My Baby, Your Son. Anne Peters
his arms. “No way,” he said fiercely, willing conviction into his voice even as he damned the woman who had chosen fame over mother- hood.
And who’d better not have come back here to try to make up for lost time.
“Never,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep from giv- ing voice to the wave of protective tenderness and love that flooded him because he knew it would embarrass this tough little guy. But he hugged him hard. After all, in spite of his sometime swaggering ways, Tyler was just a grieving little boy who, less than a year ago, had lost the only mother he had ever known. And his grandfather, too.
“Being a mom or a dad is the very best thing in the world to be,” Jared declared in a voice rough with emotion. “And don’t you let anybody tell you different. You hear?”
“Okay.” The word was little more than a soggy snuffle.
Jared rubbed his chin on his son’s cropped head. “And about Tommy’s mom…” he murmured. “She’s a great friend and that’s exactly the way I’d like to keep things. Besides…” He tightened his embrace around the wiry little body, relishing the closeness while poignantly aware that soon adolescent pride wouldn’t allow him to hold his son like this anymore. “Aren’t we okay, you’n me and Grammy? Huh? Don’t we have lots of good times, the three of us?”
“I g-guess so.”
“Damn straight,” Jared enthused in a voice that even to him sounded just a shade too hearty. “And things can only get better.”
Two days later Jared wanted to eat those words. He and Tyler had spent one of those days—Sunday—in Portland visiting Regina’s mother as well as seeing to a few things at their house, which as yet was unsold. Which was no wonder since Jared had not yet been able to bring himself to put it on the market. In fact, everything in it had been left exactly as it was when he, Regina and Tyler had made their home there.
Walking through it, watching Tyler rejoice in rediscov- ering this or that treasured toy, Jared fleetingly debated if the most effective way to avoid April Bingham might not be to move back there. But he just as quickly nixed the notion for two reasons. One, the house was like a monu- ment to the bittersweet sterility of his marriage to Regina. And two, it had never been his way to run from a problem.
Or at least, it was not anymore—courtesy of the painful lesson he had learned ten years ago.
His busy Monday had been punctuated by bouts of anx- iety. In fact, it got to the point where he’d been on the verge of dropping everything and tearing over to Cliff House to demand…what? That April Bingham explain her reasons for coming to her own house?
Ridiculous. You’re getting paranoid, Jared, m’boy. Lu- dicrous, to be obsessing over a problem that, for all he knew, existed only in his mind! The woman had a house here. She was on vacation.
And still he didn’t believe it.
So now it was Tuesday, and somewhere in the course of his morning rounds to the neighboring farms he had man- aged to convince himself that April would have contacted him by now if she was going to. In this somewhat improved state of mind, he stopped at the post office, which was actually no more than a large cubicle partitioned off from Mulrooney’s Supermarket.
He was collecting his mail, or trying to. Jean Ivers, Cap- stan’s aged postmistress and gossip queen, was making it difficult Little got by old Jean, who had made it her business to eyeball every piece of mail, coming or going, for as long as Jared could remember.
“Your Popular Mechanics came today,” she was saying as she handed Jared the magazine. “And you might want to take a look at this here big white envelope right off.”
“It’s from a lawyer,” she added after an expectant pause during which Jared said nothing as he turned the envelope over. “Out of New York City.”
“So I see.” Jared pocketed the letter, ignoring Jean’s visible disappointment with a flash of amusement that was quickly replaced by a rekindled feeling of unease. What the hell could a New York City lawyer want from a small-fry country veterinarian like himself?
Whatever it was, Jared’s gut told him he wasn’t going to like it.
He was not about to share his apprehensions with Jean Ivers, however. “How’s old Mouser handling that thyroid medication I prescribed?” he asked, directing a pointed glance at the huge tabby snoozing on a shelf by the back wall. “Any side effects?”
“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