Anne Peters - My Baby, Your Son

“None I can tell.” Jean flipped through the rest of Jar- ed’s mail, clearly dissatisfied with his evasiveness but, as he immediately found out, not so easily put off.

“We’ve got us a celebrity in town,” she said with a speculative glance from above her half-moon glasses. She handed him a couple more pieces of mail like a miser dol- ing out alms to the poor. “I’d say these are bills.”

“Looks like.” Jared pocketed them, too.

“April Bingham’s the celebrity,” Jean went on. “She gets mail from New York, too.”

“S’that so?” No way was Jared going to give the old bag the satisfaction of appearing intrigued. “Well, it’s a big place.” He pushed away from the counter, one hand outstretched. “I’d best take the rest of my mail now.”

Jean reluctantly handed it to him. “She got herself a letter from that same attorney.” she said. “Ain’t that pe- culiar?”

Her words arrested Jared’s movement. A letter from the same attorney?

“You two wouldn’t happen to be in business together or somethin’, would you?”

“Come again?” Jared’s brows snapped together. What was the woman talking about?

“Well, it coulda been,” she said defensively. “I mean, the two o’ you were pretty thick there, a while back,” she noted pointedly.

“Good grief, Jean,” Jared snapped, mentally wishing all the gossips in the world to the moon. “We were kids then. And anyway, you’re thinking of Colleen. She and April—”

“Oh, no, sonny boy! None o’ that.” Jean waggled a finger. “It wasn’t just your sister the gal was friends with, though I do recall them being like two peas in a pod. No, I’m thinking of that one summer in partic’lar. An’ I recall the entire town gettin’ such a charge out of watchin’ you and that Bingham girl spoonin’ and carrying on…”

She sighed, an expression of indulgent reminiscence re- aligning the network of wrinkles on her face. “Ever’body thought the two of you were so cute.”

Cute. Given what he and April had felt for each other at the time, Jared shuddered at the description.

Jean sobered. “‘Course she never came back after that.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Until now.” Jean’s shrewd eyes narrowed on Jared who was grinding his back teeth in frustration.

“Guess she had bigger fish to fry,” Jean commented while studying Jared with that speculative gleam he knew all too well, and detested. Times like this he wished he had stayed in Portland, that he hadn’t come back to Capstan after the accident, though he knew it had been the best solution all around.

“Guess she did. So.” Jared slapped his palm on the counter. “Gotta go.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Ivers.”

Jared froze.

“Speak o’ the devil,” Jean said sotto voce.

Jared ignored that. He stood rigid with tension and grit- ted his teeth as, preceded by a subtle scent that brought on an immediate rush of memories, he sensed and smelled April Bingham’s approach. Her voice, more husky than he remembered, held a tentative note that hinted at uncertainty. It reminded him of how shy she used to be. How easily hurt and sensitive….

Yeah, but not so sensitive she couldn’t dole out a whole lot of pain to a whole lot of people.

Damn her to hell.

Drawing up every ounce of self-control, Jared forced himself to calmly turn and face her. She stood about a foot away, looking sleek as an ocelot in something as mundane as jeans and a shirt. And for all her hesitant manner, she met and held his gaze with her head held high.

“Hello, Jared,” she said.

April was proud of the steadiness of her voice. Inside, she was aquiver with nerves. These past two days at Cliff House had been as much heaven as hell. Heaven was find- ing it as warmly familiar as a cozy old blanket. Hell, the fact that Marje was no longer there to make it home.

Heaven had been the nostalgia, the memories of glorious summers that seemed so much more real and immediate here, now. Hell were those selfsame memories for they in- cluded—no, prominently featured, Jared O’Neal.

Thinking of him had invariably started her agonizing once again about how to approach him about Tyler. Should she go with her feelings, those of outrage and hurt at his betrayal, and coldly demand an accounting? How could you not have let me know that our child is alive? And living with you? Should she corner him, pin him down? Insist he give her an answer, demand access to her child?

Or should she go with the advice of her attorney, which was to keep past grievances out of it and negotiate?

Her legal position, short of a messy lawsuit, was shaky. Her signature was on the document giving the child up for adoption. Jared O’Neal was the name she had declared as the child’s father on the birth certificate. He had every right to the boy, whereas she….

“I have every right, too,” she had exclaimed. “I didn’t know….”

“Which is why in this instance ignorance just might be an excuse under the law,” her attorney had mused. “If it should come to a suit But be warned, the cost in terms of publicity and emotional trauma will be high for all con- cerned.”

By this morning, April had made up her mind to ap- proach Jared with an olive branch in hand. After all, he had always been a reasonable, a most compassionate, person.

Now, however, confronted by the mask of ice that was Jared O’Neal’s face, and raked by a gaze that was clearly intended to freeze her out, April wanted nothing so much as to turn tail and run, to let her lawyer have at him.

But through years of performing before an audience, pre- ceded by a lifetime of the strictest discipline, she had per- fected the ability to appear poised and serene in even the worst of circumstances.

And so she managed to maintain a pleasant smile as the postmistress said, “We were just talkin’ about you, Miz Bingham. Weren’t we, Jared?”

Jared’s reply was a noncommittal mutter. He still hadn’t returned April’s greeting.

When April realized that he had no intentions of ac- knowledging her presence at all, the stab of hurt this caused both angered and surprised her. She would have thought her defenses stronger than that. She had worked so hard to shore them up. As an entertainer, having her work con- stantly scrutinized and torn apart by fans and critics alike came with the territory. She’d had to develop an elephant’s hide or perish as an artist.

So why would the rudeness of this one man cause her even a moment’s discomfort?

The answer was as obvious as it was immutable—the man was the father of her child. That made him, if no longer special, at least different from every other man in that he had once possessed her heart and body. They had been in love.

Or, at least, she had been—if indeed that fairy-tale state existed. In those glorious days that long-ago summer, sev- enteen years old and incredibly naive, she had believed it did.

But now, at twenty-eight, she knew better than to put her faith in fairy tales. First Jared O’Neal and, later, Montgom- ery Cedars, had shattered her girlish illusions.

Still, she had hoped that the bond between Jared and herself, tenuous though the events of the past might have made it, would enable them to deal with each other civilly. At least where Tyler was concerned.

And so, maybe the twinge of pain Jared’s barely veiled contempt was causing her was merely disappointment at having that hope dashed. Not that she would let him see he still had the power to wound her.

“I’m glad to run into you here,” she told him, keeping her tone civil, though it took some effort. “I was going to call you later today.”

“Really?” His tone was one of complete disinterest. “A sick pet?”

“No, of course not. I—”

“In that case, you’ll excuse me.” Brushing past her, Jar- ed strode out the door without a backward glance.

Stunned, April almost let him get away with it. But then she recalled the promise she had made to herself, the prom- ise to take charge. “Jared!”

Leaving the postmistress looking intrigued, April hurried after him. She caught him out on the sidewalk. “Jared.”

He neither turned nor stopped walking.

April half ran to come abreast of him. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“There’s not a word you can say that I want to hear.”

“Oh, really?” April snapped, his scorn blasting the last of her good intentions to smithereens. Gritting her teeth and blessing her long legs, she grimly matched his stride. “How does the word ‘conspiracy’ strike you?”

No response.

“Or maybe the term ‘kidnapping’ would be more appli- cable.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

April stalked past him, then spun around. Folding her arms across her chest, she met his glare without waver. “I will have you charged with either or both,” she said. “If you force me to.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Maybe.” She angled her chin in a gesture of challenge.

Jared ground his back teeth.

Neither blinked as they stared coldly into each other’s eyes. April was damned if she was going to give him even a glimpse of her shattered nerves because she knew she’d be lost if she did. He would emotionally flatten her like a steamroller for the simple reason that he could. After all, she was the vulnerable one in the showdown to come. She wanted what he already had.

“Kidnapping what?” he finally demanded, as though he didn’t already know the answer, ludicrous though it was. “Or who?”

“Tyler.” The name came out of April’s constricted throat in a croaky whisper. Angry with herself for the innate cowardice that even now made her want to retreat from this confrontation, April cleared her throat. “I want Tyler.”

“Tyler is nothing to you,” Jared growled, doing his ut- most to control a burgeoning rage he knew was caused by fear as much as anything else. “Nothing.”

“He is my son.”

“Your son?” The harshly whispered pronoun was laced with such bitterness and suppressed rage, April instinctively shrank back.

But not far enough. Jared gripped her arm. Jerking her out of the path of other pedestrians, many of whom were eyeing them with avid curiosity, he all but dragged her into the relative privacy of a recessed store entrance. There, his formidable bulk shielded April from inquisitive glances. She doubted, however, that he’d arranged it that way out of chivalry. He was clearly livid.

“Now you listen to me,” he snarled, impaling her with his eyes. “That boy is mine. Only mine.” His face was as close as a lover’s, but there was nothing in the least lov- erlike in his expression. “You gave away any claim you had when you got rid of him like so much excess bag- gage.”

“No!” With a strength fueled by desperation, April yanked her arm out of Jared’s grip and raised her hands beseechingly. “Jared, for heaven’s sake. You know I never did that. My mother—”

“Ah, yes,” Jared interjected with a grimace of distaste. “Your mother.”

“Did what she thought was best,” April defended out of habit. Certainly not out of conviction. “But believe me, I knew nothing about any of it.”

“Yeah, right.” Jared averted his face so he wouldn’t have to look at her to see the distress that could almost make him believe she was telling the truth. Almost. “Poor April, always the innocent victim.”