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She could only pray for the latter. One way or another, she would have her answer soon enough.
But right now, it was her grandson she was concerned about. Her grandson who had to be rescued and brought back to the fold. The details and explanations could be handled later. First things first.
She slipped an arm around Lacy’s thin shoulders, feeling as if, in a way, she was somehow stepping into the past and comforting herself.
“There are dozens of reasons they haven’t called, Lacy, and none of them are bad.” A slight smile curved her lips. “And no matter what the television commercials would have us believe, not everyone carries around a cell phone in their hip pocket.”
“And even if they did,” Shelby interjected, “it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Garrett can’t remember to charge the one I gave him to save his life. Says it’s a nuisance.”
Lacy sighed, praying they were right. That it was just a matter of not taking the time or finding the opportunity to call. Maybe they were, even now, on their way home. Home with her son.
But she couldn’t calm down.
The agitation was growing steadily, threatening to consume her. “Well, right now it’s a nuisance I really wish he’d put up with.” She could only hope that didn’t come out as short as it sounded. Lacy knew that Connor didn’t own a cell phone, but that shouldn’t have prevented him from finding a way to call.
She looked at the telephone again, willing it to ring. It remained silent.
He wasn’t calling because something horrible had happened. She just knew it.
Unable to remain still, she began to pace again, her eyes all but riveted to the front door with every step she took. Why weren’t they back yet? The meeting was for midnight. It was past two.
Unable to remain on the sidelines any longer, Shelby checked her pockets for her car keys. “Maybe I’ll just take a ride up to the sugar factory to see if everything went the way it should have.”
Megan instinctively took a step to block her way. “No.” It was an order. “It’s too dangerous.”
Shelby looked at the Maitland family matriarch. Years ago Megan had taken Shelby and her brothers and sister under her wing when their own parents had abandoned them. Though she had arranged for the children to be adopted by friends of hers, Megan had always been like an aunt—or at times a second mother—to the Lord children. Shelby realized there was no point arguing, but she wasn’t happy about doing nothing.
Sensing the struggle she’d created within the younger woman, Megan mitigated her words with logic. “Besides, they might be on their way home already, and you’ll wind up missing them. No sense in driving up there for no reason. Better to stay put.”
“All right.” Shelby relented, slipping her keys into her pocket. “I’ll give them another half an hour, but after that I’m out of here.” As if to back up her position, she took out her cell phone and held it up for inspection. “And I’ve got a fully charged cell phone, so if they do show up while I’m gone, you can reach me the minute they walk in.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lacy told her. Megan opened her mouth to protest, but Lacy wasn’t about to be talked out of it. “I can’t take this waiting any longer, Mrs. Maitland, and if I pace anymore, you’re going to have a path worn through your tile.”
Megan shrugged carelessly. As if that mattered. “I was getting tired of that pattern anyway,” she quipped. “And I know how you feel.” Her eyes held the younger woman’s. She saw doubt. “I really do.”
There was something in the older woman’s eyes that spoke to her, though for the life of her, Lacy didn’t understand how Megan Maitland could have the vaguest idea what it was like to be an unwed mother whose child had been kidnapped. Megan, who together with her husband had founded the prestigious Maitland Maternity Clinic, where the country’s rich and famous came to have their babies, rubbing shoulders with desperate young women who had their backs up against the wall and nowhere to turn—women for whom the clinic had originally been created. But Megan Maitland was far removed from the world Lacy knew. She could easily buy and sell half the people in Austin without blinking an eye. How could she possibly know what it was like to be so destitute that she had nowhere to turn?
But she did have somewhere to turn, Lacy reminded herself. She had a job as a chef at Austin Eats Diner. Shelby Lord had taken her in and given her that job when she had amnesia. After a blow to the head had restored her memory, Shelby said nothing had changed. The job was hers for as long as she wanted it.
So she had a job and friends now, friends who had been eager to help reunite her with her baby. Friends who were willing to risk themselves and the ones they loved to do it. She might not have money like Megan, but she was rich in her own way. Rich in friends.
Lacy smiled. Maybe she had more in common with Megan than she’d thought.
“Wait.” Shelby held up a hand to stop the other women from talking. “Table the talk about driving over to the sugar factory, I think I hear a car. Two cars,” she amended.
Lacy was at the front door before Shelby finished speaking, pulling it open in time to see the two cars that had driven up and turned off their headlights.
“They’re back,” she cried, running out to meet them, her heart hammering wildly.
“Wait, Lacy,” Megan called.
Her back to the house, Lacy didn’t hear her. She didn’t hear or see anything but the tall man coming toward her.
Moonlight outlined his long frame and the tan Stetson he wore. In the dark it was difficult at first to see that he was holding something in his arms. Or what that something was.
Her mother’s heart told her even before her eyes could adjust.
Lacy didn’t remember crossing the last five feet to Connor. Didn’t remember her feet hitting the ground in a dead run. All she was aware of was that her eyes had filled with tears, making it difficult to focus.
She could have made her way to her son’s side blindfolded.
Lacy clutched Connor’s arm, looking into the face of her sleeping son.
“You found him,” she sobbed. “And he’s so big.”
The baby she remembered holding to her breast had been almost a newborn, certainly not this thriving child with his fair hair and rounded face.
As if in response to her voice, Chase opened his eyes, looking at her with wonder. A sweet smile moved the small, rosebud mouth.
Something warm opened up smack in the middle of Connor’s chest. He had trouble dealing with it. “He knows you,” Connor said.
Lacy wanted to say yes, even though she knew it was almost too much to hope for. She and Chase had been apart for so many months. Important months. But for the moment, she told herself that it was true.
“He had a very sweet disposition,” she murmured, taking her son into her arms.
It felt like heaven.
She hadn’t realized until this very second how much her arms had ached for this small weight. How much her heart had ached to feel the baby’s heart beating next to hers.
Happiness threatened to overwhelm her. It was almost more than she could humanly stand.
“Oh, thank you,” she murmured, raising her eyes to Connor and the men who were gathered behind him. “Thank you all for bringing my baby back to me.”
“Can we hold the thanks until we get into the house?” Garrett Lord requested. The month-old wound in his shoulder still ached, and he needed a painkiller.
Belatedly, Connor realized that Lacy had rushed out in her bare feet. Sometimes the woman didn’t have the sense she was born with. She could hurt herself on the stony drive.
“Get inside before we add a sprained ankle to the list of things that’ve gone wrong for you,” he ordered, slipping an arm around her.
Some things might have gone wrong, Lacy thought, but other things had gone very right. She had her baby back, and Connor, however temporarily, was in her life once more. There was no way she felt in the wrong tonight.
“Throw away the list,” Lacy told him. Without being conscious of it, she leaned into Connor as they walked to the house, absorbing the strength that radiated from him. “All that matters is that you found Chase and brought him back to me.”
“Not quite all,” Jake Maitland corrected, coming in behind them. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto the coatrack, snaring a hook. He wrapped one arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her toward him, pausing to kiss Camille before he continued. He noted that the women were all looking at him, waiting for him to continue. “I think equally important is that Janelle is finally behind bars, and if there’s any justice in this world, will never bother you or anyone else in this family—” he looked at his mother “—again.”
“What about Connor?” Abby asked, then immediately realized her mistake. “I mean Petey.”
“Well, he’s not going to be sharing a cell with Janelle, that’s for damn sure,” Michael told her.
Megan turned from Michael and looked at her youngest son’s face for confirmation. Jake grimly nodded. “He had a gun with him. When we showed up, Janelle goaded him into shooting it out with us instead of giving up. Petey didn’t stand a chance.”
“Petey?” Lacy echoed. She looked at Connor. “Was that his name?”
Connor nodded. “That was his name. Seems he was married to Janelle, the poor bastard.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s better off this way. No telling what she had up her sleeve for him next. That woman had him jumping through flaming hoops and swearing it was his idea.” He saw the quizzical look in Lacy’s eyes. “He talked a little before he died. What he didn’t tell us, Janelle did.”
Once she’d stopped cursing them all to hell, she’d made an about-face and confessed. Proudly. It left Connor mystified how the woman could be so proud of being so evil and spreading that poison into so many lives.
Megan shook her head. It all seemed like such a horrible waste to her. Greed and jealousy were terrible things. She cleared her throat, glad to be done with this chapter.
“The important thing is that it’s all over.” Megan’s eyes swept the young men and women in her home, her gratitude evident. For the first time in days, she felt like eating. “What do you say we all go into the kitchen and I’ll see if I can fix us a celebratory late dinner.” She thought of the time. It was close to dawn. “Or early breakfast, as it were,” she amended. “All this tension has helped me work up an appetite.”
Assenting murmurs went up, but Megan noticed that Connor began to distance himself from the others. Their eyes met, and she raised a silent brow.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon go up to my room and get some sleep right now,” he said. “I’m about ready to drop in my tracks.”
Megan felt a smattering of disappointment. Now that this major hurdle had been resolved to their satisfaction, she would have thought that Connor would want to remain with his son and his son’s mother, at least for a little while.
But she was well versed in reading expressions. One look at him told her not to push. Connor had his reasons for withdrawing. Maybe he needed a little time to assimilate all that had happened. From what she gathered, he hadn’t even known he had a son until just after the kidnapping had come to light and Lacy had regained her memory.
“Of course, Connor,” she agreed. “You must be exhausted.”
Maybe it was better if they all went to bed for what was left of the night. That way, they’d be fresh when she dropped her bombshell—and prayed for the best. Besides, the rest of her children needed to be here. She wasn’t about to go through that emotion-wrenching announcement more than once. It needed to be made to everyone at the same time. She felt bad enough that Ellie had accidentally overheard and had borne the weight of knowing her secret alone.
Megan had made up her mind. From now on, no more secrets of any kind, no matter how innocent.
“You all have to be exhausted,” she acknowledged, looking at the others. “Why don’t we postpone any sort of celebration until I can do this up properly?” Her eyes swept over Connor first, then touched everyone in the room one by one until they came to rest on Lacy. The mother of her grandchild.
“Sounds good to me,” Jake murmured. He slung his arm around Camille, his eyes drooping just a shade. “Care to prop up a hero? Help me up to bed and I’ll give you all the details, bit by bit.”
Before Camille could comment, Abby’s beeper went off, pulsing red numbers. Angling it away from her belt, Abby made out the telephone number. It was only vaguely familiar. She made a guess.
“Probably Mrs. Marlow. She looked ready to pop when I saw her in the office yesterday. Twins this time.” Two cups of coffee should give her a second wind, she estimated, sighing. “Another post-midnight delivery. Perfect ending to a perfect day.” On her way to the den and the telephone, Abby stopped long enough to brush a kiss on Connor’s cheek. “Nice work, cousin. Looks like you found the family just in time.”
He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the fact that, in being reunited with the Maitlands, he was able to get the help he needed to recover his son or if there was something else behind her words. All he did know was that the term she’d applied to him was incorrect.
He wasn’t her cousin, he was her half brother.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say something. But it wasn’t up to him to make the correction, he reminded himself. The words, whatever she ultimately chose them to be, belonged to Megan. He knew the circumstances surrounding his birth and his subsequent secretive adoption. He’d only learned them recently himself. Connor couldn’t even imagine what Megan must have gone through, thinking him dead all these years, only to have him turn up now, not her nephew, as she’d believed, but her son. Had to be a lot to deal with. He owed it to her to be the one to let the others know.
Or keep the secret to herself.
He had a lot to deal with himself, he thought, finding out he had a child of his own he hadn’t known about. He supposed in a way that gave him something in common with his birth mother.
It was going to be hard, making the transition. Thinking of Megan Maitland as his mother instead of Clarise O’Hara, the woman who had raised him. The mother he’d buried almost two years ago.
Reaching the foot of the stairs, Connor glanced toward Lacy. Part of him was tempted to remain with her. To say things to her that had occurred to him both before and after he and the others had rescued Chase. But he didn’t want to be hasty. There was a wealth of feelings churning inside him, feelings that had to be sorted out and examined before he did anything about them.
He had learned a long time ago not to say things in the heat of the moment or when he was too exhausted to think clearly. Anything worth saying would keep until morning, when he was more lucid and had the time to think things through. He didn’t want to say things to Lacy he’d only have to take back later, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to say them. She’d been through enough without having him add to her grief.
“Night,” he murmured, nodding at Shelby and her brothers, who were on their way out the door, then at Lacy and Megan. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Lacy tightened her arms around her son, watching the only man she’d ever cared about, the only man she’d fallen in love with—not once, but twice—disappear up the stairs.
Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Megan. “I guess maybe I’d better be leaving, too.”
Megan shook her head. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no condition to drive anywhere tonight. Look at you—you’re flushed and your eyes look like they’re liable to close any minute. All we need now is to have you fall asleep at the wheel and drive into some ditch. You’re staying here tonight. The nursery’s still there for Chase, and you’re welcome to your pick of bedrooms.”
“I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you,” Abby advised Lacy with an affectionate wink. “No one’s ever won.”
Lacy smiled her gratitude. She was exhausted. “Then I guess I’m staying the night.”
Megan patted her arm. “Smart girl. Now let’s go and get you settled in.”
Though she liked the independence she had so recently embraced, it was nice, Lacy thought as she followed Megan up the stairs, being taken care of just this once.
CHAPTER TWO
CONNOR FELT like hell.
He probably looked it, too, he surmised, making his way down the back stairs. It was early, and the others, he assumed, were still asleep. Just as well. He preferred it that way. Fewer people to interact with. He wasn’t exactly at his social best at the moment.
He hadn’t gotten more than a thimbleful of sleep before he’d given up and gotten out of bed. There was so much on his mind, so many emotions running rampant through him, demanding to be addressed, that when his body had finally surrendered to exhaustion, the sleep that had come to him had been fitful, leaving Connor more tired, if possible, when he awoke than when he’d finally fallen asleep.
He was no fresher this morning than he had been hours before. And therefore, he concluded, he was in no better condition to make decisions now than then. Worse, if he were being honest.
So when he stumbled down the stairs, led by instinct to the kitchen and, he hoped, mud-strong coffee set on a timer, and came across Lacy and Chase instead, the reaction that suddenly came over him was not one he fully trusted. Likely, it had more to do with his physical state than his emotional one.
But it was the emotional one that was responding.
A feeling of awe and something Connor couldn’t quite put a name to filled him, pushing its way to every corner of his being like late morning sunshine seeking to chase out the last remnants of the night’s shadows.
Lacy, her back to him, was feeding the baby. Connor leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and quietly watched this tiny, shining moment of motherhood in action.
He’d always kept his own counsel, playing everything so close to the chest, it was almost completely undetected by the average person who passed through his life. No one could ever have accused Connor of being an emotional man. He had always believed that emotions got in the way of things. To give in to them undermined your stamina, your resolve. The way to face life was stoically, shouldering responsibilities that came along and moving ahead one day at a time. If that sort of philosophy made the road lonely, at least the terrain was negotiable. And, ultimately, that was the most important thing.
But this, whatever “this” was, didn’t fit into his way of life. This feeling didn’t even have a name, at least not one he was willing to affix to it. But it had breadth and texture and substance nonetheless, looming suddenly rather large in his world.
And it had to do not only with the small being who had come into his life less than twelve hours ago, but with Lacy, as well.
Connor straightened, trying desperately to straighten his thinking, as well. This thing he was struggling with was just responsibility under a different guise, nothing more, he told himself. That was what was nagging at him, defying definition. Just an overwhelming sense of responsibility.
After all, he’d never been a father before. Fatherhood brought with it a wealth of obligations. Not the least of which was an obligation to the child’s mother.
Lacy.
He knew he had to do the right thing, by her and by the child. It was wrestling with what exactly the right thing was that was troubling him.
And no wonder. He was forty-five years old, a hell of a time to have his world upended and find himself a father for the first time.
