GINA WILKINS - The Secret Heir

Jackson watched the nurse let herself out of the conference room. The room was entirely too small. There seemed to be barely enough oxygen for two people. Tugging at the open collar of his denim shirt as though it were choking him, he turned to pace again, crossing the entire floor in four long strides.

His entire body practically vibrated with the need for action, the urge to do something to solve this crisis. That was his responsibility, wasn’t it? To keep his family safe and happy. He hadn’t been doing so well in the latter area lately, especially with his wife, but he had done his best to keep them safe. And now even that had slipped beyond his control.

What good was a father who couldn’t protect his child?

Swallowing a sound that could have become a string of curses or a howl of anguish, he pushed his hands more deeply into his pockets and turned to look at Laurel. She sat on the edge of her chair, her back very straight, both hands in her lap, both feet on the floor. Her shoulder-length, dark-blond hair fell in neatly arranged layers, and her red jacket fit her slender frame perfectly. In contrast to that cheery tone, her lovely face was drained of color, so pale she could have been carved of ivory.

When he had met her almost four years ago, Laurel had been a laughing, ebullient, self-admitted party girl. Drawn to her spirit and her laughter, Jackson had swept her into a whirlwind courtship and a hasty marriage. Barely ten months later, their son was born.

Sometime during the course of their marriage, Jackson had realized that Laurel’s laughter and chatter were as effective as any mask at hiding her true thoughts and feelings. As the months of their marriage passed, she had become quieter and more withdrawn from him. He could honestly say that she was even more of a stranger to him now than on the day they had met.

The one thing he knew without hesitation was that she adored their son. She had to be in agony now, just as he was.

He wished she would turn to him for comfort. That was something useful he could do, at least, perhaps finding some reassurance for himself in the process. But in all the time he had known her, he had never heard Laurel ask for anything. Her rather fierce self-sufficiency had drawn him to her at the beginning, but for the past three years it had been slowly driving them apart.

He felt compelled to make the effort anyway. Moving to stand behind her chair, he rested a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension vibrating in her muscles. “Laurel?”

She looked up at him. “Dr. Rutledge said Tyler should be fine after surgery.”

Jackson suspected she was repeating the doctor’s words as much to reassure herself as him. “Tyler will be fine, Laurel. Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

She swallowed visibly and nodded. Her fingers clenched so tightly in her lap that he heard a knuckle pop. “He’s so little,” she whispered, her sapphire-blue eyes filling with tears. “And they’re going to cut him open…”

Acting on instinct, Jackson drew her somewhat roughly to her feet and into his arms. She stood stiffly there for a moment, and he began to wonder if she would push him away. But then she collapsed against him, her body wracked with shudders as she clung to the front of his shirt. She wasn’t crying, exactly, he noted as he gathered her closer and rested his cheek against her soft hair, but her breath caught in ragged gasps that told him she was holding back sobs with an effort.

His protective-male instincts kicked into full force again. He wanted to promise her anything, do whatever it took to make their son well and ease Laurel’s pain. If he could trade places with Tyler, he would do so in a heartbeat. If money would solve the problem, he would get it somehow, even if it meant working longer than the twelve- to sixteen-hour days he already put in.

It tormented him that there was absolutely nothing he could do. His child’s well-being was in other people’s hands now. He hated that.

The conference-room door opened and an attractive woman in her early fifties rushed in, followed closely by a stocky, worried-looking older man.

“Jackson!” Donna Reiss clutched his arm as Laurel moved abruptly away. “The receptionist told us you were in here. What’s wrong with Tyler?”

Glancing quickly at Laurel, who had composed her face again into an inscrutable mask, Jackson knew their momentary bonding was over. Her thoughts were hidden from him now, as they so often were. Laurel didn’t seem to need him just then, so he turned, instead, to the person who did.

Taking his mother’s trembling hands, he squeezed comfortingly. “I’ll try to explain what the doctor told us.”

She clung to him, gazing up at him with both love and fear in her eyes. In contrast to Laurel, Donna always wore her emotions where everyone could see them. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s going to need open-heart surgery, but the doctor seemed confident the condition is correctable.”

“Open-heart surgery?” Donna repeated weakly. “Oh, no.”

Feeling her sway a bit, Jackson helped her into a chair. “Dad, do you want to sit down?”

Carl Reiss shook his gray head and moved to stand behind his wife. Like Jackson, Carl preferred to be on his feet, ready to do whatever he was called upon to do.

“Tell us what’s going on, Jay,” he said simply, using the nickname he always called his son. And then he glanced at Laurel. “Maybe you should sit, Laurel. You look awfully pale.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She crossed her arms more tightly over her chest and stood against one wall, as far away physically from the others as possible. And even farther away emotionally, Jackson thought.

Looking stricken anew, Donna turned in her chair to face her daughter-in-law. “Laurel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that I was so worried. But you must be frantic. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” The words were exactly the same she had used to answer Carl, but, as always, her tone was just a shade cooler when she spoke to her mother-in-law.

Donna directed her attention back to Jackson. “Tell me everything.”

He told her as much as he could remember, from the frantic call he had received from Laurel that morning through the talk with Dr. Rutledge. “They’re running a few more tests now,” he concluded. “We’ll be notified as soon as we can see him.”

One hand at her throat, Donna shook her head in disbelief. “Thank goodness Beverly is a former nurse’s aide who recognized the signs that something was wrong! If it hadn’t been for her, we might not have had any warning until it was too late.”

Laurel moved abruptly toward the door. “Excuse me. I need to…freshen up. Find me if they come for us,” she added to Jackson on her way out.

Knowing she wouldn’t want him to, he didn’t try to follow her.

Closed into the dubious privacy of a ladies’ room stall, Laurel finally let herself cry. She couldn’t handle this, she thought. Anything else but this.

Maybe if she had been a better mother. More attentive. A perfect stay-at-home mom, like Donna Reiss had been. Then Laurel, rather than Tyler’s nanny, would have been the one who had made note of the light-blue tinge around the boy’s lips after he’d been running, or the slightly ragged edge to his breathing at times.

Despite all the times she had played with him, tickled him, run with him, Laurel had never seen the warning signs. It had taken a nurse’s-aide-turned-nanny to realize that something was very wrong.

Laurel felt like such a failure as a mother—something she had feared since the day she had been told, to her shock, that she was pregnant. Still barely used to the idea of being a wife, she had almost panicked at the prospect of parenthood. What did she know about being a mother when she had never really had one herself?