A Father's Promise Read online

  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  Epilogue

  A FATHER, ABOVE ALL

  Ellis Carlisle was a man on a mission of love. His objective: to save his son's life. His only hope lay hidden in the secrets of a small town. Secrets one woman could help him unveil...

  Sydney St. Claire couldn't deny Ellis's request, though working side by side with the sexy single father wasn't easy. Not only had she fallen for his precious little boy, she'd found passion in the rugged bachelor's arms. But Ellis had made only one promise--and that was to his son. He claimed he had nothing left to give, but Sydney knew all he needed was to believe again. And now she had a mission of her own...

  Prologue

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  Ellis Carlisle stared out the window at the sprawling snow-covered city and the mass of bundled-up humanity fighting their way through it all. Philadelphia was one depressing mess when it snowed. The white fluffy flakes quickly turned soot gray and blanketed the city with its dismal chilly coat. Mother Nature had decided to welcome in the first week of the new year by dumping ten inches across the East Coast. Six months ago he would have thumbed his nose at the weather and tell it to do its worse. Today he hadn't even known about the storm until he'd looked out the window. Who had time for something as mundane as the weather when his son was fighting for his life?

  He blinked back the tears that filled his eyes as soon as his thoughts touched on Trevor. He should be pleased by the news the doctors had just given him. His child had been given a chance. The deadly disease invading his five-year-old son's body had stopped its advance and, for all apparent purposes, disappeared totally. The doctors had warned him, and warned him well, that in all likelihood it would relapse. The fight hadn't been won, only a temporary cease-fire had been called. It was time to regroup and plan for the next attack.

  "Hey, Dad?"

  Trevor's sweet high voice tore at his heart. How was he to go on living if Trevor lost his courageous battle? He blinked away the tears and forced his mouth to smile as he turned and faced his son. "What, Trev?" He walked over to the hospital bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. His fingers shook as he brushed back a short unruly lock of his son's brown hair.

  Trevor's teeth worried his lower lip as he nervously played with the mane of the huge stuffed lion Ellis had just purchased from the gift shop four floors below. "This re … re … re…"

  "Remission?"

  "Yeah, that's it. It's good, right?"

  He smiled and pulled his son onto his lap. For the past several months he had been praying for Trevor to go into remission. Now that it was finally here, he had more important things to pray for, such as a bone marrow donor. "Yes, remission is good. Very good." Remission was one word he wouldn't mind his son learning. No child should ever have to learn to say the word leukemia as Trevor had done six months ago. He pulled his son closer and tightly wrapped his arms around the boy's little frame. He now had a new battle to fight and this one would determine the outcome of the war. Trevor needed a bone marrow transplant, and he needed it fast.

  "I'm going to be okay now, right?"

  Ellis looked into his son's worried brown eyes and felt his heart start to splinter into a million pieces. Pieces that would never be put back together if something should happen to Trevor. The doctors had warned him to stick to the truth as much as possible when Trevor asked questions. How could he meet his son's anxious gaze and tell him no, that everything isn't all right now? That he still might die. Ellis couldn't.

  Trevor knew he had been sick, very seriously sick. But never once did the word die tumble from his young lips. Ellis was thankful for some small blessings. Trevor's strength through everything had given Ellis the courage to test his own depth of strength. If it hadn't been for Trevor's courage he would have lost all faith and fallen apart months ago. And if a five-year-old boy could meet this disease head-on, then surely a grown man, such as himself, could stand tall beside him and help him make the trek ahead. Some mountains were just too steep for Trevor's short little legs to climb on his own.

  Ellis swallowed the lump of tears blocking his throat and rumpled Trevor's hair. His son had been such a good brave boy throughout this whole ordeal. Trevor didn't deserve this disease—no kid did.

  Trevor deserved a normal childhood and a long, happy life and Ellis was going to do everything within his power to make sure his son got what he deserved. "I won't lie to you, Trev, it's going to be a long hard road ahead of us, but you're going to be fine." He brushed a kiss across Trevor's forehead and feverishly prayed he was telling his son the truth. "I promise you, Trev, you're going to be just fine."

  Chapter 1

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  Sydney St. Claire wasn't having a good day. Hell, she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had a good day. It had to have been over six months ago. After all, it had been six months, yesterday, that the accident had occurred. Six months since some drunk ran a stop sign, killing her mother outright and leaving her father blind. Six months since her world started crumbling beneath her feet. She still hadn't managed to get on firm footing.

  Her father was worrying her sick. She expected him to grieve for the loss of his wife, Julia. She expected him to rage against his blindness and the loss of his career as the town's police chief. What she hadn't expected and wasn't prepared to handle was this deep, solid wall of depression that he refused to allow her to penetrate. Not being allowed in to help him heal was ripping at her soul. Standing helplessly by while he sank deeper and deeper was breaking her heart.

  Sydney glanced at the barely touched tray she was holding. Her father once again had hardly eaten a thing. She opened the kitchen door and looked back at her father sitting so alone, so silent beneath the massive oak in their backyard. Tiny green buds were just beginning to sprout along the winter-barren branches. Spring, the busiest time for her, was arriving and it really didn't care if she was ready or not. How could she possibly be ready when every ounce of energy she possessed was spent worrying about her father?

  Twenty years ago, her mother had started Ever Green Nursery with nothing more than a couple of hundred dollars, a barren cornfield and a pocketful of dreams. Immediately upon graduating from college Sydney had become partners with her mother in the nursery business. Today Ever Green Nursery was the county's finest nursery and employed a dozen full-time people and a handful of part-timers during their peak season. Peak season was approaching and for the first time she was alone at the helm. After the accident the employees had pulled together and kept things going. Now they were looking for direction from her, and all she could think about was her father.

  Thomas St. Claire was the most important man in her life, and had been since she had first laid eyes on him when she was ten years old, when he and Julia St. Claire became the parents she never had. Thomas had been there when she needed him so desperately eighteen years ago. She still needed him today. He was one of the few remaining family members she had left in the world, and he was wasting away before her very eyes. Thomas had dropped a good forty pounds since the accident and no amount of cooking or begging on her part had perked up his appetite.

  With a heavy sigh she entered the house and started to clean up the lunch fixings while keeping an eye on her father through the window above the sink. The afghan she had tucked across his lap and legs had been tossed aside as soon as she had closed the door. She knew he would shrug off her careful attention to him, but she kept on trying. Spring might be here, but the air still had a cold bite. It had taken her weeks to convince him to sit outside for a little while each day and get some fresh air. Since the accident he never left the house, except for the occasional doctor's appointment.

  She'd
dried and put away the last glass when the doorbell rang, pulling her away from the kitchen and her troubled vigilance over her father. As she walked toward the door she prayed it wasn't one of her father's friends stopping by for a visit. Thomas St. Claire refused all visitors and it would break her heart to send away another family friend. Since the accident her father had developed a very strong trait known as stubbornness.

  Sydney opened the door and stared at the man standing there. The welcoming smile she had put on her lips slipped a notch as a slow heat started to build in her stomach. Her smile went from friendly to curious. The caller was definitely a stranger because she would have remembered him had she met him before. The small town of Coalsburg, Pennsylvania, was known for its two still-operational coal mines and for the pies at Betty's Diner down on the interstate, not for its model-gorgeous men. And the blond-haired, gray-eyed hunk definitely fell into the model category.

  She had to swallow twice before she could manage a simple, "Hello, may I help you?" Whatever he was selling, she was buying. She just hoped it wasn't a vacuum cleaner because she just went out and bought a new one last month. What in the world she was going to do with two vacuum cleaners was beyond her.

  The stranger didn't return her smile. "I would like to speak to Thomas St. Claire."

  "I'm sorry, but my father isn't accepting any visitors at this time." She felt her smile slip from curious to concerned and the heat that had been bubbling in her stomach started to cool. The stranger on her doorstep wasn't some sweet-talking salesman. Door-to-door salesmen didn't dress in expensive suede jackets or wear Italian leather shoes. She glanced at the car sitting in the driveway and frowned. Nor did they drive a brand-new Mercedes. She returned her attention to the stranger and met his gaze head-on. "Maybe I can help you?"

  "I'm sorry, but what I need to discuss with your father is personal, Sydney."

  "You know my name." She went straight past being concerned and directly into the worried stage. She didn't like strangers knowing her name.

  "Yes, Sydney, I know your name. I also know that Thomas and his wife adopted you when you were ten and that Mrs. St. Claire passed away six months ago." He made no move to shake hands, offer a normal greeting or express any sympathy on her mother's passing. "I'm Ellis Carlisle and I need to speak to your father on personal business."

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry Mr. Carlisle, but the answer is still no." She tightened her grip on the doorjamb as a wave of fear skidded down her back. "Since you are so informed about our family history, I'm sure you know my father was also injured in the accident that took my mother. He still isn't ready for visitors."

  "I was under the impression that the only injury your father sustained was to his eyes."

  Now Mr. Carlisle looked concerned. Not so much by her father's injuries, but by the fact he might not have gotten all his information correct. The cold lump of dread forming in her stomach quickly turned to heat once again. This time the heat was solely due to her temper. Her father had once teased her about having Irish blood coursing through her veins, not only because of the red highlights tinting her brown hair, but because of her hotheaded nature. Mr. Carlisle had managed to tap into that temper quite easily.

  She felt the flush of her anger sweep up her cheeks as she confronted this ignorant and rude stranger. "If you want to consider burying your loving wife of thirty years, losing your job as well as your career and being blinded in the same instant as 'only an eye injury,' then yes my father sustained only injuries to his eyes." She knew her voice rose with each word but she didn't care. Who did this Carlisle guy think he was to demand to see her father and then belittle his injuries?

  "I truly didn't mean that to sound the way it did, Sydney. You have every right to take offense, but I still need to speak with your father. It's of the utmost importance and it really can't wait until he is feeling up to visitors."

  She had heard better apologies in her life, but at least he appeared sincere.

  She stared at his dark blond hair, expensively cut and styled, and his perfectly straight white teeth. His jaw was clean shaven and strong. His penetrating gray eyes contained the intriguing mix of intelligence, fatigue and a touch of sorrow. His nose had a slight bump at the bridge—more than likely it had been broken—and in other circumstances, she might have found this characteristic endearing. If she had to guess, she would say he was around thirty-five years old, and judging by the dark smudges beneath his eyes, he hadn't been sleeping very well. Great, that made two of them.

  For a moment she wondered if Ellis Carlisle knew her father because of business. He looked as if he could be a cop and that would explain how he knew so much about her family. The only thing preventing her from believing in that connection was Carlisle said that the reason he needed to speak with her father was personal, not professional. "I'm still sorry, but unless you tell me what's so important I'm afraid you cannot see my father."

  "I really don't think this concerns you, Sydney. My business is between your father and me."

  That tears it! She had been worrying herself sick, living on five hours of sleep a night and juggling so many balls in the air that she was beginning to feel like a circus performer. Who did this joker think he was, demanding to see her father and trying to knock one of her balls out of the air? Her father must have been right all those years ago when he'd teased her about having an Irish temper because right now she was seeing red. Mind-numbing, heart-stopping red. "Who in the hell do you think you are?"

  Ellis Carlisle took a deep breath, met her glare straight on and softly whispered, "I'm his son."

  Sydney's heart stopped beating as she visualized every one of the balls she had been mentally juggling come crashing to the ground. There was no way she could have heard him correctly. The lack of sleep and constant worrying had taken their toll. She was now imagining things. "Excuse me, but could you repeat that?"

  "I said Thomas St. Claire is my father." Ellis squared his shoulders as if he was daring her, or the world, to disagree with him. "I'm your father's son."

  "What you are is a liar." There was no way on this green earth that Ellis Carlisle was her father's son. She would have known.

  Ellis reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to her. "I'm not here to cause any problems, Sydney. I just need to speak to your father."

  She took the paper and slowly unfolded it. It was Ellis's birth certificate. His mother was Catherine Carlisle and she had been nineteen years old when she had given birth. His father was listed as Thomas St. Claire, age twenty-one. She quickly calculated the year Ellis was born and frowned when she realized that her father would have been twenty-one at that time.

  This still didn't cut it. Ellis could have a truckload of birth certificates listing Thomas St. Claire as his father and she still wouldn't have believed him. The only child Thomas St. Claire had was herself, and she had come to him walking, talking, with a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas and already in the fifth grade.

  She neatly refolded the certificate and handed it back to him. With a smooth calm voice she politely told him. "You must have the wrong Thomas St. Claire. My father couldn't possibly be your father." She closed the door right in his surprised face and leaned against it.

  Deep inside she felt the crumbling of the solid wall she had built to hold back all her worries. The worries were like those the curious Pandora had released when she opened the box. Wicked shadowy figures swooped and swirled their way around the inside of her head. If Thomas was someone else's real father, where did that leave her?

  All of a sudden she was ten years old again and running away from the foster home Youth Services had just placed her in. The older foster children didn't want her there. The woman of the house only wanted her to scrub floors and wash dishes. It was the man of the house that had frightened her into running. There was something about the way he used to watch her all the time that sent chills down her spine. She might have only been ten years ol
d, but she knew enough to run. Run until she found someone who really wanted her.

  She had run until she found Thomas and his wife.

  She held her breath as she waited to see what Ellis Carlisle would do now. Was it too much to hope for that he would get back into his fancy Mercedes and quietly drive back out of town?

  Sydney released her breath as Ellis amazingly did exactly that. At least she was hoping he was heading out of town. She pulled back the lace curtain in the living room a fraction of an inch and watched as he backed out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the interstate.

  She should be cheering her victory. So why was she more worried now than she had been before? Something was telling her that Ellis Carlisle didn't seem like the type of man to quietly go away when things didn't turn out the way he had planned. That same something was telling her that she was going to be hearing from Ellis again. Real soon.

  * * *

  Ellis's grip on the phone tightened as he glanced out the window to the vertical sign at the edge of the parking lot. The T in the lighted red Motel sign was flickering away, and dusk was settling in. "Yes, Trev, I miss you, too."

  This was going to be the first night away from his son since the initial diagnosis of leukemia. Every night, every day, every hour with Trevor was a small blessing and he didn't want to waste one precious minute of it. He hated to be away from Trevor, but he was out of options. He had reached the end of the line. His last desperate hope went by the name of Thomas St. Claire.

  "Yes, I love you, too." The sound of his son's voice brought tears to his eyes. "I want you to listen to Mrs. McCall and do everything she says. I'll call you in the morning."

  He smiled as Trevor promised to listen to the housekeeper who cared for him, and then asked him if he'd seen any jungle animals. "Not today, Trev, but I promise I'll look tomorrow." His son's room was floor-to-ceiling stuffed animals. Trevor's latest obsession was collecting jungle animals and he had willingly obliged his son. "Good night, Trev. I love you."