Another Woman's Son. Anna Adams
honestly think I’m planning something?” He looked embarrassed. “I’m not Will,” he said, borrowing her earlier approach.
“I can’t tell what’s real.”
He pressed both her hands to his chest. The weave of his wool suit against her palms made her feel again. She heard the low whisper of heat in the vents, noticed the faint lighting that softened the walls and lit her way—to Tony’s room, or to the front door and freedom.
“I’m real. Tony’s real,” Ben said. “And you’re his aunt.”
“I can’t do what you want.” She wasn’t being selfish. She was looking for salvation. “I want to know how people live when they’re not surrounded by family and so-called best friends.” Faith and Will would always pervade any moment she spent with her family—including Ben and Tony. She had to put what had happened behind her. “I’ll send presents at Christmas and birthdays.” Despite her best effort not to cry, the tears started again.
Ben mistook them for weakness. “You can’t turn your back on Tony. He needs us.”
“He needs you. And my mom and dad.” Too many pictures went through her mind. Will, cuddling Tony, giving him piggyback rides. Resting his chin on the child’s head while he’d smiled at her, always hiding the worst secret a man could keep from his wife.
Dying inside, she tried to push Ben away, but he took her hands again, and they stumbled inside his bedroom door. A whiff of Faith’s perfume hit Isabel. Probably a memory.
“Anyone in my family would do for you,” she said.
“Because they’re Tony’s blood relations? That’s the kind of thinking that makes me believe you’ll get over being angry with Will and Faith and then tell your mother and father about Tony.”
“If I couldn’t play God with you, how would I with them?”
“I’m your friend. They gave birth to you. They have nothing to do with the life you’ve led here. I’m a reminder.”
She left him and opened the door to Tony’s room. He followed. “Look at him,” she said. “Why would I want to take him away from you?”
Ben crossed to his son’s bedside. He pulled a blanket up to Tony’s waist and tucked a ragged toy kitten beside him.
Tony’s curly brown hair had grown longer. His sweet, plump hand curled in his sleep. Her feet moved of their own volition. She tripped on a stuffed hippo she’d never seen before. It squeaked and she glanced at the sleeping boy who owned her heart.
He was her flesh and blood, too. The thought—her need for him—frightened her. Just what Ben feared most.
Her nephew burrowed into his overstuffed comforter with a soft, sad sigh. “Mommy.” He pulled his arms together in an empty hug.
She gritted her teeth and wiped her face. Tony’s name screamed in her head. If she was ever good at being a mom, it would be because Tony had taught her to love like one.
Ben was right. How could her mother resist wanting to raise Faith’s child? Having Tony so close would be like having part of Faith back.
Across the crib, Ben made a sound. The fear on his face frightened her.
“What?” she whispered, but she knew he’d read her thoughts again.
“Let’s go.” He pressed one hand to his son’s back. “He needs to sleep, and I have to take Patty home.”
He urged her out, but she hung back, gazing at her nephew. She’d do anything to protect him, and one thing she knew for sure. No good could come of tearing him away from his father. He belonged with Ben.
All their lives had changed, but Tony was a child. Only unconditional love and reassurance could keep him safe. She’d promised to take care of him.
“Let me shut the door.” Ben nudged her out of the way and closed it, cutting off her view of Tony.
“What about Will’s mom?” She spoke without meaning to. Her parents were dangerous enough, but Leah Barker wouldn’t be able to stop herself from going after Tony if she discovered the truth.
“You’d tell her?” Ben obviously thought she’d lost her mind.
“Never.” After her husband’s early death from heart disease, Leah had raised Will as if he were her trophy. She wanted everything, but nothing ever filled her up. Nothing would ever be enough. “She’d take you to court if she even suspected Will was Tony’s—” Isabel broke off, unwilling to utter the word.
Leah Barker had collapsed the second Isabel had phoned her. Leah had been the worst kind of permissive, overprotective, overfond mother, raising a son who’d never questioned his sense of entitlement.
“We can’t let her find out.” Ben spoke her thoughts exactly. Sudden relief relaxed his mouth and seemed to travel through his body on a shudder. “So you can’t tell your mother and father.” He tugged her toward the stairs. “My God, I don’t understand the Barkers.”
“I was one of them,” she said. The name had filled her with pride on her wedding day. Leah had promised to be as much a mother as her own. Talk about a promise that couldn’t be kept. But Will had chosen her to be his wife. With her parents, she’d always come second to Faith. She’d loved her sister and tried not to mind, but much of her new-wedded bliss had been built on gratitude to Will for putting her first.
What a fool she’d been.
Abandonment wrapped Isabel like a fine layer of the falling snow. She shivered, cold all the way to her soul.
Ben opened the sides of his jacket and pulled her into his warmth. Isabel held still, unwilling to make herself vulnerable.
“It’s okay, Isabel. You can trust me.”
Longing to believe, she pressed her face against Ben’s shirt, reveling in his heat, in the comfort of her best friend’s arms.
“You understand why we have to keep this secret?”
“When you talk like that, I can’t trust you.” She’d faced too much truth in the past three months.
Ben’s heart thumped against her ear. “I can’t help it. I haven’t felt safe since I read that note.”
Would she ever feel safe? “Do you trust me, Ben?”
“I saw what you looked like when you realized what you’d give up if you kept my secret. I can’t trust you.”
“Too bad for you if everyone can see straight through me.” She didn’t like her own bitterness.
“Would Amelia be able to put Tony first?” Ben tucked her head against him, and she suspected he didn’t want to see her emotions. “Or would she tell herself Tony could learn to be happy with her and George? He might even forget me.”
“Forget you?” Even to her, that image of the future was unbearable. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”
Ben kissed the top of her head, his gratitude more real than either of their marriages had been. “Thank you, Isabel.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m sure lying is wrong. Look how it’s already destroyed us.”
FINALLY IN BED in the guest room, Isabel tossed and turned under crisp sheets and a down comforter. In darkness relieved only by an outside streetlight, she tried to shut off the accusations racing around her mind. There was no one left to accuse. Ben couldn’t have kept Faith at home any more than she had Will.
Pounding her pillow, she lifted her head to stare at the clock—2:17.
Second, third and hundredth thoughts pulled her upright. She still wondered why Ben really wanted her to stay. She couldn’t live with him and Tony forever.
He’d brought her bag upstairs