His Son, Her Secret

by Sarah M. Anderson

  Percy screamed even louder.

  Leona made it home in record time. Somehow, she got the baby and her things out of the car on the first shot. “Poor baby,” she soothed, setting everything down just inside the door. “Let’s get you into some comfy jammies.”

  Percy let her change him. At some point, he quieted down. His eyelids began to drift shut. Leona felt his head—warm, but not dangerously hot. “Poor baby,” she whispered again, settling into the glider to nurse him. He wasn’t feeling good and now he’d exhausted himself with all the crying. If she got lucky, he’d fall asleep for a long time. And if she wasn’t lucky, well—he’d be up in an hour, screaming because his ears hurt.

  From deep inside the house, she heard her phone chime again. If she’d had the damn thing on her, she would have glared at it. There was no way in heck she was going to jostle Percy just to check her messages.

  After five minutes, Percy was out. All that screaming, she thought as she lowered him into the crib. She’d have to wait until he woke up again before she’d be able to dose him.

  Closing his door behind her, she hurried downstairs. She knew she couldn’t keep ignoring her phone—especially not if it were Mr. Lutefisk, wanting an update on the restaurant project.

  But she desperately wanted to take the pregnancy test now, before Byron got home. She needed to know. The past month she’d spent forcibly not thinking about the chance that she was pregnant again? Those days were gone. Suddenly, she needed to know right now.

  After all, she reasoned as she hurried to the bathroom, it was only a few more days until Saturday—the official end of the two-week trial run of living with Byron. He’d promised he’d ask her to marry him after those scant fourteen days and she still had no idea what she’d say. They were barely speaking. Percy was thriving, though, and watching Byron and the baby together made her wonder why she was fighting this so hard.

  And then Byron would attempt another apology that always seemed to hit upon the fact that she hadn’t told him about her father and she was mad all over again.

  But if there were other factors at play, she wanted to know before she told him yes or no. If she were pregnant again, she would have to say yes. They would have to work harder to be a family, even if they couldn’t love each other like they used to.

  She carefully peed on the little stick and set it aside, then washed her hands. The instructions said she had to wait five minutes. After all this time, five minutes felt like way too long.

  She got her phone. Sure enough, Mr. Lutefisk had called. She had to tell him that she might not be on the job tomorrow, if Percy didn’t miraculously recover.

  She called her boss while pacing the length of the first floor. She informed him of the situation and paused in front of the room that was now known as her office. She hung up and just stared at the space.

  Her office. If she wanted to start her own design business.

  Maybe after she got this job finished and things were settled with Byron, she’d strike out on her own. If she were expecting again, working from home might be just the thing. After all, she’d been completely in charge of this restaurant design. She had what it took to be her own boss now. And that prospect was thrilling.

  But...that would mean she’d agreed to stay with Byron. Marry him.

  Not necessarily, she thought. She could always hang out a shingle somewhere else. Sure, the rent for an office would put a strain on her finances, but she wouldn’t be dependent on Byron.

  She checked the time. Close enough to five minutes had passed. She hurried back to the bathroom and grabbed the stick.

  Pregnant, it said in an impersonal digital font.

  “Oh, God.” She leaned against the sink as confused emotions ran roughshod over her. There was the momentary panic that was familiar—the feeling that she’d messed up again.

  Why couldn’t she keep her hands off him? Why couldn’t she stay away from the one man who seemingly could impregnate her just by looking at her? God, this complicated everything. Now Byron would push even harder for her to marry him and for them to live as a family—and if he abandoned her a second time, then where would she be?

  She forced herself to breathe. She’d figured it out once before, and that had been without Byron. This time, she had no intention of letting him slip off into the night without at least paying child support. She was not the same scared girl she’d once been. She was an independent woman who could take care of her family. She could be a little freaked out by being pregnant—that was her prerogative. But she could do this. Alone, if she had to.

  The doorbell rang, jolting her out of her thoughts. She mentally cursed at the bell, the phone—all the things that seemed hell-bent on waking up her sick child. Quickly, she shoved the pregnancy test into the box and the box to the bottom of the trash can. She would tell Byron, she decided, but she needed a plan for how to handle the marriage proposal she knew he’d make when she did. Until then, that little stick did not exist to the rest of the world.

  “Yes?” she said, quickly throwing open the door in the hopes that whoever was out there wasn’t about to ring the doorbell again.

  “And hello to you, too,” May said, taking a step back.

  “Oh! May! You’re here!”

  “Clearly.” She looked around again, as if she expected Byron to jump out of the bushes. “Is he home?”

  “No, he’s still at the restaurant, probably for another hour. Why didn’t you call? Percy’s fighting off another ear infection. I just got him down.”

  May looked guilty. “I’m sorry, Leona. I know I said I’d come out on the weekend, but I wanted to make sure you were okay.” She shot Leona a weak smile. “I’ve been worried about you and Percy.”

  Leona sighed. “Come in, hon. I’m glad to see you. How have classes been?”

  She showed May around the house and made tea. They discussed May’s classes and what she was going to register for next semester. It was nice to talk to her sister without the entire conversation revolving around Percy’s ear infections or why Byron was a bad idea.

  “This is really nice,” May said, looking out the kitchen windows. She looked wistful.

  “There’s plenty of room here for you.” Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to make the offer. But she couldn’t deny that she still wanted to make sure that her baby sister was okay. May might not approve of her relationship with Byron but Leona couldn’t turn her back on her sister—not after what they’d been through.

  “I know.” For once, she didn’t sound pissy about it. “You’ve done so much for me...I think it’s time for me to try and be on my own, you know?”

  “I’ll always be here for you,” Leona said, squeezing May’s hand. “This thing with Byron doesn’t change that.”

  Then May turned to her, a tight look on her face. “Are you going to marry him?”

  “I think so,” Leona said. “I think he’s going to stay.”

  She just wished she felt more confident about that—about all of it. She just wished he could look at her, touch her, without thinking about how she’d withheld her family’s name from him.

  May decided she wanted to be gone before Byron got home so, after using the bathroom, she hugged Leona and snuck into Percy’s room to press a kiss to his little head. “I’ll see you soon,” she said as she walked out the door and Leona couldn’t help but think there was something odd about May’s voice.

  The bathroom? Leona hurried to check the trash can, but the pregnancy test was still safely hidden in the bottom. She dug it back out and hid the little stick in her bedroom, where Byron wouldn’t accidentally find it.

  The weight of the day hit her hard and she sagged onto her bed. She was pregnant again. She had Percy to think of. She could not hide this pregnancy from Byron—she wouldn’t.

  They would work harder to get past what ha
d happened a year ago, that was all. She had to do it for the children. And if they couldn’t get past it...

  No. They would. They had to. Otherwise, she’d be entering into a marriage that guaranteed pain and heartache and she couldn’t do that, even if it might be best for the children. He was so good with Percy. She knew Byron would be a great father with the new baby, too.

  Yes, he would be a wonderful father—loving, hands-on, full of laughter and stories. But what about her? He wouldn’t take her children away from her, would he? He wouldn’t make her love him only to use that against her time and time again—would he?

  She couldn’t believe that he would. She was going to have to take it on faith that he was not one of those Beaumonts, just like she wasn’t one of those Harpers.

  The next time he apologized, she’d listen. And she’d apologize, too. She would tell him about the pregnancy test. And she would accept his ring.

  They had to find a way to make this work.

  * * *

  Leona still wasn’t talking to him, but that wasn’t anything new. What was new was how he’d look up from playing with Percy and catch her staring at him. Instead of the simmering anger he’d come to expect from her, there was something different in her eyes. It almost looked like fear.

  For the life of him, he didn’t know what she was afraid of. Yes, he’d said the wrong damn thing after the last time they’d had sex. Their messy past was not good pillow talk.

  But where were his reassurances? Where were her promises that she wouldn’t lie to him again—not even by omission? Where were his guarantees that she wasn’t keeping her father up-to-date on his every move?

  Nowhere, that’s where. Instead, there was just silence.

  That didn’t matter, he told himself. So what if she rebuffed his apologies? So what if she rebuffed his advances? What really mattered was that every night he came home to his son. Every night, he made dinner and helped bathe his son and read bedtime stories and got up in the night with him. What mattered was that they’d scheduled an appointment with the doctor for getting tubes in Percy’s ears.

  Byron could live without Leona. He’d done so for a year. But he would not allow her to guilt him out of Percy’s life. He was here to stay and the sooner she accepted that, the better it’d be for all of them.

  Yeah, right.

  That night, after he handed Percy off to her so she could do the nightly nursing, Leona said, “I need to talk to you,” in a quiet, serious voice.

  He looked at her but she didn’t elaborate. “I’ll be in the kitchen?”

  She nodded.

  His heart sank. The fear in her eyes, the serious voice—this wasn’t a good thing.

  He started making the cookies before he even realized he was doing it. What would she say? That she’d decided this wouldn’t work? That she was leaving in the morning? Was that why she’d looked so afraid?

  He almost couldn’t bear it as he creamed the sugar. She’d decided this trial wouldn’t work. What else could it be?

  By the time she slipped into the kitchen, he was angry. “What?” he demanded, bracing himself for the worst.

  “It’s—” Here she paused. “It’s been two weeks,” she finished. He could tell how nervous she was and that fact only made him more upset.

  He slammed the bowl down. “I knew you wouldn’t stay. Just tell me why, okay? Because it can’t have been what I said after we had sex. I’ve tried to apologize and you won’t have any of it.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Then what is it?”

  She exhaled hard, her eyes narrowing to little slits. “Why does this have to be so hard, Byron?”

  “I don’t know, Leona. Why don’t you tell me?” When she didn’t have an immediate response, he said, “You can go if you want, but I won’t let you take Percy.”

  The words hit her like a body blow—he saw her curl forward, as if he’d physically hit her in the stomach. For a second, he thought she was going to start crying.

  But then she straightened up, her eyes watery but mad. So damn mad—at him. “You promised me you weren’t going to punish me by taking him away from me.”

  “I can’t live without my son.”

  “I can’t live without our son,” she shot back. “You can keep trying to get rid of me so you can claim you didn’t abandon me a second time, but it won’t work. I’m not leaving my baby.”

  At least, that’s what he thought she said as she turned and stomped off. But it almost sounded like she’d said something else there—babies?

  No, he’d heard wrong. She hadn’t said anything else about the one night the condom had broke.

  Unless she was lying to him.

  Again.

  * * *

  Byron was going to beat these damned pot racks into submission. He was also going to put together the storage racks and if things went according to plan, he’d have all of those things done before the sous chef candidate he was supposed to interview arrived at four.

  The kitchen was taking shape. They’d kept the commercial-grade six-burner stove, but the rest of the appliances—the ovens, the stoves, the refrigerators and freezers—were all on order and scheduled to be delivered within the next three weeks. Once they had those and the rest of the furniture, it’d really begin to feel like a restaurant.

  It was nice that something in his life was coming together. The fight with Leona from last night was still fresh in his mind. He had to go home and face her today—she’d stayed home with Percy—and he didn’t know how he was going to do that.

  He had been an idiot to think that he could live with her without being able to trust her. More than that, he was an idiot for thinking that, somehow, living with her without complete trust would be different for them than it’d been for his parents.

  This experiment had failed. They were broken as a couple and there was no putting them back together.

  But even thinking that made him hurt. Damn it all, he didn’t want to give up on her, on them.

  Finally, after some rather loud cussing, Byron got the pot rack screwed to the wall. He was just about to grab the second one when he heard, “Hello?” from the front of the restaurant.

  “Hello!” he called back. “I’m in the kitchen!” He grabbed a rag to wipe his hands and glanced at his phone— 3:45 p.m. Either the sous chef was early or the landscapers had an issue.

  The moment he crossed the threshold from the kitchen into the restaurant, he sensed something was wrong. The sous chef would have come alone. The landscapers had all been wearing matching work outfits emblazoned with their company logo.

  Instead, two very large men in very tailored suits stood just inside the restaurant so they blocked out the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the open door. With their thick necks, matching buzz cuts and wraparound sunglasses, they looked like what they probably were—hired muscle.

  In front of them stood a thin man in an even nicer suit. His long face and hunched shoulders made him look small, at least compared with the bruisers standing behind him.

  Byron came to a quick halt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the landscapers’ shadows moving in front of the casement windows. Hopefully, if there was trouble—and that’s exactly what it looked like was about to happen—the crew would come to his aid. Otherwise, his best hope was to get back to the kitchen and grab the hammers and screwdrivers. A man could do a lot of damage with a hammer.

  “Help you?” he asked warily.

  “Byron Beaumont?” the smaller man said with obvious distaste.

  “Who wants to know?”

  One of the bruisers behind the smaller man made a snorting noise.

  “Is he here?” The thin, reedy voice came from behind the muscle. The small man stepped to the side just as a gleaming silver-and-black walking stick po
ked between the bruisers, shoving them aside.

  And there he was, Leon Harper in the flesh. He looked older than Byron remembered him, especially when he leaned on the walking stick. The lines around his eyes were deeper. But there was no mistaking him for any other elderly man in a natty suit.

  Byron blinked, hoping and praying that he’d fallen off the ladder or dropped the pot rack on his head—anything that could produce a hallucination as unwanted as this.

  But no. He knew this was no nightmare—especially not when Leon Harper got a good look at him and smiled viciously. It was the exact same smile he’d given Byron when he’d placed Leona into the family car and announced that Byron would never have his daughter. It was the smile of certain victory.

  It was the smile of evil.

  “Oh, that’s him, all right. I’d recognize the Beaumont spawn anywhere,” he said to the thin man. “I hear you’re back—and with my daughter.”

  The way he said it—emphasizing my so heavily—made Byron’s skin crawl. There was no love in the old man’s voice. Just ownership. “And that’s your business how?”

  Harper clucked. “You should have stayed away from her, boy. I was content to let her have the child just so long as you didn’t have it—or her.”

  It? Was this shell of a man seriously referring to Byron’s son as an it? Oh, hell, no. The hairs on the back of Byron’s neck stood at attention. Yeah, a man could do a lot of damage with a hammer.

  But he knew better than to rise to the bait. Growing up in Hardwick’s household had taught Byron how to not get sucked into a fight. When a blowhard old man desperately wanted you to fight back, the only way to win—and drive him nuts—was to stay silent.

  So that’s what Byron did. He still had the rag in his hand, so he casually wound it around his knuckles. There was no way he could take out the bruisers, but if he could get a good shot at Harper...