Tina Leonard - A Father's Vow

“‘Sesame Street’ would be perfect, but I warn you, she won’t let me far out of her sight.”

“I had noticed that.” They stood, and the three of them walked into the reception area outside Carolyn’s office. It contained a sofa, two chairs, walls of books, a TV and a gum ball machine. “This is sort of the lounge.” She flipped on the TV, and Lucy bounced onto the sofa.

“Sit by me, Daddy,” she commanded.

“I can’t right now. I have to talk to Miss Carolyn.” He glanced at Carolyn with his brows knit. “Miss Carolyn?”

The blush that stole over her features was endearing, he thought. At twenty-seven, not many woman blushed. But Carolyn was not like any other woman he knew.

She would not get on a plane to go to a fashion shoot if her daughter was ill. Of course, he couldn’t totally blame Marissa for running away. Sometimes he wanted to run as fast and as far as he could to get away from Lucy’s illness.

The trouble was, his little girl had to be the one to outrun it. He couldn’t do it for her.

“It is ‘Miss,’“ Carolyn said, her tone almost frosty to remind him to stay on his side of the wall.

“Miss St. Clair and I will be over here in her office,” he said in the same crisp tone so she’d know he’d got the message. “Call me if you need anything, Lucy.”

“Miss Carolyn is fine,” she told Ben as they walked behind the stone half wall that separated Carolyn’s office from the reception area. “Actually Carolyn is fine with me, if you don’t mind Lucy calling me that.” She motioned Ben to take a seat across from her.

“We prefer Miss or Mrs. or Mr.,” Ben said firmly. “Lucy is a handful, and we’re trying to teach her proper manners from the start. It’s easier than undoing bad ones, and believe me, she appears angelic, but she’ll try the patience of the saints. Once we found out she was ill, it was more difficult to be strict, but—“ He stopped, realizing he sounded as if he were lecturing. As if he’d gone into teacher mode, stressing the explanation to a rebellious student.

Carolyn didn’t seem to notice. She sat down at her desk and pulled out a folder marked with his name and inserted a new tape into her ever present recorder. “Let’s start with your birth certificate, of course. You were born on the outskirts of Austin, correct? A record of birth would have had to be filed at the county courthouse, and one with the state. We’ll need to compare them.”

He stared at her, realizing she was asking for more than the rote repetition of what was on his insurance.

“Whatever you can’t remember, we need to make notes so that we can look up this information.”

“Jeez, I wish Mom was alive,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure I can remember all of it, and she could rattle family details like a professor.”

“Well, we’ll have to do this without her,” Carolyn said, her voice gentle. “Ben, we have to determine the best way to begin searching for the existence of this person. We’ve got a good start but these are the things we have to know. Whatever you can remember will be crucial in saving us time.”

He let her crisp, straightforward manner wash over him. She was right, of course. He had to rely upon himself now.

And Carolyn. She had evidently gone to her superiors and asked for permission to handle his case. He wasn’t totally alone and defenseless in the world as long as he had her on his side.

* * *

“IT SEEMS TO ME that the first person we should speak to is this Dr. Benton.” Carolyn looked at Ben to see if he agreed. “Everything we’ve discussed leads back to the fact that the doctor is more than likely the only person who knows what really happened when your mother gave birth.”

He nodded. “How do we proceed on a matter like this? Do you think this falls under physician-patient privilege, even though Mom is gone?”

Caroline tightened her lips thoughtfully. “A patient’s records would still be confidential after death. However, talking to the doctor is a logical first step. I, for one, would be quite interested to hear what he has to say. First of all, he’s going to be quite surprised to have us show up out of the blue asking questions about the delivery.”

“What compelling excuse can we use to get him to pull Mom’s records from the file? After all these years, there’s a good possibility the records no longer even exist. How long are doctors obligated to keep a patient’s records?”

“Even after a patient is deceased, most doctors keep the files in what is known as a dead file or something along that line. Patients change doctors, and those histories have to be moved from an active file into another system. They’re somewhere. The question is, would he still have Eileen’s files in his office or would he have moved them into a storage facility?”

“I’ll go to Mom’s lockbox at the bank,” Ben suggested. “I know that’s where she kept my original birth certificate. It’s probably a good idea to look at that before we see Dr. Benton.”

Carolyn nodded, opening an appointment book. “I’ll call and schedule an appointment with Dr. Benton.”

Ben put his hand over hers, surprising her. The contact sent warmth shimmering through her, and she found it difficult to meet his eyes.

“Maybe an unannounced visit would be best.”

Carolyn held her breath until Ben removed his hand from hers. She exhaled, forcing herself to think about the words and not the man. “The element of surprise can’t hurt, but we shouldn’t assume Dr. Benton would be unhelpful,” she reminded him.

“Sorry.” He dipped his head somewhat sheepishly. “I don’t mean to sound combative. But Mom’s story has begun to be very real to me. That makes Dr. Benton a bad guy.”

Carolyn nodded slowly. “I can’t blame you for the way you feel.” Whether Douglas Benton was a bad guy or not remained to be seen, but she understood Ben’s need to hope that there was an enemy out there that could be defeated. It must be hellish to be fighting the enemy he was pitted against—his daughter’s disease—with no weapons to rely on.

The love for his daughter was strong in this father. She admired that he so desperately wanted to be able to ride up on a charger and save her. But it also broke her heart. What if he failed? “Leave Lucy with me, if you like, and see if you can locate your birth certificate. We can proceed from there.”

“You don’t mind Lucy staying?”

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

His eyes settled on her with some unidentifiable emotion. “Thanks, Carolyn. She could use a friend right now.”

Then he got up and walked out the door without saying another word, his shoulders stiff, his back straight. Carolyn bowed her head.

It wasn’t sympathy that made her see Ben in such a rose-colored light. She simply had never stopped loving him, and in the moment when he was suffering the most, she found herself tearing her own heart in two as she struggled not to let herself fall for him all over again.

Falling for Ben Mulholland had been the easiest thing she had ever done—getting over him had been impossible.

* * *

BEN’S BIRTH certificate appeared to be like any other she had seen. Carolyn wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but maybe she’d been hoping against hope that some clue would pop out from the stamped page and point her in the right direction.

But the slightly yellowed Texas state document lay on the desk before her, innocuous and ordinary. She blew out a breath.

“Nothing special there,” Ben said.

She smiled to herself at the tandem tracking of their minds and picked up her purse. “I’ll head to Dr. Benton’s now and see what I can find out.”

“I’m going with you.”