A Father's Promise

by Marcia Evanick

Sydney gave Ellis a sideways look and waited for him to step into the conversation. Her part in the meeting was done, she had supplied the introductions. The next step was up to him.

  He supposed Vivian and Norma were right. Arthur Graystone could be classed as a handsome man, even at his age, which Ellis had approximated to be around fifty-eight. He was in excellent shape and though his hair was mostly gray now, Ellis could tell it had been blond in his youth. The same color as his own.

  "Do you remember a young woman named Catherine Carlisle?" He was struggling not to come right out and demand if Arthur was his father. For Trevor's sake he would control both his temper and his words. Arthur started to shake his head and Ellis quickly added, "You would have to go back about thirty-three years, and she was only in high school at the time." If Arthur refused to acknowledge that he even knew his mother, he honestly didn't know what he would do. Deck the older man was his top choice.

  "Catherine Carlisle?"

  "She went by Cathy. Her father was the minister at the Methodist church in town. You were a deacon there at the time." He was willing to supply as much information required to help Arthur's memory kick in.

  "Oh, yes, the Carlisles. I remember them now. Mr. Carlisle was a fire-and-brimstone type of preacher. Mrs. Carlisle played the organ."

  "What about Cathy, their daughter?"

  "Sorry, don't remember much about Cathy. She was quiet and shy. The wallflower type if I'm not mistaken."

  He was on his feet and approaching the desk before he could stop himself. Only the soft pressure of Sydney's hand on his arm stopped him from climbing over the desk and throttling the man. He sucked in a deep breath and slowly released it through his nose before quietly asking, "Do you always have affairs with the wallflower type, Mr. Graystone?"

  Arthur stood up, but his gaze never went higher than the second button on Ellis's shirt. "I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Carlisle. But I do know that I don't appreciate the insinuation."

  "Did you or did you not have an affair with Catherine Carlisle thirty-three years ago that resulted in a child?"

  "No, I did not."

  He knew Arthur was lying, but his hands were tied. The only way he could force the truth out of the mayor was to beat it out of him. He couldn't do that because that would kill all chances of Arthur agreeing to be tested. He had to try a different tactic. Arthur Graystone wasn't as cool and calm as he wanted them to believe. "I'm Catherine's son. The man she had an affair with, while she was still in high school, is my father."

  Arthur's hands trembled violently against the desk. "I'm not that man."

  He felt his frustration level topple over the edge. Trevor's miracle was dissolving before his very eyes and there was nothing he could do. If Arthur Graystone was that coldhearted not to admit to being his father, the man would never agree to be tested. "Catherine Carlisle was a good, honest woman who had to struggle daily to raise me on her own. She gave me everything I could possibly need, especially her love, until the day she died." He glared in disgust at the man hiding behind the width of his desk. "I hope to hell you are right. You aren't man enough to be connected in any way to my mother."

  He had to get out of there before he did something incredibly stupid. "Let's go, Sydney. It takes a spine to admit to a past mistake. Your illustrious mayor happens not to have one." He turned and headed for the door.

  Sydney's heart was breaking for Ellis and his son. There had to be a way to reach Arthur. She had been silently studying the two men and she could see the resemblance, even if they couldn't. Both Ellis and Arthur held themselves in a certain way, the color of their hair was the same, even though Arthur was now mostly gray, and the squareness of their jaws was identical. They had the look of a father and a son.

  She had vaguely known Arthur since she had been ten years old, but she had learned that he was basically a very unhappy man—in his life and in his marriage. He and Sophie turned out for all the right social occasions, but they were otherwise never together. The rumor about town had been that Sophie was unable to have children, so they'd remained childless. She had seen Arthur's envious glances at young families over the years and had always wondered why they had never adopted. Arthur seemed more resolved now with his life, but maybe it was all a front. Maybe Trevor, not Ellis, was the key to breaking Arthur's silence.

  She knew Ellis didn't want Trevor's illness mentioned as the main reason that he was now searching for his father. But she had to try. Instead of following Ellis to the door, she approached the desk.

  Arthur looked up and met her gaze.

  She wasn't startled to discover that Ellis had Arthur's eyes. They were the same shade of steel gray. She knew Ellis had stopped by the door and was waiting for her. She prayed he would forgive her. "Arthur, you have a five-year-old grandson named Trevor."

  Arthur flinched, gripped the desk harder but didn't say a word.

  "Trevor is critically ill. He's dying of leukemia." She narrowed her gaze and willed Arthur to respond in some way. "His best and probably only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant. It needs to be done now, while he's in remission. Being Trevor's natural grandfather there is a chance, a very slim chance, that you could match his bone marrow and become his donor." She leaned closer and hammered in her point. "You can save your grandson's life, Arthur."

  Arthur paled considerably, but remained silent.

  Ellis stepped next to Sydney. "It's not for me, Graystone. I'm begging you for my son's life, your only grandchild's life."

  She reached out and held Ellis's hand. The room was swimming because of her tears but she could see Arthur fighting his emotions. She silently prayed.

  "Name your price, Graystone. You married Sophie for her money and everything it could buy you. I'll double it all!" Ellis thrust his fingers through his hair as his voice broke. "He's my son, Graystone, and you're my last hope. Name your price!"

  Arthur's gaze studied the top of his desk. He didn't raise his head or speak a word.

  Ellis couldn't stand it a moment longer. He had to get out of the room before he rearranged every feature on Arthur's face. "Let's go, Sydney. I've got to get out of here."

  She watched Ellis storm to the door and open it. She started to follow only to freeze in her tracks when Arthur softly said, "I'll take the test."

  Ellis didn't turn around. His knuckles turned white as they gripped the doorjamb. "Name your price."

  "It's steep. I don't know if you'll be willing to pay it." Arthur's voice trembled.

  "Name it!" Ellis's voice was more of a growl than a demand.

  "Forgiveness for the past." Arthur slowly lowered himself into the chair behind the desk.

  Ellis turned around and stared at him. Sydney couldn't read Ellis's expression. His face was a cold stark mask. It matched his voice. "Forgiveness?"

  Arthur met Ellis's gaze. "I had an affair with Catherine Carlisle thirty-three years ago. I wasn't proud of that fact then, nor am I now. Cathy was forbidden fruit and just like Adam I couldn't resist the temptation."

  Sydney watched as Ellis stepped back into the room. "Your mother was eighteen, beautiful and looking for a way to rebel against her strict parents. I know you have no reason to believe me, but your mother singled me out, it wasn't the other way around. I never had the intention of seducing the minister's daughter." Arthur traced the edge of the blotter on his desk. "It was her innocence that enticed me into the affair. Cathy knew nothing about men, sin or the realities of an affair. The affair didn't last long, but the realities did. She told me she was pregnant with my child the month before she graduated from high school. Appalled by our foolishness and the consequences that irresponsibility had caused, I offered her money for an abortion."

  She watched Ellis as he just stood there and stared. Her heart went out to the man before her. Here he stood facing his father after thirty-two years and the man was telling him he was never wanted in the first place.

  "Cathy refused. She demanded that I leave my wife and marry
her instead. She wanted to be a family." Arthur's fingers trembled against the blotter, but he continued. "I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at her and told her I would never leave Sophie. It all seemed so simple back then." Arthur shook his head. "Cathy threatened to tell everyone who the father of her child was and I pulled a power number by saying if she so much as told a living soul, I would take her to court, prove she was unfit to be a mother and take the child and raise it as my own."

  Arthur glanced at Ellis. "It was an empty threat. Cathy would never have been an unfit mother. My money, or should I say Sophie's money, threatened her, so she believed me. Two weeks after she graduated from high school she accepted a handful of my money and was gone. At first I thought she had taken my advice and had gone to get an abortion. After a couple of days I was worried, by a couple of weeks I knew she wasn't coming back." He paused. "Can I ask you a question, Ellis?"

  "What?"

  "Where were you born and raised?"

  "Philadelphia, why?"

  Arthur gave a weary sigh. "Cathy once told me if she ever left this town she wasn't stopping until she hit the Rocky Mountains. She said Colorado had a nice ring to it. When she didn't come back, I hired a private investigator to see if he could locate her in Colorado. He never could and after three years I gave up."

  "Would you have gone to her if he found her and me?"

  "Honestly, I don't know what I would have done. I do know one thing, if I had found her, Ellis, she wouldn't have had to struggle financially raising you. I would have provided for you."

  Arthur sank deeper into the chair and appeared to have aged right before her eyes.

  "The one thing in life that I have always wanted was children." Arthur gave a weak chuckle. "When Sophie and I decided to start a family and nothing happened, she blamed me. I knew she couldn't have been right but it took me years to convince her to see a doctor. Sophie couldn't conceive a child and she refused to adopt and raise someone else's. My one child in life boarded a bus with a woman who had every right to hate me and rode out of my life. You probably call it poetic justice. I prefer to look on it as the Lord's revenge."

  "I now know why my mother didn't name you as my father on my birth certificate." Ellis studied Arthur with something akin to hatred burning in his eyes.

  "If she did, you would have marched right up to my door the day you came to town looking for me." Arthur shifted in the seat. "I'm sorry to hear about Cathy's passing."

  Sydney glanced at Ellis to see his reaction. He appeared to be just as he'd seemed when he had thought Thomas was his father.

  "You're right, Graystone. Your price is too high, I can't promise forgiveness."

  Arthur nodded. "I understand, but I'll take the test anyway."

  "You will?" Sydney couldn't believe it. Ellis had found Trevor's grandfather and he was willing to be tested. Now the only miracle that they needed was a match.

  "Yes, Sydney, I will." Arthur stood up. "I owe Cathy's memory more than I could ever repay."

  * * *

  Ellis drove Sydney up the winding roads to Lookout Point. Thomas told him the way the other day when they had learned that Andy, the pharmacist, had seen Arthur and Cathy up here. Thomas figured he might want to see the place where it all began. He didn't care too much about that, he was more interested in the view and in a few minutes alone with Sydney when they weren't near a bed. Put Sydney and a bed in the same room, and wham, his mind only functioned on one level. All he could think about was making love with her.

  He gave her a sideways glance as he pulled into a parking space and shut off the engine. Sydney had been awfully quiet since they left Arthur Graystone's house. He couldn't blame her. It hadn't been a very pleasant experience. The only good thing to come out of the whole thing was Graystone's admission that he was Ellis's father, but more important, his agreement to take the test.

  The first part of Trevor's miracle had occurred, and all because of Sydney. He had been ready to walk out the door and either give up or try another day with Graystone. Not Sydney. She had hit Graystone right where it counted. She had hit him with Trevor and his illness. As he had said earlier—she was smart and beautiful.

  He glanced out of the window and noticed a winding path that skirted the parking area. Lookout Point wasn't your typical teenage hangout. It was a small park overlooking the town two thousand feet below. "Let's go for a walk."

  Sydney gave him a curious glance before getting out of the car. "Okay."

  He joined her at the side of the Mercedes, reached for her hand and led her down the path. A wooden picnic table sat at the side of the path and he pulled her down onto the seat next to him. Coalsburg was spread out below them like some tiny miniature village. He could see Sydney's nursery, the acres of trees that enclosed it and the tiny little square that was Thomas's house. Graystone Manor was also easy to pick out with its manicured lawn and brick wall that surrounded the place. It looked like a lonely place to live.

  To the right of Main Street was the neighborhood where his mother and Thomas had lived when they were growing up. Off to the left and up several blocks was the tall white steeple of the church where his grandfather had preached. This was where it all began.

  Over the past several weeks he had come to realize this was where he belonged. He belonged at this place, but more important, he belonged with this woman.

  He loved Sydney and his life wouldn't be complete without her by his side. He wanted to be part of a family, a whole family.

  He continued to hold Sydney's hand as they stared out at the valley below. His gut instinct told him that she felt the same way, but something was holding her back. Something was scaring her. Sydney accepted and fully participated in their physical lovemaking, but emotionally she seemed hesitant, unsure of either him or herself. Which, he couldn't tell.

  He had questioned Thomas on Sydney's earlier upbringing and received the standard answers. Thomas had only known what Youth Services had told him. No one really knew what Sydney had gone through, except Sydney, and she didn't talk about it. At least she hadn't talked to Thomas or his wife. Maybe there was a chance she would open up with him and discuss her past.

  From his perspective there were only two reasons that Sydney held back her emotions from him. Either she was afraid of being abandoned, as she had been by her parents. Or she didn't want to get too involved with him and share the enormous responsibility of a critically ill child. Who was to say it was even fair of him to ask her to take on that kind of responsibility. Trevor, after all, was his son.

  "Syd?"

  "Hmm…"

  "How do you feel about Trevor?"

  "Trevor? Well, I'm excited, anxious and partly sick to my stomach with worry Graystone won't be a match." A small smile of encouragement lifted her lips. "I have my fingers crossed, my toes crossed and even my eyes are crossed."

  He knew that feeling well enough. "I know you care a great deal about his health, but I wanted to know how you felt about Trevor as a person, not as a sick child."

  Sydney's hand trembled slightly. "I've fallen in love with the little tyke."

  "He's easy to fall in love with." He squeezed her hand. This was good. This was very good.

  "I know it sounds strange now, after all the fussing I did in the beginning, but I secretly wish that he really was my father's grandson." Her shoulders gave a helpless little shrug. "He's brought a lot of warmth and happiness back into the house."

  "I didn't know your mother, Syd. But from what Thomas and you have told me about her, I don't think she would have wanted Thomas or you to stop living and enjoying life just because she's no longer here." If only half of everything Thomas had told him about his wife was true, Julia St. Claire had been one amazing woman.

  "You're right. It's just been so hard on my dad. You, and especially Trevor, have given my father a reason to rejoin the living. Thank you."

  "No thanks are necessary, Syd. If it hadn't been for Thomas I doubt if I ever would have tracked down Arthur Graystone as Tr
evor's grandfather." He pulled her closer and cupped her cheek, forcing her to look at him. "Thank you for finding Graystone's weak spot. I was too upset at the time to think clearly."

  "Call it a hunch."

  He could call it many things, but nothing fit it more than "love." "Do you know Trevor asked me if we could move out here?"

  "Really, he wants to move to Coalsburg? That's a first. Most kids want to move into a big city where there's plenty to do. Coalsburg is known as a hick town."

  "To a five-year-old it's paradise." His fingers stroked the gentle curve of her jaw. "There's only one thing I could think of that he would love more than moving out here."

  "What's that?"

  He studied her eyes. "Getting a mom." He saw the distress that clouded her gaze, but he continued. "He needs a mom, Sydney, not a housekeeper."

  Sydney looked away. "All kids need a mom."

  He felt the warmth he had been feeling earlier start to fade and he dropped his hand. Sydney wasn't reacting quite the way he had hoped. "Trevor needs one more than most other little boys because of his illness." He had to be honest with her, no matter how much it broke his heart to say the words. "Trevor's illness will become critical if Graystone doesn't match and if we can't find another donor while Trevor's in remission." His voice was breaking with unshed tears, but he needed to tell her. "Trevor will be requiring a lot of care and loving no matter which way it goes."

  He saw Sydney shake her head in denial, but pushed on. His biggest fear lay before him. He loved Sydney—he knew that now for sure. But if Sydney agreed to become his wife and Trevor's mother, she would have to share his fears for his son. "Do you know how strong a person would have to be to stand helplessly by and watch a child die?"

  "Stop it!" shouted Sydney as she brushed away tears streaming down her face. "Stop talking like that!" The tears ran faster than her fingers could brush them away. "A match will be found. If Graystone doesn't match, there's the registries. People are joining the registries all the time. A match will be found if I have to go out and personally beg every person across this country and beyond to get tested."