The Daddy Secret

by Judy Duarte

  All Mallory needed was for everyone in town to think that she and Rick were a couple, especially with Brian arriving next Monday.

  As she turned to go, Rick stopped her. “You know what tomorrow is, don’t you?”

  She stopped at the doorway, her hand on the knob. Then she slowly turned around. “Yes, it’s Tuesday.”

  “I told you I’d give you a week to tell Lucas I was his father. Have you done it yet?”

  Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. “No, I haven’t. But I plan to. I really do. Can you please give me a couple more days? I’d like for him to settle in at the new school.”

  Rick merely stared at her. Did he think she was trying to put him off indefinitely?

  “Lucas deserves to know the truth,” she said. “And the sooner the better. But since I’m the one who misled him, I’d like to be the one to set him straight.”

  “Misled him?” Rick said. “You lied to him.”

  “Yes, I did. And I’ll correct that within the week.”

  Doubt—or maybe disappointment—clouded his gaze. But she wouldn’t worry about that now. She couldn’t.

  “I have to go, Rick. I have a lot to do today. But I’ll call you as soon as I’ve told Lucas the truth.”

  Then she turned to the door. As she let herself out, she could feel him watching her every step of the way.

  Mallory might have made mistakes in the past, but she was doing her best to create a brand-new future for her and Lucas in Brighton Valley. And that future was about to get under way.

  Hopefully she’d be so caught up with her new job and in being a devoted and loving granddaughter and mother that she’d be too busy to give the past any thought at all.

  Now if she could just rid herself of the memory of Rick’s gaze, his scent and his touch, then her life would be back on track.

  Chapter Seven

  As Rick watched Mallory leave the clinic, he wondered if he should have refused to give her the extra time to tell Lucas—not that he’d actually come out and agreed. But once the secret was out, the two of them would be facing each other on a regular basis, and then where would that leave him?

  Just look where his dinner suggestion had gotten him.

  What in the hell had he been thinking? Of course she wouldn’t want to celebrate with him. Yet for some dumb reason, he’d asked her, anyway, and the question had just popped out the way his invitation to the Lazaros’ house had done last week.

  Sure, he still felt a powerful attraction to her. And he knew she felt it, too. But she’d torn the heart out of him once upon a time, and he wasn’t about to let her do it again.

  She’d passed on his dinner suggestion, which was just as well. Rick had things to do, too. He’d been planning to open up his practice to both large and small animals, which meant he would have to find another vet to work with him. The time hadn’t been right when he’d first taken over for Doc Grimes, but things had really picked up lately.

  So he’d would stick to his original plan to avoid Mallory for a while, which ought to be easy. With Lucas in school now, he wouldn’t be springing any surprise visits at the clinic. And Mallory would be tied up with her new job and her obligations to her grandfather.

  All Rick had to do was mind his own business, and the distance he wanted to create wouldn’t take any effort on his part. In fact, it would happen as naturally as a rooster’s crow at sunrise.

  But on Wednesday afternoon, at a quarter to four, Rick learned that when kids were involved, nature didn’t always run a predictable course.

  He’d just left the rescue yard, where he’d taken a lab-mix named Roscoe to the dog run next to Buddy’s, when Kara met him at the back door of the clinic.

  “Dr. Martinez? Mallory Dickinson is on the phone. She’d like to speak to you.”

  He couldn’t imagine why. “Thanks, Kara. I’ll take the call in my office.”

  Rick stopped by the sink and washed his hands, then he proceeded to the telephone on his desk. Once he settled into his seat, he pushed the lighted button indicating which line was on hold.

  “Hey, Mallory. What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a problem with Lucas, and I thought... Well...”

  Rick sat up straight. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

  “Oh, he’s not hurt or sick. But I just got back from meeting with the principal and with Mrs. Privett, his teacher. Apparently he was involved in a fight.”

  “Already? He’s only been in school three days. What happened?”

  “I wish I knew, but he refuses to give us any details. He has a split lip and a puffy eye—not exactly a shiner, but someone definitely hit him.”

  “And it happened at school?”

  “Yes, and from what we’ve been able to piece together, it happened outside the classroom, at the end of the day and after the last bell rang. I asked him about it when he got into the car, but he wouldn’t say a word. So I parked and took him into the principal’s office.”

  Rick wasn’t so sure that was the approach she should have taken, but maybe that’s because he’d found himself in the hot seat in a principal’s office too many times in the past. But what did he know about disciplining a child?

  “Lucas wouldn’t tell any of us what happened, either. I have reason to believe there’s a bully at school, but I can’t very well accuse someone if I don’t have any proof.”

  No, she couldn’t do that, but Rick hated the idea of anyone picking on his son.

  Would it be wrong to give Lucas some pointers on how to throw a few punches, at least to defend himself?

  “Would you mind coming over to talk to him?” Mallory asked. “Maybe he’ll be more forthcoming with a man.”

  Mallory, a trained social worker, was asking Rick’s advice on how to parent?

  His first thought was that he’d better go to the library or to the bookstore for some self-help books on raising kids. But he didn’t have time for that. So he’d have to wing it—as awkward as that might be.

  He’d looked forward to being a father when it came to taking Lucas fishing and going to sporting events, like football and baseball. But he hadn’t planned on cracking the whip or laying down rules.

  Still, Mallory wanted his help, and he couldn’t let her down.

  “I’ll stop by after office hours.” He glanced at the patient schedule Kara had posted for him. “How about five-thirty?”

  “That’s fine. We’ll be here.”

  Rick might not have any experience to draw on, but somehow he’d try to find the right words to say.

  Besides, Mallory hadn’t asked him to step up and be a father. She’d only asked him to talk to Lucas—man to boy.

  How hard could that be?

  * * *

  When Rick arrived at Mallory’s house, she met him outside.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said. “He’s not happy that I called you, but I felt a little out of my element.”

  Good, that made two of them.

  The deadline for his ultimatum had come and gone yesterday, and Rick was glad he’d decided not to force the issue just yet. He’d come to realize that he’d needed some time to adjust to the whole idea of fatherhood, too.

  And right now, in all honesty, he was glad that he was wearing the hat of a family friend.

  When Mallory invited Rick into her living room, he chose a seat on the sofa, across from Lucas, who sat rather stoically in the easy chair, his arms folded.

  Just as she’d said, the boy didn’t appear too happy about the upcoming interrogation.

  Rick couldn’t say that he blamed him. He remembered what it had felt like to be nine years old and questioned about one of the fights he’d been involved in. He also tried to imagine what Hank might have said to him, had Hank been
his father—instead of the old man he’d had.

  When nothing especially fatherly or pithy came immediately to mind, he opened the conversation by making a lighthearted observation. “Looks like you’re going to have an impressive shiner.”

  Rick stole a glance at Mallory, whose brow shot up. Clearly he’d crossed some line he should have known about.

  Strike one.

  Rick focused on Lucas. Damn if the boy didn’t look like Joey right now, especially with that battered face and stubborn expression.

  “So how does the other guy look?” Rick asked, this time avoiding Mallory’s gaze completely.

  At that, Lucas finally turned to Rick, his lips quirking into the slightest of smiles. “About like me, I guess. But a little worse. He got a bloody nose.”

  So at least he’d admitted to being involved in a fight.

  “It’s tough when kids pick on the new guy at school,” Rick said.

  “Nobody picked on me,” Lucas said. “And after today, I don’t think they will.”

  Mallory’s breath caught, although Rick didn’t think Lucas had noticed.

  Was she concerned that Lucas may have picked a fight to show how tough he was? Or was she worried that he might have inherited a propensity for violence, thanks to the Martinez gene pool?

  Maybe she just didn’t like Rick’s line of questioning. But if that was the case, she’d asked for his help. And, for better or worse, she was getting the best he had to offer.

  “So what did you do?” Rick asked his son. “Walk up to the biggest guy at school and let him have it?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I might get someone else in trouble, and I’d rather spend all of fourth grade in detention and the rest of my life stuck in my bedroom without any TV.”

  That was rather noble of him. Rick risked another peek at Mallory, saw her furrow her brow. Then she eased forward, knelt beside the easy chair where Lucas sat and placed her hand on his knee. “You won’t be punished for telling the truth, Lucas. No matter what you do, even if it’s wrong or bad, if you come to me and tell me about it, I’ll support you in every way I can. And if there’s someone who needs protection, I want you to share that with me, too. But I can’t help you or anyone else if I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Lucas dropped his gaze. He seemed to think about what she’d said for the longest time. When he looked up, he bit down on his swollen lip, then winced.

  Finally, his gaze met his mother’s. “You promise not to say anything to anyone? Hope to die and flash a zillion laser beams in your eye?”

  Apparently, the cost to secret-breakers had gone up with the rise in technology.

  “I promise,” she said. “But if someone’s in danger, we’ll have to discuss ways you can best help them. And sometimes that will be by telling the right people.”

  Lucas seemed to consider the maternal wisdom, then he turned to Rick. “Doctors have to keep secrets when their patients tell them stuff. So that means you can’t tell, either, right?”

  The boy was getting his professional ethics a bit mixed up, especially when it came to veterinarians, but that wasn’t the point right now. And as long as Mallory was handling the danger-to-others scenario, Rick was in the clear. So he raised his right hand in Boy Scout fashion. “I promise.”

  The boy nodded solemnly, as if they’d made a sacred vow. The three of them.

  A family pact.

  Finally, Lucas began to open up. “Do you know how bad it is to be a foster kid?” he asked.

  Now it was Rick’s turn to raise his brow and glance at Mallory. When he looked back at Lucas, he said, “Yeah, I actually do know. And while there are plenty of good homes out there, that’s not always the case. And the bad ones can really suck.”

  “Well, when you’re a kid who’s lived in some of those bad families and have to move around a lot, it’s really hard. So when you finally find a home that’s a good one, and you got a foster dad you really like, you can’t get into any trouble. ’Cause if you do, you could get kicked out. Or then they can take you to another foster home—one of the bad ones.”

  Rick wasn’t sure where Lucas was going with this, but he suspected that Ryan and Jason were involved.

  “So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Rick said. “You got into a fight today, trying to protect a kid who’s afraid he’ll get kicked out of a good home?”

  “Kind of,” Lucas said. “You see, there’s this cool second grader at my school who was getting picked on all the time by this big jerk bully in the fourth grade. And the kid’s older brother wanted to stand up for him. But he was afraid to get in a fight and kick the bully’s butt because he could have got into big trouble.”

  “So, as a favor to the brothers, you fought the bully?” Mallory asked.

  Lucas nodded. “And that’s why I can’t tell anyone about it. And since the big jerk bully got his butt kicked, he’s not going to pick on me or my friends anymore.”

  Mallory probably wouldn’t agree, but Rick was proud of his son. Not that he wanted Lucas to get into fights—or to be a troublemaker in school—but the boy was loyal and brave. Who could fault him for that?

  So now what?

  Rick’s old man—and his uncle, too—would have ignored the whole thing as no big deal and never would have had a sit-down talk with him at all. That is, unless the school contacted them. And even then, they would have blown the whole thing off as an inconvenience.

  But no way did Rick want to follow their lead. Instead, he wondered how Hank would have handled the situation.

  He supposed, knowing his mentor as he did, that Hank would have addressed the heart of the matter. And that’s what Rick would try to do. So he leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Did you know that Jason and Ryan, the boys who live at Tom Randall’s ranch, are foster kids?”

  Lucas studied him. His brows raised slightly, but he didn’t respond.

  “I’m going to take a big leap here,” Rick said. “I’m going to assume that you’re talking about those boys. And that a kid at your school has been making trouble for them.”

  Lucas started to bite down on his swollen lip again, but caught himself.

  “I was a foster kid, too,” Rick said. “And I didn’t grow up in loving homes. Not like the ones you’ve had—or the one Jason and Ryan now have with Tom. So I know how boys like them think. They’re scared and unsettled most of the time. They’ve learned at a young age that they can’t trust the adults in their lives. And when they finally get a good home and meet people like Tom Randall, they’re afraid to go to them and tell them when they’re scared or in some kind of trouble.”

  “Like I was afraid to talk to my mom and to you today?” Lucas asked.

  “Exactly. You didn’t trust us, even though the adults in your life have been good to you. When you were hungry, they fed you. And when you were hurt, they comforted you. But Jason and Ryan haven’t always lived with people who loved and cared for them. So a lot of the time, they had to deal with their fears and problems on their own.”

  “That’s really sad,” Lucas said.

  “Well, yes. It used to be. But things are much better now. Jason and Ryan don’t know this yet, but one day they will. Tom Randall is one of the nicest and kindest men I know. He’s got a good heart. That’s why he took those boys to live with him on his ranch in the first place. So believe me, they can trust him when they’re hungry or hurt—and when they’re scared or in trouble. If they would have told him about the bully, he would have given them good advice. In fact, tomorrow, when you see them at school, I hope you’ll tell them what I just said.”

  At that, Mallory stepped in. “Rick’s right, Lucas. And even if the boys had gotten into a fight—and into trouble—Tom wouldn’t have sent them away. Everyone makes mistakes, and Tom is there to help Jason and Ryan
learn from theirs so that they can make better choices the next time.”

  Lucas sat there for the longest time. Then he looked at Rick. “You think that’s true? Their new foster dad wouldn’t have kicked them out for getting into a fight?”

  “Not even if they’d been the ones to start the fight,” Rick said. “I told you that Tom is a friend of mine and that he’s a good man. But that’s something those boys will have to learn with time. Hopefully, when it comes to trusting the adults in your life, you’ll be able to learn that lesson a lot faster. Your mom and I...” Rick caught himself and paused.

  He saw Mallory watching him, no doubt afraid he’d spill the beans, but he’d promised her he wouldn’t until she’d given him the okay. He’d tried to force her hand by giving her a time limit, but Lucas had enough to deal with today. In fact, they all had. So he chose his words carefully and followed through on the comment he’d stalled on just a couple of beats before.

  “Your mom is always going to be there for you, Lucas. And you have my phone number. You also know where I live and work. If you ever need a friend, all you have to do is say the word. The door to my house and my clinic is always open to you.”

  “That’s pretty cool, Dr. Martinez.”

  Yeah, well, it was the best he could do until Mallory told their son who he really was.

  Hell, it might be the best he could do, anyway. Still, Rick wanted Lucas to know the truth. And he didn’t want to prolong things much longer.

  “You know,” Rick added, “I used to get into trouble a lot when I was in school—usually for fighting. And sometimes for other things I’d rather not admit to. So I spent my share of time in the principal’s office and in detention.”

  “Did you get sent to your room, too?” Lucas asked.

  Sent to his room? No, Rick usually got knocked across it, which was why he’d learned to stay away from the house whenever he had reason to believe his dad or his uncle were in a mood that could easily turn volatile.

  “Yeah, I got punished,” he admitted. “But I was so angry and stubborn that it didn’t seem to help much. In fact, I grew up with a real chip on my shoulder.”