Cindy Gerard: The Secret Baby Bond

“May I?” His words came out gruff and thick with the knot of emotion that clogged his throat.

A long hesitation, then Tara’s voice, barely a whisper. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

From the corner of his vision, he saw her touch a hand to her mouth, saw a tear leak down her cheek as her father wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders.

He bent down, picked up the stout little bundle and straightened, laying him against his chest. The child snuffled, a sighing, baby sound of contentment, then snuggled against him in his sleep, fearless of this stranger who was his father.

Soft. He was so soft and so sturdy and so vulnerable. He smelled of powder and little-boy smells. The silk of his hair caught in the stubble of Michael’s beard; the heat of his hearty little body warmed Michael in ways he’d never thought possible.

“I’d heard that having a child could change a person,” he murmured, unaware that he’d spoken aloud.

Something had definitely changed inside him the day he’d seen his son’s picture in that tabloid. Changed him enough that it had shocked his memory back. He’d discovered then and there that there was nothing he wanted more than to reclaim his life.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, fighting with his emotions, offering an apology. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

The burst of love was so profound he felt the pulse of it thrum through his body in tandem with his heartbeat. He struggled to collect himself, but lost the battle and turned his back on the room. He pressed his face to the sweetness of Brandon’s neck, giving in to a sense of longing and loss so absolute that he couldn’t stop the tears.

When Emma Connelly hurriedly entered the room on a surprised intake of breath, he was hardly aware that she’d joined them. He was only remotely aware of Ruby—crusty and sometimes crotchety Ruby—dabbing a tissue to her eyes.

“Michael.”

Tara’s voice was gentle, her hand on his shoulder supportive and full of compassion. It brought him back, reminded him of other obligations.

“Would you…would you like to take him upstairs and put him to bed?”

She understood. He needed some time. He needed some space to compose himself.

He squeezed his eyes tight and nodded. Without a word, he turned and followed her out of the room.

Grant regarded him with granite-hard eyes as he passed him by. Emma touched his arm, squeezed gently. Ruby grinned like a goose and finally made him smile.

He was back. He was home. And nothing—not Grant Connelly, not a legal divorce action and not a man by the name of John Parker—was going to keep him from claiming his wife and becoming a father to his child.

A half hour later Michael was back in the family room. If not completely composed, he was at least determined to field Grant Connelly’s questions.

He stood in front of the fire, felt the heat of it through his pant leg along with the burn of expensive liquor in his belly. He’d braced one hand on the mantel, wrapped the other around the snifter of cognac Ruby had thrust at him with a “drink it, you’re gonna need it” arch of her brow.

She’d been right. All eyes were on him. The adrenaline rush that had gotten him this far had ebbed, but the liquor had steadied him.

“I’m sorry. I know this is a shock showing up this way.” He met Grant’s hard gaze, then Emma’s. She smiled in encouragement.

“I ran through a hundred scenarios. Tried to figure out a way to make this play out easier for you. Finally, I decided the only thing to do was come over here tonight.

“This has to be very hard.” He glanced from face to face. “For all of you.”

“This isn’t hard, Michael.” Emma Connelly sat on the sofa beside Tara, holding her daughter’s hand in her lap. “Losing you was hard.”

Sincerity shone in her kind blue eyes. It made him smile. Grant Connelly’s wife loved her husband very much. So much that thirty-five years ago she’d turned her back on the small European country of Altaria, abdicated her rights as princess and moved across the Atlantic to Chicago to marry a man her family regarded as a crass, American upstart. The press still played on the fairy-tale elements of the story—and on the creation of Grant Connelly’s dynasty of wealth and power, as well as the lives of his many and colorful children. The Connelly dynasty not only made money for its own, it continued to provide a lucrative source of revenue for the paparazzi.

In addition to loving Grant, Emma Connelly also loved her children—all of them. Tara was no exception. Emma hadn’t always been in Michael’s corner.

Once she’d understood that Michael loved Tara, however, Emma had done what she could to soften Grant’s anger and resentment. She did what she could now. Even though Grant’s back was to the room, Michael felt the subtle waves of his anger. He’d expected no less.

With his feet braced for battle, Grant stared through the French doors that lead to the east terrace. Finally, dramatically, he turned to face Michael.

“I went to Ecuador, Michael. Many of us went—Daniel, Justin, Rafe, Seth—anyone who could manage it. We searched for days. Days, Michael, and came home convinced that no one could have survived that derailment.”

“I seriously doubt that anyone did.” Michael lifted his gaze from his cognac to Grant’s steel-gray eyes that demanded an explanation. Then he dropped his first bomb. “But I wasn’t on that train.”

He scanned the faces in the room during the long moment it took for them to digest that shocking piece of information.

“What do you mean you weren’t on the train? That’s why you went down there,” Grant insisted when he found his voice. “You were going to inspect… What was it?” He waved a hand through the air, searching his memory. “A new source of exotic wood. Something about a potential supply for Essential Designs.”

“That’s right.” Michael nodded. “The company had sent me down for that reason. I’d flown the first leg to Dallas then on to Quito. And I was booked for passage on that train.”

Michael looked at Tara. Upstairs, in Brandon’s bedroom, she’d hung back even after he’d pulled himself together. He’d wanted to wrap her in his arms again, kiss her until they were both breathless, make love to her until they were both senseless.

While he wanted all of those things, after their initial embrace, she’d withdrawn into silence. Even now, she watched him with a suspended sort of wonder and a wariness that would have angered him if he hadn’t understood what a shock this was for her.

Obviously she needed time to deal with her feelings for him. It was enough to deal with the fact that he was alive. He didn’t figure she was ready for the whole story of his disappearance, either, so he cushioned it as best as he could.

“I had an overnight layover in Quito. I had time to kill so I decided to see a little of the city.” He stared at his cognac, then at Tara. “Turned out it wasn’t such a good time to be out on my own. Essentially what happened was that I got mugged.”

When Tara closed her eyes, he was glad he left out the part about being so angry and hurt over their parting words at O’Hare that he’d gotten blind, stinking drunk. He hadn’t been sight-seeing. He’d been wallowing in self-pity, nursing his hurt from one dive to the other, effectively making himself easy pickings for the gutter rats that had attacked him.

“Oh, my dear child.” Emma’s eyes glimmered with tears. “You were hurt. Hurt terribly, weren’t you?”

“There’s no easy way to say this.” He looked away, then back. “They worked me over pretty good. Stole everything I had on me, including my ID. As close as I can piece it together, they must have driven me out of the city, dumped me in the jungle and left me for dead.”