Their Child?

by Christine Rimmer

  “Thanks,” he said dryly.

  “And we shouldn’t put it off. Not for even one more day.”

  “Why did I know that was coming?”

  “Tomorrow. It’s Saturday. You won’t have to rush off to the office. He’s not going over to Peter’s till the afternoon. We’ll tell him at breakfast. There’ll be plenty of time to talk.”

  Tucker turned his head again and looked at her over his shoulder. “All right. Tomorrow at breakfast.” His bleak expression said he’d rather do just about anything else—eat scorpions, maybe. Go skydiving without a parachute…

  “Tucker, it has to be done. And it will work out. Just watch.”

  The next morning, as planned, once they all three had their food and were seated at the table, Lori began explaining to her son that he had a father he didn’t know about.

  Before she actually got to the part about who that father was, her son set down his cereal spoon. “Wait a minute. I had another dad…before Dad?”

  From the chair opposite Lori at the round breakfast table, Tucker shot her a look, one that warned, Don’t blow this or there will be hell to pay.

  Lori gave her son’s father a wide smile. She was going for perky, for I-know-what-I’m-doing-here. But it didn’t come off. Either Tucker didn’t get the message or he simply didn’t buy it; his dark expression didn’t change.

  She turned Brody’s way again. Her son had not picked up his spoon. His wide brown eyes asked a thousand questions. She plowed ahead. “I guess maybe you don’t remember the time before Henry, when it was just you and me?”

  Brody frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you were very little. I started dating Henry when you were two and we got married when you were barely three. But before I married him, you and I had a talk about your, er, natural father…”

  Brody sat back in his chair. He was still frowning. “Mom. You just said I was hardly even three. I don’t remember much from when I was three.”

  “That’s fine. That’s okay. But the truth is, a long time before Henry, there was someone…special. Someone I really, um, loved, and one night he took me to a dance and, well, we made you.”

  “At the dance?”

  She blinked. “No. Later, actually.”

  “Oh.”

  “But where that happened isn’t the point.”

  “It’s not.”

  “No, the point is that we did make you. And then he had to go away and he never knew about you and I couldn’t find him to tell him about you and then I met Henry and—”

  “Mom.”

  “Um, yeah?”

  “You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s just…this is hard, you know?” She could not look at Tucker. She knew if she did, she would burst into tears.

  Oh, she’d been so sure she would know how to do this.

  Wrong.

  Brody’s frown deepened. “Are you saying that Dad wasn’t really my dad?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Wait!” Brody’s frown had vanished. He sat forward, shoulders curved to the table edge, chin jutting over his heaping bowl of Cheerios, suddenly eager, eyes alight. “I get it. It’s like Dustin. He has his first dad. And then his mom got married again and that’s his second dad, his stepdad. Two dads. So you’re saying I’m, like, a twodad kid?”

  Thank God for smart children. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  The bright eyes narrowed. “But then, what about my first dad?”

  And Tucker spoke at last, low and a little bit raggedly. “That would be me.”

  There was a silence the like of which Lori had never known. And then her son looked at Tucker sideways. “You, Tucker? You’re my first dad?”

  Tucker’s Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed. “That’s right. I’m your first dad.”

  Brody picked up his spoon. “Well.” He paused, considered—and finally asked, “Should I call you that, then? Dad?”

  Tucker wore the pained, stunned expression of a man in way over his head and not likely to be rising above adversity soon. “Uh. Call me Dad?”

  “Yeah. Should I?”

  “Do you want to?”

  More considering on Brody’s part. Then, “Yeah. I guess so. A dad should be called Dad. That’s what I think.”

  Tucker gulped again. “Then you should. You should call me Dad.”

  “Okay, Dad.” Brody nodded, a slow nod, as if, after careful reflection, he was certain that the right decision had been made. Then he shoveled up a big spoonful of cereal and stuck it in his mouth.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Telling him went pretty well, I thought,” Tucker said that afternoon. They sat at the edge of the pool in their swimsuits, with their feet in the water. Brody had already been dropped off at Peter’s house.

  Lori slid off the edge, kicking lazily, turning and bracing her forearms on the smooth tiles that rimmed the water. She rested her chin on her folded hands, felt her hair fan out and float around her. “I have to admit, though, it was touch-and-go there at the first.”

  He looked down at her, flashes of sunlight reflecting off the water’s surface, gleaming in his eyes. “You should have seen your face when he asked you if we made him at the prom.”

  “Ouch. Big oops on putting my foot right in that one.”

  “But you managed to slide on by it.”

  “Yes, I did.” She gave him her cockiest smile. “And aside from that—and a few other slightly rocky moments, it did go well. Which I said it would, if you remember…”

  “How could I forget, with you right here to rub it in?”

  She moved her elbow enough to nudge his bright orange board shorts—and the rock—hard thigh beneath them. “Just admit it. I know what I’m talking about.”

  He tipped his head to the side and looked at her through lazy-lidded eyes. “Maybe. Sometimes…”

  “Sometimes? Hah!” She pushed back off the edge with one hand—and then splashed him a good one with the other.

  “Hey!”

  “Not sometimes. Most times, and don’t you forget it—and there’s water dripping off your nose.”

  “That does it.”

  “Don’t even try it.” Laughing, she shoved off with both feet as he fell forward, diving from where he sat.

  She wasn’t fast enough. He shot to the surface beside her, put his big hand on her head and pushed. She shrieked—an ear-piercing sound, cut off by necessity as she sucked in a breath before going under.

  When she broke the surface, laughing and splashing, he grabbed for her. She shrieked some more and fanned up a hard blast of water to keep him at bay. It didn’t work. He caught her by the wrist.

  “Stop that. Let me go.”

  “Not a chance.” He dragged her to him, hooked an arm around her and headed for the shallow end.

  She found her feet. “Okay, okay. You win. Let me go.”

  “Uh-uh.” He hauled her close, wrapped both big, wet arms around her and lowered his tempting mouth to an inch above hers. “Kiss me.”

  She pushed at his chest—though not very hard. “I should kiss you…because?”

  His smile was slow and much too sexy. “Because you like it?”

  She stopped pretending to struggle and made a big show of thinking that one over. “Hmm. Well, there is that…”

  “Because your heart’s beating harder and your breath is caught in your throat?”

  “Now, how did you know that?”

  He took her right hand, guided it down so that her palm lay over his heart. “Easy. Feel that?” She did. Oh, she really, really did. He commanded again, “So kiss me.”

  She pressed her spread hands against his chest—just enough to keep their lips from meeting. “You know, anybody who looked out a back window could see us from the house.”

  “Brody’s not home. And anyone else is either one of the twins, too young to even be looking—or else old enough to know that they shoul
dn’t be looking.”

  “Well.” She licked her lips, on purpose, just to tease him. “I suppose an innocent little ol’ kiss wouldn’t hurt anyth—”

  His mouth swooped down before she could finish.

  Heaven. Absolute heaven. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the glory of that kiss—until his hand strayed up her back to the clasp of her suit top. Then she shoved him away.

  “Tucker Bravo. I am not going topless in the Double T swimming pool.”

  He caught her hand. “How about my bedroom? Will you go topless there?”

  She pulled free, put her index finger against her chin and made a prim face. “Hmm. Well, now, let me think about that…”

  He swore. Then he grabbed her hand again and forged for the steps that led out of the pool, hauling her along behind him.

  “Oh, my.” She faked innocence for all she was worth. “Where are you taking me?”

  He pulled her up the steps and out of the water. “Guess.”

  She didn’t need to guess. Laughing, dripping water as she went, she let him drag her where she wanted to go. Fargo, basking in the shade of a patio umbrella, scrambled to his feet and hurried after them.

  The lazy summer days went by. They were good days, Lori thought. Beautiful, happy days. Good days, followed by hot, sexy nights in Tucker’s bed.

  Brody stuck with his decision to call Tucker Dad. He slipped into his life as Tucker’s child with no apparent transition period, no slightest sign of anger or resentment, no shyness about it and a total lack of wariness.

  Tucker said he found that amazing.

  Lori wasn’t the least surprised. Her son had a true pragmatic streak. The father he’d known and loved was gone. It didn’t bother him at all to find he had a spare—a long-lost dad who was absolutely, stone-gone crazy about him. A fun dad who sometimes almost could beat him at Alien Aggression. A dad who hung on his every word and said right out loud that Fargo could be Brody’s now, too.

  And then there were the gifts. Now it was out in the open that Brody was Tucker’s, Tucker seemed determined to buy their son every video game, electronic gadget and overpriced toy known to man.

  “Tucker,” she told him when they were alone. “Brody doesn’t need a Playstation, an X-Box and the latest version of Nintendo.”

  “No, but he wants them.”

  “I’m saying that one game system will do.”

  He gave her one of those puzzled man-style frowns, the kind of frown that proves men truly are from another planet. “But there are some games you can only play on one system or the other.”

  “So? He doesn’t need every darn game there is.”

  “I thought I just told you. It’s not about need.”

  She suppressed a sigh and tried to come at it from another angle. “You know, it’s not always the best idea for a kid to get something just because he wants it. They start thinking they’re entitled. They grow up with no concept of working for what they want, of waiting for it.”

  “Well, I can relate to that. Who wants to wait? Not me. If possible, I want what I want and I want it now.” He reached for her.

  She stepped back—several steps, actually. “And sometimes you don’t get what you want.”

  He slanted her a dark look. “Is this about you and me?”

  She blew out a breath. “No. This is about our son. About the things it’s our duty to teach him—things like how things aren’t everything.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Wow. That was a mouthful.”

  “I just don’t believe you’re not following me on this. I don’t believe you can’t see that it’s not a good idea for a kid to have every toy or device he ever wanted just dropped in his lap.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  She cast a glance heavenward. “Thank you.”

  But he was already smiling his slow, sexy smile. “Give me a break-in period, will you? Let me go hogwild in a frenzy of outrageous and disgusting consumerism. Just for a while…”

  When he looked at her like that she lost the ability to say no to him. “Oh, all right. But think about cutting back a little, okay?”

  He put up a hand, like a witness swearing an oath. “I promise. Now get back over here and let me take off your clothes.”

  The next day, he had a three-thousand-dollar bicycle delivered to the house while he was at the office. Lori saw the price on the invoice the delivery man handed her. That bike had more gears than a semi truck.

  “I’m going riding, Mom. I’m going riding right now!”

  “Not on the highway,” she warned. The state highway ran by at the end of the long, curving driveway.

  Brody promised, “Just the driveway and the roads around the stables and stuff.”

  He put on the Day-Glo green and metallic-purple helmet that came with the bike, climbed on, and spent two hours racing out to and around the stables and up and down the driveway.

  Lori told herself that a bike—even a grossly overpriced one—was a definite improvement over yet another video game system. And at least Tucker had shown the good sense to throw in a helmet.

  Brody started soccer camp the second Monday in July. The camp went all day, five days a week for two weeks. After that, in the last week of July, they had the trip to Disneyland scheduled. Lori had fixed it so they could fly out of Dallas and Tucker had cleared his calendar. She’d bought him a ticket, too. Everything was arranged.

  Thursday, Brody’s fourth day at camp, Lori dropped him off in his soccer gear, with his ball and gallon-size insulated water bottle. Then she headed to Lena and Dirk’s house to see her sister. The honeymooners had arrived home a few days before.

  Lena was glowingly happy, with a golden tan. She fussed over Lori’s still-healing injury and dragged her around the house so she could get a look at the new drapes and the bathroom tile and fixtures—all installed under their mother’s conscientious supervision while Lena was away. Then they sat down in Lena’s sunny new kitchen for coffee.

  Lena chattered away about her honeymoon. “Boy, there is nothin’ like a tropical island to make a person feel romantic—those balmy breezes blowing, maybe a pretty pink drink or two…oh, my goodness. What a time we had.”

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  “And what about you and Tucker? You know, it’s all over town that you and Brody are staying with him.”

  In the Junction, folks talked. You had to expect that. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

  “Everybody’s wondering what’s going on with you and Tucker. I let ‘em wonder. I don’t say a word.”

  “How did I get so lucky to have such a terrific sister?”

  “That’s a question you should ask yourself often. And does Brody know yet that Tucker’s his dad?—aha! You’re still smiling. That would be a yes, wouldn’t it?” Lori nodded. Lena asked, “Brody take it okay?”

  “Yep. Everything’s going great.”

  “Everything?” Lena wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Well…”

  Lena let out a whoop of joy and pointed at Lori. “Look at that! That’s a blush if I ever saw one. So I’m right, huh? You and Tucker are in love.”

  In love…

  The two simple little words came out of her sister’s mouth—and Lori realized they were absolutely true. She’d gone beyond hoping things might somehow work out. Now she was certain: she loved Tucker Bravo. And she wanted a life with him.

  “So when’s the wedding?” Lena had the ball and she was headed for the end zone. “Oh, honey. It’s going to be so great. Mama and me will get right on it, because, really, it should be soon, don’t you think? After all, I mean, you two have a ten-year-old son. Your wedding is long overdue. I want to help you pick your colors—you will let me, now won’t you? You must admit, I always had an eye for color. And then, of course, you’ll be closing up that house in San Antonio and moving home forever at last. Oh, I am so excited, I can barely—”

  Lori stopped her with a laugh. “Whoa. Hold on. I think
maybe I ought to talk to Tucker about all this first.”

  Lena waved a hand. “Oh, well. I suppose so. But make it quick, will you? We’ve got a wedding to plan.”

  All that afternoon and into the evening, Lori planned how she would say the words that night when they were alone. They were only four little words: Tucker, I love you.

  It should be easy. Piece of cake. Like rolling off a log…

  Still, her palms got sweaty and her heart went knocking hard against her ribs whenever she imagined herself getting those simple words out.

  After dinner, Tucker and Brody went down to the game room for another extended session of zapping aliens, raiding sacred tombs and killing bad guys with digital six-guns in the video-game version of High Noon. Lori smiled to herself as they disappeared down the back stairs—and made a mental note to tell Tucker that his next gift to Brody should be a book, for crying out loud.

  And then she thought, I love you, Tucker, and her pulse set to pounding like drums in the jungle and her mouth felt dust-bowl dry.

  Wouldn’t you know Brody would choose that night to take one of his baths? It was his longest bath ever, or at least, it seemed that way to Lori. He sang every song the Beatles wrote, one after another, from “All My Loving” to “Let it Be.”

  By the time he finally emerged to say good-night, Lori had decided that she could live the whole rest of her life without hearing one more song by George, Paul, John or Ringo.

  “Love you, Mom.”

  “Good night. Love you, too.”

  “Night, Dad—don’t forget.”

  “I won’t. Good night.”

  Yawning, Brody wandered back to his bedroom and shut the door.

  Lori turned to Tucker. “Forget what?”

  Tucker put a finger to his lips, took her hand and led her down the stairs. By the time they got to his bedroom, she really didn’t care what it was Brody didn’t want Tucker to forget.

  She was too busy realizing that this was it; time to tell him what was in her heart.

  They undressed and got into bed and Tucker pulled her close, spoon-fashion, her back to his warm, broad chest, his thighs cradling hers. Heaven, she thought, as she did so often lately where this man was concerned. He ran a lazy finger down the length of her arm, and then twined his fingers with hers.