“I had a right to know you were pregnant.”
“You had a right? Which you? Daniel Delligatti? He didn’t have a right–I never heard of him until a few minutes ago. Taumaturgio? I’d never met him for all I knew. Tompkins certainly didn’t have any right. Only Paulo Ayudor had the right. Someone who didn’t exist except for in your imagination. And mine, I suppose.” This attempt at a laugh was no more successful than her previous try. “Good lord, it’s like getting pregnant by a character in a play.”
For the first time his calm cracked.
“I’m a man–not a damned character in a play.”
Her words had struck a blow. Too bad. His ego, or whatever she’d wounded wasn’t her concern. He wasn’t her concern.
“Really? Which man are you? The hero Taumaturgio? That rumpled bureaucrat Tompkins? The kindly, simple Paulo Ayudor?”
“Daniel Benton Delligatti.”
“And who the hell is he?”
“He’s all those men. I’m all those men. They’re–” The words jerked out of him, so unlike the smooth, flow of Santa Estellan Spanish she remembered. “–part of me.”
“I know nothing about you.”
He leaned forward, the crack in his calm repaired, but a new intensity showing. “You know the most important things about me, like I know the most important things about you, Kendra. You learned them during that hurricane. You learned–”
“Like your name? Or who you really were?”
“You know–”
“I don’t know–”
“Mommy?”
The small, sleepy voice stopped them on twin in-drawn breaths.
Their eyes met. She caught a whirl of emotions in his. Maybe with enough time she could have sorted them all out and identified them. But maybe no amount of time would have been enough.
Then he twisted in his chair to see his son for the first time.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hello, sweetheart.” Kendra held out her arms, trying to make her concentration on her son block out her awareness of the man who’d gone absolutely still. It was hard when the boy carried such an imprint of the man.
She scooped up Matthew and sat him sideways on her lap. “Did you have a nice nap?”
As usual, her son ignored such unimportant matters and cut to the core of his interest. “Em’ly?”
“Emily went home with her Mommy. You’ll see her later. Remember? You and Emily will visit with Ben and Meg for a while?”
“Now?”
“No. Later. After supper.”
Matthew frowned, preferring “now” as the answer for everything except bedtime. He pointed a chubby fist at the newcomer. “Who?”
At her hesitation, Daniel’s eyes lifted from Matthew’s face to hers. Wary, faintly questioning, he waited.
Did he expect her to drop him into Matthew’s life the way he’d dropped into hers? Did he expect Daddy?
“This is . . . Daniel.”
“Hello, Matthew.” Despite her efforts not to watch him, she saw Daniel’s throat work on a hard swallow. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Hi, Uke.”
“No, sweetheart. His name is Daniel.”
Matthew nodded emphatically. “Uke, Uke, Uke.”
She thought Daniel winced, but couldn’t be sure.
She should have expected this. With Luke Chandler the only man Matthew saw daily, he’d taken to calling all men by that name. But any misconceptions Daniel had about Matthew’s use of the name were his problem.
She watched him from the corner of her eye while she rubbed her chin on the soft, dark waves at the top of Matthew’s head.
So like dark waves she’d once felt against her skin, under her hands came the traitorous memory.
Leaning forward with his forearms across his thighs and his hands hanging loose between them, Daniel’s face was set, intense, while his eyes followed Matthew’s every flicker of movement. He’d probably want to hold his son, take him in his arms . . .
Unconsciously Kendra hold tightened around her son.
“No, Mommy. Down! Down!” He arched his back and squirmed toward the floor, and Kendra complied with the demand. Slightly off balance, Matthew reached out to steady himself on the nearest object–which happened to be his father’s thigh.
For an instant she thought Daniel would reach for the toddler. Instead, his hands clenched between his knees, and he remained utterly still as Matthew, unaffected, marched off toward his toy chest by the hallway to the bedrooms. By habit, Kendra watched to make sure he didn’t indulge in one of his favorite activities–Empty The Toy Chest. This time, Matthew took out only three other toys before finding the pull train he wanted.
When she looked back at Daniel, he had his head down, studying his still tightly clasped hands.
As if he sensed her watching him, he spoke almost immediately. “I know this has been a shock, Kendra. My showing up out of the blue. And we’ve got a lot to talk about. But I should go now. Let it sink in. Let you . . . get used to it.”
Get used to Paulo not being dead? Get used to Paulo being Daniel Delligatti? Get used to Daniel Delligatti also being Taumaturgio and a bureaucrat named Tompkins and who knew what else? Get used to Matthew having a father? Get used to this man moving from her dreams to her kitchen?
She had a lot to get used to.
But she wondered if he, too, didn’t have things to get used to. The reality of having a son, for starters.
“Yes, I . . . I have to fix dinner and–” Phone calls to make. “–I have plans this evening.”
“Yes. I understand.” He lifted his head, turning his gaze toward Matthew, and leaving it there as he stood. “I’m staying at the motel out by the highway, beyond the garden center–”
“I know where it is–there’s only one in Far Hills.”
“Okay. I’ll give you some time, but if I don’t hear from you–” This time the brown eyes she met were the dark, intense brown of the man who’d kept her safe from a hurricane, the man whose eyes had sworn he’d return. “I’ll come back on my own. Soon.”
*
Daniel pulled into the spot in front of his motel room and turned off the car. He should get out, take his suitcase in and unpack. Now that he knew he’d found them and he’d be staying here.
He should have touched the boy. Matthew. His son.
From the instant that cameraman who’d worked with Kendra had so casually mentioned she’d been pregnant when she left the network–with a baby due nine months after Aretha–Daniel had known he’d move heaven and earth to protect his child.
At the moment he’d turned and saw the two-and-a-half feet of humanity with the bright intelligence of Kendra in his eyes, the straight-as-an-arrow line of her nose and a miniature version of her independence, he’d have welcomed the task of moving a hunk of hell in addition to heaven and earth.
But simply touching the boy? That had defeated him.
What did you do with a child that perfect?
Not what he’d done, that was for sure.
And Kendra? He’d made even bigger mistakes with Kendra.
Maybe because seeing her left him feeling like a depressurized plane–all the oxygen sucked out of him, with no oxygen mask in sight.
She’d looked so different from the way he remembered her best. When he closed his eyes and saw her chestnut hair tangled under his hands, saw her shadow-spattered body warmed by their love-making, saw her eyes on his mouth and her lips parting to his coming kiss.
She’d looked sleek and sure today. A little pale. A faint shadowing under cool gray eyes lacking the blazing flecks of green he recalled. But beautiful still.
And . . . he searched for the right word . . . fortified.
Fortified by her anger. Fortified by her friends. Fortified by the years.
From that moment when her long, slender hand had rested on his arm, his body had responded like it had been three hours instead of nearly three years since he’d touched her. Outside the consulate. Saying goodb
ye, though she hadn’t known it was goodbye. Guiding her inside the gate, then merging back into the familiar shadows.
It’s like getting pregnant by a character in a play.
He’d focused so absolutely on finding her. He’d never wondered if he might be a fool to think those hours during Hurricane Aretha were the most real of his life. Had he held onto a mirage?
No, dammit. He knew what was real and what wasn’t.
And he knew what he meant to do about it.
He’d come here to claim his son and his son’s mother.
Period. End of story.
But learning to read people had kept him alive–as Taumaturgio and long before. Today, he’d seen that the woman who’d emerged during Aretha had retreated behind her personal wall, her fortified wall. He’d seen that wall first-hand as the bureaucrat Tompkins watching reporter Kendra Jenner chase Taumaturgio.
It had only dropped for Paulo. When the hurricane had clawed at them. When she’d thought he couldn’t understand what she shared with him. And when they’d shared with each other a need deeper than words.
Now that wall was between them again.
A wall of brick and mortar might be easier to dismantle than the one she’d constructed, but he’d faced worse in his life. Much worse.
*
“So, how did the talk go?” Ellyn asked as soon as they pulled from the Sinclairs’ driveway into the ranch road. They had left Matthew and Emily being entertained by ten-year-old Meg and eight-year-old Ben, with Luke Chandler close at hand as he tried to patch together Ellyn’s old clothes dryer one more time.
Kendra shrugged. “How can I tell? I have nothing to compare it to.”
“Sure you do–the time with him in Santa Estella.”
“That was a different person.”
“I see. Well, then, let’s start with what you talked about?”
“Mostly about . . .” With a sideways glance she extracted a pledge she knew was unnecessary. “You can’t repeat any of this.”
“Who would I have to tell except you and Marti?” Under Ellyn’s good-natured realism, Kendra thought loneliness peaked through.
“NBC, CNN, People Magazine. I’m surprised he admitted it to me.”
Ellyn’s eyes widened. “You were right–he is Taumaturgio.”
Kendra looked both ways before turning onto the highway more from habit than necessity. Traffic rarely posed a problem.
“Yes. But he says Taumaturgio has been retired now.”
“That couldn’t have happened too long ago. There’ve been stories about him on the news, haven’t there?”
“Yes. It happened recently.”
“Oh, really?”
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?”
“That oh really, like you’re reading a lot into something–” For instance his making finding her a priority as soon as his reign as Taumaturgio ended, or so he said. “–when, in fact, there is nothing to be read into anything.”
“Me? I’m not reading anything into anything. So he quits being Taumaturgio, and the first thing he does is come to Far Hills, Wyoming, well-known garden spot of the world–that makes sense.”
Kendra didn’t buy her show of innocence, but let it pass. “He’s on a sort of leave of absence.”
“From what?” Ellyn’s voice skidded up in surprise. “Being a masked crusader? I didn’t know they gave leaves of absence. Does he get benefits, too?”
For the first time since her doorbell rang five hours ago, Kendra laughed. “I don’t know about Taumaturgio, but apparently Daniel Benton Delligatti works for the government.”
“Daniel Benton Delligatti, huh? That’s got a nice sound to it. For what it’s worth, he seems like a nice guy.”
Kendra gave a skeptical snort.
“Yeah, I know. I only saw him for a few minutes, but you’ve got to admit those few minutes were under trying circumstances, and that does tell you something about a man–about a person.”
“Now you sound like him.” It was an accusation.
“Maybe he’s right–at least partially.”
They’d reached the first stop light at the edge of town, and with the red bringing them to a stop, Kendra turned to her.
“Oh, come on, Ellyn. It takes time to truly know someone. Not a couple days in the middle of a hurricane. He’s a stranger. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. What happened on Santa Estella–it was no more than a one-night stand.”
“Give yourself a break, Kendra. It wasn’t a one-night stand.”
“What would you call it? Not knowing who he was. Having only a name–not even his real name. Not speaking the same language. What possible outcome could a responsible person have expected? No matter what, I would have been asking how he took his coffee and–”
Kendra bit off the rest of the sentence, concentrating on driving precisely the speed limit on the residential street to Far Hills Community Church.
Ellyn stared at her for half a block. “I’m tempted to say the simple solution would be to make him fix his own coffee, but somehow I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you.”
Kendra blurted out the truth. “I made love with him. I trusted him with my life. I got pregnant by him and had his child and I didn’t know the simplest things about him–his name or how he takes his coffee. What sort of person lets that happen?”
One like her mother. One hoping for love so desperately she’d close her eyes to reality.
“One who’s caught in a hurricane and thinks she could very well die!”
Without answering that defense of her actions Kendra pulled into the church parking lot and found an empty space.
“Besides,” Ellyn continued, “now you have an opportunity to get to know him, to find out all about each other. And you can take that as slow as you want–as slow as you need to.”
“I’m going to find out all about him all right,” Kendra said grimly, “but not slowly.”
“Good grief–you’re investigating him!”
“You bet I am. I made phone calls after he left. I already found out some, and by tomorrow morning I should know a lot more.”
Kendra turned off the engine and slid the keys into her jacket pocket. She reached for the door handle, but didn’t open it when she noticed how still Ellyn had gone.
“You know, Kendra, I knew exactly how Dale took his coffee.” Ellyn faced the passenger window, muffling her voice. “I knew every job he’d held and every grade he’d made. I knew his favorite color and where he would hide Easter eggs, which way he’d vote and how long he took in the shower and when he’d lose his temper over bikes in the driveway. But . . .”
Ellyn turned, and Kendra saw hurt and sorrow and confusion in her friend’s eyes, but also an acceptance that hadn’t been there even two months ago. “Sometimes something much more important than anything you can know with your brain is missing . . . and sometimes it’s there. Either way, there’s no explaining it away.”
Ellyn leaned forward to make her point.
“Don’t try to explain it away, Kendra. Certainly not yet. You found out this afternoon that the father of your child is alive, and.e’s not the man he told you he was–that’s a lot to deal with. You’re relieved and angry and confused. Give yourself time. And in the meantime, talk to him–really talk to him.”
“We talked–”
“Right, about Taumaturgio,” Ellyn scoffed. “That’s a lot easier than talking about what happened between you–or what’s going to happen next. And I just bet you latched onto the topic.”
“It’s the reason I went to Santa Estella in the first place,” she defended herself.
“Right. To find a man who showed up against all odds–in an airplane, by the way–to help children in need of rescuing. Haven’t you ever wondered about that?”
Ellyn obviously thought she was making a point, but she’d lost Kendra. “It’s a great story.”
Ellyn stared at her a moment, then waved it off. “No ma
tter why you went to Santa Estella, your great story is not the reason you dream about it now. It’s not the reason you dream about him. And I’ll bet you a new clothes dryer you didn’t talk to him about that!”
Kendra shrugged as she opened the car door. “It doesn’t matter. After all, this isn’t about him. Or me. The important person in all this is Matthew.”
Whose father hadn’t even touched him. And whose mother didn’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken over that fact.
*
Marti had saved Kendra and Ellyn seats up front for the standing-room only turnout for the proposed child-care cooperative at the community church. With her usual no-nonsense authority, Fran Sinclair led the meeting in the basement room where the cooperative would be housed.
Far Hills had experienced its own baby boomlet. The need for childcare formed a recurring topic in encounters Kendra had in the grocery store, working at the Far Hills Banner, or pumping gas, since the station owner was the harried father of twins.
The only one who’d done anything about it was Fran Sinclair, an organizer from way back and, as step-mother of the late Dale Sinclair, now the step-grandmother of Ellyn’s kids. Fran supported Ellyn and the kids in a hundred ways. As Marti’s lifelong friend, she was also a frequent visitor to Far Hills Ranch.
Kendra liked and respected Fran. She just couldn’t keep her mind on Fran’s words tonight.
Kendra heard Fran’s logical, orderly setting out of rules for enrolling a child in the program, the basic fee structure, plus minimum hours of duty required, birth certificate and immunization records to bring, snack duty to sign up for. She heard it all–she didn’t absorb much.
When a question was asked about the proposed after-school program to start in a few weeks, Kendra twisted around to look at the asker, hoping that would focus her attention.
And there, against the back wall, leaned the dark-haired, broad-shouldered form of the man named Daniel Delligatti.
He’d said he’d give her time to absorb his reappearance in her life. What right did he have to come here, throwing her even more off balance than she already was?
She’d clamped her lips shut when she spotted him, but she must have made a sound, because Ellyn, on her left, asked, “What?”
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