A Father's Promise Read online

  His son's loving response stayed with him long after he replaced the receiver into the cradle. He would have given anything to be in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, with Trevor than in this cheap room at the Starry Night Motel.

  Coalsburg, Pennsylvania, didn't have an abundance of overnight accommodations to choose from. It was either the Starry Night Motel with its clean sheets and threadbare carpet or the ever-popular Hide-Away Motel that actually charged by the hour and listed X-rated videos by title on a blinking billboard five feet off the interstate. The choice was obvious since his business in Coalsburg was going to take a bit longer than he had hoped.

  Four months ago he had started his search for a bone marrow donor that matched Trevor as soon as he learned his own marrow was incompatible with his son's. Trevor's best hope of a cure was to have the transplant done while he was in remission. No one would hazard a guess as to how long Trevor would be in the remission stage. His race to find a donor was pitted against the clock. Trevor's clock.

  So far every relative of Trevor's, near and far, on his mother's side, had been tested. There hadn't been a single match among the greedy, money-hungry lot. His ex-wife, Ginny, had volunteered to be the first one tested. The remaining members of her family all came with a price tag. If there had been a match, he had been committed to dig deep into his wallet before the actual transplant took place.

  Both registries for unrelated marrow donors in the United States hadn't turned up a match.

  His last hope was Trevor's biological grandfather, Thomas St. Claire, the man who'd fathered him and then abandoned his mother, Catherine, when she was eighteen and pregnant. St. Claire hadn't been worthy of a moment's thought the entire time Ellis had been growing up. Now he would beg, plead or pay dearly for Thomas to take a simple blood test. If he could just talk to the man.

  The detective he had hired to track St. Claire had been thorough. Thomas St. Claire had married a couple of years after Catherine left Coalsburg carrying his child. St. Claire and his wife adopted a little ten-year-old girl several years later and never had any children of their own. Six months ago St. Claire's wife had been killed in the same car accident that had left Thomas blind. Thankfully, St. Claire was still in good enough physical shape to be Trevor's donor, if there was a match.

  The detective forgot to mention that the little girl they had adopted had grown into one beautiful, if not stubborn and overly protective, woman. Sydney St. Claire was proving to be one gorgeous obstacle.

  When Sydney had opened the door earlier he had been thrown off balance, and never did manage to regain his footing while in her presence. In a totally uncharacteristic move, he had been clumsy and rude in his approach to see Thomas St. Claire. He needed Thomas's help, and antagonizing Sydney wasn't going to better the situation.

  Fact being, he had in all likelihood worsened his chances of getting Thomas's cooperation. St. Claire probably was relying heavily on Sydney to help him pull his life back together. He had loved Sydney enough to legally adopt her when she was ten. To all the world, Sydney was his daughter.

  Ellis glanced at his open briefcase on the bed, the pile of paperwork that needed his attention, and the laptop computer sitting on the room's small table and already displaying a list of figures he had been working on before calling Trevor. Over the past several months he had become quite adept at running his shipping business, One If By Land, out of a briefcase.

  Next to the computer was an open bottle of scotch and a quarter-filled cheap disposable cup he had found wrapped in plastic sitting on the bathroom counter. He reached for the cup and turned away from the monitor.

  The first swallow of scotch warmed his throat and heated the chill that had been growing in his stomach. Sydney was his father's daughter and the reality of that was finally sinking in. When he had read the detective's report mentioning Sydney's adoption he had actually been disappointed, because there was no blood link between her and Thomas. She was one less person who could have been a possible match for Trevor.

  Now, after meeting her, and being in the same town that both his mother and father had grown up in, the town that he had been conceived in, it finally was starting to sink in that Thomas St. Claire had never wanted him. He hadn't been good enough for his father to love or want.

  When he had been growing up he had always figured that Thomas St. Claire was some lonely, miserable man who hated children. Ellis had figured that he was better off with just his mom. Now he knew that wasn't true. Thomas had raised some stranger's child to be his own. He had taken a little girl that no one else wanted, and made her his own.

  One thought burned through his mind as he finished off the scotch in the cup and stared at the flickering two-foot-high T outside the window. Why had Thomas chosen to raise a little girl as his own and not his own flesh-and-blood son? What was so terribly wrong with him that his own father hadn't wanted him?

  Chapter 2

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  Sydney was watering the plants in front of the living-room window when she saw the deep green Mercedes pull up the long driveway and park behind her four-wheel-drive Blazer. Ellis Carlisle was back, just as she knew he would be. This morning she was prepared for him and his wild accusations. She'd had all night to think about what she was going to do when he returned. She just hadn't been expecting him so early this morning. It was barely after nine.

  Her father had come down for breakfast, which he'd hardly touched. Then he had retreated to the den and closed the door, once again effectively shutting her out of his life and his pain. For the last forty minutes not a sound had emerged from behind the den's door. Her father preferred the silence of the house to the sounds of the radio or television or even her voice.

  She placed the white plastic watering can on the floor and opened the door before Ellis could ring the bell. She didn't want to disturb her father, at least not yet. The man standing on her doorstep looked slightly different from the man who had stood there yesterday. This Ellis appeared more casual, more approachable. He was still wearing the same suede jacket as yesterday, but this morning he wore faded blue jeans, loafers and a light gray sweater that nearly matched his eyes. The smudges of fatigue beneath his eyes were more pronounced.

  Sydney opened the door farther and softly said, "Won't you come in."

  A look of surprise flashed across Ellis's face before he schooled his expression back to a bland mask. "Thank you, Sydney."

  She glanced nervously at the closed den door off the hallway, before leading Ellis to the kitchen at the back of the house. The huge sunny kitchen with its glass-front cabinets, cheery yellow wallpaper and herbs growing in an array of mismatched pots on the windowsill was her favorite room in the house. Her mother had decorated and loved the room and her memory was stamped into every square inch of it.

  She motioned toward one of the wooden chairs sitting around the table. "Would you care for a cup of coffee? I just put on a fresh pot." She had made the pot moments before, hoping the aroma of freshly brewing coffee would draw her father out of the den. Thomas St. Claire had a nose that could match any bloodhound's when it came to coffee.

  Ellis seemed to consider the polite invitation for a moment before answering. "Thanks. I take it black, no sugar." He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair before sitting down.

  She felt his eyes on her as she poured them both a cup and carried them over to the table. His intense gaze locked with hers as she handed him a cup. "I knew you would come back."

  "Why did you change your mind and decide to talk to me?"

  "For a couple reasons, but the main one has to do with the truth. Thomas St. Claire isn't, and couldn't be, your father." She pulled her gaze away from his and sat down. Ellis's gaze was too probing. It was as if he was trying to read her soul.

  "Couldn't be?" Ellis took a sip of his coffee and watched her over the rim of the cup. "Why couldn't Thomas be my father?"

  She had given that question a lot of thought throughout the night and well into the morni
ng hours. If Ellis Carlisle was under the impression that Thomas was his father, then he deserved the truth. "Thomas physically couldn't have any children of his own." Sydney remembered the day she had learned this about her father. It was an afternoon, a year or so after she had joined her mother in the nursery business, during one of those rare talks she and her mother had had that not only strengthened the bond between them, but forged a couple of new ones. They were out inspecting a field of trees, to see how they had survived the winter, when her mother had brought up the subject.

  Thomas had been devastated when early on in their marriage it was discovered that he couldn't father a child. Thomas had once teased Julia about wanting to father a baseball team of his own, or at least the infield. Julia, who also loved children, had been wholeheartedly in agreement with her husband. When the doctors had delivered the news, Julia had accepted it with the help of her faith. Thomas hadn't been accustomed to relying on his faith and felt as if God were punishing him. Julia had then gone on to tell her how everything had changed the day Thomas had found Sydney traveling the railroad tracks east of town, dragging a huge nylon duffel bag behind her. Thomas had taken one look at the frightened little girl and figured out God's plan.

  Her mother had then gone on to tell her that she loved her as much as she would have loved a child she had carried in her own womb, but as the old saying went, she was "Daddy's little girl." Years later she was still "Daddy's little girl," and now Daddy needed her terribly. Only he hadn't realized it yet.

  "Are you telling me Thomas St. Claire couldn't have any children of his own, and that's why you were adopted?"

  She refused to allow the pain his careless words had caused to show. If Thomas and Julia had had a house filled with their own children, they probably wouldn't have wanted or had room for her. "Yes, that's what I'm telling you."

  "Maybe he was the one who made sure he couldn't have any more children after he accidentally got Catherine Carlisle pregnant."

  Sydney felt her stomach clench in outrage. She very carefully placed her cup on the table in front of her and narrowed her eyes at the man sitting across from her. In a voice soft as a whisper she said, "Don't you ever say or insinuate such a thing again. Not being able to father any children nearly devastated Thomas St. Claire."

  His gray eyes probed once more, but Ellis didn't apologize. "I see you believe that very much."

  "Yes, I do." She toyed with the handle on her cup for a moment. She had promised herself last night that she would sit down and listen to what Ellis Carlisle had to say. She took a deep breath and asked, "What makes you so positive that my father is the Thomas St. Claire you are looking for? It's not that unusual a name." Surely there had to be a dozen or so other Thomas St. Claires throughout the country. Ellis's birth certificate hadn't stated where his parents were from.

  "My mother and her family moved to Coalsburg when she was twelve years old. Besides a few class trips and a couple of family vacations, she never left Coalsburg until she was eighteen and already pregnant. Unless there's another fifty-three-year-old Thomas St. Claire in this area that the detective I hired couldn't locate, I would have to say your father is my father."

  It sounded strange: Your father is my father. If she believed Ellis's story, it would mean in some weird, twisted way they were brother and sister—at least legally, if not biologically. Impossible! Her father couldn't be his father. She couldn't think of another Thomas St. Claire anywhere around the area. Her father had a brother, Samuel, and he had a couple of sons, but none were named Thomas. "Maybe there was another Thomas St. Claire living around here thirty-two years ago?"

  "There's no record of one, Sydney." Ellis patiently drank his coffee.

  "Did you ever think that your mother gave the hospital the name of the wrong man?" His confidence was getting on her nerves.

  "Are you saying that my mother might not have known who fathered the child she was carrying, so she pulled Thomas's name out of a hat?"

  There were a handful of explanations as to why Catherine Carlisle might not have known exactly who had fathered her child. None of them painted a pretty picture. "Maybe she purposely named Thomas instead of your real father."

  Ellis's smile appeared condescending. "Why would she do that?"

  "I don't know." She brushed back a curl that had fallen too close to her eye. "Maybe she wanted to protect him."

  Ellis snorted in disbelief. "Protect him from what?"

  "There could be other reasons why she named my father." For the life of her, she couldn't think of a single one in this instant. Later they might come, but not right now.

  "She wasn't protecting the man who fathered me, Sydney. As far as I know, she never made contact or asked for anything from either Thomas or this other man you keep insisting on. She raised me alone and taught me that my father didn't want anything to do with her or me. I've never given Thomas St. Claire a second thought until now."

  "Why now?" That was the confusing part. Why would Ellis all of a sudden, after thirty-two years, look up his father now?

  Ellis stood up and walked over to the kitchen sink and stared out the window. She knew that view by heart. A brick patio with an white iron table and chairs. The green-and-white-striped umbrella hadn't been put up yet, but the scene still looked inviting. Many an evening meal had been eaten at that table.

  If he turned his head to the right he would see the massive oak where her father sat on sunny, yet still chilly, afternoons. Farther in the distance he would see a couple of the nursery's greenhouses and areas of tiny saplings and larger trees ready to be sold. The nursery's main building and parking lot were a good quarter mile down the road and away from the house. Her mother wanted to be close to her business, yet still have some privacy for her family. It was a view that had been carved into her heart over the years. She wondered what he thought of it, or if he was even seeing it.

  "I have a five-year-old son." Ellis jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans but didn't turn around to face her. "His name is Trevor."

  So Mr. Good Looking With An Attitude was married and had a little boy. No surprise there. Her best friend and employee, Cindy, always claimed all the handsome men were already taken.

  "At the end of last summer Trevor was diagnosed with leukemia."

  Her heart skipped two beats and her stomach felt as if someone had just slammed her with a bowling ball. "Lord, I'm sorry, Ellis. You and your wife must be worried sick." Her heart immediately went out to him, his wife and his little boy. He was thinking about his little boy, Trevor, as he gazed out that window. His very sick little boy.

  "I'm no longer married. Trevor's mother left when he was six weeks old." He shrugged as if it had happened a long time ago and was now just water under the bridge. "In January, Trevor was diagnosed as being in remission."

  "Remission? That's good, right?"

  "Yes, it's good. Right now Trev doesn't look or act sick, but it doesn't mean that it's true. His best hope for a total cure is a bone marrow transplant and it should be done while he is healthy and in remission." Ellis lowered his head and stared into the white porcelain sink. "My HLA typing doesn't match his. I can't be the donor."

  "I gather that this HLA typing is what they try to match to find a donor?" She had heard about the matching process, but she'd never met or known anyone who actually had leukemia and had gone through a bone marrow transplant. By the tone of Ellis's voice she could tell he felt like a failure to his son for not being a match. "What about Trevor's mom or other relatives? Can't they be tested?" She would have to take back a couple of her thoughts about Ellis. He wasn't arrogant or rude. He was scared to death for his little boy, and she couldn't blame him.

  "Ginny and every one of her blood relatives have already been tested and there was no match. Both marrow donor registries have also turned up nothing." Ellis finally turned around and faced her. His eyes told of the enormous amount of stress he had been under lately and the pain tearing at his heart. "My only living relative is
my father, Thomas St. Claire." Ellis took a deep breath and met her gaze. "He's my last hope, Sydney. He's my son's last chance."

  Now she knew what was so important that Ellis needed to talk to her father about. She wished she didn't. Ellis was setting himself up for another letdown. "Ellis, he can't be your father."

  "What if he is?"

  What if he is? That's a damn good question. Where would that leave her if Ellis really was her father's son? She had selfishly hoarded her father's love for the past eighteen years. She wasn't ready to share, but for the sake of a little five-year-old boy named Trevor with a potentially fatal disease, she had to push aside her own fears. "I think we need to talk to my father and ask him why Catherine Carlisle would name him as father to her child."

  Ellis gave her a look that clearly stated the obvious answer to her question. Instead of voicing his opinion yet again, he said softly, "Thank you."

  "You do understand that my father really isn't up to visitors. He hasn't been in the mood for company since the accident and he might not be very sociable." Classing her father as unsociable was putting it mildly, but she had to at least warn Ellis about what to expect.

  "I don't need him to be sociable. I just need him to take a simple blood test."

  She could see the hope in his eyes, but she didn't have the heart to remind him that she was almost certain Thomas wasn't his father. Her parents had taught her to try walking in someone else's shoes before criticizing. She couldn't imagine what she would do if she had a critically ill child. There was no telling how far she would go to try to save his life. Allowing Ellis to talk to her father was only one little step. Maybe Thomas could shed some light on why he was listed as the father on Ellis's birth certificate.

  Sydney stood up, walked over to a cabinet and reached for a tray that was on the top shelf. "I'll fix him some coffee to take into the den with us. If my father has a weak spot, it's for a good cup of coffee." She busied herself pouring another cup of coffee and fixing it the way her father liked it, no sugar but heavy on the cream. She placed it on a tray with her and Ellis's cups.