Unexpected Son

by Marisa Carroll

  “Brick? Is something wrong?” All kinds of thoughts crowded through Sarah’s mind. Had there been an accident? Was one of her flock hurt, or dying? Was it one of the children?

  “I need to talk to Kenton,” Brick said, looking past her. “I know he’s here.”

  Sarah was aware of Michael’s presence at her back, his solid strength, the warmth of his body. The man she loved. The man she was going to marry. “Yes, he’s here,” she said, stepping aside. “Come in. It’s too cold to stand in the doorway talking.”

  “Edward Wocheck and Jeff Baron are with me,” Brick said, moving away from the door.

  Sarah heard Michael’s sudden, sharp intake of breath. She took a step backward, brushed against him and felt the tension radiating through him like live current. Brick’s broad shoulders had been blocking her view of the porch. She hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone. “Edward Wocheck? Jeff? I don’t understand.”

  “This won’t take long, Sarah,” Brick said. “We’ll all be more comfortable inside.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Feeling more confused than ever, she opened the door wider and motioned for him to enter. “Please, come in. All of you.”

  “Kenton. I have some questions I’d like answered.” Brick took off his hat, held it between his hands. His voice was carefully neutral. So was his expression. Sarah gave up trying to read his purpose from the look on his face and turned her attention to the other two men. Edward Wocheck’s expression was even more noncommittal than Brick’s, but Jeff Baron’s emotions were less well schooled. He looked as confused and off balance as she was. A cold chill slithered up and down her spine. What was going on? Why were they here?

  “Do I need a lawyer, Bauer?”

  “It’s nothing official, Kenton. You don’t need an attorney.”

  Michael let his gaze shift to Edward and Jeff. “I’m not so sure.”

  Something in his voice made the short hairs at the back of Sarah’s neck stand on end. “Brick, what is going on?”

  “The investigator from the state fire marshal’s office was here earlier today,” Brick said, dropping his eyes to her face.

  “So soon?” Somehow, she had imagined it would take days or weeks to discover the cause of the fire.

  “They don’t waste any time, Sarah. The fire at the F and M was definitely not an accident. We won’t have a full report for a couple of weeks, but he suspects it was arson.”

  “Arson? But who? Why?” She turned to Edward Wocheck, as though he might have an explanation.

  His tone was surprisingly gentle. “We don’t know, Sarah. The only clue anyone has is that Will Benson saw someone running away from the building.”

  “But surely—”

  Michael stepped forward before she could say any more. “Are you implying it was me?”

  “No one’s saying anything like that.” Brick’s voice was steel. “But Edward has brought me some interesting information about you that puts a whole new slant on things. I’d just like to know where you were yesterday afternoon and last night.”

  “Here,” Michael said shortly.

  “Here with Reverend Sarah?”

  “No, damn it. Here on the property.”

  “Michael?”

  “Not now, Sarah.” The look he gave her was so charged that she closed her mouth automatically. There was more going on here than she understood, currents below the surface that were strong and dangerous. Michael turned to Edward Wocheck. “Does Alyssa know?” he asked the older man.

  “Not yet. I just found out myself, late this afternoon.”

  “How long have you suspected?”

  “Long enough to have my stepson, Devon, look into your background.”

  “Michael.” Sarah fought down the twinges of fear that tugged at her heart. “Explain this to me.”

  “Kenton hasn’t been totally honest with us about his past,” Brick said. “In light of that, I think it would be a good idea if he could come up with an alibi for yesterday. And last night.”

  “He was with me.” Sarah couldn’t let this go on.

  “All day and all night, Reverend Sarah?” Brick’s question was innocuous, but the implication was clear.

  Her face flamed. She tried to think back over the long, eventful day. Had they been together every moment? Yes, Except for the hours between worship and when she had picked him up at Timberlake Lodge. “Almost all of the time.” She sounded defensive, a little desperate, even to herself.

  “We were together during the day,” Michael said bluntly, before she could explain further. “We weren’t together when the fire started, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t have an alibi.”

  Brick looked at her, but she was watching Michael’s dark, set face. He was lying and she didn’t know why.

  “Then I’m going to advise you not to leave town, Kenton, until this matter is cleared up.”

  “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

  “I’m saying, in light of your past record and the fact that you’re Ronald Baron’s illegitimate son, it’ll look real suspicious if you leave Tyler.”

  Sarah felt as if the floor had dropped out from under her. Ronald Baron’s illegitimate son. She put her hand out blindly and curled her fingers around the back of a chair, holding on for dear life. Michael, why didn’t you tell me?

  “What the hell kind of scam are you trying to pull?” It was the first time Jeff Baron had spoken since he’d entered her house. His face was contorted with anger, disbelief and sorrow. He looked like a man betrayed.

  “It’s no scam. Ronald Baron was my father, too.”

  “I don’t believe you. My father was a good man. He wouldn’t have betrayed my mother that way.”

  “Maybe he was a good man. I don’t know. I never met him. All I know is that his name is on my birth certificate.” Michael’s hands curled into fists at his sides, but he didn’t say anything more. Sarah made herself look at the two men, really look at them. The physical resemblance was slight. They were about the same height and build. They shared the same proud nose and jaw, and eyes so dark a blue they were nearly black. Superficial traits only, but there was something more—something in their stance, in the way they held themselves, in the way they spoke and responded—that convinced Sarah that Michael spoke the truth. Michael Kenton and Jeff Baron were, indeed, brothers.

  “I have proof, Jeff,” Edward said patiently, as though it was not the first time he’d repeated those words. “Ronald Baron was this man’s father. How long have you known, Kenton?”

  “Four or five years.” Michael spoke as though the information meant nothing to him, but the tenseness in his neck and shoulders belied the careless pose.

  “Who was your mother?” Jeff demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  “Her name was Ellen Kenton. She was from Milwaukee. You don’t have to worry. No one from Tyler knew who she was.”

  “And it better stay that way.” Jeff took a step forward. “I don’t know what your sordid little story is and I don’t want to hear it. I won’t have my mother and my sisters upset by this.”

  “Jeff.” Edward Wocheck put a hand on his son-in-law’s arm. “Alyssa has to be told.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, she does. But I’ll do it. Like Jeff said, Kenton, I don’t want my wife or her daughters upset. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” Michael responded, his face wiped clean of emotion. “I understand.”

  “I know you have tools and equipment still in the old Ingalls barn. I’d appreciate it if you’d get them out of there as soon as possible.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal everything else that isn’t nailed down?”

  “Don’t push me,” Edward warned.

  Jeff leaned forward fr
om the hips, shoulders braced, hands knotted into fists. “Listen to him, Kenton. That goes double for me.” The threat was unmistakable. Sarah had never seen Jeff Baron so upset. She had always considered him her friend, but now he looked and sounded like a stranger.

  “Let’s go, Jeff.” Edward took Jeff by the arm and steered him out the door. “I’m sorry this had to happen in your house, Sarah,” he said as they left.

  “Don’t leave town, Kenton,” Brick reminded Michael, as he, too, took his leave. He touched his finger to the brim of his hat. “Good night, Reverend Sarah.”

  She nodded automatically and shut the door in his face. She leaned her head against the cold wood, her mind a whirlpool of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

  Michael had been keeping his identity from her all this time. Even though he’d told her he loved her, wanted to marry her and spend his life with her, he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her who he was. He didn’t trust her. That was what hurt most of all.

  “Sarah.”

  She resisted turning around. She didn’t want to look at Michael, didn’t want to see the stranger that he’d become reflected on his face, in his eyes. “Why didn’t you let me tell Brick we were together all of last night?”

  “Cops only hear what they want to hear.”

  “That’s no answer, Michael.”

  “Sarah. For God’s sake, turn around.” She felt him step closer, but he didn’t touch her. Sarah gathered her resolve and turned to face him. It was even harder than she’d imagined. He wasn’t a stranger. He was Michael, but ringed with emotional barricades, the way he’d been when he first came into her life. Sarah sucked in her lower lip and bit back a sob. There was a tremendous pain in her chest, as though her heart had cracked completely in two.

  “Brick would believe me.”

  “Maybe,” Michael said. He lifted his hand as though to touch her hair, then dropped it to his side. “But the rest of the town would have a field day with the news. Reverend Sarah is shacking up with the ex-con, hired help—the prime suspect in the biggest fire around these parts in a hundred years.”

  “No. Tyler isn’t like that.”

  “Every place is like that, Sarah.” There was a hint of sorrow in his voice, or was she only imagining it? Sarah hardened her aching heart. She didn’t know this man well enough to read the nuances in his speech or body language. Hadn’t he just proved that? “And if they didn’t condemn you, they’d pity you. Poor Reverend Sarah, taken in by that crook, that bastard—”

  “Stop it! My friends aren’t like that.”

  “Yeah, prove it.”

  “I can’t prove it.” She was angry now. It felt good. Better than the pain. She refused to see the same pain flare briefly in his blue-black eyes. “I don’t have to prove it. I believe it.”

  “And I can’t believe it. That’s our problem, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, suddenly unable to trust her voice. “Yes,” she said simply. “I’m sorry, Michael. I can’t marry you.”

  He jerked backward, as if she’d struck him a blow. “You said you love me.”

  The tears were very close to the surface now. “I do love you.”

  “But you can’t marry me. Why, Sarah?” He reached out, took her by the shoulders so that she had to face him, couldn’t look away. She closed her eyes for a long moment, then raised her gaze to his.

  “It’s not about love or sex or lies and half truths. It’s much more simple than that. And more important. You don’t trust me, Michael.”

  “Trust you?” He gave her a little shake. “What does that mean?”

  She reached up and put her hands on his chest. His heart was beating like a drum. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Ronald Baron’s son? Why didn’t you tell me you came here looking for your father? For your roots?” His eyes flickered away from hers, and when he looked back they were dark mirrors, hiding everything he felt behind them. He didn’t speak, and his silence was more condemning than words. “You didn’t tell me because you don’t trust me. Love is a very fragile emotion, Michael. Trust and honor are what you must surround love with so it can flourish and grow strong and lasting. Without—”

  “Sarah, don’t.”

  She shook her head. “Without trust there’s nothing, Michael. Nothing that will last.”

  She thought for a moment he would erupt in anger but he only shook his head and tightened his grip on her shoulders. “I wouldn’t know, Sarah. You see, you’re the first woman I’ve ever loved.”

  She had thought the pain had been bad before. Now it was devastating, breathtaking. “I’m sorry, Michael. I can’t change the way I feel.”

  “Then it’s over? Just like that?”

  She nodded. “If you can’t understand what I’m trying to say then it’s over. It has to be, for both our sakes.”

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders. Sarah stumbled backward a step, came up against the back of the couch and leaned against it for support.

  “Okay. It’s over. I’ll clear my stuff out of the garage in the morning.”

  He didn’t fight, didn’t argue so that she could argue back, get him to open up to her as he had that morning in her bed. He had slammed shut the cell doors of his own emotional prison and locked her outside. And he couldn’t help her, she had no way to find the key.

  She opened her mouth to tell him he didn’t have to go, but shut it again. He couldn’t stay here; they both knew that. She meant every word she had just said with all her heart and soul. But she still loved him, and possibly always would. And having him so close would only bring them both further heartache and sorrow.

  “Yes,” she said, unable to meet his eyes again, her gaze focused on the pulse beating above the collar of his shirt. “I think it’s best if you go.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ALYSSA WONDERED IF Michael Kenton thought he could escape this meeting by coming to take his tools from the barn long before the sun had risen. She had watched for him each morning since Edward had told her who he was. She had checked the barn each evening, when she returned from her temporary office next to Amanda’s, to see if he had been there to remove his things during the day. This frosty morning her vigilance had paid off.

  He was avoiding her, of course. And if the truth were told, she was just as reluctant to face him. But Judson and Tisha had arrived home late the night before, and now she had no other choice but to confront the man who was Ronald Baron’s son.

  Her father would have to be told who Michael Kenton was—soon, before the word spread around town. And the knowledge would spread. No matter how much she and her family wanted it to be kept secret, his connection to her dead first husband would soon be the talk of Tyler. It was the way things were in small towns, something you accepted if you lived in one. If she put it off, it would only make things worse.

  Alyssa turned the collar of her fleece coat up around her ears and pushed open the door. One small light bulb burned above the old workbench. Michael Kenton was carefully placing tools in a red metal toolbox, intent on what he was doing, oblivious of her presence until the creaking of the door hinges gave her away.

  Belatedly, Alyssa realized she had hoped she would have a few more moments to study this young man who had now become important in her life. Not because she suspected him of being involved in the fire at the F and M; she trusted her instincts, and she did not believe he was guilty of that crime, regardless of what she had been told of his background. Important, rather, because Ronald Baron, the man she had married and spent twenty years of her life with, had fathered him. And she had never suspected his existence.

  Michael straightened as he realized who she was. Alyssa sucked in her breath. With his face in shadow and only his profile visible, he had the look of his father. Ronald had been a handsome man, and Michael had the same set to his jaw, the jut of his nose,
characteristics that he shared with her son, Jeff. His brother.

  Alyssa lifted her hand to her throat, feeling a swift, sharp pain of loss and disillusionment that she had thought she’d put behind her fifteen years before when Ronald died. Her husband had deceived her and betrayed their marriage vows, just as she had so long suspected, and this man standing before her was the proof.

  “Mrs. Wocheck, don’t be alarmed. I’m just packing up my things.” His face was still in shadow, his voice level, but the tautness of his neck and shoulders betrayed something of the strain he must be under.

  “I can see that. And I’m not in the least alarmed to find you here.”

  He nodded curtly and returned to his task. “Thanks. I’ll finish cleaning up the mess right away. I was going to work on Liza’s T-bird in here or I’d have cleaned it up before this.”

  “Aren’t you still going to work on Liza’s car?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, but not here.” He dropped a wrench into the toolbox. The clatter was loud in the silent barn. “I’ll be gone in half an hour.”

  “Take your time.” She moved closer, wishing she could see his face, study his features with a new, more-discerning eye.

  “Sweeping the floor is going to stir up a lot of dust,” he observed.

  Alyssa smiled; she couldn’t help herself. It was much the same thing Jeff would have said if he wanted her to leave. “I’m not going to be turned away so easily. We have to talk, Michael.”

  Another wrench joined its fellows in the box. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to be alone with the man who’s the prime suspect in burning down your business.”

  “You’re not a suspect, that I know of.”

  His reply was a snort of disgusted laughter. “I stand corrected. The way Brick Bauer has his men keeping an eye on me, you’ll have to forgive me if I think otherwise.”