A Mother's Secret (5 page)

S
OMEHOW SHE
’
D PULLED
her knees up without realizing it and was huddled in the corner of the sofa while Daniel still stood, staring at her with such contempt.

“You don’t know him!” she cried. “You don’t love him. Why are you doing this?”

“Tell me. What does he know about his father?”

She hesitated. “He hasn’t asked much.”

“Much?”

One day after his friend Evan’s father had spent an afternoon patiently teaching the two boys how to hit a ball off the batting tee, Malcolm had asked on the way home how come he didn’t have a dad. She had explained that his father was someone who hadn’t been in her life for very long, and that they’d chosen not to get married and be a family together. He had seemed satisfied, if rather quiet for the rest of the drive.

“It’s not something four-year-olds think about.”

“What did you intend to say when he was ten? Fifteen? Eighteen? Were you going to admit that you’d never told his dad he existed? Or did you plan to tell him, ‘I’m sorry, he’s not interested in you’?”

She’d lain awake nights worrying about just that. Should she be honest and tell her son she hadn’t wanted
his dad involved in his life? Would he come to resent her for making that decision? She hadn’t found an answer. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she’d thought tomorrow was soon enough. It was hard right now to imagine him feeling she’d somehow deprived him by ensuring he had a stable home.

“I wouldn’t have said that.” Her voice came out thin, hopeless. “I would have been honest.”

Past tense, she realized in despair. However much she might fight Daniel over this, she would lose. Legally, Malcolm was his, too. If he took her to court, she’d look bad for having deprived him of his son.

“Are you married?” Daniel jerked his head toward the short hall that led to the bedrooms, as if she had a man stowed in one of them. “Is there someone he considers a dad?”

Oh, she wanted to lie! She certainly wasn’t going to admit that there had been no man since him.

Nor did she want him to suspect that she’d been breathless since she opened the front door because he was still the single sexiest man she’d ever met. She didn’t even know why she reacted this way to him and no one else. She hated finding out that was still true. Yes, he was big and well-built and his eyes, a stormy dark gray, had sometimes seemed to reveal a vulnerability that had made her weak-kneed.

Or weak in the head, she scolded herself, to think for a minute that a softening of his usually closed expression meant anything deep.

“No. There’s no one right now.” Rebecca chose her words carefully. “I…haven’t wanted him to get attached to anyone I wasn’t serious about.”

He considered her for a moment, frowning. At last he gave a stiff nod. “All right. How are we going to do this?”

This
. Rebecca felt sick. Daniel Kane wanted to talk about the mechanics of her giving up half her child’s life.

She sought to calm herself. He had a right to be angry. And honestly…giving Daniel visitation rights to their son wasn’t the end of the world. It might feel like it right this minute, but surely, surely, he would help her make this easy for Malcolm. He wouldn’t be like her own father, who was more interested in waging war with his ex-wife than he was in the welfare of his two daughters.

She clasped her hands tightly together and said quietly, “Would you please sit down? So I don’t feel as if you’re trying to intimidate me?”

For a long moment he didn’t move. But at last he gave a choppy nod and sat in an easy chair facing the sofa. Only an old wooden trunk she used as a coffee table separated them.

“Thank you.”

“Is this the beginning of another plea for me to stay the hell out of my son’s life?”

“No. I’m going to ask if…if maybe you can get to know Malcolm before we tell him. He’d be so scared…” She stopped before her voice could break. He would think she was trying to manipulate him.

Again those eyes narrowed for a flicker. “He didn’t look shy to me.”

“He’s not. But he is only four and a half years old.”

“When’s his birthday?”

“June. June 6.” She drew a breath. “The longest he’s ever away from me is at preschool, and I often walk over to have lunch with him. He’s a little boy, Daniel. If you insisted on suddenly taking him for the weekend…”

He scowled at her. “You’ve made your point. So what’s the alternative?”

“Can I just introduce you as an old friend of mine? Maybe you could come to dinner some night, or we could all do something together like go to the beach. Once he knows you, it’ll be different.”

It was the best she could do. There would still come that first time, when she stood in the driveway waving as Daniel took Malcolm away for the night, or the weekend, and her heart cracked. But she could bear it if Malcolm went happily, if she was the only one suffering. If Malcolm was crying, or had his face pressed to the glass as the car disappeared down the road, she was afraid she’d go running after it until she collapsed in tears and some neighbor had to lead her, shattered, home again.

Not once had the furrows between Daniel’s dark brows smoothed. They gave his face a brooding cast as he seemed to weigh every word she spoke, examining each suspiciously.

Which, she supposed, was fair. After all, she
had
kept her pregnancy from him, kept his son from him. He didn’t have any reason to trust her intentions now.

But he did finally sigh and scrub a hand over his face. “You win. That seems reasonable. Why don’t I take you both out for pizza? Tomorrow? No.” He shook his head. “Saturday?”

“I’m afraid I have plans.” Would he insist she cancel them?

But all he did was give her a skeptical look. “Then Sunday night. Does he like pizza?”

She managed a small, twisted smile. “He likes pizza.”

“Six o’clock?”

“Earlier, if you can make it. His bedtime is eight. We usually eat between five and five-thirty.”

Another nod. She could see him calculating. “I can make it.” He stood. “Sunday, then.”

Rebecca scrambled to her feet, too. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?” His laugh held no humor. “Come on, we both know what you really want is to tell me to go to hell.”

“That’s not true. This is my fault.” And it was—she’d been foolish enough to stay in the Bay Area. “I appreciate you thinking of Malcolm.”

“Instead of thinking only about myself, which was what you anticipated?” His dry tone made it plain he believed she was snowing him.

She pressed her lips together. “I was afraid you’d let your anger rule you.”

“And, oh, how tempted I am.”

The soft menace in his voice made her shiver.

“Fortunately for my son, I can pretend to like you for his sake.” He raked her with one scathing look, then turned and walked out.

Rebecca was left standing in her living room, flushed with humiliation and anger. And dread.

“M
OM SAYS YOU USED TO BE
friends. Like me and Jenna.” While his mom set his booster seat in the back of Daniel’s car, Malcolm scrutinized Daniel. “So how come I never met you?”

Could he succeed in convincing anyone, even a kid, that the two of them were friends? Daniel wondered. Three days later, he was still furious that she had intended to let his son grow up thinking his dad didn’t care, condemning the boy to the sense of inadequacy that had haunted Daniel for a lifetime.

She had one hell of a lot of excuses, but what it came down to was she didn’t want to share.

No, he wouldn’t be getting over this anger soon, but he had to hide it. Pretend, for Malcolm’s sake.

“I didn’t know your mom still lived around here,” he said in an easy tone. “Not until that day I ran into you at the restaurant.”

“You didn’t run into us. You just
saw
us,” the boy corrected him.

“That’s a figure of speech,” Rebecca said. “Come on. Hop in.”

He grinned at her and, keeping both feet together, hopped to the car. “Like a rabbit. Huh, Mom?”

“That was
another
figure of speech.”

Daniel couldn’t imagine that any four-year-old knew what a figure of speech was. Many adults probably didn’t. After all, what did a “figure” have to do with anything?

Rebecca had to lift Malcolm into his car seat, since he persisted in trying to jump instead of climbing in.

She closed the car door, obviously flustered. “I’m sorry. He’s in a phase.”

“A literal one?”

“Uh…you could say that.”

He would have smiled if he hadn’t been so tense. It had occurred to him, in the past twenty-four hours, that becoming known and trustworthy to his son might require skills he didn’t possess. He saw kids squalling in the grocery store when their moms refused to buy the sugary cereal they wanted. Toddlers playing at the park where he ran. That was as close as he’d wanted to get. Outside of the sixteen-year-olds who worked the drive-through at fast-food joints, Kaitlin was the only child with whom he’d actually held a conversation. But Kaitlin was different. He’d been part of her life since she was born.

Charming this particular four-year-old might be a challenge. What made the attempt even more uncomfort
able was having to do it under the critical eye of the boy’s mother.

Realizing that she’d been worrying in turn that he might critique Malcolm’s behavior and thus her parenting skills loosened that tension a little.

They got in the car and he backed out of the driveway.

“You didn’t put on your seat belt,” the boy piped up. “Don’t you wear your seat belt? Mom, how come that man didn’t put on his seat belt the way he’s supposed to?”

Hastily, Daniel buckled it. “Sometimes I fasten it once I’ve started driving. But that’s a bad habit.”

“Mom always checks to be sure everyone in the car has their seat belt on before she starts the car. Don’t you, Mom?”

She smiled brightly over her shoulder, although he glimpsed the whites of her eyes. “I’m sure Daniel usually wears his, Malcolm. And this is his car, so he doesn’t have to follow my rules.”

Daniel was beginning to enjoy himself. The pretense was her idea, and she was suffering way more than he was.

“Do you make everyone wear their seat belts, too, Mr. Daniel?” the boy persisted. “Or do you have a different rule?”

“You don’t have to call me mister,” he began. “Just Daniel is fine.”

“But Mom makes me call grown-ups mister or missus. ’Cept for Aunt Nomi. She’s not really my aunt,” he confided. “But she’s kinda
like
my aunt.”

The kid didn’t have a shy bone in his body, Daniel realized, as Malcolm continued to share his thoughts about Aunt Nomi and any number of other adults he knew. Daniel did manage to interject that his name was Daniel Kane, and that Malcolm could call him Mr. Kane if he preferred. Malcolm thought Kane was a great name.

“A really good name,” he said with unmistakable satisfaction.

Rebecca winced.

Daniel was uncharitable enough to savor her discomfiture. The boy’s name should have
been
Kane. Would have been Kane, if she hadn’t decided to cut Daniel out.

“This place okay?” he asked, slowing by a pizza parlor he’d spotted the other day.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “We like this place, don’t we, Mal?”

“Yeah!” The boy bounced. “We like pizza!”

Once he’d parked and they were walking in, she said, “I’m not really quite as much of a prig as he makes me sound. I just figure if I can influence him into thinking seat belts are important at this age, it might stick.”

“You’re not a pig, Mom.” Her son, clutching her hand, looked up at her in astonishment. “Why’d you say you’re a pig?”

Amused, Daniel listened as she valiantly attempted to explain the difference between
pig
and
prig
. Clearly, she’d failed, because she was still trying when Malcolm interrupted her and said, “We won’t get a pizza with mushrooms. Right?”

“He doesn’t like mushrooms,” she murmured to Daniel.

He felt an odd bump in his chest. Looking down at the boy, Daniel said, “He’s not the only one who doesn’t like mushrooms. There definitely won’t be any on our pizza.”

“I’d forgotten,” Rebecca said in a funny voice. “You don’t like Brussels sprouts, either, do you? Or spinach. He doesn’t, either.”

He smiled at Malcolm. “We must have the same tastes, buddy.”

“Brussels sprouts are
gross
,” he was assured. “They stink!”

“Yes, they do,” Daniel agreed.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You’re a big help.”

“Well, he’s right.”

“Mom always says I’ll like stuff like that when I’m growed up. But I’m never going to eat food that stinks!” Malcolm chortled.

They established that he would also prefer pizza without pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, onion or green pepper. He kinda liked pineapple, though. Daniel suggested that they ask for one quarter of their pizza to be plain cheese with pineapple. Then he said, “Veggie with no mushroom?” to Rebecca, and she nodded, looked startled, then blushed.

Daniel was surprised himself to realize how many of her preferences he remembered. Not just tastes in food, he thought, watching as she led the four-year-old to the bathroom. How much about
her
he remembered.

Like her scent. The entire time he knew her, she’d used the same shampoo. An organic, not-tested-on-animals, hard-to-find one that smelled of apricots and green tea. Even now, four years later, a whiff of that distinctive scent would have stopped him dead in a crowd as he turned to look for her.

The tiny, choked sound she made when she was trying to suppress a laugh. He remembered that, too. Yeah, and the throaty purr when she was enjoying his touch.

And those flecks of gold in her eyes that seemed to brighten when she was mad or excited or aroused. He vividly remembered the moment when he’d thought,
I could spend the rest of my life looking into her eyes
.

They hadn’t even been having sex. No, they’d been chatting over breakfast. She was laughing at him as she snatched the front page of the
Chronicle
out of his hand.