Roz Fox - The Seven Year Secret

The plane landed on time. Her dad had ordered a car service to take her to the Biltmore, an elegant old hotel that rose like a terra-cotta wedding cake from the middle of residential Coral Gables. The driver said he’d return at six-thirty to drive her to Connor’s. Mallory knew without asking that the man had orders to wait outside the apartment while she went in and said her piece. She didn’t doubt that he might also drag her out if she didn’t leave in a reasonable period of time.

Nervously Mallory showered off the dust of travel. She dressed in a no-nonsense pin-striped suit. One glimpse in the floor-length mirror, and she stripped out of it again. She wanted to appear mature and professional. But pride demanded she look feminine, too. Connor, never stingy with compliments, had always liked her in blue. In a weak moment, she’d packed such a dress. A sleeveless sapphire silk with a flared skirt, banded by a straw belt. She had shoes and an oversize bag to match. The last thing she did was spritz her throat and wrists with her trademark perfume. If nothing else, the familiar scent bolstered her courage.

At the preappointed hour, her driver wove unerringly through thickening traffic, arriving outside Connor’s apartment building in record time. “There’s nowhere to park, miss. Shall I circle the block until something opens up?”

“Yes, please.” Mallory found speaking difficult because her throat had gone dry. “I don’t expect this to take long.” She figured on giving Connor her canned spiel. Then she’d hand over Dr. Dahl’s business card, plus his typed report, and leave Connor to work things out for himself. If he hadn’t changed, it was how he operated best. Facts before action.

Mallory thanked providence that his apartment was at ground level. Her weak knees would never propel her up a set of stairs. Blocking out the boisterous laughter and loud music pulsing through his open window, she rapped loudly enough to be heard over the din.

A casually dressed man with sun-bleached blond hair juggled two frosty glasses of beer in one hand as he opened the door. His wolf whistle and shouted “Greg, she’s here!” had Mallory stepping back. A second man appeared. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her inside. Mallory squeaked out a protest as, against her will, she entered what was clearly a keg party made up of fifteen to twenty males.

“We thought you’d be wearing a skimpy sequined cop uniform,” the man clutching Mallory confided with a wink. “I guess the costume and handcuffs are in this bag.” Releasing her arm, he began pawing through her straw purse.

Mallory yanked it back. A tug-of-war ensued, which upended her bag. Photos of Liddy Bea at various ages, which Mallory had included to show Connor if all else failed, fell out and slid across a slick tile floor.

“Stop!” Dropping to her knees, she scrambled to gather up the pictures before the oaf with the beer spilled it on them. Her heart hammered madly. “I’m afraid you’ve confused me with someone else. I’m looking for Connor O’Rourke.”

“This is his place.” The man holding the beer did splash foam on Mallory’s bare arm. “Oops. Sorry. I’m Paul Caldwell. That’s Greg Dugan. We contracted with your agency for you to come here and do your cop routine.”

Still on her knees, Mallory stared up at him, uncomprehending.

“Jeez, you know—where you handcuff Connor to a chair and then do a little…uh…bump-and-grind number. Hey, it’s for his bachelor party! Connor’s getting hitched.” The beer drinker enunciated slowly this time, as if Mallory were addle-brained.

Indeed she was. She’d envisioned Connor O’Rourke in a whole lot of ways over the past seven years. On the verge of marriage was not one of them.

She went hot, then cold, then hot again. Her fingers groped for the baby picture of Liddy Bea.

She hardly noticed that another broad hand had reached over her shoulder to scrape the photo off the floor. Nevertheless, Mallory froze as a voice she remembered too well rained down on her head. “Paul? Greg? What’s going on? Who is this woman? I thought we agreed there’d be no females at this party.”

Mallory couldn’t say how she found the courage to stand and face the man she’d come to see. But she did. And she managed to pluck Liddy’s picture from his suddenly slack fingers. Clearly the advantage of surprise was on her side.

“Mal…lo…ry?” Her name fell from Connor’s lips in three distinct syllables.

In spite of all the time that had passed and all the rehearsing she’d done, Mallory couldn’t speak. She couldn’t do anything but swallow repeatedly and stand before him like a statue, watching the play of dark shadows cross features she’d never forgotten.

A jumble of heat and fury contorted Connor’s angular face as Greg and Paul lamely attempted to explain the surprise they’d arranged. He silenced them with a slice of his hand. “I don’t know what the hell kind of sick joke you and these idiots are pulling, but I’m not amused, Mallory. Not in the least. You have a hell of a nerve coming here, tonight of all nights.”

As his friends stepped back, the real performer rushed up the steps. She wore a very minuscule rendition of a cop uniform. So minuscule, the well-endowed woman hardly had room for the badge she’d pinned above one ample breast.

Paul and Greg ran to greet her. Mallory felt Connor’s cool hand propelling her toward the door. His jaw was locked in place. Figuring she had maybe two seconds at best to make him listen, she dug in her heels.

“Connor, you have to give me a minute.”

The instant he glanced down at her, Mallory shoved Liddy’s photo under his nose. “We have a child, you and I. She’s six now. She’s ill, I swear I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I…we…she needs your help, Connor.” Her plea was uttered in spurts.

He snorted derisively. “That’s a damned lie and you know it.”

“Look closer, Connor. She is yours.”

At that moment the CD player suddenly stopped. All movement in the room beyond ceased. A hush descended as a now-uneasy group of guys waited for Connor’s response. Regardless of his obvious fury, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the five-by-seven glossy print wavering in Mallory’s unsteady hand. A single second went by before he tightened his grip on Mallory’s wrist. Lips tightly compressed, he practically slung her into a nearby room. In the process of shutting them both inside, he glared at the men huddled around the exotic dancer. “Paul. Greg. When I come out, I want everyone gone. Not just out by the pool, either. Gone, as in goodbye!”

Mallory felt her knees knock as Connor’s rage swirled over her. Why, oh why hadn’t she heeded Fredric Dahl’s warnings? And her dad’s? She should never have come here.

MALLORY HAD THOUGHT SHE’D steeled herself for this encounter with her child’s father. The only man who’d ever touched her heart. In reality, being closeted in a small room with him, knowing he was on the brink of marrying another woman, was Mallory’s worst nightmare. Or perhaps it was watching him pace the perimeter of his study, gazing in outrage and denial at Liddy’s photo, that broke Mallory’s heart and turned her stomach inside out.

Why didn’t he say something? Anything? Although, Connor O’Rourke had never been a wordy man. In the past she’d been content to spend hours with him, often without a single comment passing between them. Now, as she tracked his tense, jerky movements, she found his silence hell on her nerves.

It was only after Connor stopped in front of an oak desk in the center of the room to examine Liddy’s baby picture under the light that Mallory’s rubbery legs felt strong enough to let her join him. She’d carefully selected pictures of Liddy taken at birth, two years, four and six. “I named her Lydia Beatrice,” Mallory ventured as Connor glanced at the new offerings. “I, uh, everyone calls her Liddy Bea.”