A Child Of His Own, page 6
As it had a hundred times since that night, her mind wandered back to the kiss outside the carousel. She hoped she hadn’t given Ben the wrong impression. It had happened so unexpectedly that she had reacted before she could stop herself. In moments she’d been consumed by a heat from within that had threatened to scorch her very soul. It had left her weak and uncertain and wanting more.
He had kissed her hungrily, exploringly, the warmth of his body pressed to hers burning through her clothes, past her skin, setting her on fire inside. Her cheeks reddened at the thought of how she had responded. Trapped in his arms, she had wanted his strength, not just the muscles, but the inner strength that she had sensed in him from the beginning. There had been no words, only needs, and feelings stronger than any she had felt in a very long time. It had both excited her and frightened her. If his kiss alone had the power to do that to her, what would it be like to make love with him? Surely, that was something she would never find out.
She turned back to the eggs in the bowl and proceeded to scramble them. Hesitantly, but honestly, she answered, “Yes, Jason, I like Ben, too.”
“Great. Then I can go with you on Saturday.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want Jason to spend time with Ben. In the two weeks since Ben had been there, it was easy to see that Jason lit up in his presence. But why give him the false impression that the relationship meant anything when soon Ben would be gone, and Jason would be one disappointed little boy. It broke Dory’s heart. She wished there were some way she could shield her son from the hurt he would undoubtedly feel and not understand.
The funny thing was, something told her that she, too, would be hurt by Ben’s leaving, and that understanding would not diminish the pain. But then, she was used to people leaving, in one way or another.
“You’ll see, Mommy, I won’t get carsick. It’ll work out.”
Her son’s eager voice brought Dory back to the matter at hand. She wanted to tell him that things didn’t always work out, that life wasn’t always fair, and that by Saturday, the excitement of Billy’s birthday party would far outweigh a ride to Devil’s Corner with her and Ben. But as she buttered the toast, she said, “If you don’t hurry up and finish your breakfast, you won’t be ready when Pop-Pop comes down to drive you to Mrs. Norton’s.”
Mrs. Norton ran the day-care center in the nearby town of Libertyville. Having once been Dory’s own third-grade teacher, Dory felt secure in the knowledge that Jason would receive the benefit of Mrs. Norton’s stern, but loving, care.
“Come on,” she gently coaxed, “eat just a little bit more, then drink your milk and you’re finished.”
When the predictable protest did not come, she turned from the stove and saw what had silenced him, the tall figure standing in the doorway, seeming to take up the entire space with his masculine form.
She had no idea how long he’d been standing there, or how much of their conversation he’d overheard. Had he heard the part where she said she liked him? Her pulse revved, and she could feel the hot flame of embarrassment rise to her cheeks.
“Good morning.”
His voice was mellow and smooth, giving no indication that he’d heard anything. Yet it was also lacking the friendliness she had come to recognize these past couple of weeks. At times she cringed for him when he tried to be friendly in spite of her resistance. This morning, however, it was absent, and Dory was surprised to find herself disappointed. She reached for a plate, praying he didn’t notice her feelings.
“Good morning,” she said pleasantly. “Have a seat. Breakfast is almost ready.”
By silent, mutual consent, the subject of the kiss had never been mentioned since that first night, although the remembrance of it was strung like barbed wire between them.
“Hey, pal,” Ben said to the boy as he took his seat at the table, “that cereal looks mighty good. Did you leave any for me?”
Dory recognized it as a ploy to get Jason to eat his cereal. Oh God, she groaned to herself as she prepared Ben’s plate, he had heard their conversation.
Jason began to gobble up his cereal as if on cue. “Uh-uh,” he managed as he downed spoonfuls. With a final full mouth he held up an empty bowl and proclaimed, “Not a drop.”
Dory caught Ben’s eyes and gave him a little smile of thanks as she placed a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and buttered toast before him. Without asking, she stirred three teaspoons of sugar into a mug of coffee and set it down on the table.
“Smells great,” said Ben. “How about you? Aren’t you eating?”
“I had breakfast over an hour ago. I’m on my second cup of coffee now, but that should do it. Too much caffeine makes me jittery. I’ve got some detail work to do today, and I need a steady hand.”
“I thought I’d paint some of the games today,” he said. “How does Day-Glo sound to you?”
“Bright.”
“That’s what this place needs. Hot colors appeal to the young. I’m telling you, Dory, your business will double. Trust me on this.” His eye for detail and color had made him very successful in his former profession, but she didn’t know that.
Something about Ben’s confident attitude made Dory trust his judgment. Maybe it was the forthright manner in which he looked at her as he spoke, as if he knew what he was talking about. And why not? For mingled with the unexplained hurt she saw now and then in his eyes was a fierce intelligence. She didn’t know what he had once been, or what had led a man like him to such a haphazard existence. She knew only that she trusted him.
Still, she hedged, not wishing to disrupt the secure feeling she got from the familiar old surroundings by changing them so radically. “The Dutch Mill has always been the way it is, and we’ve done all right.”
“What have you go to lose? If you don’t like the way they look, I’ll paint them back to the way they are now.”
“We don’t have enough time left to waste it on repainting.”
“I’ll make the time.”
She sensed that he wasn’t being obstinate as he sat there eating his breakfast, only logical. It wasn’t that the games could not stand a new coat of paint, and Day-Glo wasn’t really the issue. When had he begun to take things into his own hands? To make his own decisions on what needed to be done? And when, to her chagrin, did she begin liking it?
“All right. But if I don’t like it—”
“Back it goes,” he interjected.
“Back what goes?” Martin questioned upon entering the room.
“Ben is going to paint some of the games today,” Dory said, a note of skepticism in her tone. “He can tell you what he needs, and maybe you can pick it up after you drop off Jason.”
“Absolutely. What’ll it be, my boy?”
As Ben ticked off the type and colors of paint he wanted, his gaze strayed to the counter where Dory was packing Jason’s lunch. From behind she was a symmetrical form with one line curving gracefully into another, creating the swells and hollows that made a man hunger, even when his belly was full from breakfast. Through her jeans he could see the faint outline of her panties. He smiled appreciatively, and wondered whether women knew how sexy panty lines were to a man.
That she wasn’t wearing a bra was evident in the way her breasts pressed against the soft flannel of her shirt as she moved about the kitchen. Yet as much as he wanted to cup the warm fullness of them in his palms, he resisted the thought with the same kind of fierceness of will that had gotten him through three years in prison. A kiss was one thing, but he couldn’t risk getting involved with her, not when he held the power to break her heart by taking her son away from her.
As he had stood in the doorway observing both mother and child, he’d seen the bond between them that would not be easily broken, and he had known then that this was the day he would tell her.
“Okay, got it.” Into his pocket Martin stuffed the paper upon which he had scribbled Ben’s order.
Even his aging eyes could not help but notice the glow on Dory’s cheeks this morning that reminded him of the Dory he used to know. For too long there had been a melancholy ring to her laughter, and her loneliness showed in her eyes. Yet his every attempt to encourage her to date was met with a smile and the same sweet proclamation. “I have you, and Jason, and the Dutch Mill,” she would say. “Who needs more than that?”
Yet it was obvious by the color that tinted her cheeks, and by the way she kept her eyes shyly averted, that she was aware of the dark gaze that followed her every move, and Martin wondered if her question wasn’t already answered.
He cleared his throat and said, “Where’s that boy? It’s time we got going.”
Jason raced into the room from wherever he had disappeared to. “Here I am, Pop-Pop.”
Dory handed him his lunchbox, then bundled him up in her arms and gave him a big hug. “Have fun today. And remember, Mommy loves you.”
She gave Martin a kiss on his seamed cheek and sent the two of them off together.
The tender scene filled Ben with longing, pushing his emotions beyond the breaking point. His fingers rapped nervously on the knotty pine of the kitchen table as he watched them say their goodbyes. He knew he had to tell her. Yet he also knew that doing so would destroy any possibility, however remote, of ever becoming a part of the family scene he witnessed each morning.
“Want more?”
Her voice was tentative, a little husky, and unerringly beautiful with its soft, sexy tone. Yet it failed to put Ben at ease in view of what he knew he must do.
“Coffee?” she prompted, when she received no response from him.
“No, thank you.”
“That was nifty work you did getting Jason to eat his breakfast. You’re a natural. It’s too bad you don’t have children of your own.”
She hadn’t intended it as anything other than simple flattery, but when she saw the wince in his eyes, she knew he had taken it for more than that. “What I mean is—”
Ben spoke up quickly. “It was nothing. It always worked on me when I was a kid, so I figured I’d give it a try.”
“So, had you been standing there long?”
“Long enough to know he didn’t want to eat. Why was he being difficult?”
“He wants to drive with us to Devil’s Corner on Saturday.”
“It’s okay with me, if it’s okay with you,” he offered.
“Take my word for it,” she said confidently, “come Saturday morning, the only thing you’ll hear Jason talking about is the birthday party. We’ll drop him off on our way, and I can guarantee he won’t even look back.”
He envied her for how well she knew her son. Wishing for the same kind of familiarity, he said, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to speak to you about.”
“You’re not thinking of painting everything Day-Glo, are you?” she said jokingly.
“Not unless you want me to. No, actually I wanted to speak to you about Jason.”
“Has he been taking up too much of your time? I’ll have a talk with him. Jason is just a very inquisitive child.”
“Yes, I know.” Much as he himself was at that age, he remembered. One more similar trait between them. Was it his imagination, or was he seeing more and more similar traits every day?
“He told me you let him use your tools, and that you put him up on your shoulders. I can’t tell you what that means to him.”
“You don’t have to. I saw the look of pure joy on his face. And no, he hasn’t been taking up too much of my time. It’s easy to see he misses the influence of a father in his life.” He chanced a look at her and saw a shadow of unexplained regret wash across her face. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“I was wondering about the boy’s father. Not your late husband, but, you know, the biological father. What do you suppose he was like?”
“Beats me,” said Dory. “Every time I see something new in Jason I wonder if it’s because he’s simply who he is, or whether it’s something he’s inherited from his birth parents.” She lowered her eyes and said, “I like to think there’s some of me in him, too.”
“Do you think you would ever let him meet his birth father?”
“I’ve given that a lot of thought. I suppose if the day comes when Jason wants to meet his father, I’ll do whatever I can to help him find him.” She paused, and added, “And to prepare him for the possibility that his father might not want to meet him.”
To a man desperate to find his son, it was inconceivable to Ben that any father in similar circumstance would not want to be united with his son.
“What if his biological father wanted to find him? Would you be willing to do whatever was necessary to help?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
Ben hesitated. The words he had rehearsed a thousand times in his head would not emerge. “I—I gave a child up for adoption once, and I often think about one day finding him.” It was not a lie, yet neither was it entirely the truth.
Sudden understanding brightened her eyes. “That would explain it, then, that look I see on your face sometimes when you’re with Jason. Ben, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
In prison he had perfected the art of letting no one read his expression, for fear of knowing his thoughts. What little privacy there was was to be found inside his own head. Whoever would have guessed that this slender, soft-spoken woman would do what the toughest convict or prison guard could not do, see past his facade all the way to the tender ache beneath?
He asked, “Is it that obvious?”
She didn’t want to admit that it was only obvious to someone who was staring as intently as she sometimes did, so she waved off his concern, saying, “Haven’t you ever heard of a woman’s intuition, or a mother’s wisdom?” She sat down beside him at the table. “There are organizations that can help you. I have the name of one written down somewhere.”
He kept his gaze averted to the grainy surface of the table, unable to look at her. “That may not be necessary. I think I know where my son is.”
“At least that’s a start. Maybe you can hire an attorney and see about some kind of visitation rights.”
“What do you think they’d do, the adoptive parents?”
“That’s hard to say. All you can do is hope they understand your need to be a part of your son’s life.”
His eyes came up slowly to meet hers. “What would you do?”
“You mean if I were you?”
“No. I mean if you were the adoptive parent and I showed up to claim your son...my son?”
Dory felt a sudden tensing of her muscles. She didn’t like the route his questions were taking. “I—I don’t know.”
“Would you understand, Dory? Would you understand my need to be a part of my son’s life?”
“Why are you asking me this? I told you, I don’t know. How can I say how I would feel? You’re talking about a mother somewhere who faces the very real possibility of sharing her child with you. In my case, we’re talking hypothetically, aren’t we?”
There was no answer, only a look in his eyes that seemed to beg forgiveness.
“Ben? Aren’t we?”
“Dory, there’s something I have to tell you. It’s been driving me crazy since the day I got here.”
She wasn’t aware of rising from the table and backing away, or of shaking her head slowly, incredulously, from side to side as a terrible connection began to take shape.
“Wh-what is it?” She could hear the tremor of fear rising in her voice and fought to keep it under control.
Ben’s face was a tangle of emotions as he struggled for the words. There was no easy way to do it, so he pulled in a deep, galvanizing breath and said, “I have reason to think that Jason is my son.”
The words, though barely uttered, ricocheted off the walls of Dory’s mind like gunshots fired at close range.
“Y-you don’t know what you’re saying. What on earth makes you think such a thing?”
The initial fear his insane declaration inspired gave way rapidly to anger as Dory’s maternal instincts came rushing to the surface, and her expression changed from vulnerable to belligerent in a matter of seconds.
Ben had steeled himself as best he could against the tears that he was sure would come with the news. But this was not the teary-eyed response he had expected. This was the full-blown fury of a mother protecting her young.
With her face flushed with color and those green eyes blazing at him, she looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. To his dismal surprise, he found himself wanting her again, this time more fiercely than he had a right to.
Fighting to suppress his own instincts, he kept his voice low to keep it from breaking, praying she would hear only the truth behind his words and not the fear that shook him to his core.
“You have to admit there’s a resemblance.”
Tersely, she replied, “If I thought that every dark-haired, dark-eyed man on the street could be Jason’s father, I’d spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”
“Those traits you spoke about before, I recognize some of them. I was just like him when I was his age.”
“So was I. It’s called being a kid.”
“All right,” he said, his frustration mounting, “you’re determined to think this thing is just a coincidence. But what if it’s not?”
She stood in front of the kitchen counter, her arms folded across her chest, a look of pure distrust on her face. “You haven’t offered me any proof that it isn’t.”
“I don’t have that kind of proof,” he said. The slight relaxation of her features would have been imperceptible had he not been watching her so closely. He weighed his next words carefully, knowing their importance. “But you do.”
Dory was watching Ben just as intently, searching for a sign that this was all just a sick joke. “Proof?” she tossed back at him. “What proof do I have that would prove Jason is your son?”
“How about a birth certificate?”
“What makes you think I have one?”
“Don’t the adoptive parents get the birth certificate? What about those kids you hear about who go rifling through their parents’ dresser drawers and come across birth certificates and discover they’ve been adopted?”
