Substitute Daddy

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Prologue

The sky was crying, Melissa Abell thought looking out the window of the funeral parlor. As far as she was concerned, that was the only explanation for the constant downpour of the past few days. A light had gone out of the world and it was in mourning. That light was her vibrant twin sister Leigh and the love Leigh had shared with her husband Gary. Gone. Both gone.

Melissa’s gaze was drawn once again to the closed oak caskets that held all that was left of Leigh and Gary. She was grateful for those closed coffins. This way she’d remember both of them the way they’d looked when she’d last seen them, happily planning a nursery. She put her hand on her still-flat stomach—a nursery for the baby she still carried for them.

Melissa looked around at the tasteful room and its profusion of flowers. She should thank Gary’s brother when he arrived for the thoughtfulness of the arrangements.

And she would.

Even if it killed her.

Gary’s immediate family were conspicuous by their absence. She had already stood alone by the caskets for two hours, greeting and accepting condolences from other Costain family members and Gary and Leigh’s friends and acquaintances. As she checked her watch, Melissa heard a commotion at the door. Gary’s brother and parents had finally arrived—just short of the time the service was set to begin. In at least this, she knew his brother, Brett, was innocent. No two brothers had ever been closer.

Melissa waited until they’d gotten their raincoats off and were ready to parade into the room, then she walked to her seat and signaled the minister to begin the service. If that left the Costains scrambling into the first row, so be it.

What kind of people were late for their own son’s funeral?

The minister, a kindly man who’d been Melissa’s support these last two difficult hours, stood at her cue. He clearly understood her feelings. If the Costains had wanted to honor their son, they’d have been on time. They could accept condolences later.

The minister prayed for Gary and Leigh, then called on the mourners to celebrate their short lives rather than spend time dwelling on their tragic passing. He mentioned Brett’s loss of his best friend and brother and the Costains’ loss of a son. He spoke of Melissa’s own tearing loss of a twin and urged her to cherish the special bond she’d shared with Leigh and Gary. It was unnecessary to tell her to remember that bond, considering she carried Gary’s child, but Melissa appreciated the sentiment just the same.

Before she realized it, the kindly man was leading them in the Lord’s Prayer and the service had ended. Since Leigh and Gary were to be cremated and the ashes interred in the Costain family vault at a later time, they were all spared a rainy scene at the cemetery.

The funeral director stepped to the minister’s side and invited everyone to a luncheon at Bellfield. He didn’t even find it necessary to say it was the Costains’ estate or to give directions. They were just all expected to know what he meant and where it was. She supposed anyone who didn’t know wasn’t welcome.

Melissa dismissed her annoyance with a shake of her head. Whether or not she was welcome didn’t matter anyway because she had no intention of attending. Or inhabiting their rarefied world one second longer than necessary.

By the time they all sat down to soup, she would probably be in Delaware—well on the road toward home. Back where she came from. Back to where she belonged.

Melissa had just stooped down to pick up her purse when two highly-polished, black, Italian loafers stepped into view. Brett. Steeling herself and fighting for calm with every fiber of her being, she stood to confront Gary’s brother. Still handsome as the devil she knew him to be, his black hair was combed off his face and still wet from the downpour. His pale gray eyes as carefully blanked as they’d been the last time she saw him at Leigh and Gary’s wedding.

His face was a mask of decorum, so different from the oh-so-sexy charmer he’d been the night before Leigh and Gary were married.

“The service turned out well,” he said, as if searching for a neutral topic.

“Yes. It did. Thank you for arranging everything so nicely. It was lovely.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry we were so late. My parents’ plane was held up. They decided not to fly home until this morning.”

Was his annoyance directed at his parents, the airline or her for signaling the start of the service the way she had? Melissa realized she really didn’t care.

“It was a lovely service anyway. I’m sure everyone will have time to express their condolences to your family at the luncheon,” Melissa said, wishing he would just go away.

“Would you like to ride to the estate with us?”

“I have my car,” she answered. It wasn’t a lie. She did have her car. It just happened to be parked around the corner, packed with her clothes and the few personal things she’d wanted as remembrances of Leigh and Gary. The bank and Gary’s family could divvy up what little was left. Since Gary had recently gone out on his own to start a management consulting business, he hadn’t built up much equity in his company yet. And she certainly didn’t want to prolong her association with the Costains by demanding anything for the baby. As far as she was concerned, she was ready to hit the road and leave Pennsylvania behind.

“I wanted to get together with you about your plans for the baby,” Brett said. “I thought after the luncheon we would be able to speak privately. It shouldn’t take long.”

“Of course,” she said in a noncommittal tone. Her plans? Considering the kind of people the Costains were, she hadn’t thought any of them would care. But it didn’t matter. She had no obligation to the parents who had made Gary’s life so miserable. What she’d heard of his childhood appalled her. There was no way she would expose her precious child to people who were as cold and self-centered as the Costains.

Brett stepped back and gave her a sharp nod. “Fine. We’ll talk later at Bellfield then.”

We’ll talk later all right. Much later. Like when hell freezes over, Melissa thought as Brett turned away and went to stand with his mother. Moments later, as they filed out of the room, she said a mental goodbye to the entire Costain clan. Frightening as it was, she was on her own.

Her baby was an Abell now.

Chapter One

Brett turned left on Route 5 in Hughesville, Maryland. Tired from the long drive after several exhausting and frustrating weeks, he glanced at his directions then back to the road, ready now for the next turn. It had taken two months to track Melissa Abell, but the detective he’d hired through his law firm, Joe Brennan, had finally succeeded. Brennan had determined her address through notice of an inheritance left to her by her uncle. In a few more minutes Brett would, at long last, get the opportunity to confront her and to find out why she’d disappeared.

She’d clearly had plans that hadn’t included attending the funeral luncheon. Why not just say so? He’d wanted to offer help with the baby. A baby who was all that was left of his brother—the only person he had ever loved. Why go to so much trouble to deprive him of doing the one thing he could do? Be of financial help.

It made no sense. Melissa wasn’t prepared for single parenthood. She was only pregnant because she’d generously agreed to have Gary’s baby through artificial insemination after Leigh learned she was sterile because of an infection.

He fought the excess emotion he always felt whenever he thought of Melissa. They’d met at Bellfield the night before Gary and Leigh’s wedding. In town for the nuptials, Melissa had appeared to be every bit as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as her twin sister—a facade he hadn’t seen through in time.

By the time he’d held her in his arms on the dance floor, his fate had been sealed, and by the time the music changed beats, he’d wanted a lot more than dancing. Like her under him and them holding each other as close as two people can get.

Dancing soon led to a midnight walk in the gardens and a hot and heavy interlude in the pool house. If she hadn’t made a frustratingly naive comment, he would have taken her virginity then and there. But trepidation and near panic had flooded him, making him pause. Forcing him to think.

That moment had been the low point of his life because in a blinding flash he’d come face-to-face with the truth about himself. There in the pool house, on what had been the most magical night of his life, he’d come crashing back to reality. Virginity inherently meant some kind of deep commitment and he was lousy at deep and commitment. Too much like his father they all said. He’d been told so by enough women, his mother included, and it had finally sunk in.

He’d calmed things down quickly then, and he and Melissa returned to the party, which by that time had been breaking up. Troubled, he’d slept little that night. No woman had ever made him feel the way she had, and he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist her again. Since Brett knew he’d eventually hurt Melissa terribly once she understood the kind of man he was, it was a given that their inevitable breakup would harm his relationship with Gary or at the very least, complicate Gary’s life.

So Brett had decided to be charming and friendly to Melissa at the wedding but to make himself scarce around her. That plan had gone by the boards when she’d walked down the aisle ahead of her sister. He’d nearly been knocked flat by the uncontrollable yearning to hold her again.

Still hurting over his epiphany the night before and the vision of the lonely future it had given him, he’d doubted his self-control around Melissa even more. Determined to thwart his own runaway emotions, Brett decided to enlist the help of an old family friend to use as a buffer between him and Melissa. He hadn’t counted on Melissa being hurt and angry so early in their non-relationship when she’d seen him with someone else, but he’d decided the damage was done and had let things stand—not trusting himself to go to her and explain.

Now, five years later, because she’d practically fled the city two months ago after the funeral service, he had to meet with her in private without the protection of fellow mourners as he’d planned. The prospect had his heart pounding as he drew closer to her home.

He was afraid—very much afraid—he was just as attracted to the pretty, sweet look of her now as he had been to her glamorous alter ego five long years ago. And he didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

Brett spotted his next turn and was soon flying along a winding road into the middle of nowhere. He passed one Amish farm after another, and several other properties in much poorer condition than their non-electrified Amish neighbors.

He had to go around several slow-moving horse-drawn buggies driven by bearded men in flat-crowned hats. For some odd reason the children peering out of the back windows took great pleasure in waving to him. It was just too hard to ignore their shining faces. He didn’t have a great deal of experience where children were concerned, but it felt wrong not to smile just as broadly and wave back.

Several miles farther along, when his frustration level reached a new high and his annoyance at his own trepidation over this meeting was right up there with it, he saw a listing, rusted mailbox. He brought the car to a screeching halt, kicking up a storm of dust in the gravel at the end of a long crushed-stone drive. Ancient, faded letters on the side of the box spelled out Abell.

He looked up the drive through the dark tunnel of trees and saw nothing but shadows. But she was there. He knew it. His search was over. He’d found her. And his brother’s child.

Trying to bury his feelings and hang on to the anger over all the trouble she’d put him through, Brett headed his sturdy little sports car into the rutted stone drive. After a sharp bend in the road, the tunnel of trees surrounding the vehicle abruptly ended.