A Father's Promise Page 11

  A couple of her friends had small children and she had experienced firsthand what some of them could do when they didn't get their way. Heck, she had heard the noise they could create when things were going their way. She hadn't really known what to expect with Trevor, but quiet hadn't even entered her mind.

  "Trevor has never thrown a tantrum in his life. With everything he has been through, no one would blame him for throwing more than a tantrum or two." Ellis reached out and lightly touched a curl that had escaped the ponytail she had pulled her hair into earlier. "I've missed you."

  "You only were gone seven hours." Seven hours and fourteen minutes, but who was counting?

  "That's the part that scared me."

  Since he had walked out the door and driven away this morning, she had been half-afraid he wouldn't return, while the other half of her was anxious that he would. The decision was already made, they were going to become lovers. She turned her face and pressed her cheek into his warm palm. "I know that feeling well."

  Ellis had only been here less than a week and the house had seemed empty when he left. What was she going to do when he was gone for good? She'd face that future when she had to. For now, him being there was all that mattered.

  She moved a step closer and watched as the heat of desire flared in his eyes. She felt his hand cupping her cheek, pulling her closer still. Closer to his warmth. Closer to his mouth.

  She could feel the forthcoming kiss that was already electrifying the air between their mouths. She wanted this kiss. She had been dreaming of this kiss for seven hours and fourteen minutes. With a light sigh she closed her eyes and reached for him.

  "Dad, can we have dinner soon. I'm hungry." Trevor's voice came from the area around her thigh.

  Sydney jerked back and nearly collided with the chair holding the orangutan family. She glanced down at Trevor, who had entered the room unnoticed and was standing less than a foot away from his dad. A quarter of an inch more and Trevor would have caught them kissing. It was an unsettling thought. A flush darkened her cheeks as she glanced at Ellis.

  Ellis's gaze seem to stare longingly at her mouth while he ruffled his son's brown hair. "I'm sure dinner will be soon. I'm feeling mighty hungry myself."

  She knew exactly what Ellis was hungry for, and it wasn't the roast she had slipped into the oven over an hour ago. "Dinner will be in about twenty minutes, Trevor. Can you wait that long?" Somewhere in the kitchen there had to be something the boy could munch on without ruining his dinner. Trevor was on the thin side. An extra calorie here and there wouldn't hurt him.

  "How many's that, Dad?"

  "Twenty minutes, Trev. You know how to count to twenty." Ellis appeared quite proud of that fact.

  "Yeah, but how long's that?"

  "Enough time for you to have one cookie and help me set the table." She gave Trevor a friendly smile. "I baked a batch of chocolate-chip cookies while your father went to get you. He told me they were your favorite." She wanted Trevor to know he was welcome in their home and she had needed something to do while Ellis was gone. It had been a toss-up between food shopping, stopping in at the nursery, baking cookies and fixing dinner or having her very first anxiety attack. She had chosen to bake.

  Trevor pulled on his father's hand. "Can I, Dad?"

  "What, have a cookie or help Miss St. Claire set the table?" Ellis smiled down at his son. All the love he felt for the child was clearly visible in that smile.

  "Both, Dad, please." Trevor tried not to appear excited about the prospect of getting a cookie before dinner.

  "I guess it's all right just this once." Ellis gave her a probing look. "As long as you don't make a habit of eating cookies before every meal."

  "I won't." Trevor gave her a hopeful look.

  She smiled down at the boy and held out her hand. "Follow me, Trev, and I'll show you the way to the cookie jar." Trevor's little hand felt so fragile and warm when it reached for her outstretched hand. He grabbed her hand without a moment's hesitation and the trust he handed her with his tiny hard nearly overwhelmed her heart. Trevor had given her his trust. She turned and headed for the kitchen before Ellis or Trevor saw the tears forming in her eyes.

  The red stool, positioned near the phone on the wall, caught her eye. When she was a little girl, her mother always pulled it over to the counter for her. She used to sit on it and watch or help with whatever her mother was doing. Many fond memories were connected with that stool.

  Without releasing Trevor's hand, she pulled the step stool over near the counter and motioned for him to climb on up. The stool had two little steps and had seen its share of action whenever she or her mother had needed something from the back of one of the top shelves.

  Trevor scampered up the steps and perched himself on the seat as if he were king. "Mrs. McCall lets me set the table at home."

  "I bet you're pretty good at it, aren't you?" She reached for the white ceramic cookie jar with red geraniums painted on it and lifted the lid. The aroma of freshly baked cookies whiffed out and tantalized even her senses. Amazingly, she had not sampled any of the cookies as they lay cooling on the wire rack. Her father was another story. She had to shoo him out of the kitchen before there wasn't any left for Trevor.

  She held the jar out to the little boy. "Remember, only one."

  Trevor took a cookie and smiled. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome." She held the jar out to Ellis who had followed her into the kitchen and was leaning against the counter watching the exchange between her and his son. "Only one for you too. I don't want you ruining your dinner."

  Ellis took a cookie and grinned at his son and winked. "Thanks, Trev. Without you here, she never would have let me have a cookie before dinner."

  She picked a cookie for herself and replaced the cookie jar. "Just don't tell my father."

  "Don't tell your father what?" Thomas had entered the kitchen just as the words came out of her mouth.

  Ellis chuckled and Trevor bit into his cookie. She shook her head at the cookie clutched in her hand and knew she couldn't hide the truth from her father. Thomas had probably smelled the cookies the instant she took the lid off the jar. "They aren't allowed to tell you we're sneaking cookies before dinner."

  One of Thomas's eyebrows raised behind his dark glasses. "Cookies?"

  "Trevor was hungry." She smiled at the boy and bit into her own cookie.

  Thomas walked farther into the room and tried to sniff out the direction of the cookie jar. "Can't have the boy go hungry, can we?"

  Once again she reached for the cookie jar and gently bumped it against her father's hand. Thomas immediately snatched up a cookie and grinned. "What do you think, Trev, are the cookies any good?"

  "They're real good, Mr. St. Claire. They're almost as good as Mrs. McCall's."

  Almost! Almost as good as Mrs. McCall's! She frowned at the cookie—minus one big bite—in her hand. What did he mean almost as good as Mrs. McCall's?

  Her father tried, but wasn't successful in covering up his chuckle before he turned his attention to eating his cookie.

  "A high compliment indeed." Ellis gave her a reassuring smile. "Trevor is totally smitten with Rita and everything she does."

  She nearly blushed with pleasure as Ellis tried to soften his son's words. It was very sweet of him to reassure her. Then again, she was the one cooking their dinner tonight.

  "What's smitten?" Trevor asked.

  "It means you really like Mrs. McCall." Ellis ruffled his son's hair as he polished off the rest of his cookie.

  "I love her, Dad." Trevor frowned for a moment. "Kyle came over to play zoo with me yesterday and he told me he has two grandmoms and that I didn't have any. Mrs. McCall said I wasn't to worry none because she'll be my grandmom anytime I want."

  The look on Ellis's face as he gazed at his son not only tugged at her heart, it hauled it across her chest and jammed it into her throat. Trevor wasn't belittling her cookies, he was being loyal to his "grandmother" Rita. The woman earned
more than a raise in salary. She deserved a nomination into sainthood.

  * * *

  Ellis walked into the den and immediately glanced at Sydney. She was curled up on the couch with her nose buried in the mounds of paperwork surrounding her. Guilt assaulted him again. Because of him, and now Trevor, she had once again missed out on going to the nursery and doing the paperwork there. Instead, she would spend half the night doing it. He knew what it took to run a business. Whatever energy of his that Trevor didn't use up, One If By Land did.

  Sydney was in the same boat. Her father was now solely dependent on her, at least physically. As for financially, he didn't know how Thomas was set, before or after the accident. He had considered it too personal to have him investigated that way. It hadn't mattered to him how well off Thomas had been. All that had concerned him was the components in his blood. Now he was glad he hadn't had the man's financial status investigated. Thomas wasn't his biological father after all.

  The television was turned on low and Thomas seemed to be listening to it.

  Sydney turned her head and glanced at him the moment he walked into the room. "Is Trevor asleep?"

  "He made it through one book, but conked out on me in the middle of the second." He had started the habit of reading to Trevor at night years ago. His son had grown up with a love for books and words. "He now knows at least eight more jungle animals that he doesn't have in his collection."

  "The boy sure knows his animals," Thomas said with a chuckle. "Maybe he'll be a veterinarian when he grows up."

  Ellis felt his heart jerk at Thomas's words when he grows up. He knew Thomas hadn't meant to hurt him, but the pain was there nevertheless. It was an innocent slip of the tongue. Just like the other day when he inadvertently said to Thomas, Wait until you see… A heavy silence filled the room.

  "Lord, I'm sorry, Ellis." Thomas hit a button on the remote and the television went off.

  Sydney busied herself with restacking her piles into one mound and placing it on the coffee table. "Are you sure Trevor will be okay up there alone?"

  "He's fine. He hardly ever wakes up in the middle of the night and if he should, I brought his night-light from home. The door's cracked and the hall light's on. Trevor's used to sleeping in strange places." Seven hospital stays in nine months could do that to a kid. "Besides, he has an entire roomful of animals to protect him."

  He had left his son snuggled in the middle of the double bed in the guest bedroom clutching his baby blanket with its ratty edges. Winnie-the-Pooh was on one side of him and the baby orangutan was on the other. When he went to bed later, he would have to move Trevor and his friends over to make some room for himself.

  "Is that what all the animals are for, protection?" asked Sydney.

  "Partly." He was tired of trying to figure out all the psychological explanations for everything Trevor did or said. He had decided six months ago to let Trevor lead, as much as possible, the normal life of a five-year-old. Most parents didn't go around psychoanalyzing everything their five-year-old did. "Some of it is security, surrounding himself with something of his own. The other part is because he likes animals."

  "That he does." Thomas chuckled. "Did you manage to fit them all in the guest room?"

  Sydney, Trevor and he had carried up the wild assortment of animals earlier and scattered them throughout the room. Now that Trevor was settling into the guest room, he would leave the majority of the animals up there during the day and only bring down one or two of them at a time. "Yes, Trevor's very happy at how they all fit, and I do believe he hinted that there might be room for one or two more."

  Thomas chuckled again. "Georgette down at Two-By-Two will be mighty happy to hear that."

  Ellis shook his head knowingly and sat down on the other end of the couch. "Georgette will probably be able to retire to Palm Beach, Florida, by the time we head home." He glanced at Sydney and frowned when she wouldn't meet his gaze. Was she having second thoughts about them becoming lovers?

  Thomas settled more comfortably in his chair and faced the couch. "I've been giving the matter of your father some thought." Thomas rubbed his chin. "Well, it's been more than just some thought."

  Ellis's attention immediately went to Thomas. Trevor, and possibly finding a donor, had to be his first concern. He would question Sydney later. "What did you come up with?" As far as he could figure, finding his biological father would be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

  "The more I think on it, the more I have to agree with Sydney. I think your father is still in town, or at least he had been up to twelve years ago. Catherine had some good decent friends in Coalsburg. I think she would have eventually come home, if only for a visit."

  "There's what, eight thousand, ten thousand residents in Coalsburg? That's a lot of people, Thomas."

  "I'm not just referring to the city limits, Ellis. We need to look at the surrounding area, too. Catherine was in high school when she got pregnant. There are four other towns whose students are bused in to the school. The other towns have their own elementary schools, but everyone uses Coalsburg Middle School and Coalsburg Senior High School."

  "So we're talking what, forty thousand people now?"

  "More like fifty thousand."

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Fifty thousand people! The needle in the haystack had just been shrunk to the size of a pin. Hell, four angels could be dancing on the head of that pin and he still wouldn't be able to find it.

  "It's not that bad, Ellis. Roughly half those people are women."

  "Oh joy, now we're only talking about twenty-five thousand people."

  "Then we eliminate anyone under the age of forty-eight," continued Thomas as if he hadn't heard his last comment.

  "Why forty-eight?"

  "Catherine was eighteen at the time. She might have … let's use the words paired up with a boy who was only seventeen, but I'm going to include sixteen-year-olds in there, too, just to be on the safe side."

  Ellis didn't want to think about his mother and some sixteen-year-old kid. Hell, he didn't want to think about his mother being "paired up" with anyone. "What about the other end of the spectrum? Are we going to cut off the age limit at fifty-two? That would have made my father twenty at the time."

  Thomas rubbed his chin for a long moment. "I think we should broaden that figure, Ellis. I don't mean any disrespect toward Catherine, but there are a lot of girls who get their heads turned by a much older, more mature man."

  "How mature are we talking about? Could he have been thirty?"

  "I was going to suggest cutting off the age group around fifty."

  "Fifty! My mother was only eighteen at the time." A fifty-year-old man and an eighteen-year-old girl! "I thought you were my mother's friend?"

  "Ellis…" Sydney reached out and gently touched his hand. "It's possible that your mother could have fallen for some charming, debonair man in his forties, early forties."

  "A man in his forties could father a child," added Thomas gently.

  "Hell, a man in his seventies could father a child. Shouldn't we include them too?"

  "That would make him roughly one hundred and two today, Ellis." Thomas shook his head. "I think we should concentrate first on the boys who were in her school at the time and maybe a year or two older than her who were still in town at the time."

  "What about her teachers?" asked Sydney.

  "Teachers? You want to ask her teachers if they remember seeing my mother with a certain boy?" Made sense to him. It could be a starting point.

  "No, I was thinking maybe your mother … had an affair with one of her teachers."

  He stared at Sydney in disbelief. "This is my mother you're talking about."

  "I know, and I'm sorry if I'm offending her memory, but many girls have crushes on their teachers, especially young male teachers. Maybe your mother's feelings went beyond the crush stage?"

  "She's got a point there, Ellis. If you want to find your father you are going to have t
o put sentiment aside. Catherine must have loved you very much to do what she did. Back thirty-two years ago a girl could have arranged to have a back-room abortion, or it was more common to leave town for a while and visit an aunt or an uncle out of state for a couple of months and put the baby up for adoption. Not too many chose to keep the child out of wedlock."

  "I know that, Thomas." He knew how hard it had been for his mother to raise him on her own. Seeing her daily struggle had given him the ambition to do well in school and to make something of himself. He had planned on making his mother's life easier. She had died before he was able to do that.

  "Catherine would have loved Trevor, just as much as she loved you."

  "I know that, too." He remembered the wistful look on his mother's face whenever someone from the neighborhood had a baby. His mother had wanted more children.

  "Then trust me when I say Catherine would want you to do everything within your power to save Trevor's life. Even if it meant unburying the truth about who your real father was."

  Thomas was right. If his mother were alive today, she would tell him the truth. He didn't mind turning over stones to find out who his father was. What did bother him was turning over those stones to find out a very personal and intimate secret of his mother's—who she had slept with. He had to push those reservations aside and concentrate on Trevor.

  "Okay, Thomas. We do it your way. How do we find out who she went to school with?"

  "Yearbooks." Thomas relaxed now that things were going his way. "My wife, Julia's, yearbook and mine are both in the attic somewhere. Julia and your mother both graduated in the same year. I graduated two years before them. Tomorrow morning you and Sydney go up to the attic and see if you can locate the yearbooks. I'm pretty sure they're in an old black steamer trunk up there."

  "What about the other years? The two years after she graduated and the one before." Sydney started taking notes and glanced up from the pad on her lap.