Cindy Gerard: The Secret Baby Bond

Then the three of them walked away together. Tara, his son and the man who would take his place—or so said the tabloids.

It was only after they’d faded to a memory that he realized his hands were clenched into fists inside his pockets, that his eyes were staring blankly.

“Mister… Hey, mister, you okay?”

He looked up abruptly, squinted against the crisp September sun. A tall, gangly teenager frowned down at him. The boy had a basketball tucked under his arm and freckles bridging his nose. He wore baggy pants, a sloppy Chicago Bulls T-shirt and an expression that mixed wariness with concern. Even from where he stood, a cautious couple of yards away, Michael could smell the salt and sweat and vitality of him.

“Man,” the kid said. “You’re white as a ghost.”

A ghost.

It should have been funny.

If the kid only knew.

Michael took one last look at the spot where his wife and son had disappeared. Then he rose and started walking.

This time he promised himself that when he walked, it would be out of the shadows. This time he would walk toward the living, not away.

He wanted his life back.

He wanted his wife back.

He did not want to be dead any longer.

Tara Connelly Paige sat cross-legged on the plush rose carpet that covered the floor in the den at Lake Shore Manor. She stared into a fire that cut the unusual chill of the early September evening.

Beside her, on his favorite quilt that was soft and blue and plump with the loving care his great-grandmother, Nana Lilly Connelly had sewn into it, fourteen-month-old Brandon slept like the babe he was: blissful, innocent, ignorant of the turmoil his mother was feeling.

“It’s a little late for second thoughts, Tara,” her father said carefully from the sofa behind her.

Tara looked up and over her shoulder into the concern in Grant Connelly’s eyes. It shouldn’t surprise her anymore that her father could read her thoughts. His insight was almost frightening. He didn’t call it insight, though. He called it understanding.

Maybe he was right. It seemed that since she’d moved back home to Lake Shore Manor after Michael died two years ago, her father could read her mind almost as well as he read the market. It was another reason that it was past time for her to move back out on her own—or move in with John.

Move in with John.

Too much reluctance accompanied the possibility. With reluctance came guilt.

“I know it was a hard decision, honey, but John is right,” her father continued. “And you’re right to finally have Seth initiate the legal work to have Michael declared legally dead.”

Michael. Dead.

She drew in a serrated breath. Tried, as she always tried, to let go of the hope that after all this time he could be alive. Intellectually, she knew it wasn’t possible. If her intellect wasn’t enough, her family’s gentle but insistent persuasion was. Even Seth had finally jumped on the wagon.

Thank God for Seth. Her brother, the lawyer. Her brother who had morphed Tara into Terror when they were kids and whom she loved to tease—or at least she had once loved to tease him.

“Hey, Seth, what do you call five hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”

“I’ll bite, brat. What do you call five hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”

“A good start.”

A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth then quickly dropped away. She hadn’t seen much of Seth’s flashing grin lately. But then again, he hadn’t seen much of hers, either.

He was there for her, though, as the rest of her brothers and sisters had always been there for her. Seth was handling the paperwork it had taken her two years to gather the courage to set in motion. Smoothly, efficiently, discreetly. Seth was a man you could count on. Much like their father.

Tara looked at him. At sixty-five, Grant Connelly was still a handsome man. His granite jaw was a perfect complement to his deep tan and dark hair, but it was his eyes that set him apart. One quelling look from Connelly Corporation CEO’s steel gray eyes and grown men cowered, women wept.

She’d been the benefactor of those looks herself, though not for a while. Definitely not tonight. Tonight his eyes were gentle, as they always were for his wife and for his children. When Brandon snuffled in his sleep and tucked his chubby little fist under his chin with a sigh of baby ecstasy, steel-gray transitioned to an indulgent, smoky silver.

They shared a smile then for this precious child whose power ran the gamut from melting hearts with his laughter or his tears, to raising roofs when he was full of himself and wanting everyone’s attention. Out of the softness of her father’s smile came more concern.

“The boy needs a father, Tara.”

She swallowed, looked at her hands and agreed softly. “I know.”

“John wants to be his father. He wants to be your husband. He’s a good man, honey.”

Yes, John was a good man. A little stuffy, per Seth, but good. Good for Brandon. Good for her. He gave her direction, offered security, even the extravagant lifestyle she was accustomed to. The opportunity to move back out from under her parents’ roof. She’d taken advantage of their indulgence long enough.

John offered all the answers, provided all the solutions—all but one. She didn’t love him. Not that way. Not the way she’d loved Michael.

The fire crackled. She looked from the blue/yellow flame to her left hand and the two-carat diamond solitaire John had given her three weeks ago. Firelight glinted off the brilliant and perfectly faceted marquise. She thought of the inexpensive, plain gold band Michael had given her, remembered the love and the hopes and the dreams he’d offered with it.

Love, however, hadn’t solved the problems they’d amassed during their turbulent five years together. Love hadn’t been the be-all or end-all to everything that had gone wrong between them. For that reason, it didn’t seem essential for love to factor in to her relationship with John. She cared for him, as much, she thought, as he cared for her. In the end, it seemed reason enough to finally agree to marry him.

“So,” her father persisted as he lifted the one scotch he allowed himself every evening. Ice shifted, clinked softly in the Waterford crystal glass. “Are you close to setting a wedding date?”

She let out a deep breath. Like her father, John had also been pressing her to set a date. She’d been dragging her feet ever since the story had been picked up by every legitimate and illegitimate news publication in the country. The public announcement of their engagement two weeks ago had seemed like an act of betrayal. It also seemed so final.

She rubbed a finger across her brow, unable to ignore the dull headache pounding there. She hadn’t been prepared for the media circus the announcement had become. The tabloids had taken cannibalistic delight in catching pictures of her and John together, pictures of Brandon.

The worst, though, was the resurrection of the photographs of the train wreck in Ecuador that had claimed Michael’s life. Reliving the sensationalized and gruesome accounts of Michael’s disappearance had been a nightmare. Because of it, she hadn’t been able to think about setting a wedding date with John. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, she hadn’t wanted to.

“It’s a little early for definite plans considering…”

Grant frowned at his drink, then at his daughter when her words trailed off.

“Considering that you’ve never gotten over Michael.”

She folded a corner of the quilt over Brandon’s little body. The flannel felt soft and real beneath her fingers. Very few things felt real lately. She scooted back until her shoulders rested against the sofa.