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Another Woman's Son
Anna Adams
Whose baby is he?Three months ago, Isabel Baker's life came crashing down after her husband confessed he'd fallen in love with another woman–her sister–and that they'd had a child together.Then tragedy strikes, and Isabel's sister and husband are killed, leaving baby Tony with just her sister's husband, Ben. Now Isabel is faced with a terrible decision. Telling the truth would mean taking Tony from the only father he's ever known, but how can she possibly lie?She's shocked to discover that Ben doesn't have any such qualms. He's determined to keep what remains of his family intact–no matter what. Which is why he's trying to convince Isabel that together they could make the perfect parents for Tony….
“I would have happily divorced Will.”
After searching for a tissue, Isabel continued, “And told Faith I never wanted to see her again, but I didn’t want them dead. Do you?”
“I’m not sure.” He wasn’t sure about anything. Faith had left a note before she’d driven away with Will. She’d claimed Will had turned to her for comfort because Isabel had rejected him. If not for Isabel, they’d never have grown close enough to fall in love.
Even if that was true, was their adultery really Isabel’s fault? Shouldn’t Will have fought for his marriage? Ben had known he and Faith had problems, but he’d never considered divorce.
Shutting Isabel’s door, he walked along the side of the car. His best friend had made love with his wife and created the baby who slept in a crib down the hall.
And Isabel had known. With a few words, she could take his son for her family. He imagined himself in her place, watching her mother fall apart, her father walk around like a monolith without emotion. And Tony could make them both better.
How could he trust her? Until he knew what she was going to do, he couldn’t let her out of his sight.
Dear Reader,
Right now, in my world, family is a fragile thing. Ironically, I’ve just finished a story with the same theme, Another Woman’s Son.
The relationships in this novel are complex. Ben Jordan and Isabel Barker both knew they had problems in their marriages, but they had no idea they’d lost so much until all they had left was the small boy who binds them together. In the end, they discover that, along with the boy, they have a mutual talent to love and forgive and create a future.
As I wrote this book, I began to realize that loving and forgiving are the best gifts we can give our families, no matter how we grow or fracture or adapt. If a moment comes that requires everything we have to offer, love and forgiveness are good places to start.
I hope you’ll enjoy this story that remains with me still. I’d love to hear from you. E-mail me at anna@annaadams.net.
Best wishes,
Anna Adams
Another Woman’s Son
Anna Adams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the three I lost last week:
Edith Taylor Adams
I have many mothers, but you were the one who loved
me out of choice, from the day I met you. Thank you for
my husband and my “brothers,” for the you in Sarah’s hands
and Colin’s smart mouth and Jen’s ambition and Stevie’s
willingness to always try something new. The plan still goes—if
this thing with Steve doesn’t work out, you and I are always
Ma and daughter. I love you.
Aunt Daisy
You were the sophisticate in our family. You plucked your
eyebrows and indulged in a bit of the grape, and I hear your
smoky laughter right now. I loved your stories so much, the
anticipation was more than half the fun. In fact, you were a
lot of the fun in my childhood. I’m missing you so.
Miranda
I wish I’d known you better. I wish you hadn’t gone.
May peace find you and surround you,
and may you know you are beloved.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
ISABEL BARKER LIFTED her face and blinked hard at the silver skeleton and black waterproof cloth of her umbrella. As long as she didn’t let the tears fall, she wasn’t crying.
She was a fraud. A widow who wanted to throw herself on her husband’s coffin, kicking and screaming—with rage. Each snowflake that smacked her umbrella was a drumbeat reiterating one word in her head.
Cheat. Cheat. Cheat.
She stared at the cheater’s casket. Snow decorated the improbably polished mahogany with white lace and mixed with the tears of the real mourners who clustered around Will’s open grave.
She wanted to scream the truth. Will had cheated on her. With her sister. Her sister, damn him—and damn Faith, too.
He and Faith had made a baby, despite the fact he’d always told Isabel he wasn’t ready for children. Faith and Will had been trying to run away with eighteen-month-old Tony the afternoon they’d died in a car crash. It was the only explanation for the suitcases the police had found in the wreckage. Tony, miraculously safe in his car seat, couldn’t explain.
Isabel turned her face away from Will’s coffin, grateful that her nephew had survived. She couldn’t look at her parents or at Ben Jordan— Faith’s husband. Ben had also been Will’s best friend. And Isabel’s, too.
She hadn’t looked at her family this morning when she’d seethed and mourned at her sister’s service. Three months ago, after a day in the park with Tony, Isabel had asked Will again if he was ready for a child of their own. She’d tried to explain how much she longed for their baby. Instead of his usual “I’m too busy” excuses, he’d taken a deep breath and confessed to his affair with Faith.
Isabel had stared, disbelieving as the words flew like weapons. She’d begged him to say he was lying. He had promised he’d be faithful after an earlier affair at a time when their marriage had been young and troubled. She’d forgiven him then. He’d promised, after all.
And Faith—she’d never betray her own sister. Isabel lowered her head and pulled her umbrella closer to shut out the world. Fickle, beautiful, lucky Faith would never steal her little sister’s husband and then pass off his child as her own and Ben’s. She’d never ask Isabel to be godmother to her own husband’s out-of-wedlock son. Faith had flaws, but she wasn’t a monster.
A small groan escaped Isabel’s lips. Ben leaned toward her, his shoes creaking in the early January cold. She felt guilty and eased away from him. Three months ago, she’d left town without telling Ben what Will had told her. If he’d done the same, she wasn’t sure she could forgive him.
The minister lifted his hands. “Please bow your heads for a blessing.” He hadn’t strained himself with an extensive eulogy. Had the snow put him off? Or maybe Will, in a fit of regret, had confided in him, and he couldn’t do an adulterous man justice.
Isabel stared at her black pointy-toed shoes and refused to pray. She’d abandoned Ben because she’d made herself a fool for Will, and she couldn’t find courage or the words to admit how gullible and stupid she’d been. How straight-to-the-bone her husband’s infidelity cut her even now.
They’d married straight out of college, and she’d worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency while Will became known for the innovative textiles he’d manufactured. After two years of phenomenal success, he’d decided he didn’t want anyone to think his wife had to work. Isabel’s job ruined his image as a provider and a philanthropist.
From the moment she’d resigned, the power balance between them had shifted. Bored stiff in her empty home, she’d thrown herself into any volunteer opportunity.
Will had approved of all efforts that got their names in the paper, but he’d badgered her for time she should have devoted to him. When she’d said she might be a coat on a hook that he took down the second he came home in the evening, he’d reflected on that first affair, said she’d driven him to find someone who loved him the way she’d promised to—for better, for worse.
To hide mistrust she’d never overcome, she’d tried harder to be the wife he wanted.
What an idiot she’d been. Humiliation nearly strangled her. She’d never be dependent again, never try to please a man as part of some twisted love ritual. She’d never live another lie.
From somewhere inside, laughter came. Inappropriate, hysterical laughter. Fine time to take back the reins of her own life.
She swallowed with effort. She didn’t need Will to tell her hysteria was unsuitable in a widow.
Ben must have thought she was choking. Taller by several inches, he looped his arm around her shoulders. She jumped. Once he knew what she’d kept from him, he’d never touch her again. He’d never trust her.
On her first day at the University of Virginia, Isabel had been carrying a mountain of clothes from her car to her dorm when she’d literally stumbled over Ben and Will repairing the VW bug they’d shared. They were already in their junior year.
Talk led to “chance” meetings that became dates between her and Will. Always, Ben hovered at the edges, disappearing when appropriate, supportive when Isabel had feared Will might leave her for some other girl who’d thrown herself in his way. Will had been a flirt. A harmless one, Ben had always reassured her.
And then Ben had met Faith and they’d fallen in love, and the world had seemed perfect. Sisters who’d married best friends. Four best friends in all, who agreed to live in D.C.
Faith had discovered English Meadows, an “executive subdivision” of two-acre, green-beyond-belief estates in Hartsfield, Virginia. Ben and Isabel had tried to hold out against such a strong dose of well-to-do, covenant-laden suburbia. Big brick houses on small patches of grass.
Faith and Will had called them socialists in a capitalist world.
She glanced at Ben’s dark-clad legs, all she could see of him with her head down. Had he noticed Will and Faith’s stray looks of longing? Low-voiced conversations that only now seemed significant.
“Amen,” said the minister.
A few women cried out loud. One man coughed, trying to hide his grief. Most of these people knew she’d separated from Will. They shook hands with Ben, barely muttering condolences her way before they bolted for their warm vehicles.
A line of cars snaked down a slithery path that marked the snow-covered road on the cemetery’s hill. Smoke rose behind gleaming black trunks, but distance and the brisk January wind buffered the engine sounds.
One woman seemed overwhelmed, trying to hide hushed sounds of anguish behind a white handkerchief. Another friend of Will’s? Isabel turned away from her and teetered over the snow to take her mother’s arm.
“Mom,” she said, unable to comfort her with more. Amelia Deaver turned into Isabel’s arms, burying a sob in her shoulder.
Her father caught her mom’s waist. “Amelia,” he said, his own voice husky. “Come on, honey. Let’s go back to the hotel.”
“Faith.” Isabel’s mother sobbed the name, and her pain finally made Isabel cry, too. She’d loved her sister. She would rather have fought her for Will than lost both of them. But she’d left, believing Will’s claim that he’d found his one true love in her sister.
“Mom, let’s go.” They had to endure the reception at the Fitzroy Hotel, a central location for friends and employees. She pushed her mother’s short wavy hair back. “You’re shivering. You’re going to get sick.” The men in coveralls, hovering beneath the bare branches of a tree about a hundred yards down the road, weighed on Isabel’s mind, too. She didn’t blame them for wanting to finish their job in this weather, but neither did she want to watch them.
“I’m sorry.” Her mother straightened, wiping her nose. “You’ve lost so much.”
Isabel hated deceiving her mom. “I guess numbness protects you,” she said. Three days had passed since the police had called.
“It won’t for long.” Amelia took her hand. “Where are your gloves, honey?”
Ben produced them from his pockets. “I found them on the ground beside the car,” he said, handing them back.
“Thanks.” Isabel took them without looking him in the eyes. “We’ll meet you at the hotel.” She glanced at her grieving mother. “Maybe you could bring Tony over to their hotel in the morning?”
“I wish you’d all stay at the house.” Ben cupped her mother’s elbow, and Amelia looked at Isabel’s father. “George,” Ben said, “don’t you think you and Amelia would be more comfortable at my house than in a hotel?”
“I don’t mind coming during the day, but I can’t face Faith’s things.” Amelia dissolved in fresh tears. “I have to be able to leave when it gets to be too much.”
“I was thinking of Tony,” Ben said. “He needs his family around him.”
“Is-a-bel.” Amelia stuttered over her name. “Why don’t you drive to the reception with Ben? Your things are still in your car, and he came with us. Afterward, you could stay at Ben’s until Tony’s better.”
After that horrible conversation with Will, Isabel had fled to Middleburg, three hours away in horse country, where she’d found a job in an even smaller ad agency than the one where she’d worked after college. Because of the blizzard that was finally subsiding, she’d arrived this morning, barely in time for Faith’s service.
