Their Secret Child

by Mary J. Forbes

  "About six months after Dad died I was injured on the field and had to retire. But I'd always wondered, too, where our baby had gone, and after talking to Dad, I hired a private investigator. He found Becky in a Tacoma foster home. She'd been shuffled around almost three years by then." He looked away and she saw the guilt in his down-turned mouth.

  She wanted to reach out, console, be consoled in this terrible mesh of events.

  He said, "When Jesse went to jail, Becky became state property..." He grimaced. "Thing is, people want babies, not half-grown children. Long story short, I went a little mad."

  She could fill it all in. His millions. Securing connections in the ranks, rushing DNA testing.

  For the first time she thanked his career for this small favor.

  "I'm glad it was you," she said truthfully.

  "Makes two of us."

  The alternative would have put their child into another home with another family if Skip hadn't gone on that search.

  He said, "I'd do anything for you and Becky to—"

  She held up a hand. "Let's see how it goes, okay? For now, it's enough that she's two hundred yards away. Safe and loved."

  His full-bloomed grin took her breath. "She is," he said. "I can't tell you how glad I am about that."

  "I can see it in your face every time you look at her. You're a great father."

  She watched him survey the house in the trees beyond the property.

  He said, "I'm still feeling my way around that department."

  "If it'll make you feel any better, we all are. There are no standards in parenting except love and kindness."

  His head tilted slightly and creases fanned the corners of his eyes. "You've always been a smart lady, know that?"

  "Smarts aren't all academia," she said, wanting this conversation over with. "I need to check inside, see if the power's come on." She walked around the corner of the house to the back door.

  In the kitchen, she flicked the lights. Nothing—which meant trees still blocked the road. She checked the laundry room, shadowed in blue light from the tarp covering the ragged four-foot hole; the plastic screen had prevented the rain from causing more damage.

  Thank you. Skip, she thought, listening to the wail of the chain saw. Much as she hated to admit, she and Michaela would have been in an awful state living alone on this road. The nearest neighbor was two miles to the east as the crow flew.

  Inspecting the dryer—the branch had missed the washer by inches—she knew the machine was ready for the recycling truck. The wood had caished the operating panel and dented the top of the barrel.

  Addie had no idea where the money would come from to buy a new dryer. She had some savings and, because the house was old, a small amount of insurance on the dwelling, but first and foremost, she needed a new truck.

  Biting back a swell of emotion, she headed for her bedroom and a change of clothes. Next on the agenda were her bees; to ensure the hives remained secure and the insects safe.

  Before leaving the house, she tried the lights in the hallway and kitchen again. Still no power. Bundled in a warm sweater and fleece jacket under the slicker, she walked around to where Skip had cleared another section of the tree. Water dripped from his cap as he bent to drag several sawed branches to the pile.

  "Skip, leave that. I'll hire a guy tomorrow.'" Zeb Jantz, a retired logger, would come if Addie asked: he'd do anything for Charmaine Wilson's daughters—just to get her to notice him.

  Skip heaved the branches onto the heap. "It'll only take another half hour." He paused, his gaze probing hers. "You need to check the hives."

  "Yes, but—"

  He set the chain saw under the tarp. "Tell me what you need and we'll go in my pickup."

  "A few frames and supers in case of damage. But you can't go"

  He patted his belt where he kept the EpiPen secured. "Old faithful is just a shot away."

  Too fatigued to argue, she nodded. The day was cold and wet; the bees would be sluggish, but if Skip stayed in his truck and parked at a distance of two hundred yards, there shouldn't be a problem. Still, she worried.

  Fifteen minutes later, after Skip called Becky, they had the vehicle loaded and were driving the perimeter of the clover field three miles down the road. She could see the breakage the moment they crested a small knoll.

  Two hives down, the supers and frames layered like cheese slices across the drenched grass. Addie's heart sank. The cost wasn't high, but on top of her home and truck, the wrecked hives had her hauling in a deep breath.

  "Dammit." she whispered, grasping the door handle before Skip brought the truck to a stop.

  "What can I do?" He stared through the windshield.

  She took in his helpless expression. He could not leave the confines of the vehicle. "Go home. When I'm done, I'll call you on my cell."

  He turned his head, eyes flashing. "Understand this, Addie. I am not leaving you. Not today, not tomorrow. For better or worse, we're in this together." And then he was out the door, slamming it shut.

  A shot of adrenaline spurred her to the rear of the vehicle after him. "Are you crazy?" she cried. "We're talking bees here, Skip."

  Ignoring her outburst, he lifted the door. "It's raining. Cold weather chills their flight muscles and prohibits flying. I do my research."

  "And have you forgotten their venom is a cocktail of melittin, apamine and a number of amino acid radicals?"

  Dragging the stack of supers with empty honeycomb frames from the Toyota's bed, he said. "I'm not entirely stupid, Addie. I plan on living a few years yet, so caution is my middle name. Soon as we unload, I'll get back inside the truck."

  She flung a look toward the hives. "I don't like it."

  He stopped, his eyes as serious as the day he'd told her goodbye when he was twenty.

  She sighed. "Fine. Hurry up then."

  His mouth tweaked. "Giving me orders now?"

  "Saving your life," she retorted, yanking on her white coveralls.

  "You did that two weeks ago," he said softly. "When you said hi."

  "I didn't say hi, you did. I asked what you wanted."

  "Yeah." He tugged the next stack from the truck. "And all I could think was you. I wanted you. I have all my life."

  All my life. Her heart lurched before her head snapped around. "Omigod, you never quit, do you?"

  He frowned. "Quit what?"

  "Lying through your teeth." She grabbed the smoker, then the supers from his hands. " 'I wanted you all my life.' Please. What you wanted was the NFL." She snorted. "But what ticks me off most is that for a second, for one damned second, I fell for it. Argh!"

  Her bees, she needed her bees to calm her wild, angry pulse before she went screaming into the wet yonder. "Go home, Skip," she said. "I don't need you here."

  Biting her tongue to avert the tears, she started around the truck.

  Chapter Eight

  "Dammit all, Addie." His hand whipped out, caught her arm and swung her around quick enough to spill the supers to the ground. She ignored them, captivated by the ferocity in his eyes, by the longing, desire and sorrow she saw there. Every emotion she'd buried when it came to him.

  "I've never lied to you. Never. Even back then—whether or not you want to believe me. I wanted our baby. I wanted you. But my parents..."

  "Yes, let's talk about your parents, Skip," she said, wrenching out of his hold as the first tear spilled. Damn him.

  "There were circumstances..."

  Circumstances. She almost laughed. The only circumstance was the Daltons had thought her unworthy of their son. Hadn't she overheard Ross Dalton tell his meat manager at Dalton Foods that Skip was destined for the big leagues? She'd stood a foot behind the man as he'd said. Skip knows he needs to be free and clear of any unnecessary baggage.

  She'd been that unnecessary baggage.

  A gasp or cry, she couldn't recall, had escaped her lips and Ross Dalton had turned. So she'd run, away from the grandfather of the baby she carried, away
from the embarrassment, away from the Daltons. She hadn't stopped running until she married Dempsey.

  His parents, he'd said. Oh, yes, his parents had ruled every decision concerning her, and they'd roped her parents into the fray.

  Her throat hurt. Her heart hurt. She was barely conscious of Skip tugging her away from the fallen stack of supers, and stepping so close his slicker brushed the panels of her slicker. His fingers touched her cheek where tears of heartbreak fell and mingled with the rain.

  "I'm so damned sorry," he said.

  She shook her head. "You have no right to come back here and turn my world upside down again. No right."

  "I couldn't stay away, Addie. Not after finding Becky and discovering you were single again. I just couldn't."

  Naturally, he was right. She would have died knowing what she did about Becky. And if he hadn't included her, not put their child within easy access for her and Becky to unite, to bond...

  Still, Addie ached to take a lengthy stride back and put some distance between them. Except his fingers had crept along her temple, into her hair, and his palm, his broad warm palm that had cupped so many footballs, secured her in place.

  The distress in his eyes altered and yearning took over before desire flashed. Anchored by that one hand, she remained rooted to the spot, her heart a tolling bell in her chest.

  And then he bent his head and set his lips against hers.

  Cold and chaste as the kiss was, it communicated a thousand recollections of bygone kisses. The first, the last and all those in between: tender and impatient, erotic and romantic, and lastly, bittersweet.

  And now there was this moment, this kiss in which she felt him hesitate for the first time, unsure of how she would respond.

  She wanted to push him away.

  She wanted to crawl into his skin.

  In the end. her heart lunged through the tug-of-war in her mind and she lifted her hands to his shoulders, rose on her toes and kissed him back while the rain drummed against their heads, streamed down their cheeks and threaded along their lips.

  He tasted of thirteen brokenhearted years and she couldn't get enough. Her fingers curved his neck. Her mind whirled. Somewhere deep inside her heart she called his name. And then...

  He was setting her away. "Addie." His fingers shook on her cheek. "You were always a passionate woman. And so full of mystery."

  If he'd doused her with a bucket of ice. her insanity couldn't have cleared quicker. "Passion is hearsay, Skip. Back then I was young, you were young. It was hormones, pure and simple. As for the mystery, here's an update." She bent to retrieve the supers she'd spilled. "I was never a mystery. I was Addie Wilson, an ordinary teenager who got hung up on a guy who didn't want her when the chips fell. Happens all the time. I went through it then, I see it at the high school today. You'll see it with the guys on your team. Except you'll be on their side, not the girls' side. Nothing new and certainly no ambiguity. Now, go wait in the truck."

  Stack in hand, she tromped through the wet grass to the white boxes housing her extra income.

  "Dammit, Addie." The frustration in his voice escalated because he couldn't follow her. "Don't you get it? I wasn't like those guys. I would've given it all up for us. I would've married you, but—"

  "But you didn't. Now, be quiet. Docile or not, the bees will sense if I'm upset, and as much as I care for the little bugs, I don't like their stingers any more than you do."

  "You kissed me back just now," he grumbled loud enough to carry across a couple hundred feet of rainy day. "That means something."

  "All it means is I haven't been kissed in two years."

  "You haven't?" She heard his surprise. Then he said, "Neither have I. Longer, in fact."

  She let the comment pass. She needed to concentrate on her hives, not mull over the fact that he hadn't been with a woman for that long. The NFL's Skip Dalton had never been without a woman.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw him pace in front of the truck, EpiPen in hand and heedless of the drizzle. "We're going to talk this out once we're done here," he stated.

  "We'll see." Focusing on the two downed hives, she went to work, setting them right and retrieving the honey frames.

  Please, she thought, noting dozens of dead bees squashed by the wet and damaged wood. Let the queens be here.

  But her heart sank when she lifted the brood chamber and saw that both queens were gone—and that the colonies had vanished with them.

  Where they'd flown was anyone's guess. Possibly when the hives tumbled, the wind had whipped the insects away, scattering their little bodies out across the field or into the trees. Or, if they'd been lucky, before the worst of the storm hit they had swarmed to seek shelter.

  Because she'd known bees all her life, she prayed for the swarming, that at the moment her bees were somewhere safe, preparing to return. If not, the insects would die within days without their stored source of honey, or nutrition to keep the queens alive.

  And if they didn't return... It wouldn't be the first time she lost a colony. Meantime, all she could do was restore the hives and collect the remaining honey from the apiary.

  "Addie."

  "I'm busy."

  "I hate standing around doing nothing."

  "Don't make me responsible for your life, Skip."

  In the ensuing silence the drizzle pit-patted grass and ground. "For the record? You were a mystery. And I loved you for it. You weren't like the others. Never have been. I'd like us to have another chance. Is that so wrong?"

  After thoroughly checking the honey-laden frames to guarantee there were no attached bees, she carried the damp frames to his truck, where he stood ready to take the batch from her arms. His hair lay plastered to his forehead; rain dripped from his strong nose, his bristly chin. The weather spiked his lashes. It was all she could do to keep from kissing him again.

  "Skip." To distract herself, she spoke as though he were one of her less astute math students. "Last night's information overload is about all I can handle right now."

  He handed over a new stack. "Have dinner with us tonight. My treat."

  "No." She walked back to the damaged hives.

  "Not sandwiches. A real dinner. Somewhere in Burnt Bend. There must be a place the girls would enjoy."

  The girls. From now on her life and Skip's would revolve around the nuances of their children's friendship, their interaction with each other. More than anything Addie wanted Michaela to have a sister, to have Becky be that sister. One part of her heart leapt with joy, the other half shuddered at the thought of a potential negative reaction when Becky discovered she was in truth Michaela's sister.

  What if the girl retracted her friendship?

  The possibility sent a jolt of fear through Addie. Becky was her baby's first true friend, the only one who had been able to break through Michaela's stuttering. Addie could not deny the change toward a smoother dialogue each time the two were together.

  She glanced to where Skip finally sat in the truck, though the window was open several inches. Her resolve caved.

  "Dinner would be nice," she said. "But with the house and my truck...these hives..." She swiped a hand over her face. "Another time, maybe."

  "I've got more money than I know what to do with. I can have a crew at your place tomorrow."

  Oh, God, he tempted her. But never again would she be dependent on a man. Dempsey hadn't liked her earning more than he did as a mechanic, had convinced her to quit teaching when Michaela was born. But when Dempsey walked out, Addie had walked on.

  She'd gone to the school board, updated her resume and was rehired immediately. And she intended to continue teaching. Earning her own dollar, paying her own way, initiated a sense of pride she hadn't felt in years. She would not give that up again. She would make it through these last weeks of August if it took every penny of her meager nest of savings and insurance.

  "I'm fine," she called, bending to care for her bees. And prayed she spoke the truth.

  Thr
ough the windshield, Skip watched Addie work the hives with swift precision. The heavy rain and gusts of wind kept the insects in the undamaged hives from venturing outside, although the thought of one landing on him whipped apprehension down his spine.

  To get his mind off the bees, he focused on Addie's lithe form in the slicker and tall rubber boots. The weather glued her ponytail to her back. Her slim bare hands pieced together the broken hives as if they were a child's building blocks.

  At the first flash of lightning across the sky beyond the field. Skip counted the seconds—one and a half—before thunder boomed. Massive dark storm clouds rolled above the tree line, piling in with the rain. Again, he slid down the window. 'Addie. we have to go."

  "One minute."

  "No. Now," he called as another streak limned the clouds and the rain pelted harder. "The girls are home alone, Becky hates lightning."

  True or not. he didn't care. If it got Addie out of danger...

  She strode toward his truck with the last load of honey frames and tossed the boxes into the back. Seconds later the tailgate slammed and she jumped into the passenger seat. Wipers battling the rain, he drove from the field and sped down the pavement toward home.

  "I'm sorry." He glanced to where she sat swiping water from her face with cold, red hands. "It isn't fair, all this happening to you."

  She'd lost so much while his property remained intact. And he could afford repairs.

  She didn't respond, only looked out the window, and he had the feeling she contemplated his statement in another way. the one concerning the past.

  They drove a half mile, the rain swishing against the tires, before she said. "I'm hoping my insurance will cover most of it."

  Her voice held defeat. Skip reached for her hand, brought it to his thigh. He wanted to pull over, hold her and kiss her until they were both warm. Keeping his gaze on the road ahead, he said, "Before you say no, hear me out. You're right. I didn't fight hard enough against my dad and yours thirteen years ago. And at nineteen I should have known better. I was a man, not a boy. But I let my dad convince me. I let him run my life as always. He wanted an NFL star and..." He sighed. "I'll admit I wanted it, too." He looked over, saw he had her full attention.