by Ann Jacobs
Clearly, they’d modified their usual interview technique to accommodate him and his limited mobility. He guessed the job offer, tendered after thirty minutes or so of gentle questioning, should have come as no huge surprise. Hell, his long-dead grandfather’s name still appeared on the firm’s impressive letterhead. Gray wouldn’t rule out pity as motivation for the job offer, either, or admiration for his having managed to survive seven years against all odds.
As he drove back across the causeway, he tried to analyze each question he’d answered, translate every expression he’d witnessed on those smiling faces. He tried hard to believe the partners he’d be working for had hired him because they believed he could do the job. Hell, he had his own doubts. Lots of them.
Gray shoved those doubts aside, told himself that he could succeed in his new career if he put his mind to it. And he would. His captors had stolen nearly eight years of his past, but they hadn’t managed to steal his future.
* * * * *
Away from work early for once, Andi Young sat on her porch steps and sipped an icy lemonade. Sweat, sunshine, and the smell of fresh-mown grass promised a hot, muggy Florida summer, but a late afternoon breeze off Old Tampa Bay cooled her sweaty skin.
Times like this, she felt as if she were a kid again. Laughing, she watched Brett heave the ball across her backyard toward her friend Kristine’s husband, Tony Landry.
For a moment Andi let herself imagine it was Brett’s father, not Tony, teaching Brett to throw a ball. Most of the time she was pretty satisfied with her life, but there were moments when being a single mom left her swamped with memories and regrets.
“Mommy, watch out!”
Just in time, Andi raised her hand and deflected the softball before it smacked her in the face. After lobbing it at Tony, she plopped down on a wicker rocker she’d found at a yard sale a couple of weeks back.
“It’s only the middle of May, and already I’ve had it with this heat,” she told Kristine, who lounged on the swing that hung in the shadiest corner of the porch.
“Me, too. I’m not looking forward to it getting even hotter.”
“I don’t imagine you are.” Andi eyed her friend’s distended belly and grinned. “I don’t envy you, being pregnant through the heat of the summer. It’s a bitch. “
Kristine smiled. “Guess Tony and I should have thought ahead, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah.” Just as Andi should have engaged her brain instead of her hormones, the weekend she’d conceived Brett. She might have at least called her doctor the very next day after that condom broke and arranged to get a morning-after pill. But she couldn’t imagine life without her son, now. There was nothing she’d change even if she could.
Yeah, she would. She’d change the fact that Brett’s father had died. She’d turn back time, give them the chance to find out if the irresistible chemistry that brought them together might grow into something more.
But there was no point in wondering what might have been. No way to change the past. She and her son got along fine. They had her boisterous family and good friends like Tony and Kristine. And Sandra, whose job she’d inherited last year when Sandra had retired to marry Chief of Detectives Rocky Delgado and become a stay-at-home mom.
“Hey, buddy, you’ve about worn me out,” Tony said when he headed for the porch a few minutes later. “Give an old guy a break.”
Andi grinned when Tony sprawled on the top step as though he couldn’t move another inch. With the boundless energy that kept Andi hopping, Brett trotted up the stairs and stopped beside the screen door. Her kid looked as though he’d attracted all the loose dirt in her front yard. “Go inside and wash up.”
“Okay.” Brett paused and shot Andi a crooked grin. “Can I watch Batman?”
She glanced at her watch. “Sure. But clean that dirt off first. Go on. Hurry. You’ve got five minutes before your show starts.”
Brett charged through the door and disappeared as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Andi shook her head. “The kid does love his cartoons,” she said as she picked up the pitcher and poured Tony a glass of lemonade.
Tony downed it in one long gulp. “Thanks, Andi. You’re a gem. When are you going to ditch the state attorney’s office grind and come work for me?”
“Do your grunt work while you get all the glory? I don’t think so.” Tony was a sweetheart, and he’d been good for Kristine, but Andi didn’t kid herself. He had a massive ego to go along with his huge talent as a criminal defense trial lawyer. He’d be hell on wheels to work for.
Tony shrugged, the way he always did when she turned him down. Then he grinned. “We just hired a guy who graduated from Harvard Law. Ought to lend the firm some class.”
“And he’s going to work for you?” Andi smiled, but she couldn’t help feeling a pang of sadness. Brett’s father had gotten his law degree from Harvard, though he’d never practiced law.
“For the time being, he’ll be one of my associates.”
“What’s his name?” Kristine smiled at Toni, prompting him as if he were a reluctant witness.
“Syzmanski. Grayson Winston Syzmanski, as in the firm’s name, in case you didn’t notice. Shouldn’t take him any too long to make partner.”
“Don’t start in about nepotism,” Kristine warned, but she shot Tony an indulgent look.
“Gray Syzmanski?” Andi couldn’t care less if Winston Roe hired all the shirttail relatives of every one of its founding partners, but she doubted there was more than one Grayson Syzmanski who’d graduated from Harvard Law.
“Andi, you’ve got that lemonade in a death grip.” Kristine glanced pointedly at Andi’s whitened knuckles.
“You know Syzmanski?” Tony asked, his dark gaze conveying concern—and curiosity.
“Yes. No. I don’t know…” Please God, let him be someone else. The Gray she’d known was dead. Wasn’t he? “Describe him to me, Tony. Please.”
“Syzmanski’s about my age. No, he’s probably at least a few years older, since he beat me through law school by a couple of years. Quick mind. Good presence. He’ll play well before a jury.”
Oh God. Gray had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday the week before they’d met. He’d have been—no, was, she calculated—thirty-eight. A couple of years older than Tony, whose thirty-sixth birthday party she’d attended a few months ago. The man had to be her Gray. Brett’s father. It was all Andi could do to squelch a scream. “Describe the man, Landry. Don’t assess his ability to get your clients off the hook.”
“Tall, blond, and rugged. Single.” Tony grinned. “He’s not a good-looking SOB like me, Ms. Young, but he’ll fascinate the hell out of female jurors. He’s been through some rough stuff. Denise, my secretary, said she’d love to kiss away the scar on his cheek. He reminded her of a pirate in a three-piece suit, because of the black patch he wears over one eye.”
His new associate sounded a lot like Gray—except that her Gray had been whole. Beautiful and buff and…the most exciting lover she’d ever had. Brett’s father. He’d been going on assignment, looking to close down a South American drug cartel. All sorts of terrifying possibilities crowded her mind. Suddenly the warm breeze chilled Andi to the bone. “What happened to him?”
“Syzmanski spent years in some South American prison. Beats me why anybody with a law degree from Harvard would have done it, but he went to work for the DEA after he passed the Bar. Did undercover stuff. Apparently an assignment went bad and he was captured. About a year ago he and another guy managed to escape. He’s spent most of the time since then in a rehab hospital.”
Kristine leaned forward and clutched Andi’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
Wrong? Wrong?
Wrong was too mundane a word. How the hell would Andi describe her son’s father suddenly coming back from the dead? How could she explain that the man she’d spent one fabulous weekend with eight years ago had risen like a phoenix from ashes?
Oh God. Gray. Andi remembered going into the Tampa DEA of
fice the day she’d confirmed that she was pregnant. She’d never forget the stricken look on the face of the secretary when she’d asked how to get a message to Gray.
I’m sorry, Ms. Young. There’s no way anybody can get in touch with Gray. He was killed two weeks ago in South America. The woman had clearly been telling the truth as she knew it. Her grief had been palpable, real. Neither she nor the local director who had come out and confirmed what the secretary said could possibly have been lying. They’d thought Gray was dead.
But he’d survived. Somehow, incredibly, he’d beaten the odds and survived.
Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe there was another Grayson Syzmanski.
Andi told herself to get real. What were the odds of there being two guys named Gray Syzmanski who’d gone to Harvard, worked for the DEA, and taken off on some mission in South America in the same century, let alone the same year?
Gray had survived, and he was back, settling in to work within the legal community where she was making her mark. Andi’s spirits sank further when she imagined herself peering across the courtroom at the defense table, seeing the man she’d built up to his son as being a martyred hero. Ogling the long-ago lover who’d spoiled her for other men. “Oh God, no.”
Andi blinked, tried to orient herself again to the here and now, to focus on the two friends who were looking at her as though she’d lost her mind.
Kristine reached out to Tony and squeezed his hand, then turned to Andi. “Andi, you’re really worrying us. What is it? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“I’m all right.” She had to be. For Brett.
Tony stood and moved behind Kristine. In much the same way she’d seen him do in court when he was trying to intimidate a witness, he settled his gaze on Andi. “Something’s wrong, and I’m fairly certain it has to do with Syzmanski. We’re your friends. Talk to us.”
“I think Gray is Brett’s father.” In spite of her effort to remain calm, Andi began to sob.
How could the DEA people not have gone after him right away, if for nothing more than to bring his body home? How could they just have taken someone’s word he was dead? How could they have let him spend years in some filthy South American prison? How the fuck could they have stolen seven years Brett could have had with his father?
Needing to strike out at the faceless villains who had denied her son a dad, Andi clenched her fists. By the time pain registered from her nails digging into her palms, she’d come close to drawing her own blood.
She heard Kristine speak as though from somewhere far away. “What do you mean, you think?”
“If he’s the Gray Syzmanski I think he is, I know he’s Brett’s father.”
Tony came around the swing and sat beside his wife. “This needs some explanation.”
Andi knew it did. She didn’t know whether she could talk, though. Her chest felt tight, her throat constricted.
Kristine laid her hand on Tony’s forearm. “Tony. You’re right, but you’re not interrogating a witness now. Andi, if you want to talk, we’ll listen.”
“We met the weekend before he left on that assignment.” Andi shrugged. “What can I say? The chemistry was…too strong to fight.” For the next few minutes she gave her friends an abbreviated version of how she’d met Gray, spent a weekend with him, gotten pregnant, and learned he had died.
Emotions long buried flooded her mind. She relived those days, the confusion in her mind as she’d grappled with the question of what to do. Her bittersweet decision to have Brett and raise him alone.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “So Syzmanski doesn’t know he has a kid?”
“Not unless he’s psychic.” Andi brushed a tear off the front of her T-shirt.
“You have to tell him.” Tony splayed a large hand over to Kristine’s distended belly. “He has a right to know. He’ll want to—”
“Tony, Andi has to decide for herself what she wants to do.” Kristine shifted on the swing and met his gaze.
“I know I have to tell him.” Still, Andi couldn’t picture herself walking up to Gray and hitting him with news she wasn’t at all sure he’d welcome. “But how?”
Tony stared at her, sympathy in his dark gaze. “I’d want to hear something that important straight-up. Without the stalling tactics you’re always saying I like to use.”
“Straight-up? As in the stiff drink he’s no doubt going to want as soon as he figures out I’m not playing some sick joke on him?”
“As in coming right out and telling him. Doing what you tried to do eight years ago.”
Hammers pounded inside Andi’s head, making her cup her hands behind her neck to try to find relief. “Oh, God.”
What if Gray wanted nothing to do with Brett? What if he wouldn’t believe Brett was his son? What if he wanted Brett, wanted to take him away from her?
Kristine grasped her hand. “Tony could call his office and find out where Gray lives.”
“Would you?” If she didn’t follow through right now, Andi had a feeling she’d talk herself out of going at all. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. Maybe she should leave well enough alone, not complicate Gray’s return with news that was already eight years too late.
When Tony came back outside a few minutes later, he handed her a sheet from the legal pad she kept by the phone. “You’re in luck. My secretary was still working on a brief for me, and she had a copy of his resumé. Syzmanski lives on Clearwater Beach. Here’s the address. By the way, I tired Brett out for you. He’s sound asleep.”
A sudden chill started in Andi’s toes and shuddered its way clear up to her cheeks. What was she going to tell her son? What would Gray’s sudden return from the dead do to Brett?
It wasn’t as if she and Gray had been longtime lovers. They’d barely known each other. Not a single empty promise had crossed their lips when they’d parted. But it didn’t matter how he might react, or what part if any he would want to play in Brett’s life. The bottom line was, Gray was alive, and he had a right to know he had a son. She had to tell him quickly or she’d lose her nerve.
And she had to talk to Gray before she delayed too long in telling Brett. How, what, and when she’d tell her son would depend on Gray—on whether he wanted to be part of their son’s life.
Tony cleared his throat. “You’re zoned out, counselor.”
Andi met Tony’s gaze. “I can’t take Brett with me. Maybe I should wait—”
“You should do this now, Andi.” Kristine looked over at Tony. “We can watch Brett while Andi does this, can’t we, love?”
Tony nodded. “Sure. We’ll keep Brett occupied while you’re gone.”
“You’re sure?”
“Brett’s always welcome.” Kristine’s smile faded to a concerned frown. “I wonder how he’ll take the news.”
“First things first,” Andi said. “Gray may not want anything to do with his son.”
Kristine shook her head. “I doubt that. Still, I don’t envy you, having to let a man know he’s a father, so long after—”
“I’ll manage. I’m not sure just how, but I’ll do it.” Andi wished she could borrow some of Kristine’s poise. Her friend might not relish doing it, but she’d know instinctively how to handle an awkward situation like this. She had that inborn grace that got her through every sort of situation.
Of course Kristine would never have gotten herself into the position of having to do something like this.
But if Kristine had been the one pregnant with Gray’s baby, Gray’s snooty mother would have welcomed her. Instead, the woman had taken one look at Andi, discerned the blue-collar roots she’d never tried to mask, and tossed her out on her rear.
“I’ll get Brett ready now,” she said, heaving herself away from the wall she’d been leaning against.
Brett rubbed his eyes when Andi woke him.
“Come on, sweetie, get up. Tony’s invited you over to his house to play some more.”
He grinned, instantly alert. “Wow. Where are you going?”
�
�Over to Clearwater to see an old friend.”
Brett looked so much like the Gray she remembered, Andi could barely control her reaction. Funny, she’d never let herself think much about the resemblance when she’d believed Gray was dead.
“Come on now. You need to get on a clean shirt before you go.”
After Brett had left with Kristine and Tony, Andi took a shower and put on fresh shorts and shirt. The image that stared back at her when she looked in the mirror to brush her hair looked ravaged.
Gray was in for enough of a shock without her looking as though she were the one just risen from the dead. Rifling through a tray of makeup she seldom bothered with except to go to work, Andi found some powdered blush and dusted it on her cheeks. It didn’t do a lot of good. Maybe mascara? She fished it out and touched the wand to the ends of her lashes.
Damn it, the bra she’d thrown on was two years old and showed every day of its age. And it was about as sexy as her grandma’s. Good thing she’d bought new bikini underwear last week. Stripping off the green T-shirt she’d put on, she got rid of the offending bra, replacing it and the T-shirt with a stretchy halter-top. It had occurred to her as she agonized that it wasn’t just Brett’s mom going to see Gray. It was an eight-year-older version of the woman who’d eagerly submitted to him as a lover. A woman who wanted to attract that lover now.
She risked another glance in the mirror. The woman who stared back at her looked a lot like a frightened defendant waiting to hear a jury’s verdict. Too bad. It would have to do.
Operating on autopilot, she picked up the paper where Tony had scrawled Gray’s address and slid onto the hot seat of her car. In the middle of the causeway now, she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to tell Gray. Maybe she should call and warn him she was coming.
She picked up her cellular phone, then set it down. She wouldn’t give him the chance to tell her to turn around and go home. Her news couldn’t wait. Telling him about their son wasn’t something she could do any way but face-to-face.