From Boss to Bridegroom

by Victoria Pade

  “The revelation of a lifetime, huh?” she said as if playing along with a joke. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  But maybe she should have waited. Forever, she thought as he laid out for her what he’d been thinking. Because the further he got into explaining that he thought he’d come to the point where he was ready for a family, for her and Max to be his family, the more panicky Lucy felt.

  “No!” she said before he had finished.

  “No what? I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

  “No, don’t go on. I don’t want to hear this.”

  “Why not?”

  What he’d said had agitated her so much she couldn’t remain sitting still. Taking the sheet with her to wrap around her naked body, she scooted off the opposite side of the bed and put as much distance between them as she could manage.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she insisted.

  He was perfectly calm in the face of her storm, the preeminent attorney waiting to hear her argument. “I always know what I’m saying,” he said reasonably.

  “I know you’re attracted to me as a novelty—”

  “A novelty? You’re putting yourself in a category with blow-up dolls?”

  “I’m putting myself in the category I belong in—single mother. Those women you avoid, remember? Those women you don’t even want as your secretary.”

  “Lucy—”

  “No,” she repeated, stopping him before he could go on because she didn’t want to hear his reasoning. “You said yourself that you weren’t sure you’d ever want to be a father because you can’t give the kind of time and attention to a child that it deserves. You live a child-free life. A fast-paced, high-pressure life that has no place in it for kids. Look at your apartment, your clothes, your car—it’s only a two-seater. Being around me and Max is nothing if not a novelty. But that doesn’t make it something you could do with any kind of longevity.”

  “You think you know me better than I do?”

  “I know that a man ensconced in his own life—a life that makes the world adapt to it rather than adapting to the world—is not a man who would ultimately be happy with the demands of a ready-made family. It’s not a man who can take on a ready-made family without that family sacrificing everything to him. It’s a man who would eventually want out, want back into his well-ordered life.”

  “We’re not talking about me, are we? Now we’re talking about the law professor who left you pregnant and in the lurch rather than alter his agenda in the slightest.”

  “We’re talking about what I know from experience with Max’s father and with you.”

  “I’ve adapted to several changes while we’ve been working together.”

  “No, you haven’t. You’ve juggled and rearranged my life to get what you’ve needed out of the bargain. I’m not complaining, I agreed to it all. But only because it was temporary. I can’t have a whole lifetime of that. I’ve only spent a fraction of the time I should have with Max since the moment I met you. That’s not the kind of parent I want to be to him. It’s not the kind of parent I will be to him. I’ve set our course and it’s a course where Max comes first and I won’t let anything or anyone distance me from him.”

  “The last thing in the world I would want is to distance you from Max. I’m not talking about taking you away from him. I’m talking about adding me to the mix.”

  “Why? So he can start to see you as his father, fall in love with you, depend on you and then watch you bolt back to your office, to your other life when you tire of the demands of a family and want out?”

  “Let me see if I have all this straight. You think I’m some kind of male prima donna who, on nothing more than a whim, would swoop in, take you away from your son while insinuating myself into his affections, and then drop you both like a hot potato at the first sign of a scheduling conflict or a smear of peanut butter on the arm of the sofa?”

  The cool, calm lawyer was showing signs of anger. He was on his feet now, too, facing off with her in a dauntingly arousing sight.

  “My view of you is hardly that disparaging,” she said, trying not to stare at the magnificence of his naked chest. “You’re a good man, Rand. A great one. But you’re a man who lives a life so completely different from mine that we might as well be on separate planets.”

  “I’m not from another planet, Lucy. I grew up in a household full of kids and family. I know what it involves. I’ve avoided it myself because I know what it involves and I knew I couldn’t have the kind of career I’ve had and a family, too. But I’ve had the career I wanted and it’s falling short for me lately. It’s not enough. Then you got dropped into my lap and I suddenly found myself feeling good again. Happy. Content. What I realized is that I’ve devoted enough time to my job and now I want to put it second to my private life. Now I want to make whatever changes need to be made to accomplish that.”

  A part of her would have liked to believe that. To believe that he could actually pull it off. But she was afraid—no, terrified—that it was the same part of her that had believed Marshall would welcome the news of her pregnancy with Max, ask her to marry him and give her happily-ever-after.

  But she’d learned that happily-ever-after was too good to be true, that she couldn’t listen to that part of her that wanted to believe otherwise, no matter how much she might want to. That it only got her hurt and in trouble.

  “No,” she repeated once more.

  “No what?” he said again.

  “I know you mean what you’re saying right at this moment. I really do. But I can’t trust it. I have Max to think about and I can’t take the risk with him, with his feelings. He already likes you too much and—”

  “I wouldn’t hurt Max. I wouldn’t hurt you,” Rand said in a deep, quiet, sincere voice.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t do it on purpose. But I truly believe that even if you put effort into cutting back on work, little by little it would creep in and take over the way it ended up taking over since I became your secretary. And Max would suffer. He’d suffer every time he expected you here and something came up at the office to keep you away. And he’d suffer more when you finally admit that cutting back isn’t something you can actually do. That you thrive on the constant work, the pace, the world you’ve built for yourself, and that that really is where you belong.” And she would suffer, too. Just the way she had when Marshall had turned his back on her.

  “I’m not a boy, Lucy,” Rand said very, very seriously. “I know myself. I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I want. And what I want is not just a novelty or some passing fancy. It’s you.”

  “But I don’t come alone. That’s the problem.”

  “I want Max, too.”

  She shook her head, fighting the sting in her eyes. “It just wouldn’t work out.”

  “I’ll make it work out.”

  It was so tempting to trust in that. And if it had been her heart alone on the line she might have. She might have thrown caution to the wind the way she wanted to and just hoped that he honestly did know himself well enough to know he was capable of taking such an about-face with his life.

  But she wasn’t a woman alone. She was a woman with a child. A child she loved too dearly to ever put into any kind of risk at all.

  “No,” she said yet again, firmly and with finality.

  “You won’t even give us a chance?”

  “No.” She brushed the wetness from her cheeks with the back of one hand, wishing Rand was anywhere but there so she wouldn’t have to fight to keep herself from running into his arms, from giving in to that naive, younger self who still yearned to believe everything he’d said and take the chance after all.

  “I think you should go,” she whispered, her voice cracking traitorously and letting him know how close she was to breaking down completely.

  “Lucy,” he said, taking a step toward her.

  “No,” she said one final time, holding up a hand to stop him from coming any nearer. “Go,” sh
e added, but just barely because her throat was so full of tears she could hardly speak.

  And then the phone rang. Of all the bad timing, the phone rang.

  Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth in an attempt to gain some control, but before she did, Rand answered it.

  She could tell by his clipped, curt questions that something was wrong. Very wrong. And another, different sort of panic took hold of her careening emotions and made the tears evaporate.

  “What?” she demanded the moment the phone left Rand’s ear.

  “Max is hurt,” he said, his own face blanched white. “He fell off the top bunk bed and hit his head. He’s unconscious and on his way to the hospital in an ambulance right now.”

  Rand insisted on going with Lucy to the hospital, on driving her car because she was in no shape to be behind the wheel. They arrived at the emergency room twenty-five minutes later, both of them in clothes they’d thrown on without regard to anything but decency so they could get out in a hurry.

  Max had already been taken for a CAT scan and before Lucy located the parents of Max’s friend, one of the emergency room doctors came out to let her know what was happening.

  Max had regained consciousness in the ambulance and exhibited no signs of concussion. But the CAT scan was for safety’s sake. Of more concern was the fact that his left arm was badly broken and would need surgery to set it properly. Beyond that, he had a few bumps and bruises but he was fine and his prognosis was good.

  Still, the mention of even the remote possibility that he might not come out of this with full use of his hand and the ominous tone of the surgery release forms did nothing to allay Lucy’s panic. It took Rand’s calming, logical reasoning to keep her from becoming hysterical.

  When the doctor left, Rand guided her into the waiting room where Max’s friend’s parents were nearly as distraught as Lucy was. The couple apologized profusely for what was clearly more the boys’ fault than theirs. Apparently the two had decided to play cliff diver off the top bunk bed and, being the guest, Max had gone first. In four-year-old reasoning, they’d been certain that the pillows they’d put on the floor would cushion their landing.

  Lucy assured the other parents that she understood but she was in such an emotional state herself that it wasn’t easy to deal with their remorse. She was grateful for the buffer Rand provided, and even more grateful when he convinced them to go home.

  But that was only the beginning of the services Rand provided. Throughout the entire day he stayed by Lucy’s side. She was all nerves and he was the calming force she relied on to get through. He brought her coffee. He repeatedly reminded her that her son was going to be all right, and he did it with such confidence she believed him until her own fear crept in again, and then he would reassure her all over again.

  He got her to eat a small lunch while Max was being operated on by Washington’s leading pediatric surgeon, a man Rand knew and had called in personally. Rand held her hand. He even managed to make her laugh a time or two. He called Sadie to let her know what had happened and when Sadie arrived at the hospital with a small bag of things for Lucy to use to clean up, comb her hair and stay the night with Max, Rand treated Sadie’s worry as tenderly as he continued to treat Lucy’s.

  By late that evening Max was sleeping peacefully in a private room that Rand had arranged for. The little boy had come through the surgery with flying colors and had awakened long enough to prove he could move all five fingers without a problem before drifting off to sleep again.

  When visiting hours ended, Sadie kissed the sleeping Max. Then Lucy, Sadie and Rand went out into the hall.

  “Anything you need, darling, just call,” Sadie told Lucy, kissing her, too. “Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning when you get our boy home.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Lucy answered, accepting her aunt’s hug and letting Sadie know she finally did feel certain things really were going to be okay.

  Then Sadie headed for the elevator, leaving Lucy and Rand alone.

  “I’m taking your car back to your place,” he explained in a hushed tone so as not to disturb Max through the open door. “I’ll have Frank pick me up there and he’ll be back here first thing in the morning so he can drive you and Max home as soon as Max is released.”

  Lucy was weary and worn out by then but more herself. “You don’t have to do that. You can have Frank pick you up here and I can just drive my own car in the morning.”

  Rand shook his head firmly. “No. I don’t want you driving. And if you need anything when you get home—prescriptions filled, groceries, anything—send Frank.”

  She didn’t have the energy to argue so she just said, “Thank you. And thank you for everything today. I’m not sure I could have gotten through this without you.”

  “Don’t thank me. It felt good to be needed. To take care of you. If you’d let me, I’d devote my life to doing just that.”

  It was the first reference he’d made to what had been going on between them when the phone call about Max had interrupted them. Lucy had almost forgotten about their fight, about the fact that she’d been in the middle of ending things with him.

  But now she remembered it all. Sadly. But with no less resignation. “It would make for a pretty boring life compared to what you’re used to,” she reiterated.

  “I think it would be a pretty great life.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I meant what I said before,” she whispered solemnly.

  “Rethink it, Lucy,” he commanded. “We make a good team.”

  “I do all right on my own,” she said stubbornly, even as she knew she wouldn’t have gotten through the day’s ordeal without Rand. But she especially wouldn’t admit that. It was too dangerous to acknowledge that she might need him or anyone else when the last time she’d felt that need she’d been left high and dry by a man so similar to Rand.

  “Wouldn’t do any harm to just give some consideration to letting me into your life permanently,” Rand said.

  But again she shook her head. “I don’t have to think about it. I know what I’m doing and Max and I are better off alone.”

  Inside the hospital room Max stirred and Lucy rushed to his bedside while Rand looked in after her.

  But Max hadn’t actually awakened and after a turn of his head on the pillow he settled back into deep sleep.

  Lucy didn’t leave her son’s bedside to return to Rand, though. She merely looked his way and said, “Thank you for everything,” just as she might have said it to any stranger.

  Rand seemed to get the message and left.

  After all the time and distance from the emotions of the morning, after all the other things that had replaced them during the day, Lucy didn’t understand why she felt tears well up in her eyes as she watched him go.

  Tears that had nothing to do with Max and everything to do with the feeling that her own heart was breaking in a way no amount of medicine could mend.

  Ten

  Monday dawned bright and sunny in California and the woman known as Meredith Colton was pleased to have an early morning phone call from the third private investigator she’d hired to locate her sister. She was also pleased to find herself alone in the house for a change so that there was no worry of being overheard.

  “Well, what did you find?” she said eagerly into the receiver once the amenities were passed.

  “I’m in Monterey. I spent the whole weekend buttering the palm of one of the nurses at the St. James Clinic here and following every lead I could find,” the detective began.

  “And?”

  “I’m afraid the trail goes cold after the clinic.”

  “I hired you to tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I can only tell you what I found out and it isn’t much,” he said. “Patsy Portman—who appeared from out of nowhere on the grounds of the clinic in 1992, disheveled, disoriented and mumbling about a car accident—was released after six months. At the time of her release she was still suffering from amnesia. She was, howeve
r, having frequent and vivid dreams and fragments of memories that led her doctors to be encouraged that the amnesia might resolve itself before too long. But due to the fact that she’d made a dramatic recovery from her years of anxiety, depression, mood swings, psychotic episodes and anti-social tendencies it was judged to her benefit to leave the clinic and pursue treatment of her amnesia as an outpatient. The trouble is, after her release she never returned to the clinic and there was no current address available,” the investigator concluded.

  “That’s it?” the woman shouted.

  “I told you the trail is cold after that. I can keep looking if you want but frankly I think it’s a waste of your money. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. A lot of mentally ill or unbalanced people who improve in the hospital environment see a resurgence of their problems once they’re out in the real world. If they don’t return for care, some even end up as one of the homeless. That would account for the fact that there’s no record of Patsy Portman from the time she left the clinic on. Those kind of people don’t fare well on the streets. And even if they manage somehow, they don’t last long. A high percentage of them end up dying as a Jane or John Doe and being buried in a pauper’s grave. I can’t guarantee it, but if I were betting on it, I’d say that’s what we have here. Too many years have gone by without leaving a trace of her.”

  That calmed down the woman known as Meredith. In fact it was so comforting to her that she latched on to the explanation as if there were evidence to prove it.

  “You’re probably right,” she agreed, taking a swift turnaround from her earlier outrage. “And if that’s the case, there’s no reason for you to look any further.”

  “Like I said, I can if you want me to, but I think it would be a waste of money. This Patsy Portman is long gone.”

  “No, you’re right, there’s no sense spending more money looking for a dead woman. Send me your bill and go ahead and call it quits.”