A Colton Target

by Beverly Long

  “And were you?”

  She wasn’t going to lie anymore. “Yes.”

  He stared at her. The tension was so thick in the room that it felt heavy on her chest.

  “Then, I’m sorry for your loss,” he said finally.

  She nodded, her throat closing up.

  “But you’re not the only one here who lost something,” he added, all signs of compassion gone.

  She knew that. But did he even understand that once a path was chosen, it was very difficult to change course? “Now what?”

  “We have to tell Josh.”

  She couldn’t even imagine that conversation.

  “Tilda,” he prompted.

  She nodded. “You’re right. He deserves to know. You deserve to have him know.”

  “Tonight?” Blaine prodded.

  She shook her head. “He’s at my parents’ house. It would be better if we waited until school was out tomorrow. We can tell him together. Here.”

  She could tell he was frustrated with having to wait one more night. But he finally nodded and settled back onto the couch. He looked around. “What’s he like to do?” he asked. “Besides snowboard and ski.”

  “He plays baseball in the summer. Second base. And he’s a good swimmer. Likes to camp and fish. He’s a good student, usually A’s and B’s. Plays the trombone in the school band.”

  Blaine nodded. “Can I see his room?”

  “Sure.” She stood up and led him back. He stood in the doorway, looked at the hockey posters on the walls and the chess set on his desk. He smiled. “Chess?”

  “He loves it.”

  “He gets his brains from you,” he said quietly.

  She felt her stomach relax. They could get through this.

  Then Blaine’s eyes settled on the picture next to Josh’s bed. It was Dorian and Josh, with Josh proudly holding a fish that he’d caught. He said nothing, but his whole body stiffened up, and he turned on his heel. Didn’t look at her again until he had his coat on and the door open.

  “What time does he get home from school?”

  “By four usually,” she said.

  “I’ll be here. You better be, too.”

  He turned and walked away. Closing the door behind him, she sank down onto the couch and forced herself to take several deep, calming breaths. She didn’t blame him for hating her, but she’d made the best decision under the circumstances. He hadn’t wanted a baby and would have felt as if she’d trapped him.

  Now, he simply felt deceived.

  * * *

  Blaine looked at the clock a hundred times the next day. The hours dragged on. Because the local kids were back in school, classes were more limited, and there was no need for him to instruct. That meant he could hide in his office. It gave him too much time to think.

  A son.

  A thirteen-year-old son.

  He’d missed so much. Because Tilda had lied, he’d missed thirteen years that he could never get back. He understood that she might have initially made the wrong assumption about having a miscarriage. They were both so young, trying to navigate something they knew nothing about. But then later, when she learned the truth, why the hell hadn’t she reached out to him?

  He wouldn’t have been able to leave the army right away. That wasn’t how it worked. But he could have come back on his leave, would definitely not have reenlisted when the opportunity came.

  He’d have come back to Roaring Springs years ago. That thought made him swallow hard.

  But he’d have done it. For his son.

  Who would know the truth in about an hour. His heart ached for the kid who was right now sitting in some middle-school classroom blissfully unaware that his life was about to radically change due to no fault of his own.

  Josh was a Colton and with that name came the privileges that wealth and power could buy. That had never been terribly important to Blaine. Maybe because he knew that the Coltons had worked hard to prosper. Maybe because he knew, all too well, the family had troubles even though they were rich. Others, outside the family, didn’t see that. And they didn’t like the Coltons because all they saw was the advantages of being a Colton.

  When it became public that Josh was a Colton, his world would be very different. He might lose friends over it. Some people in the Roaring Springs community would delight in seeing a Colton fall from grace and would take every opportunity to point out a Colton’s shortcomings.

  Was Josh up to that?

  Because of the choices that Tilda had made, the boy wasn’t going to get any ramp-up time. He wasn’t going to grow into being a Colton. It was going to be thrust upon him.

  How could she have done it? That had been the question that had been running through his head since the moment that she’d almost run away from him at The Lodge. How could she have hidden such a vitally important thing?

  Yes, he’d left abruptly for the army, with barely enough time to say goodbye to his family or friends. Yes, he’d rarely come home, but he had his reasons for that—his father’s infidelity was something that he simply hadn’t been able to get past. He didn’t understand his parents’ marriage. Never had, probably never would.

  But he understood a couple things. Truth. Honor. Those things mattered. His father had failed him there. Now...well, so had Tilda. It was... He drew in a breath, not wanting to overdramatize the situation. After all, he’d seen a lot of bad things in the world in the last thirteen years. Things that most people could likely not even imagine. And he knew that he had the resilience to bounce back from a lot of adversity. But still, Tilda’s deception seemed mean-spirited to him, and he was having a hard time getting his head around that because that was not the girl that he’d cared about at one time. Not the girl that he would have married, and would have been faithful to, had it come to that.

  But he had to own some of this as well. Because Tilda had been right. He had been relieved when she’d said that she’d had a miscarriage. Now, thinking about Josh, that made him feel guilty. But he could still remember the feeling, as if a giant boulder had been lifted from his chest, and he’d been able to finally take a deep breath. And, damn him, but he could still remember his initial exclamation, upon hearing Tilda say that she’d miscarried: Oh, thank God.

  He wondered if she remembered it. Would she use it against him? Would she tell Josh that he’d been happy that there wasn’t going to be a baby?

  Would the boy understand that he’d been eighteen, just five years older than Josh was now, and not mature enough to respond in a better way? Would Josh think that Tilda had done the right thing to pass him off as another man’s son because his own father hadn’t wanted him?

  This was a damn mess. No other way to describe it.

  He looked at his watch again. It was time.

  He closed his office door behind him and walked to his vehicle in the parking lot. The drive to Tilda’s house took twenty minutes, and he waited at the curb for another ten before he saw her drive into her garage. He gave her two minutes to get inside the house, then walked up to her front door and rang the bell.

  “Hello, Blaine,” she said, when she opened the door. She stood back and motioned him in.

  She looked tired. There were shadows under her pretty dark eyes, suggesting that her sleep may have been as disturbed as his. She wore a royal blue sweater and a black skirt that hugged her curves and made him too easily remember a dark basement and the feel of her round bottom in his hands and then later, as they lay together, the warmth of said bottom pressed up against him.

  “Josh should be here in just a few minutes,” she informed him. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “Water might be good,” he said. Perhaps in a pail that he could dunk his head in.

  She got two glasses and handed him one. Then they sat in silence, her on the couch, him in the chair. They had history; they had b
een as close as two people could be. Still, it felt as if they were strangers. And it was absolutely absurd that in minutes they would attempt to create something akin to a family for their son.

  “What comes after this?” he said finally. “After we tell him?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I think all we can do is try to understand his feelings and answer his questions as truthfully as we can.”

  As truthfully as we can. That was an odd way to put it. Why hadn’t she simply said that they needed to answer his questions truthfully? But before he could drill her on it, he heard a key in the front door. He stood up, then sat down quickly. He didn’t want to loom over Josh.

  The boy saw his mom first, and there was genuine affection in his smile. Then he saw him in the chair.

  “Mr. Colton?”

  “Hi, Josh,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, his tone puzzled.

  Tilda patted the couch. “Come sit with us,” she said. “We have something that we want to talk to you about.”

  She sounded pretty calm, but he could tell that Josh was already thinking that something strange was going on. But the boy sat, saying nothing.

  Tilda drew in a breath. Let it out. She had her hands folded in her lap, and her fingers were pressing into her flesh. “Josh, I...we have something to tell you. And it’s going to come as a pretty big shock to you. You’re going to have lots of questions, I’m sure. We will answer every one of them.”

  As truthfully as we can, Blaine added silently in his head.

  “Okay,” Josh said. “Did I do something wrong?” Now the kid looked nervous.

  “Absolutely not,” he said emphatically. Then looked at Tilda. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “Of course,” she said softly. Then she turned so that she could look her son in the eye. “Josh, a long time ago, I got pregnant with you. And I wasn’t married yet.”

  “I know that,” Josh said. “You and Dad got married a couple weeks after I was born. You have the wedding announcement from the newspaper in your jewelry box.”

  “You’re right,” Tilda replied. “Partially. I married Dorian Stoll a few weeks after I gave birth to you. But he wasn’t the father of my baby. Wasn’t your father,” she added, probably trying to be crystal clear.

  Josh said nothing.

  Blaine could feel his empty stomach cramp. This was going to be really hard on the boy. Everything he’d thought was true for thirteen years was going to be exposed as one big lie.

  “Your father...is Blaine.”

  “Mr. Colton?” Josh turned to look at him with something in his eyes that could have been horror or fright or just plain disbelief.

  “Yes. Blaine Colton is your father.”

  “But...but why did you marry Dorian?”

  “Because I wanted you to have a father,” she said.

  Josh turned to him. Now there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. Hate. “You didn’t want to marry her? Didn’t want a kid?”

  He tensed up. What was Tilda going to say? He watched as she reached out her hand and put it on her son’s knee. “No, Josh. It wasn’t like that. When I found out that I was pregnant, Blaine and I were going to get married. He wanted you. But then, I thought I had a miscarriage. There are signs in a woman’s body that tell her that.” She stopped. Swallowed hard. “It was only after we thought that there wasn’t going to be a baby that he enlisted in the army. But then I found out that I hadn’t miscarried, that I was still pregnant. I didn’t tell Blaine. He never knew about you. Not until yesterday.”

  She’d chosen not to paint him badly. He supposed he should be grateful.

  “Did Dad...did Dorian know that I wasn’t his son?” Josh asked, his voice cracking.

  “He did. But he loved you from the minute you were born,” she said. “He could not have loved you more if you’d been his.”

  Blaine supposed he should also be grateful for that. But right now, he wasn’t feeling grateful about much. In military terms, this was a snafu of epic proportions.

  “All this time, you lied to me,” Josh accused, staring at his mom.

  The words were a spike in Tilda’s heart—that was obvious by the distress in her eyes, the tight set of her lips. “Decisions were made, Josh,” she said. “And actions were taken. Decisions and actions that you may or may not agree with. The one thing that is for certain, that always has been and always will be, is that I love you. And I only ever want the best for you.”

  Josh said nothing. But his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He stared down at his hands that were braced on his knees, as if he was physically holding himself together.

  Blaine wanted to make it better for him immediately but knew that this would be a process, likely full of starts and stops and maybe even a few wrong turns. “I know this is a lot to take in, Josh,” he said quietly.

  “Is this why you were nice to me at The Lodge?” His voice broke halfway through the sentence.

  Blaine shook his head. “I was nice to you because you’re a cool kid. I didn’t realize that you were my cool kid until after you’d left yesterday. I’m hoping that now that you know, that it’s out in the open, that we can move forward, get to know one another.”

  “Who else knows?” Josh asked.

  “Just us,” Tilda said. “But people are going to find out. I’m sure Blaine wants to tell his family about you.”

  He supposed he did. Hadn’t really thought about it. What the hell were Mara and Russ going to say about suddenly having another grandchild?

  “Do I have to change my name?” Josh asked.

  For the first time, Tilda looked to Blaine for the answer. Of course he wanted his son to carry his name. But now wasn’t the time to draw hard lines in the sand. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Blaine said.

  No one said anything for a long moment. Finally, Josh took his hands off his knees and appeared to take in a deep breath. “Now what?” he asked.

  “I thought maybe you and I could go get an early dinner. I know how hungry I was when I got home from school.”

  “Just you and me?” Josh asked. “What about Mom?”

  Blaine said nothing. Tilda had had Josh for thirteen years. Was it too much to ask for one night?

  Tilda stood up. “You know, it would probably be great if the two of you got better acquainted. You go without me. Just remember, it’s a school night, and I’m sure there’s some homework, so home by eight.”

  Blaine relaxed. She was okay with it, and her approval seemed to go a long way with Josh, who also was now standing. “I guess I could go,” his son said. “I am hungry.”

  Tilda smiled. “Of course you are. You’re breathing, right?” She reached out to hug her son but he shied away.

  Tilda wrapped her arms around herself.

  Blaine opened the door and motioned for Josh to precede him. As he was pulling the door shut, he took one more look at Tilda. She was still standing with her arms wrapped around herself. Her lips were pressed together. She looked smaller. Beaten.

  As angry as he had been, still was, he didn’t want that. She’d done a good job with the discussion. Had been straightforward and factual. Had gone as far as to say that he’d wanted the baby. That certainly wasn’t true.

  It couldn’t have been easy for her. On the tip of his tongue was a reassurance that they would get through this. But then he reminded himself that none of this would have been necessary if she’d simply told the truth years ago.

  “I’ll have him home by eight,” he said and pulled the door shut.

  Chapter 5

  Tilda’s knees gave out, and she sank to the floor. And the sobs that she’d managed to hold back burst from her chest, like hot lava, too long trapped. Josh had pulled away from her. And the look in his eyes when he’d accused her of lying had been so full of hurt tha
t it had almost taken her breath away.

  When Blaine had suggested that the two of them go for dinner, she’d wanted to grab her son and run. But common sense and...well, perhaps a shred of decency had prevailed, and she’d managed to put up a brave front long enough to get them out the door.

  Now she felt as if she might never catch her breath again.

  Everything was going to unravel. Tonight they’d pulled a thread, and the tightly knit family that she and Dorian had started and she’d continued with on her own was going to come undone. Could she lose her son?

  It was really everything she’d been afraid of in the hours after Russ Colton had come to see her all those years ago. He’d threatened her, said she wasn’t good enough for his son. Threatened her family. Had had the power to hurt them all terribly. Of course, he hadn’t known about the baby, and she’d decided that day that no one in the Colton family was ever going to know that her baby was a Colton. They played by rules that Tilda didn’t even understand.

  She’d been afraid then, and she was afraid now.

  All she’d done was delay the inevitable.

  And rob Blaine of years of getting to know his son.

  She also couldn’t forget about the harm that she’d caused Josh—who was her everything. He’d been without a father for years, and now he was going to realize that the man he’d loved and mourned had simply been filling in.

  Tilda pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, willing the tears to stop. She would not let Josh see her like this. He could not know that she was dying a slow death. Her son was going to have all he could deal with in the coming weeks, getting to know Blaine, and coming to terms with being a Colton and what that meant in this community. People were going to talk, and everyone would have an opinion.

  She finally summoned the strength to pull herself up from the floor. Then she walked into the bathroom and rinsed her face for five minutes, doing the best job that she could to erase the tears. She was going to have to tell her parents. They absolutely could not hear this news from anybody but her. And then she’d tell Raeann. The woman had been her best friend for years.