Anne Peters - My Baby, Your Son

“Strike two!”

As jeers and cheers from the bleachers followed the um- pire’s cry, April stared transfixed at the young Capstan pitcher going through his spiel. Posturing and posing, look- ing this way and that before tucking his knee against his chest, he wound up for the next killer pitch. Watching, April experienced a sense of déjà vu so acute, she blinked to dispel the illusion that it was young Jared up there on the mound. The way the boy stood, moved, the way he tugged on the bill of his cap and cocked his head just that little bit…

Oh, God. Realization struck like a slap, making her body actually jerk away from the fence before her knees turned to mush and her fingers clung more tightly to the cutting cold wire for support. It was him, she thought wildly. It was Tyler. Her son. And Jared’s.

As if to confirm it, a raucous shout drew her attention to the left and she saw Jared O’Neal surge to his feet on the bleacher at the far side of the backstop. Cupping his mouth, he yelled something else to the boy, something April was too unnerved to try to decipher. Riveted, she watched him bend to the smiling woman next to him who had remained seated. He made some kind of comment and the woman nodded, smiling agreement.

Jared O’Neal. Betrayer of her love. Co-conspirator in the theft of her child. Still, seeing him unexpectedly like this, tanned and virile in frayed cutoffs and faded T-shirt with a Seattle Mariners’ cap covering most of his dark, wavy hair, April’s heart twisted painfully in her chest. He was grinning that crooked little grin that tugged one corner of his mouth up and the other down.

That grin, that she noticed with another painful tug on the heartstrings, was matched by an identical one from the boy on the field. Their son. Her baby…

The image blurred. April closed her eyes and willed back the tears. Pouring over Marje Bingham’s diary these past few days, she had done more crying than she’d known she had tears for.

The enormity of the crime that had been committed against her—for there could be no other way to describe it—had all but annihilated her emotionally. She had yet to deal with the ramifications, had yet to confront her mother and demand… what? To have the clock turned back? And herself made whole again?

It was the knowledge that it was too late, that something precious was irretrievably lost, that had had her crying all those tears until she was sick. But in the course of that grief she had come to realize that, for now, concerns of the pres- ent and the future—namely, getting her son back into her life—had to take precedence over those grievances of the past.

She had confided in no one but her attorney the real reason she would be staying at Cliff House. Let Grace think it was merely for the purpose of the good long rest Dr. Shimon had prescribed. Not even Marcus knew, for he would have felt compelled to come and take charge. And she was done with that, done with depending on anyone but herself. Done being a pawn of those who, for all their protests that they meant well and knew what was best for her, had run her life for far too long. Her mother. Her pub- lic. Her handlers. Her muse.

The time had come to take charge.

But, oh…April pressed her forehead to the backs of her hands still clutching the fence and let out a shivery breath. Here and now, confronted by the man and the boy in the flesh, she was forced to acknowledge that taking charge was not going to be as uncomplicated and straightforward as she had imagined.

For one thing, she hadn’t counted on the twist of pain and, worse, that tug of attraction she felt at her first sight of Jared O’Neal after nearly ten years. With everything that stood between them, all the hurt and the betrayal, she had convinced herself she hated him. Or, at the least, felt in- difference. Why, before reading the diary, she had barely even thought of him in years. Yet now….

Now she knew that they had a son. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Tyler. Eagerly, hungrily, April’s eyes sought him out once again. He was standing next to another boy who was stockier, shorter. He was off the field. Her heart swelled at the beauty of him. Her child. She caressed him with her gaze. How fine he looked. How perfect.

As perfect as his father had seemed to her once upon a time. And yet, not really so much like Jared at all. Except perhaps in his mannerisms, his posture and his…attitude.

April smiled to herself with a surge of something she thrilled to realize was maternal pride. That boy had attitude, all right. Out there on that playing field he was cocksure and all male, just like his father had been as a boy.

How incredible to think that this fine boy was something she and Jared had created. Together. And how much stranger still to have shared the ultimate intimacy with a man and to now realize that she had never really known him at all.

Disturbed by her curious thoughts and feelings, April redirected her attention to Jared once again. She saw that he was still on his feet, conversing now with a man on his right who looked familiar. Another face from the past— Conan O’Neal, Jared’s older brother. Jared was using his hands to make a point and April remembered that this had always been his way. She was struck by how large he seemed. Had he always been this tall? This…imposing?

Surely not. Though he’d always been athletic and well- muscled, maturity had filled him out. Life and the elements had carved lines into a face that was still handsome. More handsome than it used to be, if she were honest. Sunglasses shaded his eyes.

Wishing she were wearing hers, too, April knew the ex- act moment he became aware of her scrutiny. He stopped talking and abruptly swung his head in her direction. They stared at each other for what seemed to April like forever but was probably no more than a second or two.

April’s fingers grew numb, so tightly were they clutching the fence. Her heart beat so hard, she shook. Her breath became trapped in her chest as she watched an expression of outraged disbelief replace the shock of recognition on Jared’s face before, with a jerk, he turned away.

April stayed frozen for another heartbeat or two. And then, with an involuntary gasp of dismay, she spun away and blindly strode back to her car.

Jared O’Neal felt blood roaring in his ears, hazing his eyes. He couldn’t recall ever having been this shaken. April Bingham? Here?

Unwilling to accept what his eyes had seen, he gave his head a hard shake. And then he spun around to look for her once more. She was gone. If she had even been there in the first place.

“You all right?”

“Huh?” Jared blinked at his brother as if he’d forgotten the other man was there.

“You act like you’ve seen a ghost,” Conan said, follow- ing suit when Jared rather abruptly sat down.

“Maybe I did.” Propping his elbows on his knees, Jared blew into his nested fists as he struggled to put a lid on emotions that roiled and bubbled like lava in a volcano, ready to erupt. Get a grip, man, his mind cautioned, as fear and anger and—God help him—a lingering surge of heat threatened to completely unravel him. It couldn’t have been her. And even if it was, didn’t you always know she’d show up here one of these days? It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t know anything….

“Jared?”

“Yeah.” Jared slanted his brother a glance. He managed a semblance of a grin. “I’m probably crazy, but I thought I saw—Nah.”

He shook his head. He wouldn’t say it, wouldn’t even breathe her name. He took a deep breath, slapped his hands on his knees and sat upright. “Forget it. The heat must be getting to me or something.”

He turned to Addie Mansfield, sitting on his left. “Got any more sodas in that cooler of yours?”

“Sure.”

Inwardly wincing at her eager rush to dig out a can of pop and hand it to him, Jared forced another quick smile. “Thanks, Ad.”

Watching her hand another cold can to his brother, he almost wished he could fall in love with her. Addie was a good woman, a good mother to her boy, and with that mane of flaxen hair framing her wholesome girl-next-door face she wasn’t too hard on the eyes, either. In fact, she looked a whole lot like Regina.

And nothing at all like…April Bingham.

Suddenly the cola tasted like bile. He set it down on the floor boards so hard, it sloshed all over his runners. “Damn,” he muttered fiercely.

Only to hear his brother say, “Kid’s a pitcher, not a hitter.”

“What?” Jared stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Tyler.” Conan gestured impatiently toward the game. “So he struck out. That’s no reason for you to sit here cussing.”

“Oh, for—” Thoroughly exasperated, with himself most of all, Jared choked back the rest of the expletive and forced himself to watch the game. Or, at least, to look as if he were watching it. They were in the ninth inning. The Gulls were at bat. Tyler was back in the dugout…

And what the hell would April Bingham be doing back in town?

The question intruded on his honest desire to concentrate on the game because, when it came right down to it, Jared knew he hadn’t seen a ghost. It had been April, all right, over there by the fence. Ten years hadn’t really changed her much. She still wore that hair of hers—shades of ash streaked with gold—falling in waves from a middle part to halfway down her back.

And anyway, over the years he’d caught her on TV a few times. Concert specials with the likes of Pavarotti and other opera greats. The kind that took place in cities like London and Paris and Rome.

So what in blue blazes would the kind of star she had become want in a backwater like Capstan? To take stock of her recent inheritance? Behind the dark shades, Jared squeezed his eyes shut. Grinding his back teeth, he thought, Fat chance. The woman’s presence spelled trouble, pure and simple. He could feel it in his gut.

The feeling stayed with him through sundaes and banana splits with the team at the Dairy Queen. And it lingered during the subsequent drive home with his nine-sometimes- going-on-thirty-year-old son who seemed to have a weighty problem of his own to deal with, if his fidgeting was any- thing to go by.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?” Taking his eyes off the road a moment, and dragging his dark thoughts away from the subject of April Bingham, Jared sliced an inquiring glance toward his son.

“Tommy’s mom is real nice, isn’t she?”

“Real nice,” Jared concurred, wondering what was up. He didn’t have long to wait to find out.

“Any chance you’d wanna marry her?”

“Addie?” What the hell? Jared tossed his son another look. This one from beneath raised eyebrows. “Any, er, special reason you feel that I should?”

“Well…” Tyler, sprawled in a position only someone of his young years could assume, squinted into the sun. “Tommy’n me’ve been talkin’…”

“S’that so?”

“Mom’s been dead almost a year…”

“That’s true.” If only thoughts about Regina’s fatal car accident still haunted every waking hour of his days.

“An’ Tommy says his mom really likes you.”

“I like her, too.” Jared kept his eyes on the road and his face straight. The conversation and his son’s unsubtle efforts at matchmaking might seem amusing to him, but this was obviously something very close to Tyler’s heart. The question was how to make it clear to the boy— gently—that as far as he was concerned, he and Addie Mansfield were just good friends. Being single parents— and not by choice in either of their cases—they had a lot to talk about, a lot of notes to compare. And he really did like her.