The Seven Year Secret

“I’ll go make a few calls,” he said tiredly. “See if I can turn up a current address on O’Rourke. Tell Liddy I’ll be back before they give her the anesthetic. Her surgery’s at four, right?” He shot a cuff to check his watch. “It’s two-fifteen. That allows me time to twist a few arms.”

Mallory hugged him. “Thanks. I may not always sound like it, but I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and Liddy Bea. You’re our rock. And just because I felt Mom treated Connor unfairly doesn’t mean I love her less. It’s certainly not her fault he went off to the South Pacific chasing storms. I made a conscious decision not to tell him I was pregnant, so I wouldn’t stand in the way of his big dream. It’s taken a while, but I can finally accept that I never meant to him what he meant to me. What I won’t do is take the easy way out now. Not if there’s even a remote possibility he can help Liddy Bea.”

Brad’s brow furrowed. “I could hire someone to tell him. Then you wouldn’t even have to speak to him.”

“I should’ve tracked him down when Liddy Bea was born. It would have been the right thing to do. If Mother hadn’t been so ill…if she hadn’t suddenly died…” Mallory gnawed at the inside of her mouth. “Time seemed to drift away from me, and…well, I rationalized that if he didn’t care about me, he didn’t deserve to…” Her voice faltered, her throat too tight to go on. The truth was, Connor had hurt her terribly by forgetting she existed.

Her dad’s shoulders slumped. “All hell will break loose, but it can’t be helped. I told Beatrice that someday…” The senator pulled himself up short, turned and stalked heavily off, shaking his head as he went.

Mallory stared after him. He seemed to shuffle down the hall. Her father, who did everything decisively. He’d suffered so much with her mother’s death. And Mallory hadn’t been as cooperative as she might have been. Her dad had begged her to live at home and assume the many social duties Beatrice had once performed so perfectly. But Mallory craved a life of her own, and she’d been determined to raise Liddy without the Forrest money—money she blamed, at least partially, for Connor’s lengthy silence. Yet after Liddy Bea got ill, she’d gravitated again toward her family.

When Liddy was an infant, Dr. Robinson had offered Mallory the job in the hospital’s public relations department; it had been an answer to a prayer. Life was idyllic until Liddy Bea took sick. Thinking of Alec prodded Mallory to action. She had to make arrangements for another leave. Or perhaps it’d be better for the hospital if she just quit this time.

Robinson didn’t agree when she went to see him. “We muddled along without anyone to do fund-raising until you fell into our lap, Mallory. There’s nothing crucial in the works until our winter dance. And you’ve already booked the site. Fredric will find Lydia a kidney soon. For now, take whatever time you need.” Alec checked to see that no one was watching, then kissed Mallory’s cheek.

“Thanks.” She drew back so the kiss barely grazed her face. “Once Liddy Bea’s out of the hospital, I’ll finish building the database for the ball invitations. I can do that at home, while we wait for a donor.”

Sliding an arm around her shoulders, Alec escorted Mallory from his private office. Concentrating on the ball helped take her mind off the impending surgery and a larger concern—visiting Connor. Mallory wasn’t sure why she hadn’t mentioned her plans to Alec. Maybe because she suspected he, too, would disapprove.

LIDDY’S SURGERY WENT WELL. By nine that evening, Mallory marveled at how quickly the child bounced back. Her own recovery as a donor had been slow. Liddy also had an optimistic outlook, a willingness to assume the best, something for which Mallory was extremely grateful.

The doctor elected to keep Liddy hospitalized a few days to monitor her for infection and to set up her dialysis schedule, but he told Mallory there was no valid reason to stay with Liddy around the clock. Which was why, Friday noon, she found herself on a Miami-bound commuter plane.

It was still officially spring, yet the air in Tallahassee was already summer-muggy. She actually looked forward to the coastal breezes. Mallory wasn’t sure, though, whether she looked forward to meeting Connor again, or dreaded it. At one time, she’d loved him more deeply and completely than she’d ever loved another human being. He, on the other hand, had been the one to drag his feet in their relationship. Despite that, she’d never dreamed he’d go off and forget all about her.

In fact, she thought she’d scaled all his barriers the year he entered grad school at Florida State University. She’d collected her public relations degree and moved into his apartment to devote herself to making him happy. That was the first time he’d used the word love in connection with her name. He’d even said he didn’t think he could live without her. But he’d certainly managed to do just that.

The eve of his master’s graduation, Mallory had news of her own—which she held back, planning to surprise him after they’d enjoyed his favorite meal of fat Gulf shrimp and tarragon rice, topped by skewers of mushrooms and tomatoes. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell the Cajun spices—could feel the sultry air in the tiny apartment.

Connor, it so happened, arrived home with an MS and his own exciting news. A plum job offer—on a remote atoll in the South Pacific, complete with an opportunity to get his Ph.D. via correspondence. Courtesy of a Tallahassee manufacturer, and in conjunction with the national weather service, he was awarded a chance to realize his dream of developing an early-detection system for hurricanes.

Excited for him, Mallory suggested she accompany him as far as Hawaii. “I’ll find a job, then when you have breaks, I’ll be waiting there for you,” she’d said.

Although she’d tried hard to wipe out his answer, it came back as clearly now as the night he’d broken her heart. “You stay here. Marry one of those up-and-coming lawyers your folks keep parading past you. It’ll take me years to finish my work. You’re a distraction, Mallory. A huge distraction. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I can’t afford to blow it.”

She’d given in to tears. Connor had relented marginally, saying they’d keep in touch by mail. And she had written once or twice. Until her mother’s illness worsened, and pregnancy sapped her own flagging energy. In all those nine months before Liddy Bea was born, Mallory never received so much as a word from Connor.

Beatrice Forrest died the day Mallory left the hospital with her new baby. After that, her life changed drastically, and she’d lost the courage to write him again. But she’d kept tabs on him occasionally by checking the national hurricane site on the Internet.

Sipping lime water provided by the stewardess, Mallory checked the creased blue paper on which her dad had scribbled Connor’s address. When the hour came to actually face him, she hoped the words would flow and her tears would not.

The plane landed on time. Her dad had ordered a car service to take her to the Biltmore, an elegant old hotel that rose like a terra-cotta wedding cake from the middle of residential Coral Gables. The driver said he’d return at six-thirty to drive her to Connor’s. Mallory knew without asking that the man had orders to wait outside the apartment while she went in and said her piece. She didn’t doubt that he might also drag her out if she didn’t leave in a reasonable period of time.

Nervously Mallory showered off the dust of travel. She dressed in a no-nonsense pin-striped suit. One glimpse in the floor-length mirror, and she stripped out of it again. She wanted to appear mature and professional. But pride demanded she look feminine, too. Connor, never stingy with compliments, had always liked her in blue. In a weak moment, she’d packed such a dress. A sleeveless sapphire silk with a flared skirt, banded by a straw belt. She had shoes and an oversize bag to match. The last thing she did was spritz her throat and wrists with her trademark perfume. If nothing else, the familiar scent bolstered her courage.

At the preappointed hour, her driver wove unerringly through thickening traffic, arriving outside Connor’s apartment building in record time. “There’s nowhere to park, miss. Shall I circle the block until something opens up?”

“Yes, please.” Mallory found speaking difficult because her throat had gone dry. “I don’t expect this to take long.” She figured on giving Connor her canned spiel. Then she’d hand over Dr. Dahl’s business card, plus his typed report, and leave Connor to work things out for himself. If he hadn’t changed, it was how he operated best. Facts before action.

Mallory thanked providence that his apartment was at ground level. Her weak knees would never propel her up a set of stairs. Blocking out the boisterous laughter and loud music pulsing through his open window, she rapped loudly enough to be heard over the din.

A casually dressed man with sun-bleached blond hair juggled two frosty glasses of beer in one hand as he opened the door. His wolf whistle and shouted “Greg, she’s here!” had Mallory stepping back. A second man appeared. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her inside. Mallory squeaked out a protest as, against her will, she entered what was clearly a keg party made up of fifteen to twenty males.

“We thought you’d be wearing a skimpy sequined cop uniform,” the man clutching Mallory confided with a wink. “I guess the costume and handcuffs are in this bag.” Releasing her arm, he began pawing through her straw purse.

Mallory yanked it back. A tug-of-war ensued, which upended her bag. Photos of Liddy Bea at various ages, which Mallory had included to show Connor if all else failed, fell out and slid across a slick tile floor.

“Stop!” Dropping to her knees, she scrambled to gather up the pictures before the oaf with the beer spilled it on them. Her heart hammered madly. “I’m afraid you’ve confused me with someone else. I’m looking for Connor O’Rourke.”

“This is his place.” The man holding the beer did splash foam on Mallory’s bare arm. “Oops. Sorry. I’m Paul Caldwell. That’s Greg Dugan. We contracted with your agency for you to come here and do your cop routine.”

Still on her knees, Mallory stared up at him, uncomprehending.

“Jeez, you know—where you handcuff Connor to a chair and then do a little…uh…bump-and-grind number. Hey, it’s for his bachelor party! Connor’s getting hitched.” The beer drinker enunciated slowly this time, as if Mallory were addle-brained.

Indeed she was. She’d envisioned Connor O’Rourke in a whole lot of ways over the past seven years. On the verge of marriage was not one of them.

She went hot, then cold, then hot again. Her fingers groped for the baby picture of Liddy Bea.

She hardly noticed that another broad hand had reached over her shoulder to scrape the photo off the floor. Nevertheless, Mallory froze as a voice she remembered too well rained down on her head. “Paul? Greg? What’s going on? Who is this woman? I thought we agreed there’d be no females at this party.”

Mallory couldn’t say how she found the courage to stand and face the man she’d come to see. But she did. And she managed to pluck Liddy’s picture from his suddenly slack fingers. Clearly the advantage of surprise was on her side.

“Mal…lo…ry?” Her name fell from Connor’s lips in three distinct syllables.

In spite of all the time that had passed and all the rehearsing she’d done, Mallory couldn’t speak. She couldn’t do anything but swallow repeatedly and stand before him like a statue, watching the play of dark shadows cross features she’d never forgotten.

A jumble of heat and fury contorted Connor’s angular face as Greg and Paul lamely attempted to explain the surprise they’d arranged. He silenced them with a slice of his hand. “I don’t know what the hell kind of sick joke you and these idiots are pulling, but I’m not amused, Mallory. Not in the least. You have a hell of a nerve coming here, tonight of all nights.”

As his friends stepped back, the real performer rushed up the steps. She wore a very minuscule rendition of a cop uniform. So minuscule, the well-endowed woman hardly had room for the badge she’d pinned above one ample breast.

Paul and Greg ran to greet her. Mallory felt Connor’s cool hand propelling her toward the door. His jaw was locked in place. Figuring she had maybe two seconds at best to make him listen, she dug in her heels.

“Connor, you have to give me a minute.”

The instant he glanced down at her, Mallory shoved Liddy’s photo under his nose. “We have a child, you and I. She’s six now. She’s ill, I swear I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I…we…she needs your help, Connor.” Her plea was uttered in spurts.

He snorted derisively. “That’s a damned lie and you know it.”

“Look closer, Connor. She is yours.”

At that moment the CD player suddenly stopped. All movement in the room beyond ceased. A hush descended as a now-uneasy group of guys waited for Connor’s response. Regardless of his obvious fury, he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the five-by-seven glossy print wavering in Mallory’s unsteady hand. A single second went by before he tightened his grip on Mallory’s wrist. Lips tightly compressed, he practically slung her into a nearby room. In the process of shutting them both inside, he glared at the men huddled around the exotic dancer. “Paul. Greg. When I come out, I want everyone gone. Not just out by the pool, either. Gone, as in goodbye!”

Mallory felt her knees knock as Connor’s rage swirled over her. Why, oh why hadn’t she heeded Fredric Dahl’s warnings? And her dad’s? She should never have come here.

CHAPTER TWO

MALLORY HAD THOUGHT SHE’D steeled herself for this encounter with her child’s father. The only man who’d ever touched her heart. In reality, being closeted in a small room with him, knowing he was on the brink of marrying another woman, was Mallory’s worst nightmare. Or perhaps it was watching him pace the perimeter of his study, gazing in outrage and denial at Liddy’s photo, that broke Mallory’s heart and turned her stomach inside out.

Why didn’t he say something? Anything? Although, Connor O’Rourke had never been a wordy man. In the past she’d been content to spend hours with him, often without a single comment passing between them. Now, as she tracked his tense, jerky movements, she found his silence hell on her nerves.

It was only after Connor stopped in front of an oak desk in the center of the room to examine Liddy’s baby picture under the light that Mallory’s rubbery legs felt strong enough to let her join him. She’d carefully selected pictures of Liddy taken at birth, two years, four and six. “I named her Lydia Beatrice,” Mallory ventured as Connor glanced at the new offerings. “I, uh, everyone calls her Liddy Bea.”

“This isn’t some practical joke Paul and Greg conjured up, is it? This child really exists. And she’s mine.” Connor’s shell-shocked eyes lifted at last from the photo he tenderly caressed. He stared at Mallory, who had once again retreated into the shadows.

Something moved deep inside her. Finally, mercifully, she was able to do as Dr. Dahl suggested earlier—place herself in Connor’s shoes. “I shouldn’t have sprung this on you with no advance warning. I’m sorry.” Her hand fluttered. “Liddy Bea is ill, Connor. Her kidneys have stopped functioning.”

Fumbling, Mallory extracted a manila envelope from her handbag. “Her doctor’s office prepared a report for you. It explains her condition more clearly than I can.”

She thought he wasn’t going to take the envelope, but eventually he did “Considering the shock I’ve given you…” Mallory tossed back a lock of hair. “I’m sure you’ll want to study the facts and probably ask Dr. Dahl some questions before you agree to be tested. I’ve attached his card with office and home numbers. Meanwhile, I won’t intrude on your evening any longer. I have a car waiting.” She slipped by him and began collecting the photos.

“Leave them.” Connor’s hand collided with hers as they both attempted to rake in the pictures. He’d already skimmed the doctor’s report and found it difficult to comprehend. He rubbed his temple with his free hand.

She backed away slowly. The pictures had been removed from her album. But Connor deserved to have a set. With the exception of the recent school photo, all had been taken by a Tallahassee studio. She could get copies. Feeling the doorknob press into her back, Mallory reached behind her and twisted it. The outer room, which had bubbled with sound, now lay quiet as a tomb.

“Where are you going?” Connor’s ragged voice halted her retreat. “Lord, Mallory. What in hell am I supposed to think—to do—here?”

“The report is self-explanatory, Connor. Read it, think about it, call Dr. Dahl.” She shrugged nervously. “No point in wearing out my welcome. There’s really no need for us to deal with each other again. I imagine you’ll want to meet Liddy Bea. I can leave authorization with the nursing staff at Forrest Memorial if you visit while she’s there. Or…other arrangements can be made. From here on, though, any contact you have will not be with me but with Dr. Dahl or his staff. That should ease your mind a lot.”

“Really?” He stalked toward her, the report in one hand, Liddy Bea’s baby picture in the other. He shook them both under her nose. “You waltz in here after seven years of…of…nothing, announce I fathered a child, and oh, by the way, she needs one of your kidneys, Connor. Then you flit merrily out again. That’s a hell of a monkey wrench to throw in a man’s life, Mallory.” His lips twisted harshly.

She took in each feature of his rugged, anguished face before saying quietly, “You have a right to be angry with me, Connor. But it won’t change the fact that we had a child together. Nor will it alter Liddy’s situation. I’m not going to fight with you. I will get down on my knees and apologize if that’s what you need from me. There’s nothing I won’t do for Liddy Bea. Nothing.” Her quavery voice broke.

A muscle in Connor’s jaw jumped twice, and his face contorted in pain. He turned away from Mallory and made his way back to the desk, where he dropped the items he held. Flattening both palms on his desk, he braced himself with his back toward her. “I have arrangements to make, people to consult before I can go to Tallahassee,” he said, sounding raw.

Mallory noted how the muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath his knit shirt. She resisted a strong impulse to cross to him and massage away his tension. The feeling came as a shock, considering he’d gone off seven years ago and never looked back once to see how she’d survived the breakup. Or even if she’d survived.

But she no longer had the right to console him in any fashion. The right now belonged to his fiancée. Merely thinking about Connor’s engagement almost crushed the breath from Mallory’s lungs.

Whirling, she ran from the room, damned if she’d let him see a single one of the tears that blinded her.

CONNOR SENSED THE MOMENT Mallory left. It was more than an absence of a perfume called Desire, a scent he never failed to associate with her. One he’d missed so terribly that first year he’d been stuck on a solitary outpost, he’d wandered up to a department store perfume counter on his first R and R to Honolulu, just for a whiff of the bergamot-and-magnolia mixture. A whiff he’d never, ever assumed would lodge in his nostrils for so many years.

He lifted his hands then slammed them down on the desktop, hoping the subsequent pain would eject him from this pointless reverie. Needless to say, it didn’t.

“Dammit to hell!” He’d finally made a new life for himself. One that didn’t include lingering memories of Mallory Forrest. He had found a new love. Claire Dupree, who was at home with her best friends in the midst of a bridal shower.

Claire’s shower. For their wedding, scheduled the day after tomorrow!

“Lord.” Groaning, Connor lifted the picture of a child fashioned in his image. “How in hell does a guy break this kind of news to his fiancée?”

Staggering around the desk, he dropped into a swivel chair. Pulling the most recent of the photos toward him, he traced dark-lashed gray eyes, an off-kilter smile and a slightly narrow yet stubborn jaw. The O’Rourke jaw. Connor couldn’t refute the evidence staring him in the face. And Lord help him, deep down, unmistakable pleasure seeped upward until it squeezed his heart.

He had a child. A daughter Mallory had named after his mother. Why had she done that? It seemed out of character for someone who hadn’t seen fit to answer any of his damned letters, who’d ignored every one of his pleas for forgiveness.

Connor rocked gently in his chair as the anguish surfaced, displacing even his outrage at Mallory. His mom, Lydia O’Rourke, had lost her life in a storm the folks in the weather-reporting business had failed to class as a hurricane. She would never experience the joy of meeting her first grandchild.

The telephone sitting near Connor’s right hand jingled loudly, making him jump. He fumbled it to his ear, scrabbling to gather up the baby pictures the cord had knocked askew.

He shut his eyes. Claire. He wished he could ward off the questions that would undoubtedly come.

“Hi,” she said cheerily. “I know you didn’t expect to hear from me until we met at the church on Sunday. But Paul just came by the house to pick up Lauren. He acted really odd. He said your bachelor party broke up early, but he wouldn’t say why. In fact, he was so insistent I ask you, it frightened me. Of course, I realize I’m suffering prewedding nerves.” She gave a short laugh. “Janine and my other bridesmaids said I wouldn’t feel better until I phoned you. So here I am.”

Connor felt the pressure of her unspoken need to have him alleviate her fears. He ran a hand through his hair, not having a clue where to begin. He’d known Claire for almost a year. In their early, getting-to-know-you phase, he’d mentioned that there’d once been someone special in his past. Hadn’t he? Still silent, he tried to recall those initial conversations.

“Connor? Say something. You’re really frightening me.”

“We have to talk,” he said abruptly. “But not over the phone. Can you get away if I come by in…say, twenty minutes?”

“I guess so,” Claire said a little shakily. “It’ll be after nine o’clock, though. You have to have me home by midnight. Not that I’ll turn into a pumpkin,” she murmured, stabbing weakly at humor. “But if the groom sees the bride the day before the wedding, it’s supposed to be bad luck for a marriage….” Her voice trailed off.

“We’ll go for coffee at that burger place just off Twenty-seventh, okay? I could use a cup of strong Cajun coffee about now.”

“Did you overindulge tonight? I know you didn’t really want a bachelor party.”

“No,” he said stiffly. “But I’ll admit we made a fair dent in the keg Paul brought. If you’d rather not go for coffee, Claire, I can do without.”

“Coffee’s fine. And twenty minutes will give me time to tell the hangers-on goodbye, and hide away all the lacy lingerie I received at the shower,” she said, giving a feeble rendition of a sultry growl.

“That’s right. I forgot you had a—what did you call it?—personal shower.”

The woman at the other end of the line sighed. “Honestly, Connor, aren’t you intrigued enough to sound at least a little excited about the lingerie I got?”

“Sorry, I guess my mind’s not the sharpest it’s ever been. Knowing Janine, Lauren and Abby, I suspect what they bought won’t leave much to a man’s imagination.” This time, his drawl could be considered closer to normal.

“No. My friends aren’t what you’d describe as conventional.”

“That’s a fact.”

“You sound as if you disapprove of them.”

“Because I agreed with you? Look, Claire, I’ve explained that I’m not myself tonight. And for whatever reason, you seem oversensitive. Perhaps it’d be best if we saved the rest of this conversation for when we’re sitting face-to-face.”

“One question first,” she said abruptly. “Connor, why haven’t we slept together yet?”

“What?” he said too loudly as a strange wave of guilt washed over him. If Claire had asked that question even last week, he wouldn’t have known why he’d continued to resist their spending an entire night together. Unfortunately, it was no longer a mystery. Miami, and indeed all of Florida, was tied to his prior history with Mallory Forrest. Plain and simple, his memories of her in and around this city held him back from making love with Claire.