemonade Stand that day. Kent had definitely gotten his style from his mother.

  “You sure you’re okay with this?” he asked. And then clarified. “Me going out with Ms. Malone.”

  “Heck, yeah,” the boy said with so much enthusiasm Sherman had to rebut.

  “You understand it’s only a date, right? A first date.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. Sara and the guys and I talked all about how our parents will likely date, how they need to date.” He rolled his eyes while looking at himself in the mirror. “But that it doesn’t mean they’re going to rush off and get married.”

  But what if... “How would you feel about me getting married again someday?” he asked, testing those waters, too.

  Kent shrugged. “Guess it depends on who to,” he said. “I get to have the chocolate ice cream cup in the freezer tonight, right?” he said then.

  “Yep.”

  “And you told Ben and Sandy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cool. Can I go watch Cartoon Network?”

  It wasn’t allowed and he knew it. “No.”

  “Can I watch anything?”

  “Is your homework done?” They both knew it wasn’t.

  “You’re no fun, you know that?”

  “Sure I am,” Sherman told him. “Who’s taking you to a Lakers game Friday night?”

  “Just you and me?”

  No. But... “Cole Vanderpohl’s going to be there.” A client’s son—but one who Kent genuinely liked.

  “Then I say you’re half-fun. Every once in a while.”

  The boy was gone before Sherman could form a comeback.

  * * *

  TALIA HAD BEEN to the symphony before. To shows whose ticket price was more than she paid in gas in a month. She knew how to behave. And how to dress. But those other times she’d been an escort to an older man who wanted to think he was the envy of those around him with a beautiful young blonde on his arm. This was a date, and she was nervous.

  Hating the fact, she was tempted to slip back into her old persona, don the armor and lock away any and all emotion.

  And she might have done so, weak as it would have been, if the second she’d seen Sherman Paulson step out of his car in the driveway, her body hadn’t betrayed her.

  As he climbed the two stairs to the back deck and took her hand, she went damp between her legs. They walked together to his car, and she was aware of how sensitive her nipples felt as they rubbed against the lace of her bra. She was wearing a black sheath dress she’d bought at a substantial discount the previous Sunday in anticipation of this night.

  Mirabelle had been up to see her again, to give her a bonus check for making sales associate of the month, and had reminded her that she had six weeks before she’d need an answer on the promotion.

  Sherman smiled at her as he climbed into the driver’s seat beside her.

  He asked if she was comfortable. She assured him she was as he showed her the BMW’s dual climate controls and how to adjust the temperature of her heated seat. By that time they’d reached the highway, and she wondered how in the hell she was going to make it all the way to LA without jumping the man.

  Something was seriously wrong with her. She was all about taking control of her life and was losing control.

  First Kent and now his father. The Paulson men were taking over what little bit of good sense she’d managed to find.

  “Kent tells me he got to meet your little sister,” Sherman said as he set the cruise control and glanced in her direction. His arm rested casually on the armrest between them. Where her arm had been.

  “He did,” she said now, trying not to rub her arm where it had touched his. Or to put it back.

  “The one you called Baby Tay?”

  “Yeah. Tatum.” Ten minutes in the car with Kent had been all it took for Tatum to accept him as one of her own. Which awarded him a place in her heart. She’d managed to cajole Talia out of two more rides to the Stand since then. And had walked Kent to his meeting room that afternoon.

  “Is she your only sibling?”

  “No.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Three.”

  “All sisters?”

  “No.”

  His brow was quirked as he looked at her. She wasn’t comfortable answering questions about herself. None of the men she’d been with in the past had cared to find out anything about her. “I have two brothers,” she said anyway. Because she liked him. And wanted the night to go well.

  Because she wished, just for a few minutes, that she could do as her naive little sister had suggested and have some fun tonight. To know what it felt like to be truly happy.

  Just for a few minutes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “YOU LOOK LIKE you’re enjoying yourself.” Tipping his glass of tonic water to hers, Sherman almost had to pinch himself as he stood with Talia Malone in the lobby of the symphony hall during intermission.

  He’d texted Kent, who’d done all of his homework, eaten his ice cream and wanted permission to play a non-internet game on his computer. Permission Sherman had granted. Along with the right to stay up an extra half hour that night. Kent had gone three days without getting in trouble at school. Good behavior deserved a reward.

  Sherman was having a hard time convincing himself that the woman standing there looking at him as though he was the only guy in the room wasn’t his reward for good behavior.

  It sure felt that way.

  “I actually really like the symphony,” she was saying, stepping to the side as a couple passed behind her. She moved with the grace of an angel. Every movement of her body was a work of art. “It kind of reminds me of the ocean, you know? Like it’s filled with life and story if you just stop and pay attention. If you just allow yourself to feel it.”

  He stared. He couldn’t help it. She was amazing.

  “Sorry, I don’t usually say such silly things...”

  “No!” Was she kidding? “I find you refreshing beyond belief.”

  So much so that he couldn’t bear the thought of dropping her off without asking her if she’d be interested in going out with him again.

  They talked all the way home. About the symphony. About Kent. And the SAT scores that had just won Tatum entrance to pretty much any college she wanted to go to.

  And then they were standing on her back deck, and the night was ending.

  She’d grown quiet. More like the reserved woman he’d first met in the elementary-school conference room. He was attracted to that woman, too. That part of her. But preferred the part she’d shared with him that evening.

  “Kent told Sara that this was your first date since your wife died,” she said, walking to the railing on the deck, rather than through the door she’d already unlocked. She took hold of the railing as she faced the ocean.

  Sherman joined her.

  “It was.”

  “I hope it was okay for you.”

  If he told her how great the night had been for him she’d probably run for the hills. “It was.”

  “It was nice for me, too. Thank you.”

  Her words sounded like “good night.” But she didn’t go in.

  Neither did she turn so he could kiss her, which was about all he’d seemed to be able to think about the past ten minutes or so of the drive. He was a randy schoolboy again, obsessing about whether or not he’d get to do it with her.

  He’d held her hand on the way from the symphony to their car. But that was the only time he’d touched her. Something about her said that she wouldn’t accept a man’s touch lightly.

  “I... The anniversary of Brooke’s death was this past week.” He didn’t consider his words before speaking. And knew better.
<
br />   “I’m sorry.”

  “I found this blog on the internet. It was written by a mother whose son left home that same night in anger, and she hasn’t seen him since.”

  He’d reported the information, expecting to be told that he was imagining things that weren’t there, expecting to be placated with a sympathetic tone. Instead, he’d received a call back that detectives were speaking with the woman. And looking for her son. For some reason, instead of kissing his date, he told Talia the story.

  She glanced at him. “You might have done it, Sherman! What if you helped them find the man who did this to you?”

  Not to him. To Brooke. And Kent.

  “Maybe. I thought I’d feel better if we found him. Now I’m not so sure. It doesn’t bring her back.”

  “You always hear about families needing closure.”

  Maybe Kent did. Maybe, if investigating this Eddie kid could lead them to some new information, it would help his son. Maybe all he and Kent needed was another woman in their lives. Not to replace Brooke; to love them. And be loved.

  Maybe he was losing his marbles. They’d had one date.

  “It’s late,” she said, half turning.

  “You don’t look all that tired.”

  “I’m used to... I’m kind of a night owl,” she said. “I love the ocean at night and find myself drawn out here when I probably should be resting.”

  She didn’t want to go in.

  He didn’t want to go.

  “You mind if I sit here for a few minutes and enjoy it with you?” He pointed to the pair of chairs behind them.

  “Not at all.” She sounded surprised. “I’ve got a bottle of my brother’s wine in the fridge. Would you like half a glass? I know you’re driving and it’s late, but this is good stuff. Tanner doesn’t actually share it much yet—I just snatched a bottle the other night when I was over there.”

  Actually, Tatum had snatched it for her, with Sedona egging her on. Just in case.

  “I’d be honored.” He wanted to follow her inside, too, while she poured it. To get a glimpse of her home, see another facet of her, another hint at who she was, but he didn’t.