Michael was aware that Timberlake had originally belonged to the Ingalls family. That Edward Wocheck, Tyler’s hometown boy made good, had bought it and enlarged it into what it was today. It was a beautiful place, big and sprawling. The wings that Addison International had added to the building were so well integrated that, for a stranger like him, it was impossible to tell what was old and what was new.
A stranger like him.
Was he really a stranger to this place? Was there something of it in his blood?
Restless, he rose from the chair and stood before one of the big glass windows that looked out over the lake. He knew that somewhere in this building Margaret Ingalls had died, and that somewhere on the landscaped grounds, her body had been buried for over forty years. Maybe he had more in common with the Ingallses and the Barons than he had first thought. At least he had more in common with Alyssa Ingalls Baron Wocheck. Like him, she’d grown up without a mother. She knew how it felt to be abandoned by the one person you should be able to count on above all others. But at least she had had her father to love and care for her. He’d been denied even that....
Disgusted with the maudlin turn of his thoughts, Michael spun away from the window to come face-to-face with Edward Wocheck.
“Good morning, Kenton,” the older man said, holding out his hand.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Call me Edward.” His grip was firm and strong, his gaze direct.
“Thank you, Edward.”
“So you’ve got the Bentley up and running.”
“Like a top.”
“Good. Devon should be right... There he is. Devon, over here. I’d like you to meet Michael Kenton. This is my stepson, Devon Addison. The Bentley is his.”
“I don’t know if I should thank you or not,” Devon said, holding out his hand. He looked four or five years older than Michael, blond and tanned. His grip was strong and steady, his smile genuine. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, and except for the solid gold watch on his arm and the confidence only money and breeding could bring to a man his age, he didn’t look or act like the head of a multimillion-dollar business conglomerate.
“It’s a beautiful machine.”
“An anachronism, and temperamental as hell, but it was my grandfather Addison’s first car, and my mother wants me to have it for sentimental reasons. Beats me why, though. The old robber baron didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. Neither does my mother.”
Michael held out the keys. “I enjoyed working on it.” He was anxious to get this over with. Sarah would be arriving any minute. For a fleeting moment he felt like tossing the keys in Addison’s direction and turning tail. He didn’t want Sarah seeing him with these self-assured, successful men. He didn’t want her comparing him to them and finding him wanting.
“Let’s take a look at her,” Devon was saying. “Jeff, come here. We’re going check out the Bentley.”
“Jeff, have you met Michael Kenton?” Edward asked.
“No. I don’t believe I have.”
Michael’s breath stuck in his throat. It was the first time he’d come face-to-face with this man. His brother.
“Michael Kenton, this is Alyssa’s son, Dr. Jeff Baron. I think you’ve met his daughters, Annie and Belle?”
“Great kids.” It was all Michael could manage to get past the lump in his throat as he returned Jeff Baron’s greeting.
“We think so,” Jeff said with a grin.
They didn’t look alike, not really. They were about the same height and probably the same weight, Michael guessed. Jeff’s hair was lighter, with a definite auburn cast, while his only looked that way in certain lights. Michael favored his mother and grandmother, people had always said, so he guessed now that there wasn’t much of his Baron heritage that showed on the surface. To look at him and Jeff together, you wouldn’t know they shared the same father. Except for their eyes. Jeff’s, like his own, were a dark, deep blue, and in this light they looked almost black.
Michael continued to look into his half brother’s face. What was different about Jeff Baron? Why had their father, Ronald, chosen him and his sisters over Michael? What kind of man could he have been to have seduced a young girl and then abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant? Yet he’d been the kind of father to Jeff that would prompt him to name a clinic—a clinic he had fought to keep up and running for more than five years—after him.
Jeff Baron was saying something. “I’m sorry? I didn’t hear you,” Michael said, dropping the other man’s hand.
Jeff smiled. Michael wondered if it was their father’s smile. “I said, did you have any trouble getting parts for that relic?”
They were already moving toward the big double doors leading to the long porch that fronted the hotel. Michael had no choice but to follow them when Devon Addison held open the door. “Surprisingly, apart from one or two minor repairs, she mainly needed a good tune-up. But there’s an excellent source for antique and foreign car parts in Milwaukee. I—” He’d been about to say he’d used them in his business before, but he stopped himself short. The supplier would remember him, all right. The world of classic cars was a small one. Anyone who’d been accused and convicted of destroying not only a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, but a 1930 Duesenberg, as well, wouldn’t be forgotten. Not for a lifetime.
“The Bentley has drawn a crowd,” Devon remarked. “I wonder if it would be worth the expense to bring the rest of Grandfather’s cars over here.”
“There are more like this?” Jeff asked, spreading his hands to frame the big green car.
“Six or eight. Grandfather collected cars. There’s a Daimler and a Bugatti, I remember. A Jaguar and a sweet old Caddy. And of course, the Rolls. I suppose they’ll have to be sold, or donated to some museum somewhere.”
Michael had left the car parked on the circular drive that fronted the hotel, and now one or two of the guests were giving it the once-over. As Michael handed Devon Addison the keys, a couple approached from a path that led down to the lake. The woman carried an umbrella, but the man was bareheaded, the collar of his raincoat turned up around his ears.
“Amanda. Ethan.” Jeff Baron lifted his hand and waved. “Didn’t expect to see you out here this morning.” The guests who had been examining the car wandered away, preferring the warmth and comfort of the hotel to the cold, raw, December day.
“We’re having brunch with Liza and Cliff,” the man said, nodding to Michael, the only stranger. “Devon, good to see you,” he said, offering his hand.
“Good to be back in Tyler, Ethan.”
Edward Wocheck made the introductions. “Michael Kenton, this is my stepdaughter Amanda and her husband Ethan Trask. Amanda is Jeff’s sister. This is Michael Kenton. He’s been working on the Bentley.”
The man shook hands, but Michael hardly noticed his face. Amanda, his sister. He hadn’t expected to meet her and Jeff both like this, at the same time. He’d thought he could pick the time and place, if he ever wanted it to happen, the way it had been with Liza at her house that day.
“Nice meeting you,” he croaked.
“We’ve heard a lot about you from Mom,” Amanda said, smiling. “She’s very pleased with your work around the house.” She had the same auburn hair and straight white teeth that Jeff had. It was obvious she’d never wanted for anything in her life, never known the humiliation of standing in line for food or rent money.
“And the girls think he’s great,” Jeff added, pulling his head out of the open window of the Bentley, where he’d been studying the dashboard. “Let’s take this thing for a spin. Want to join us, Michael?”
From the corner of his eye he saw Sarah’s small, red car turn into the driveway.
“No, thanks.” His hands were shaking so hard he had to stick them in the pockets of his pants to hide the trembling. “Here’s my r
ide.”
“Your ride?” Amanda Trask followed the direction of his gaze. “Oh, it’s Sarah Fleming.” She looked back at him again, and even though her expression was still pleasant, the smile still in place, Michael couldn’t help but recall that she was a lawyer and trained to see beneath the surface. How many other people in Tyler were beginning to speculate about his relationship with the woman preacher?
“You don’t have to rush off,” Devon said, but there was something in his voice that gave Michael pause, the slightest flicker in the glance he sent in his stepfather’s direction. You learned to listen for undertones and nuances in another’s speech in the joint, just as you watched body language, in case—just in case.
“Yes, join us for brunch,” Jeff said. “Mom and Phil are probably already in the dining room. Cece and the girls should be here any minute.”
“No,” Michael said. He could feel sweat break out under his arms and in the small of his back. “Sarah and I have plans. Thanks, anyway. Good to meet all of you.” He had to force himself to walk, not run toward the sanctuary of Sarah’s car.
She had her hand on the key, ready to turn off the engine, when he jerked open the door and climbed into the seat beside her. “Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry it took so long. The phone rang just as I was going out the door.”
He put his hand over hers on the steering column. “Don’t stop the car. I—” he shook his head in disgust “—I’m doing it to you again.”
“Doing what?”
“Reneging on my invitation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I gotta get out of here.”
“All right.” She glanced at the group gathered around the Bentley, then at him. He leaned his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. He couldn’t look her in the eye. She saw too much, too clearly.
Sarah put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space she’d just pulled into. “Want to tell me about it?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to tell. I just don’t belong in a place like Timberlake. I should have thought of that before I asked you out here.” He didn’t belong with people like Devon Addison and the Barons.
“Bull—feathers,” Sarah said. He opened his eyes. She was looking in the rearview mirror. “What happened? Did they say something about your being in prison? I—I find that hard to believe. I’ve never known Alyssa Wocheck’s family to be unkind, or judgmental.”
“It’s nothing,” he lied. What would she say if he told her the truth? That he was the illegitimate son of the sainted Ronald Baron and a naive seventeen-year-old baby-sitter from Milwaukee Ronald had seduced by the lake one summer day thirty years ago? That Michael had panicked back there when he thought about saying the words aloud in front of his half brother and sister?
“I don’t think you’re telling the truth,” she replied, as though she could read his mind. She reached out and covered his hand with hers. “Please, Michael. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what I can do to help.”
“Sarah, don’t. Not yet. I...haven’t worked it all out in my own mind yet.” At least that much was the truth. He didn’t know what the hell to do next.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked, as she stopped outside the gates of Timberlake, waiting for his reply before heading the car back into town.
Home. Funny but he was beginning to think of that cold, dreary apartment as home.
“No.” The word came out too loud and too harsh. “No. Not yet.”
“Then where do you want to go?” Her voice was soft but strained. She was biting her lower lip, the way she did when she was nervous. God, what a jackass he was, treating her this way. He looked over at her and longed to reach out and smooth his hand across her silken hair. She was like the calm center at the eye of the storm that raged inside him.
“Anywhere,” he said simply. “As long as it’s with you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SARAH RESTED HER head against the car seat. The short, December twilight had long ago faded away. It was dark here under the trees at the side of the road, intensifying the silence of a country night beyond the window. It was very late. They should have been home hours ago, but Sarah made no move to suggest they leave this deserted spot. She was very conscious of the man beside her in the driver’s seat. She turned her head and studied him as he looked down on Tyler. The moon was a bright silver sliver in the night sky just above the horizon. It gave little light, and Michael’s face was in shadow. All she could see of him was his profile and his strong, brown hands resting on the steering wheel. The same strong, brown hands that had held her when he kissed her and that she longed to feel touching her again.
Abruptly, Sarah turned her head. That kind of thoughts would only bring her further pain. Michael Kenton enjoyed her company. He would enjoy her body if she gave herself to him, but that was all. Perhaps it was all he was capable of. She blinked back the threat of tears.
Below them, Tyler was spread out against the mirrored brightness of the frozen lake. From this vantage point, the colored lights strung across Main Street and festooning the trees in the square twinkled like fairy stars.
“I’m sorry we missed the tree-lighting ceremony.” Michael’s voice was gruff in the darkness.
“It’s all right. I’m sure no one missed us.” She would have liked to be there when the hundreds of strings of lights on the big evergreen had been turned on, but she had wanted even more to be with Michael.
They had spent the day in Madison, one of Sarah’s favorite places. She liked the combination of small-town charm and academic sophistication. The drizzle of the morning had turned into a light, fluffy snow just after noon. They had strolled the paths along the edge of Lake Mendota, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, where Sarah had taken some courses in family-and teen-counseling the summer before. It was a beautiful place, quiet and serene on this snowy Sunday. The rest of the day they had whiled away doing a little early Christmas shopping and sharing a huge pizza at a noisy family restaurant near the campus.
Michael hadn’t referred to what had happened at Timberlake to upset him so, and Sarah had not pressed him. A good counselor never pushed too hard for disclosure. People had to learn to trust before they could share the pain in their life and in their heart, and Michael Kenton had never learned such trust.
“What happens at the tree-lightning ceremony?” Michael asked, his voice warming her with its roughness.
This was a much safer path than the one her thoughts had been following. Sarah answered eagerly. “When it gets dark, the community band plays Christmas carols. There’s hot chocolate and popcorn. Santa and Mrs. Santa arrive in a sleigh, if there’s snow, and on a fire engine if there isn’t. Santa always throws the switch on the big tree. That’s the signal that in Tyler, at least, the Christmas season has officially begun.” She leaned forward a little, her hands clasped, as she recalled the excitement of the youngest members of the crowd when that long-awaited moment arrived. “And in keeping with the true Christmas spirit, there are donation areas for all kinds of worthy charities. There’s a food-donation barrel for the weekly free dinners that each church in town sponsors for the needy during the winter. There’s a booth to donate good used or new coats for children whose parents can’t afford them. There’s a Toys for Tots drop-off staffed by local members of the Marine Corps Reserve. And of course we start canvassing for donations for the bazaar at TylerTots. That’s our major fund-raising event of the year—”
Michael reached out and laid his hand over hers. “Slow down, Sarah,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re starting to hyperventilate.”
She made herself relax against the seat, grateful he couldn’t see her blush. What an innocent she must seem to him, getting so excited about a small-town tree-lighting ceremony. But she loved living in Tyler. It was here she’d discovered the sense of com
munity, of belonging, that she’d longed for as a child—a foundation of stability she’d always found lacking in her parents’ vagabond and ascetic life-style. It was home.
“I get carried away with Christmas. I always have.”
“Yeah, Christmas.”
Something in his voice alerted her. She turned toward him. “I’m sorry. I forget, sometimes, that other people have Christmas memories that aren’t as happy as mine.”
“I have happy memories,” he said, still not quite convincingly.
“Just not enough of them?”
He shifted restlessly in his seat. “Yeah, Reverend Sarah. Just not quite enough of them.”
“I’m sorry, Michael. I can’t seem to stop myself. Trying to help, I mean,” she said, feeling unsure of herself, as she so often did in his company, but determined to learn all there was to know about him. “It’s what I do.”
He pulled her into his arms, cursing the steering wheel and the size of her car under his breath. “I know it’s what you do, Sarah. And you’re good at it. Too damn good. You make me want to say things I’m not ready to talk about.” He lifted his hand and smoothed her hair away from her face. The timbre of his voice changed, becoming low and arousing, flowing across her skin like warm honey. “You make me want to do things that you’ve never dreamed about.”
Sarah didn’t stop to think about the consequences. She had loved and lost. She knew how fragile and how precious that feeling could be. The pain of Eric’s death had been devastating, but loneliness and the fear of taking a chance on love again were more devastating still. “You’d be surprised what I dream about, Michael Kenton,” she said, and lifted her face for his kiss. For a moment he hesitated, then covered her mouth with his. Sarah pushed against him, heedless of the steering wheel digging into her side. The doubts that had assailed her Thanksgiving day were purged by desire. She wanted only to be close to him, as close as two humans could possibly be. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let the kiss go on and on, feeling the heat of their passion spreading through her veins to ignite the very center of her being.
Unexpected Son Page 10