From Boss to Bridegroom (17 page)

The cool, calm lawyer was showing signs of anger.
He was on his feet now, too, facing off with her in a dauntingly arousing sight.

“My view of you is hardly that disparaging,” she said, trying not to stare at the magnificence of his naked chest. “You're a good man, Rand. A great one. But you're a man who lives a life so completely different from mine that we might as well be on separate planets.”

“I'm not from another planet, Lucy. I grew up in a household full of kids and family. I know what it involves. I've avoided it myself
because
I know what it involves and I knew I couldn't have the kind of career I've had and a family, too. But I've had the career I wanted and it's falling short for me lately. It's not enough. Then you got dropped into my lap and I suddenly found myself feeling good again. Happy. Content. What I realized is that I've devoted enough time to my job and now I want to put it second to my private life. Now I want to make whatever changes need to be made to accomplish that.”

A part of her would have liked to believe that. To believe that he could actually pull it off. But she was afraid—no, terrified—that it was the same part of her that had believed Marshall would welcome the news of her pregnancy with Max, ask her to marry him and give her happily-ever-after.

But she'd learned that happily-ever-after was too good to be true, that she couldn't listen to that part of her that wanted to believe otherwise, no matter how
much she might want to. That it only got her hurt and in trouble.

“No,” she repeated once more.

“No what?” he said again.

“I know you mean what you're saying right at this moment. I really do. But I can't trust it. I have Max to think about and I can't take the risk with him, with his feelings. He already likes you too much and—”

“I wouldn't hurt Max. I wouldn't hurt you,” Rand said in a deep, quiet, sincere voice.

“I'm sure you wouldn't do it on purpose. But I truly believe that even if you put effort into cutting back on work, little by little it would creep in and take over the way it ended up taking over since I became your secretary. And Max would suffer. He'd suffer every time he expected you here and something came up at the office to keep you away. And he'd suffer more when you finally admit that cutting back isn't something you can actually do. That you thrive on the constant work, the pace, the world you've built for yourself, and that that really is where you belong.” And she would suffer, too. Just the way she had when Marshall had turned his back on her.

“I'm not a boy, Lucy,” Rand said very, very seriously. “I know myself. I know what I can and can't do. I know what I want. And what I want is not just a novelty or some passing fancy. It's you.”

“But I don't come alone. That's the problem.”

“I want Max, too.”

She shook her head, fighting the sting in her eyes. “It just wouldn't work out.”

“I'll make it work out.”

It was so tempting to trust in that. And if it had been her heart alone on the line she might have. She might have thrown caution to the wind the way she wanted to and just hoped that he honestly did know himself well enough to know he was capable of taking such an about-face with his life.

But she wasn't a woman alone. She was a woman with a child. A child she loved too dearly to ever put into any kind of risk at all.

“No,” she said yet again, firmly and with finality.

“You won't even give us a chance?”

“No.” She brushed the wetness from her cheeks with the back of one hand, wishing Rand was anywhere but there so she wouldn't have to fight to keep herself from running into his arms, from giving in to that naive, younger self who still yearned to believe everything he'd said and take the chance after all.

“I think you should go,” she whispered, her voice cracking traitorously and letting him know how close she was to breaking down completely.

“Lucy,” he said, taking a step toward her.

“No,” she said one final time, holding up a hand to stop him from coming any nearer. “Go,” she added, but just barely because her throat was so full of tears she could hardly speak.

And then the phone rang. Of all the bad timing, the phone rang.

Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth in an attempt to gain some control, but before she did, Rand answered it.

She could tell by his clipped, curt questions that something was wrong. Very wrong. And another, different sort of panic took hold of her careening emotions and made the tears evaporate.

“What?” she demanded the moment the phone left Rand's ear.

“Max is hurt,” he said, his own face blanched white. “He fell off the top bunk bed and hit his head. He's unconscious and on his way to the hospital in an ambulance right now.”

 

Rand insisted on going with Lucy to the hospital, on driving her car because she was in no shape to be behind the wheel. They arrived at the emergency room twenty-five minutes later, both of them in clothes they'd thrown on without regard to anything but decency so they could get out in a hurry.

Max had already been taken for a CAT scan and before Lucy located the parents of Max's friend, one of the emergency room doctors came out to let her know what was happening.

Max had regained consciousness in the ambulance and exhibited no signs of concussion. But the CAT scan was for safety's sake. Of more concern was the fact that his left arm was badly broken and would
need surgery to set it properly. Beyond that, he had a few bumps and bruises but he was fine and his prognosis was good.

Still, the mention of even the remote possibility that he might not come out of this with full use of his hand and the ominous tone of the surgery release forms did nothing to allay Lucy's panic. It took Rand's calming, logical reasoning to keep her from becoming hysterical.

When the doctor left, Rand guided her into the waiting room where Max's friend's parents were nearly as distraught as Lucy was. The couple apologized profusely for what was clearly more the boys' fault than theirs. Apparently the two had decided to play cliff diver off the top bunk bed and, being the guest, Max had gone first. In four-year-old reasoning, they'd been certain that the pillows they'd put on the floor would cushion their landing.

Lucy assured the other parents that she understood but she was in such an emotional state herself that it wasn't easy to deal with their remorse. She was grateful for the buffer Rand provided, and even more grateful when he convinced them to go home.

But that was only the beginning of the services Rand provided. Throughout the entire day he stayed by Lucy's side. She was all nerves and he was the calming force she relied on to get through. He brought her coffee. He repeatedly reminded her that her son was going to be all right, and he did it with such confidence she believed him until her own fear
crept in again, and then he would reassure her all over again.

He got her to eat a small lunch while Max was being operated on by Washington's leading pediatric surgeon, a man Rand knew and had called in personally. Rand held her hand. He even managed to make her laugh a time or two. He called Sadie to let her know what had happened and when Sadie arrived at the hospital with a small bag of things for Lucy to use to clean up, comb her hair and stay the night with Max, Rand treated Sadie's worry as tenderly as he continued to treat Lucy's.

By late that evening Max was sleeping peacefully in a private room that Rand had arranged for. The little boy had come through the surgery with flying colors and had awakened long enough to prove he could move all five fingers without a problem before drifting off to sleep again.

When visiting hours ended, Sadie kissed the sleeping Max. Then Lucy, Sadie and Rand went out into the hall.

“Anything you need, darling, just call,” Sadie told Lucy, kissing her, too. “Otherwise I'll see you in the morning when you get our boy home.”

“I'll be fine,” Lucy answered, accepting her aunt's hug and letting Sadie know she finally did feel certain things really were going to be okay.

Then Sadie headed for the elevator, leaving Lucy and Rand alone.

“I'm taking your car back to your place,” he
explained in a hushed tone so as not to disturb Max through the open door. “I'll have Frank pick me up there and he'll be back here first thing in the morning so he can drive you and Max home as soon as Max is released.”

Lucy was weary and worn out by then but more herself. “You don't have to do that. You can have Frank pick you up here and I can just drive my own car in the morning.”

Rand shook his head firmly. “No. I don't want you driving. And if you need anything when you get home—prescriptions filled, groceries, anything—send Frank.”

She didn't have the energy to argue so she just said, “Thank you. And thank you for everything today. I'm not sure I could have gotten through this without you.”

“Don't thank me. It felt good to be needed. To take care of you. If you'd let me, I'd devote my life to doing just that.”

It was the first reference he'd made to what had been going on between them when the phone call about Max had interrupted them. Lucy had almost forgotten about their fight, about the fact that she'd been in the middle of ending things with him.

But now she remembered it all. Sadly. But with no less resignation. “It would make for a pretty boring life compared to what you're used to,” she reiterated.

“I think it would be a pretty great life.”

Lucy shook her head. “I meant what I said before,” she whispered solemnly.

“Rethink it, Lucy,” he commanded. “We make a good team.”

“I do all right on my own,” she said stubbornly, even as she knew she wouldn't have gotten through the day's ordeal without Rand. But she especially wouldn't admit that. It was too dangerous to acknowledge that she might need him or anyone else when the last time she'd felt that need she'd been left high and dry by a man so similar to Rand.

“Wouldn't do any harm to just give some consideration to letting me into your life permanently,” Rand said.

But again she shook her head. “I don't have to think about it. I know what I'm doing and Max and I are better off alone.”

Inside the hospital room Max stirred and Lucy rushed to his bedside while Rand looked in after her.

But Max hadn't actually awakened and after a turn of his head on the pillow he settled back into deep sleep.

Lucy didn't leave her son's bedside to return to Rand, though. She merely looked his way and said, “Thank you for everything,” just as she might have said it to any stranger.

Rand seemed to get the message and left.

After all the time and distance from the emotions of the morning, after all the other things that had
replaced them during the day, Lucy didn't understand why she felt tears well up in her eyes as she watched him go.

Tears that had nothing to do with Max and everything to do with the feeling that her own heart was breaking in a way no amount of medicine could mend.

M
onday dawned bright and sunny in California and the woman known as Meredith Colton was pleased to have an early morning phone call from the third private investigator she'd hired to locate her sister. She was also pleased to find herself alone in the house for a change so that there was no worry of being overheard.

“Well, what did you find?” she said eagerly into the receiver once the amenities were passed.

“I'm in Monterey. I spent the whole weekend buttering the palm of one of the nurses at the St. James Clinic here and following every lead I could find,” the detective began.

“And?”

“I'm afraid the trail goes cold after the clinic.”

“I hired you to tell me something I
don't
know.”

“I can only tell you what I found out and it isn't much,” he said. “Patsy Portman—who appeared from out of nowhere on the grounds of the clinic in 1992, disheveled, disoriented and mumbling about a car accident—was released after six months. At the time of her release she was still suffering from amnesia. She was, however, having frequent and vivid dreams and fragments of memories that led her doctors to be encouraged that the amnesia might resolve itself before too long. But due to the fact that she'd made a dramatic recovery from her years of anxiety, depression, mood swings, psychotic episodes and anti-social tendencies it was judged to her benefit to leave the clinic and pursue treatment of her amnesia as an outpatient. The trouble is, after her release she never returned to the clinic and there was no current address available,” the investigator concluded.

“That's it?” the woman shouted.

“I told you the trail is cold after that. I can keep looking if you want but frankly I think it's a waste of your money. This isn't an uncommon occurrence. A lot of mentally ill or unbalanced people who improve in the hospital environment see a resurgence of their problems once they're out in the real world. If they don't return for care, some even end up as one of the homeless. That would account for the fact that there's
no record of Patsy Portman from the time she left the clinic on. Those kind of people don't fare well on the streets. And even if they manage somehow, they don't last long. A high percentage of them end up dying as a Jane or John Doe and being buried in a pauper's grave. I can't guarantee it, but if I were betting on it, I'd say that's what we have here. Too many years have gone by without leaving a trace of her.”

That calmed down the woman known as Meredith. In fact it was so comforting to her that she latched on to the explanation as if there were evidence to prove it.

“You're probably right,” she agreed, taking a swift turnaround from her earlier outrage. “And if that's the case, there's no reason for you to look any further.”

“Like I said, I can if you want me to, but I think it would be a waste of money. This Patsy Portman is long gone.”

“No, you're right, there's no sense spending more money looking for a dead woman. Send me your bill and go ahead and call it quits.”

And with that she hung up the phone, letting a smile play across her face as she allowed herself to believe she was out of the woods, that she no longer needed to worry about her sister cropping up to ruin things for her.

Which meant that now she could concentrate on the more pressing matter of that vile Emily….

 

Lucy didn't get Max home until noon on Monday. The recuperative powers of the child were amazing and by then he was bright and alert and, with the exception of the cast on his arm, showing almost no signs of the previous day's trauma.

Lucy, on the other hand, felt as if she'd been through the wringer. And it didn't help matters when she discovered on her coffee table a large wrapped package from Rand to Max.

Sadie came out from the kitchen at about the same time and said, “That arrived about an hour ago.”

Once he'd determined it was for him, Max tore in to the wrapping and exclaimed delightedly over the treasure trove of dinosaur movies, picture books and coloring books and crayons.

“Did you see this?” he enthused to his mother and great-aunt. “Did you see what Rand got me? How come he did that?”

It was clear the present meant all the more to Max because it had come from his hero. A stab of pain went through Lucy to think that her son was already so attached to the man that he would miss him when Rand didn't come around anymore.

But she fought it and said as evenly as she could, “It's a get-well gift. When people are sick or have accidents and get hurt, other people send them presents.”

“Cool!” the little boy said, his newest word since becoming friends with Mikey, the boy he'd been
spending the night with when he'd decided to dive off the high bunk. “Can we call Rand and tell him to come over and play?”

The stabbing pain just got worse for Lucy. “No, we can't do that. I'm sure he's working.”

“Then can we call him to come over tonight when he's not working?”

“I don't think we'll be seeing any more of Rand for a while, Max. But you can send him a thank-you picture, maybe one of the dinosaurs you color in the coloring books.”

“But I want to see him myself and tell him thank you,” the little boy insisted. “Why won't we see any more of him for a while? Is he going away on a trip or something?”

“Something,” Lucy confirmed, distracting her son by pointing out that the plastic dinosaurs had come complete with their own rain forest for him to set up.

But Sadie was not so easily thrown off the track and once Max was occupied with his new toys she said, “Come into the kitchen with me, Lucy, and see if I made Max's Jell-O the way he likes it.”

Since Max liked his Jell-O plain, Lucy knew it was a ploy but she had no choice, so she followed her aunt into the kitchen.

“What's going on?” Sadie asked without preamble.

“Right now I'd just like to take a shower and a
nap,” Lucy answered, pretending she didn't know what her aunt was referring to.

But Sadie would have none of that. “I don't mean what's going on here and now. I mean what's going on with you and Rand. Don't think I didn't notice at the hospital yesterday that Rand was dressed in the same clothes he picked you up in Saturday night—yes, I saw him, he was arriving just as I was leaving. And you said yourself that the two of you rushed to the hospital at six-thirty Sunday morning. It doesn't take a genius to figure out he spent the night. Which, by the way, I approve of since Max was out of the house. But then last night in the corridor outside Max's hospital room I could tell nothing good was going on. Now you tell Max that Rand won't be coming around anymore. Something happened and I want to know what it is.”

Sadie had always been the person Lucy confided in, even as a child. It was only natural for her to do that now despite some reluctance to rehash what she would rather have been able to put behind her. So she told her aunt the entire story, beginning to end, and waited for Sadie to lend the unfailing support she had in the past.

But that wasn't what Sadie did.

“You're wrong, Lucy,” she said instead. “You're so wrong.”

“About what?” Lucy asked, surprised, defensive, confused.

“About Rand. You're right that he lives a different
life than you do. You're right that he's put off having a family because it would interfere with that life. You're even right that he lives in a place that looks more like a modern art museum than a house and that Max would level it in a week. But Rand is a man who knows himself. He's a man who says what he means and means what he says. And if he says he's ready to cut back on work, to have a family, ready to put that family first, that's exactly what he's ready to do.”

“He'll regret it,” Lucy contended, repeating part of the reasoning she'd already given her aunt.

“He doesn't make decisions he regrets. And he also doesn't bail out of things because he can't handle change. You may be talking about Rand but I think it's Marshall you have in mind.”

“That's what Rand said. But they're very much alike.”

“Maybe on the surface. But while Marshall liked a life that didn't accommodate having kids and wasn't willing to change, if Rand says he's willing to change to accommodate having a family, he is. Only you're not giving him the chance because you're projecting too much of your past onto the present. Onto him.”

“He didn't even want a secretary with a child,” Lucy reminded her aunt.

“And he probably still won't. But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to come home to a woman with a child. Or to that child.” Sadie paused a moment as
if to let that sink in and then said, “I know things have been hard for you since you got pregnant with Max, darling. I know you've made a lot of sacrifices for him. But I honestly don't think Rand is one of the things you have to give up for Max's sake. Or for any other reason. I think with Rand you can finally let down your guard and have what you want—and you do want him or I need my eyes checked. With Rand you can have what you deserve. What Max deserves. Trust me, Lucy. Trust Rand. You can, you know.”

Trust Rand…

That was just what he'd asked her to do the night before. And she'd done it. Without regret.

But could she do it again, in the larger scheme of things?

Sadie left Lucy alone in the kitchen then, returning to Max with a bowl of the Jell-O she'd made him. Lucy didn't follow. Instead she crossed the kitchen to the window above the sink and looked out at the courtyard all four of her aunt's town houses shared.

But it wasn't the autumn-bare gardens or the tall cherry trees she saw out there. Her focus was all internal, all on what Sadie had said, all on thoughts of Rand.

It wasn't easy to shake the sense of how similar Rand and Marshall were on the surface. They were both well-respected, feared, high-powered movers and shakers in their own professions. They were both workaholics. They had both reached a point where
concessions were made to them rather than them making concessions to anyone else.

Except that maybe that last part wasn't entirely true of Rand, she admitted to herself a little belatedly, feeling guilty for assigning something to him that might not be strictly true.

Yes, she'd done more adapting to him and his needs during the week she'd worked for him but he'd done some adjusting himself—working at her place, having Max to his, suspending work time while Max was with them so she could be with her son and see to his needs.

No, they hadn't been big alterations but they had spoken of more flexibility than Marshall would have ever shown.

And maybe there was another difference between Marshall and Rand, too, she realized as she thought about it. Rand wasn't a selfish man, the way Marshall had been. Rand had been perfectly willing to share her with Max, which was something Marshall had told her point-blank he would never be willing to do. He'd said he had to be the center of the universe for whatever woman he was involved with and a child would only corrupt that. But Rand hadn't had any problems in that area. In fact he'd joined in when it came to Max. In some ways he'd taken over. It was part of why her son was so enamoured of him.

And Rand did know what being a part of a family entailed, she couldn't deny that. Not only had he come from a large one but he was so clear about the role
a father needed to play in a family that he'd denied himself parenthood rather than come up short the way he'd felt his own father had at one time.

But on Sunday at the hospital he'd done just what a good father, a good husband, would have done, she had to admit. He'd suspended his own concerns to care for her and for Max. He couldn't have been more selfless, more compassionate, more caring, more helpful, even though they'd come from the discussion they'd had and the rejection she'd dished out.

So Rand had certainly proved that he could be there for her and Max when she needed him, which was definitely different from Marshall.

But could Rand make such a huge change in his lifestyle on a permanent basis?

She didn't know for sure.

But then, how could anyone know for sure?

Which was where the trust part of her aunt's lecture came in.

If she was going to allow Rand into her life, into Max's life, she would have to trust that he did know himself and what he wanted and what he was ready for.

And what he'd said he wanted was her. And Max.

That he'd said he was ready for was a family.

When she came down to that, a bubble of elation sprang to life inside her.

Rand wanted her…

Rand wanted Max…

Should she take the risk for them both?

She wanted to. More than she'd ever wanted anything.

She wanted Rand, and a family with him. She wanted Max to have him as his father.

If that had been what Rand had been proposing the morning before…

It occurred to Lucy that she wasn't exactly sure
what
Rand had been proposing. Suddenly that bubble of elation inside her lost some of its air.

What if he had only been proposing that they have some sort of other, uncommitted relationship?

That could put a whole new spin on things. A whole new spin that would put herself and Max more at risk than she was willing to.

But she'd never know unless she talked to Rand.

So talk to him.

She didn't want to do it over the phone and she couldn't leave Max right then, when she'd just gotten him home from the hospital.

“But there's still tonight,” she whispered to herself.

Once she got Max to sleep, she could have Sadie baby-sit while she went to Rand's apartment.

Tension washed through her.

What if she'd misunderstood what he'd been leading up to the previous morning before she'd stopped him? What if she went there tonight and made a huge fool out of herself?