Her Secret Sons

by Tina Leonard

  He caught himself gazing at her maybe every other second when he was with her. With Toby and Josh in the backseat, he tried not to stare, but his eyes were prisoners to her allure.

  His dad’s idea of making a family with Pepper kept buzzing around in Luke’s mind. They’d already made the family, he amended; now he needed to convince her that they could be lovers again. Only this time he wouldn’t be the green boy who couldn’t keep the condom adjusted, and she’d be all woman. The girl had been sweet, but the woman… The thought set him on high heat.

  “We’re here, boys,” he said, stopping the truck. They scrambled out to look around with interest as his father stepped out on the porch. Children and grandfather stared at each other for a long time, sizing each other up. Luke thought about how brave these boys were being, and how many changes they were assimilating at such a fast pace. He was proud of them and couldn’t wait to get to know them better.

  Without being prodded, they walked up on the porch, solemnly shaking their grandfather’s hand. Luke’s dad nodded, recognizing that hugs weren’t coming yet, but the smile on his face said he didn’t care. He’d dressed in his best clothes, as if he was going to church, and Luke could smell barbecue cooking at the back of the house.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said, giving him a hug. “This is Toby and Josh. Boys, this is your grandfather.”

  They looked at one another again, trying to decide what they all might mean to each other at this point in their lives. “There are three-wheelers out back, if your dad says it’s okay,” the older man said, and the boys whooped, waiting long enough for Luke’s nod before tearing off to inspect them.

  “You’ll have to ride with them,” his dad said to Luke and Pepper. “At first, to show them the safety rules.”

  “Three-wheelers? Dad.” Luke grinned. “Did you rob a bank?”

  “It was a small thing to do for ones grandkids.” He gave Pepper a kiss on the cheek. “’Bout time you showed up again. Some kind of doc you’re turning out to be.”

  Pepper smiled at the teasing complaint. “I did bring my stethoscope and cuff, Mr. McGarrett.”

  “I figured you would. By the way, my name’s Bill.”

  “All right. Bill.” Pepper glanced at Luke, and he grinned.

  “Guess he doesn’t mind your stethoscope anymore.”

  Bill headed around to the back, with an energy in every step that hadn’t been there a week before. “Come on, you two. You have to see the three-wheelers. I’m taking pictures. I’ve decided to take up photography.”

  Now that I’ve got a family to photograph, were the unspoken words.

  Gratitude filled Luke; regret for the days when father and son might have been closer ebbed away. He was in the here and now—all he needed was to convince Pepper that the here and now was heaven.

  From the stiffness in her posture as she watched her boys inspect the ATV’s, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. He was going to have to go slow and gentle to win her. This time, he couldn’t count on luck.

  PEPPER HAD GROWN UP on a ranch. She knew all about off-roading, and three-wheeling, and mud-dogging and even hot air balloons on special occasions. Kites, roller skating off the back end of a truck, campouts in the truck bed to stare up at the stars with friends and family—those were the benefits of living on a lot of land in the country.

  But she wasn’t ready for her boys to be three-wheeling. As a doctor, she knew it was dangerous; as a mother, she was scared. But she sensed their world was changing, and that a man’s ways, thought processes and even his toys would be beneficial to her sons’ teen years—if she could unclench her knuckles long enough to enjoy the fact that they were having a lot of fun getting to know their father.

  But Luke brought other dangers that made her nervous. She’d been reckless falling into his arms last night, kissing and being kissed as if they were erasing a time lag that no longer mattered.

  It did matter. She didn’t know Luke, and he didn’t know her, despite their mutual parenting bond. It would be too easy to fall into playing house because the most wonderful components, the parts she’d always wanted, were already in place: the boys, Bill, her family, her home and clinic.

  Something cautioned her that falling into a pattern of family would bring heartbreak to all of them, eventually. She wouldn’t let the boys be hurt by unrealistic expectations. They hadn’t said it, but they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t want their family pieced together to make a whole. It was the essential image of The Waltons, Happy Days and Leave It To Beaver.

  But real life usually wasn’t that neat and orderly. Certainly it hadn’t been for her. She’d gotten by on strength and determination.

  She watched Luke instruct the boys on how to turn on and off the engines and how to avoid a spill. He had certainly embraced fatherhood, she had to admit. She’d worried he might want nothing to do with his sons; in retrospect, that worry seemed unfair to him.

  Still, she knew of his reputation. He couldn’t have changed his spots so much. Could he?

  She sat on a wooden bench next to Bill as he fiddled with his new camera.

  “Fun to watch ’em, isn’t it?” he asked.

  His joy pulled a smile from her. “I can never get enough of them. Maybe that’s too much a mom thing, but they’re good kids. They get in the occasional scrape, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  The words hung in the air and Pepper regretted them almost as soon as she’d spoken. Of course, Mr. McGarrett would want his son to have shared those times with the twins.

  But Bill just nodded. “The Bible-thumpers came to see me last night.”

  “Bible-thumpers?”

  “Yeah.” Grinning, he squeezed off a shot of Toby riding with Luke for a trial run. “Trying to tell me the boys need to be in school in the fall.”

  “I know they need to be in school!” Pepper exclaimed, outraged. “I have a few degrees, myself!”

  He laughed and patted her hand. “I think their complaint was with me, not you. In fact, I think the school question was their excuse to get in my front door. They’re very proud of that new school your family built.”

  Pepper nodded. “Education is important.”

  “Forresters are good for this town. And I think the Bible-thumpers—that would be Ms. Pansy and Ms. Helen—wanted to make certain I planned to meet the standard.”

  “Standard?” Pepper looked at him curiously.

  “They want me in church,” he said with a put-upon sigh and a twinkle in his eyes. “I do believe the school issue was a cover for getting me churched.”

  “Oh,” Pepper said.

  He nodded. “The little one—Pansy—she said as long as it was any institution of faith, that’d be good for my soul. For the boys’ sake, of course.” He laughed to himself. “I don’t think the ol’ gal was as worried about my salvation as she is about my reputation where these kids are concerned.”

  Pepper didn’t know what to think of that. She watched Josh take his instructional turn with Luke, and Bill squeezed off another picture.

  “I think I’ll join them,” he said, and Pepper looked at him.

  “Join them?”

  “The Tulips Saloon Gang.”

  “Oh,” Pepper said, “they got to you.”

  “They’ve been trying to get to me for years,” he admitted. “But it was just easier to sit in my den and be mad. Mad at myself, mad at Luke, mad at the world.” He shrugged. “Then you came along and everything changed.”

  “I hope you’ll forgive me for not letting you get to know the boys sooner.”

  “Well,” he said, “I think I’ll appreciate them more now. I’ve been down to the pits of hell and back. Not appreciating family ties has cost me dearly.” He polished his camera lens. “Second chances are just as good as first, if you learned something.”

  Pepper figured that applied to her life, as well. “I hope I’m learning something.”

  “You are,” Bill said. “So this gang of busybodies may have a new member, for the bo
ys’ sake. I want my grandsons to see that I’m living right.”

  She laughed. “That would be for your sake, not the boys, right? The cookies and pies too much to resist?”

  “Think my doctor would frown on too much of that.” He looked at her. “You know in Gone With the Wind, how Rhett Butler sucks up to the old biddies so that his daughter, Bonnie, will have entrée into the best circles?”

  “Yes,” Pepper said, amused.

  “Think I best keep up my side of the family tree,” he said.

  She smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with your side of the tree.”

  “I hope you’ll remember that,” Bill said. “They’re betting in town on you and Luke. The odds are that you won’t marry my boy. In horse racing, that’s called a long shot, also referred to as an outsider.”

  The smile faded from Pepper’s face. “You slipped that into the conversation very neatly,” she observed. “You may be conniving enough to be in the gang.”

  “Nothing wrong with conniving,” Bill said, “as long as you do it with a pure heart.”

  She raised her brows. “I’m going to tell Pansy and Helen they can’t preach to you about church and take bets on my life at the same time.”

  Just then the boys roared off on their inaugural solo three-wheeler ride, Luke watching them protectively.

  “Don’t know that Pansy and Helen participated in the betting, just the reporting. But I’d like you to think about it, all the same,” Bill said. “I’ve always been one to go against the odds. I figure you have, too.”

  “I’m not sure what we’re talking about.”

  “You want the best for your sons, and I want the best for my grandsons. Now, I’m not saying my boy’s the best thing for you, necessarily. I’m merely asking you not to listen to gossip.”

  “Gossip?”

  “Well, the odds are long, apparently, because supposedly you’re far too sensible to ever consider a man with a wandering foot. And so on and so forth. You know how people talk, even with the best of intentions.” Bill leaned back, relaxing as he watched Luke run after his sons. “You may think I’m being presumptuous, and I am, but I also thought you’d want to know what’s being said about your family. Not that public opinion would influence you. Still, information is power in a small town, as I’m sure you know.”

  Pepper noted the “your family,” understanding that he was trying to give her her space. He was right on many counts. “You’re saying if you can turn over a new leaf, perhaps I can, too.”

  “And Luke,” he reminded her. “We’re all in this for the kids, in my humble, unasked-for, opinion.”

  “So humble.” She laughed, not as offended as she’d been preparing to be. So sneaky, so smooth. Like father, like son.

  Chapter Twelve

  “We like him,” Toby and Josh told Pepper later that night, when they were all sitting in front of the TV watching a Bonanza rerun.

  Pepper glanced up. “Your father?”

  They nodded.

  “I’m glad.” She looked at them carefully. They seemed to be telling the truth, not just saying it because they thought she wanted to hear it. “It’s the three-wheelers, right?”

  “That helped,” Josh said. “We were afraid he’d be one of those strict, bossy dads.”

  “Or a busy dad,” Toby said. “The kind that’s always in a suit and tie. And that doesn’t have time to do anything but work.”

  “What does he do, anyway?” Josh asked.

  “I don’t completely know,” Pepper said. She knew very little about the years Luke had been away from Tulips. “You could ask him.”

  “So could you,” Toby said, and Pepper shook her head.

  “Don’t you like him?” Josh asked.

  I knew this was coming. She took a deep breath. “I like Luke. But you know what? We’re different people than we were.” She ruffled their hair fondly. “Now we can be good friends because of you two.”

  Toby and Josh considered that for a moment.

  “It’s okay with us if you decide to like him more than that,” Josh finally said, speaking their combined opinion.

  Pepper shook her head again. “I’m glad you like Luke. I’m sure he wants to be a good father and will try real hard.” She thought about what she wanted to say next. “Thank you for not being mad at me for not telling you sooner.”

  “We liked living close to Aunt Jerry,” Toby said slowly. “We always knew we had a dad. We just didn’t think he would want to know us.”

  Pepper thought about that, too. She hadn’t wanted her boys to be hurt, to feel the harsh sting of rejection that could last a lifetime.

  “If Dad asked you to marry him, would you?” Josh queried, and Pepper’s heart constricted. She couldn’t admit that Luke had asked her—a hasty proposal from a man in shock at learning that he had children. They would have regretted it later if she’d taken him seriously.

  But if he truly wanted to marry her?

  She gave the safe answer. “We don’t know each other well enough to consider marriage,” she said gently. “You’ll understand that later in your own lives. The person you marry should be your best friend.”

  They glanced at each other.

  “A girl could never be my best friend,” Toby said confidently, and Josh nodded in agreement.

  They had each other, and that was best friend enough. Pepper smiled. “When you start school, you’ll make lots of new friends.”

  “Will we be Forrester or McGarrett?” Toby wondered. “I mean, since our dad lives here and all, it would be pretty weird not to be McGarrett.”

  Pepper stared at her boys, her stomach cramping suddenly. They had a point. This was something she hadn’t considered, and didn’t want to, now. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

  “We’d like the kids to know we have a dad, Mom,” Josh said, his tone practical.

  “And we’d like them to know that Luke is our dad,” Toby added.

  Pepper put her hands over her face. It was all moving too fast. “Does Luke know you’re asking me about this?”

  “No,” they said.

  After a moment, she told herself to take a deep breath and relax. She put her hands in her lap and went into professional mode. “While I think your question is well thought out, I need a little time to think about it myself. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that you… I mean, it’s something to consider.” She didn’t want the boys to see how surprised she was. And yet, their concern and their question were certainly valid. But Luke had some say in this, too. It was his name, after all.

  “We could ask him,” Toby offered, not aware of the implications of what he was saying.

  Pepper shook her head. “No, thank you, sweetie. I’ll talk to your dad and see what he thinks is best.”

  They smiled, relieved. “We really would like the kids in school to know we have a dad. Since we do have one,” Josh pointed out, and Pepper nodded.

  “I understand. I’ll talk to him.”

  Bonanza’s hired hands got themselves out of a fix on the TV screen, and they all laughed as their dog outwitted the bad guys.

  “We wouldn’t mind a dog, too,” Toby said, and Pepper picked up a pillow to pretend to smack her twins. And a white picket fence, and a Betty Crocker mom and a happy ending to boot.

  Still, it was what she’d had growing up, and she completely understood their dreams. But how Luke fit into those dreams she wasn’t certain.

  All she knew was that he kissed like a dream.

  PEPPER TOOK THE BOYS to the Tulips Saloon so she could visit, and also to let everyone know that betting on her and Luke wasn’t necessary.

  “It’s more fun to bet on something that’s not a sure thing,” Pepper pointed out, “but I thought I’d let you know there’s no romance budding between Luke and me.”

  Pansy and Helen nodded. Pansy dropped a lump of sugar in Pepper’s tea and Helen laid out some cookies. The boys had found Duke’s golden retriever, Molly, and decided to walk with her around the town
square, the dog leading the way.

  “We figured there wasn’t,” Pansy said, “but you know how the fellows are. They take bets on whether it’s going to rain, and that’s definitely not a sure thing around here.”

  Pepper sighed, realizing the futility of reasoning with her friends. “So, just a few more days until the ‘big fish.’”

  “We can’t wait,” Pansy said. “I declare, I’ve never had this much fun planning anything!”

  “We got fifty entries,” Helen said. “Fifty! Can you imagine fifty bachelors around here? The girls will go crazy.” She squinted through her black-rimmed spectacles at a sheet of paper. “Now, we have you scheduled for boat number four.”

  “Me?” Pepper put her cookie down. “I’m not entered.”

  “Of course you are, dear. We would never leave a daughter of Tulips out. Even if it were a debutante ball, we’d be sure to invite you as a chaperone.”

  “But I don’t want a man,” Pepper insisted. If she did, she’d be more inclined to look at the father of her children.

  But Helen shook her head. “It’s just good clean fun, not a marriage proposal. We’re trying to show off the town, not our females. Now, if a girl was to catch a man out on that lake, we certainly wouldn’t be unhappy about that. But we’re casting Tulips’ lures next weekend.”

  Pepper wasn’t certain. She didn’t trust these two sweet ladies not to try to set her up. Tulips or not, she didn’t want to be stuck all day in a boat with a groper, which she figured would be just her luck. “I’ll swim to shore,” she told them, just as the door opened and Luke walked in.

  “Swimming? Are we going swimming?” he asked, coming over to kiss Pansy and Helen on the cheek. “My boys are out there running after a dog,” he told Pepper, announcing to the whole world—or at least everyone in the room—that Toby and Josh were his children.

  “Pansy and Helen have put me in boat number four for next weekend’s Man Catch,” Pepper complained, and the ladies laughed.