The Secret Heir

Jackson’s grunt could have been an agreement, or merely an acknowledgement that she had spoken. They rarely talked about her job, or his either, for that matter, since their work seemed to represent so many of the problems between them.

Laurel settled in the recliner, cradling her soft drink between her hands. “I saw your parents on their way out,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Your mother seemed rather stressed.”

“I thought so, too.” He glanced at Tyler, whose attention was still focused on the television program. “I guess we can both understand why.”

“I suppose.” But Donna hadn’t been fretting about the surgery. Laurel had gotten the distinct impression that her mother-in-law was worried about something else instead. It had sounded very much as if Donna were keeping a secret from her son—a secret she was terrified Jackson would discover.

Laurel couldn’t help speculating about what that secret was, especially since Donna had worried about medical tests bringing it to light. Was Jackson adopted?

And if that were the case, how would Jackson react to the news if he were to find out? Why would Donna and Carl have kept it from him?

Through her job with the adoption agency, Laurel frequently counseled prospective adoptive couples. Her advice was that such information should be provided to the adopted children from an early age. Secrets had a way of coming to the surface, and it was easier for everyone concerned if the truth was known from the start.

Knowing how close Jackson was to his parents, she couldn’t begin to predict how he would react if he found out they had kept something like this from him for so long.

Laurel was also disturbed by Donna’s comment about the strained state of Jackson’s marriage. Had Jackson been talking to his parents about her? The very possibility made her chest tighten.

She stretched out in the recliner, propping her feet up as she took another sip of her drink, then set the capped bottle aside for later. She hadn’t slept much the night before, and weariness and stress were catching up with her.

Still mentally replaying Donna’s overheard words, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sounds of the cartoon and Tyler’s giggles wash over her.

Laurel dreamed of the day she met Jackson.

The summer-afternoon party wasn’t a typical event for either of them. The purpose of the gathering was to celebrate the adoption of the homeowners’ infant son, and Laurel had been invited as the social worker who had helped arrange the adoption. The new father was a successful businessman who had recently hired the construction company Jackson worked for to build several new stores for him. Jackson, along with several of his management-level co-workers, had been invited to the gathering to welcome their client’s son.

Later Laurel would think what a cliché their meeting had been. Eyes meeting across a crowded room. Everyone else fading into a misty background. Her toes curling when he smiled. Sparks of sexual awareness coursing through her when their hands touched.

They had left the party together a short while later. They’d driven to Cannon Beach, where they’d walked barefoot in the sand at sunset, listening to the shorebirds that nested on Haystack Rock. The salty breeze tossed their hair and tugged at their clothes—clothes they had abandoned in a hidden nook among the rocks after sunset. They had been daring and reckless and impetuous that night. By dawn the next morning, they had been in love.

She dreamed of that beach. Of the birds and the rocks and the sand and the stars spread above them like an endless, bright future. She dreamed of conversation and laughter, of passionate whispers and hoarse cries. Of two young people so desperately in love that they had let their emotions sweep them into a life neither of them had been prepared for….

It was his gentle touch on her cheek that woke her.

She opened her eyes to find Jackson’s face close to hers as he knelt beside the recliner. The room was quiet now, the television dark and silent. Tyler lay on the bed, curled around his penguin, sound asleep. Even the clatter from the hallway seemed unusually muted just then.

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, her voice still husky.

“About an hour. You really went out.” His thumb moved against her cheek again. “There are tears on your face. Are you worried about tomorrow?”

Tears? Remembering snatches of her dream, she pushed herself upright and ran a hand through her hair. “I suppose I am.”

“It’s going to be okay, Laurel. Everything’s going to be okay.” His tone, combined with the set of his jaw, made it clear he would accept no other possibility.

That obsessive need of his to be in control, to make sure everything in his world turned out exactly the way he wanted it to, was etched all over his face.

As if he had read something of her thoughts in her expression, Jackson gave her a crooked smile. “I sound just like my dad, don’t I? Making well-intentioned guarantees I can’t back up. Dad’s philosophy has always been that nothing bad can happen if he refuses to acknowledge the possibility. I guess he passed some of that trait to me.”

His comment reminded her of the conversation she had overheard between Carl and Donna in the hallway earlier. She wondered again how Jackson would react if it turned out that he was adopted. Would Jackson understand, as she had come to see during her years as a social worker, that Carl was no less his father even if it had been love, rather than biology, that had bestowed that title upon him?

Or maybe she had completely misinterpreted what she’d heard. She’d never been a particularly skilled eavesdropper, had never wanted to be. And even if her guess had been right, that was between Jackson and his parents. Now that Tyler had been diagnosed and was being treated, she couldn’t see how Jackson’s genetic history mattered at the moment.

“You’d probably better head home and try to get some sleep,” she told him, changing the subject. “Tomorrow’s going to be a trying day and it will start early.”

“I thought maybe I’d stay here tonight. I know they only want one parent to stay in the room all night, but there are recliners in the waiting room.”

“There’s no need for you to do that. You won’t be able to sleep well here, and you’ll want to be rested tomorrow.”

“What makes you think I’ll sleep any better at home?” He turned his head to look at the child on the bed. “I can’t imagine sleeping a wink tonight.”

“Still—”

“Laurel.” He frowned, his voice losing the gentle tone with which he had awakened her. “The decision is mine to make.”

She locked her hands in her lap. “Of course.”

For just a moment the invisible wall between them had lowered. Now it was back. She couldn’t for the life of her decide which of them kept rebuilding it—though she suspected it was a joint project.

He covered her hands with one of his, his work-toughened palm pleasantly rough against her softer skin. “Don’t close me out of this, Laurel. He’s my son. We’re a family. We need to be together in this.”

After a moment, she turned her hand so that their fingers linked. “I’m not trying to close you out. If it makes you feel better, you should stay. I simply wanted you to get some rest, for your sake.”

“I appreciate that, but I need to stay.”

“Then stay.”

He looked down at their joined hands, his expression grave. “We’ll get through this.”

She nodded slowly. For now, for Tyler’s sake, they would put their differences aside, she promised herself. They would face the problems between them when their son was completely healthy again.

Four

J ackson went home only long enough to shower and change and feed Tyler’s goldfish. The house seemed so quiet with no one there but him. To his anxiety-sensitized ears, the few noises he made seemed to echo through cavernous spaces.

Though hardly a mansion, it was a nice house in a safe neighborhood, built for a growing family. Four bedrooms. Two and a half baths. The house also featured a good-sized fenced yard for Tyler to play in, a two-car garage, and a redwood deck Jackson had built himself, with help from his father. Not that he had a lot of spare time to enjoy that deck. He could hardly remember the last time they’d cooked out on the gas grill or dined at the umbrella-shaded wrought-iron table.

Probably Laurel and Tyler ate out there on nice summer evenings, since Tyler usually had his dinner before Jackson got home from work. Jackson was lucky on most days to get home in time to play with the boy for a half or so before bedtime.

He had to pay for this nice home he provided for his family, he thought with a touch of the defensiveness that so often accompanied thoughts of his work. Laurel had told him that she would be satisfied with a more modest house, but he’d wanted his kids to grow up in a good neighborhood. And even though it meant working long, hard hours, he was perfectly able to provide for his family.

He had pictured Laurel staying home to enjoy this nice house with their son and maybe another child or two. That had been before Laurel had changed so drastically, drawing away from him and going back to her social work. He hadn’t expected her to return so soon to her job finding homes for other kids, leaving their young son in the care of an expensive nanny.

They’d never gotten around to discussing more children.

Shaking his head impatiently, he glanced down at the sheet of paper in his hand. Laurel had sent him another list of things she needed him to take back to her. The hospital provided showers for parents of hospitalized children, so she would be able to freshen up there. Reading the list, he entered her bedroom and opened the closet door.

Her bedroom. He scowled as he glanced around the impeccably neat room decorated in light woods and cool pastels. It had been over a year since Laurel had moved into what they had originally intended for use as a guest room. Tyler had been going through a spell of having nightmares, and since the master bedroom was downstairs, Laurel had slept up here to be closer to Tyler’s room.

Once the nightmares had ended, her excuse for staying in this room had become that Jackson’s frequent late hours were disturbing her sleep. It wasn’t at all uncommon for him to be in meetings until after ten. He would often arrive home to a dark and quiet house. Much like it was now, he thought with a scowl.