A Father's Promise (Intimate Moments) Page 12

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 to 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 reservat
ions 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.

  “I’ll make a few phone calls and see if I can round them up.” A flush of excitement tinted Thomas’s checks. “I’m going to need a pair of eyes to read me the names in the books.”

  “I’ll do it.” Sydney volunteered.

  “No, I’ll do it.” Ellis had already caused Sydney to lose enough time at work. “After we locate the yearbooks, you go to the nursery. Trevor and I will keep your father company and fix dinner. I don’t want you home until six.” He knew the nursery closed at five, but Thomas had told him that before the accident she never got home before six.

  “But I want to help.” Sydney didn’t look upset that he was dictating to her. She looked mad as hell. “This whole plan was my idea.”

  “I know, Syd, and I thank you.” He reached over and covered her hand with his own. “You’ve been missing a lot of work lately because of me.” And your father, but he didn’t voice that. Sydney didn’t need to hear it and Thomas already knew it. She also had been missing a lot of sleep, but he didn’t think he was the sole reason for that, either. “Tomorrow night, after Trevor’s tucked in, we can have another brainstorming session to see where we stand.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “We are going to need you for legwork later, but for now, I can read your father the names of the boys in the yearbooks and take notes.”

  “Ellis is right, Sydney. We are going to need you later. Go to work before your employees decide to fire you.” Thomas stood up and stretched. “I think we’re done for the night. I don’t know about you two, but Trevor wore me out with all his questions. I think I’ll head for bed.”

  He carefully watched the way Thomas stretched and yawned. It was an act. Thomas hadn’t been worn-out by his son, as he had feared. Sydney’s father was discreetly leaving the two of them alone. Not for the first time, he had to wonder if Thomas sensed what was going on under his roof. He doubted it. Thomas didn’t strike him as a man who would leave his daughter, his own precious and beloved daughter, alone with a wolf. Tonight he was definitely feeling like a wolf. A big, bad and extremely hungry wolf.

  “Night, Dad.” Sydney watched as her father made his way out of the room.

  Thomas used his cane to tap against the doorjamb.

  A moment later Ellis could detect the light tapping of the cane as Thomas made his way up the stairs.

  Silence filled the room.

  He turned, looked at Sydney and wondered what made her so different from the countless other women he met every day. Sydney was beautiful, that was an undisputed fact, but he had known more glamorous women who had expressed an interest in him. He rarely, if ever, returned their interest. Sydney had a body that curved in all the right places and made him think of cool sheets and hot sex. None of the other women had inspired such instantaneous lust, not even Ginny, when he was married to her.

  His thoughts turned to Trevor. His son had taken a liking to both Sydney and Thomas. When he was helping Trevor to get ready for bed, the boy had asked if Sydney was his girlfriend. He had been taken aback by such a question, until Trev explained that Kyle’s daddy had a girlfriend. Kyle’s parents were in the middle of a messy divorce and poor Kyle and his little sister had been drawn into the center of the fight. He had asked Trev how he would feel if he did have a girlfriend. His son had once again astounded him by telling him it would be okay because Sydney baked great cookies.

  During his drive back to Jenkintown this morning, he had been worried about Trevor becoming too fond of Sydney and Thomas. Now he realized how trivial that seemed when one looked at the whole picture. He had more important things to worry about. His son’s health had to be his top priority. Besides, Trevor couldn’t have picked a better surrogate family than Thomas and Sydney.

  Sydney glanced up from the pad of paper on her lap.

  He met Sydney’s curious glance and smiled. Yeah, Trevor was right, her cookies weren’t half-bad.

  “What are you grinning at?” Sydney self-consciously checked her hair and frowned.

  “You.” He moved close enough to smell the light floral scent she always wore. “You made quite an impression on Trevor today.”

  “I did?” Sydney tossed the notepad onto the coffee table with the rest of her paperwork and turned to face him. “What did he say?”

  “He wanted to know if you’re my girlfriend.” Sydney looked adorable with her feet tucked up under her bottom, so anxious to hear what his son had said.

  “He didn’t!” Sydney looked horrified at the thought.

  “He did.” Sydney didn’t have to appear that startled and distressed by the prospect of being his girlfriend. “You’re not doing wonders for my ego here, Syd.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  So much for his ego. If he was really lucky, he might be able to scrape what was left of it off the floor and tuck it back into that pocket marked Pride before he went to bed. “Since I’m not in the habit of bringing women home with me and introducing them as my girlfriends, I was more curious about how he knew about daddies having them.” He inched close enough to press his jeancovered thigh against her knee. “Turns out the little boy from up the street, who plays with him occasionally, parents are going through a messy divorce. Kyle’s dad has a girlfriend, and I believe that’s what initiated the divorce in the first place.”

  “Lovely, and their little boy knows about it?”

  “Oh yeah. Kyle knows, the neighborhood knows and the dueling lawyers know. Hell, everyone knows, including my son.” He had been disgusted by the whole sordid affair, but he couldn’t have done anything about it. He had been so concerned about protecting Trevor from medical jargon and the possible outcome of his illness that he hadn’t even thought about what the neighbors were up to.

  “Did you discuss this with him?”

  “Somewhat” His heart hadn’t been in the mood for a deep heavy conversation with his son while he was giving him a bath in the St. Claires’ tub. He saved the intense emotions for when the doctors gave him news to pass on to Trevor. “The topic of divorce didn’t seem to go with his bathtime buddies.” Trevor had packed a small bag of his favorite tub toys and brought it with him.

  “Divorce must be a very painful topic for him, considering the situation between you and his mother.”

  “Trevor doesn’t know we’re divorced. He doesn’t remember his mother at all. Ginny and I thought it was best that way.” He had made sure that his son wouldn’t be pulled in two different directions. He had witnessed firsthand some of his employees going through messy divorces and somehow the kids always ended up in the middle of them all. He had seen fights over holidays, birthdays and who was paying the orthodontist bill. He hadn’t been about to drag his son into that battle. “Ginny wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

  “So why did she have Trevor?”

  “Our marriage was in deep trouble, and Ginny thought a baby would help hold it together. About four months into her pregnancy she knew she had made a mistake.”

  “She considered Trevor a mistake?” Sydney not only looked appalled, she sounded it.

  “No, for all Ginny’s faults, she loved Trevor enough to let him go.” It might have cost him a small fortune in divorce court, but she kept her end of the bargain. “She was also the first to get her blood tested to see if she’d match.”

  “So what did you tell Trevor about his mother?”

&
nbsp; “Nothing really. He just knows he doesn’t have one.” He knew in the future he and his son would have to have a father-to-son talk about Ginny.

  “His mother hasn’t seen him at all, even when he was sick?”

  “No. It may sound cruel, but I believe it’s easier on everyone this way.” He knew Sydney had been adopted when she was ten. Trevor’s not knowing his biological mother was probably a real issue for her, and he could understand that. But Trevor was his son and Ginny was his spoiled and selfish ex-wife. Sydney, who opened her home and her heart to his son, deserved to hear some of the truth.

  “I believe it’s better for Trevor to think he doesn’t have a mother than to know his mother tricked me into getting her pregnant to hold on to a crumbling marriage and an open-ended checkbook. Once she realized that being pregnant didn’t help the marriage or make her glowing or radiant, she wanted to terminate the pregnancy. Whatever had been between Ginny and me was gone. For five months I paid dearly, until Trevor was born. I allowed Ginny to stay until she had recuperated from what she referred to as ‘the ordeal’ and then she was on her way.”

  Sydney stared at him for a long time before she said,

  “I think you might be right, Ellis.” She glanced down at his hands resting on his thighs. “One day you’re going to have to tell him, though.”

  “I know, but not yet.” He opened one of his hands and held it out to her. Sydney’s warm palm connected with his palm as her fingers entwined themselves around his. “He has a lot on his plate for now.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  The sorrow in her gaze pulled at his heart. “No, it doesn’t.” He tugged on her hand and drew her closer. He loved his son with all his heart and was doing everything within his power, and beyond, to help Trevor. But now, right now, this very minute, he needed something more than a sympathetic ear and an understanding heart.

  He needed Sydney.

  “Know what really doesn’t seem fair?” He drew her closer and watched her soft green eyes widen with perception and a touch of desire.

  “What?” Sydney’s gaze fastened onto his mouth.