The Secret Son

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  At least, he had. She amended that last thought. Somehow, over the past weeks, Jefferson’s words had filtered through her, and she now recognized their truth. He’d said months ago that she was in love with Jack. Said that night in New York would not have happened if she hadn’t been.

  Seeing Jack face his fears enough to embrace Kevin had made her take a long look at herself. And what she saw was that, once again, her ex-husband had been right. Denying her love for Jack, allowing it to be obscured by fear, did not mean it didn’t exist.

  It only meant she wasn’t embracing it.

  Sitting on the front step of her condo, dressed only in jeans and a sweater in deference to Washington’s Indian summer, she watched as Jack hunkered down next to Kevin by a small mound of sand on the grass. Identical blond heads were almost touching as they peered at a bullet-shaped metal cylinder half-buried in the middle of the sand.

  Father and son were dressed almost identically in jeans, long-sleeved FBI T-shirts and white running shoes.

  “Okay,” Jack said. “You saw how we mixed the food coloring and the baking soda.”

  His hand on Jack’s knee for balance, Kevin nodded. “And we let it dry enough, I’m sure about that, Dad.”

  “I trust you, Kevin.”

  “Is it really gonna explode, just like it was a nucl’ar bomb?”

  “I think so.” Jack was intent on the boy and the experiment in front of them.

  Erica watched her son and his father, her heart full—and oh, so lonely, too. She was sitting there glimpsing perfection. As it might have been in another place, another time. Jack hadn’t glanced at her once.

  “Before we pour in the vinegar, I want you to tell me once more why we’re doing this.”

  “Well, just like the vinegar’s going to make the soda explode and put the colors up, the chemicals in nucl’ar bombs send vapors in the air…”

  “And?”

  Kevin frowned. “And after I get to see the vapors so I’ll know what a bomb sorta looks like, I’m not allowed to think about nucl’ar munitions anymore, ’cause it’s a grown-up job.”

  “You made a promise, son.”

  “I know.”

  “And you understand what it means?”

  Tears burned the back of Erica’s eyes as her son nodded solemnly. “I promise not to worry ’bout nucl’ar bombs anymore, and to follow all the rules, no matter what.”

  “Good.” Jack nodded just as solemnly. “You sure you’re ready to keep that promise?”

  Jack had been working diligently with the little boy for three weeks, talking with him every day, reasoning, reassuring, laughing, making games—all culminating in this ritual now, with the make-believe bomb as a symbolic send-off to Kevin’s obsession.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then pour in the vinegar and the promise is made.”

  Carefully, slowly, Kevin picked up the little cup of vinegar, placing it near the lip of the spout sticking up from the metal cylinder. He hesitated, looked at Jack.

  “Will you make a promise, too, Dad?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Will you promise always to be my dad and not go away?”

  “For as long as I’m alive.”

  “Then shouldn’t you have your hand on the vinegar, too?”

  Blinking back her tears, Erica smiled. Her son was one smart little boy.

  “I guess I should,” she heard Jack say.

  With the strong male hand on top of the small one, the two guys she loved tipped their cup.

  The air filled with a mushroom of colorful vapors that sealed the fates of a little boy and the man who’d fathered him.

  And left Erica feeling strangely sad and alone.

  FEELING HIS SON’S HAND beneath his, Jack watched the vinegar pour from that cup, and that was when he finally saw the truth.

  A five-year-old boy trusted him enough to turn away from his fears. It was time Jack started being at least half the man his small son was.

  He’d spent so many years building walls against the pain, he’d forgotten what mattered most. People. Loved ones he could care about, care for, take care of.

  He could feel Erica sitting behind him, could almost feel her relief as her little boy released an obsession that had almost cost him his life.

  As he heard the hiss of vinegar meeting soda, watched the colorful cloud of vapors rise up, he knew that just as Kevin was letting go, he had to let go, too. He could spend his entire life running from the storm. Or he could stop and find the rainbow. He wouldn’t even have to look very hard. It was right there in front of him.

  And now he had to do the ultimate talking-down job. To save his own life this time. Erica had taken him hostage. And he had to free himself to love her….

  As soon as Kevin had left for Jefferson’s—where he’d no doubt give his father and Pamela a detailed and very glowing account of their “bombing” experiment—Jack grabbed Erica’s hand.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  He couldn’t blame her for seeming startled. Every other time his visit with Kevin had ended these past weeks, Jack hadn’t been able to leave fast enough.

  “Sure,” Erica said.

  “Inside?”

  “Okay.”

  She led the way, took a seat on the leather couch in her den. Though he would’ve liked to pace to the wall of windows, stare out and think about escape, Jack knew that his running days were over. He sat down next to her.

  “That kid who killed Melissa and Courtney,” he said with no preamble whatsoever. “I let the bastard rob me of much more than my wife and daughter.” Those words on his tongue were a shock, finding their way through pain that had crippled him far too long.

  “What more?” Erica asked softly. He hated the reserve in her voice, in her gaze. He’d never found it so difficult to talk to her. Or needed to so badly.

  He regretted so much that they’d come to this.

  His voice was low and serious. “I was so busy trying to prevent further pain, I actually brought it on myself by refusing to let in the possibility of joy.”

  She pulled on a little orange thread in the outer seam of her jeans. “I had a similar thought the night Kevin was being held hostage.”

  “How so?”

  “Sitting there all those hours, wondering if I’d ever get to hold my baby again…” Her voice broke, but there was no other indication of the pain he knew she was reliving. “I was thinking about you, about how if we didn’t get him out of there, you’d never have the chance to know him. At least I would’ve had my memories…”

  He wanted to hold her in his arms.

  “…and then I thought about how much I’d relied on memories of you all these years. When times were toughest and I thought I couldn’t endure any more, I’d think of you and know that I could. When I hated myself for being unfaithful to Jefferson, for hurting this man who’d been nothing but good to me, I’d think of the value you’d seen in me and pray that it was still there. I’d vow to make myself the kind of woman you’d thought I was….”

  “The kind of woman you are,” Jack said fiercely, giving in to his need to pull her against him, relieved as hell when she didn’t resist. “You’re a miracle, Erica. I’ve never met anyone who loves as selflessly as you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said, and when he heard her disbelief, Jack knew that if it took him the rest of his life, he was somehow going to free Erica of the erroneous opinion she had of herself. She was berating herself for the very thing that made her remarkable—her deep love, her loyalty—and he had to make her see how wrong that was.

  “But what I do know,” she went on, “what these past weeks have shown me, is that you never have control over losing someone you love. Whether it’s through infidelity, lack of passion or an act of crime—there’s always going to be that risk.”

  Jack froze inside until he felt her breath against him, reminding him of everything he’d only recently found. Everything he’d recovered. The warmth
of her body gave him the courage to venture further into territory he’d sworn never to inhabit again.

  “But the thing is, for every minute you and Melissa had together, you have a memory that will sustain you. The memories are eternal.”

  Like a cool breeze against his skin, Jack felt a freedom he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again. With a few simple inspired words, uttered by a woman he’d instinctively known he could trust, Erica was not only giving him hope for a future, she’d given him back his past. She’d given him back Melissa and Courtney.

  And he had some giving to do, too. If she’d allow him…

  “MARRY ME.”

  Jack’s chest rumbled with words, but Erica was certain she’d dreamed them. She’d spent far too much time alone with her thoughts lately. Too much time dealing with too much hurt.

  “It’s the only way.”

  “Way for what?” she asked hesitantly, not sure she understood him.

  “It’s the only way to make life right.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you so much it makes me crazy. And it’s obvious from what you’ve told me, what you’ve done, what you’ve shown me, that you love me, too. I think that surpasses everything else.”

  She wanted so badly to believe him. But guilt prevented her. It was always there. The price she had to pay. “I put Jefferson before you.”

  “No. You might’ve tried, you had to try, but you couldn’t. It wasn’t him you were loving when you sat up in Kevin’s room at night. Hell, as hard as you tried, it wasn’t him you were loving when you went to bed.”

  “I didn’t tell you about your son.”

  “We made damn sure that you didn’t have a way to contact me.”

  “I didn’t even try.”

  He shook his head. “Listen to me, Erica. This was a difficult situation, an impossible situation, and you made your decisions intuitively, not analytically. With your heart, not your brain. And your heart told you I wasn’t ready to accept what I learned here tonight. So you protected me. And Kevin and Jefferson, too. You gave your son an incredible father. You gave your husband the son he could never have—and an enormous amount of love. And you gave me the space and time I needed to heal.”

  Could he possibly be talking about her? Could she really have done all that?

  “The only person you weren’t loving,” he continued, drawing her up so that their faces were only inches apart, “was yourself.”

  The concept was too incredible to grasp all at once, but Erica held on to it, knowing that she’d come back to it again and again for the rest of her life, trying to be the woman he saw in her. And maybe even to believe that this woman really existed.

  “You love selflessly, Erica.” He leaned his head against the couch, studying her from beneath half-lowered lids. “Which is why you need someone who’ll make sure you get loved, too.”

  Erica spent her life coping, not soaring.

  “You have to marry me,” he said, his mouth breaking into a tired yet peaceful grin. “Either that, or have a five-year-old man bossing you around. That kid’s dangerous!”

  She grinned back. It was either that or completely humiliate herself by sobbing all over him.

  “He has no idea how lucky he is,” she said. “Has no idea what an incredible gift you are to his life.”

  “You’re his most incredible gift, Erica,” Jack said quietly. “And mine, too.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “Say you’ll marry me and I’ll spend the rest of my life convincing you.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Jack! If you give all your hostage-takers this much opportunity to change their minds, it’s amazing you get anyone out.”

  “I only need their agreement for a minute or two. Yours has to last forever.”

  He had no idea how glad she was to hear that. “Okay. Yes. I’m sure. Forever…”

  They spent the next few hours exploring just how great forever was going to be.

  KEVIN WAS PLEASED to see his dad at his house when Daddy dropped him off the next morning. It was Sunday, and that meant maybe they could play and have some fun because it seemed Dad didn’t work on Sundays. Not like Daddy had to sometimes.

  Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch in the den. They had funny looks on their faces. He went in and wedged himself between them.

  “We’ve got something we want to tell you, Kev. Okay?” Dad said.

  “Sure.” He bounced his legs on the couch. He liked the squishy sound.

  “Jack and I are going to get married,” Mom said.

  “You are?” Kevin looked up at the man who’d saved him from the bad guys. “Because you saved me?”

  “Because we love each other,” Jack said. “And because we love you, too.”

  Kevin frowned, his neck hurting a little from having to look so far sideways. “I’m bad sometimes.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Kev,” Dad told him. “And when you do, you’ll be in trouble, but we’ll still love you.”

  He thought that sounded okay.

  “Is it all right with you if I marry your mom and live here with you?”

  “Does Daddy know?”

  “Yes. We talked to him this morning.”

  “And he said you could?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have to share my room, do I?” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but his bed was pretty small, and besides, real mommies and dads slept together, and Kevin wanted a real mommy and dad. It scared him when Mommy was in her room all alone and he heard her cry.

  If Dad was in there with her, he’d make her feel better.

  “No, you don’t have to share your room,” Dad said, his mouth twisting in kind of a smile even though he sounded serious. “I’ll be sharing your mother’s room, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Okay. Can we go skating now?”

  “You’re sure?” Dad asked.

  “Yep, I want to go skating.”

  “I meant about your mom and me getting married.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Did that mean they didn’t get to skate?

  “Marriage is a promise, Kevin. It’s not something you can change your mind about.”

  “Jack!” Mommy laughed. “Give it up already!”

  “I just want—”

  Kevin didn’t hear what it was his dad wanted. He’d just had a thought that might be good. And might be horrible. But was probably good.

  “Wait a minute,” he interrupted Dad. “Does this mean you might make another baby?”

  “Would it be okay with you if we did?”

  Yeah, it would probably be good. ’Specially since he didn’t have to think about nucl’ar weapons anymore.

  “Okay, but would I have to share my room?”

  Mommy and Dad laughed, and Kevin figured that next time Bobbie had a birthday party, he was going to be catcher.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6258-8

  THE SECRET SON

  Copyright © 2002 by Tara Lee Reames.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, t
he Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com