[Kate's Boys 04] - Travis's Appeal Read online

  Shana had always thought of herself as practical. But focusing on her father’s will was a little too practical. She didn’t like the way it centered her attention on the time when her father would no longer be with her. She didn’t want his money, or the house, or the restaurant. All she wanted was him.

  What was it like to have two other people somewhere with your face?

  “I’d like to see that for myself someday,” she told him.

  His first thought was to invite her and her father over to his parents’ house for one of Kate’s Sunday dinner gatherings. The fact that it did occur to him took him by surprise. He’d never wanted to invite any of his other clients to the house.

  Definitely needed some sleep, he counseled himself.

  But since she had expressed an interest in seeing him with his brothers, he decided to do the next best thing.

  “Just a second.”

  Shifting the doggie bag under his arm, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. The billfold was worn and creased, as well as permanently curved from having assumed the shape of his body for several years now. He’d gotten the wallet while in college to take the place of the one that had literally fallen apart. This one would have to suffer the same fate before he bought a new one.

  Opening the wallet, he flipped through several photographs, most of them as worn as the leather that surrounded them.

  “Here it is,” he announced, turning the wallet around so that she could see the photograph. It was of four blond-haired boys, beaming as they all stood around a baby.

  She smiled and studied the photograph more closely. The wallet felt warm against her fingers, and something stirred inside her.

  “I take it you were all a little younger then.”

  He laughed and nodded. “That was at Kelsey’s christening.”

  “You don’t have anything a little more recent?” she prodded, handing the wallet back to him.

  He thought of Trevor’s wedding. Kate and Bryan had gone all out and hired two photographers as well as someone to film the entire ceremony and reception. He recalled posing for several “official” wedding photographs with the family.

  “Actually, yes, I do,” he told her, tucking the wallet back in his pocket, “but not with me.”

  She found herself intrigued and curious. “Maybe you’ll have it with you when we come by the office on Thursday.”

  He could do that, he thought. “Sure, no problem. I just have to find where I put them,” he confessed. He’d meant to organize the photographs in an album, along with the ones of Mike’s wedding. He thought about the line about the road to hell and good intentions. That described his life, to a T. “I’m definitely not as organized as I’d like to be.”

  She liked his smile, she thought. It was self-deprecating and unassuming.

  “Who is these days? Seems like everything’s in fast-forward.” She glanced over her shoulder. As had happened earlier, there were people gathering around the hostess desk again. “Well, I’d better get back to work before they decide to go somewhere else.”

  “Business seems to be pretty good,” he commented.

  “The food’s excellent here, but it’s Dad who makes the difference. He likes to float from table to table, making everyone feel at home. He spends most of his time every evening mingling with the guests, making them feel as if they were family.” She shook her head. “It helps to keep his mind off Susan.”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t around.”

  “That’s exactly the point. She’s not. But Dad can’t help being Dad. He’s worries about her, where she is, what’s she’s doing, if she’s all right. It’s just the way he is,” she explained. And then, because he was an outsider and no matter what else she was, Susan was still family, she covered for her. “My sister’s not a bad person. She just has these demons…she’s always falling for someone who isn’t right for her, almost as if she’s trying to punish herself for something. Trouble is, she winds up punishing Dad because he cares so much.”

  Shana stopped abruptly, afraid that she’d already said far too much.

  “You have the kind of face that makes people want to talk to you.” She touched his arm lightly again, as if cementing their bond. “See you Thursday.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it,” he told her as he finally went out the door.

  Rarely had he ever meant anything more.

  Chapter 6

  “M r. O’Reilly’s here.” Bea’s disembodied voice came over the intercom Thursday at noon.

  Travis brushed a stray speck from his jacket, trying not to pay attention to the fact that his pulse started to beat faster. Despite all his efforts to the contrary, Shana had been on his mind—and infiltrated his dreams—for the last two days.

  “Send them in,” he instructed. It wasn’t until a half beat later that he realized the secretary had mentioned only his client, not the man’s daughter.

  By then, Bea was talking again. “No ‘them,’ Mr. Marlowe,” the woman corrected. “Just him.”

  As if to underscore Bea’s statement, at that moment the heavyset, jovial O’Reilly walked into his office.

  “Here I am, just like we agreed.”

  “Good morning, Mr. O’Reilly.” Travis rose from behind his desk. Crossing the room, he shook Shawn’s hand and motioned him to the sofa. He glanced hopefully behind his client, but there was no one else there, or in the reception area. Disappointment instantly wove itself through him. He did his best to hide it. “Shana isn’t with you?”

  “She’ll be along,” Shawn promised. “I sent her home to pick up the deed to the house.” The man opened his briefcase and took out a stack of papers. He offered them to Travis. “Seems I forgot it in the study.”

  Something in the man’s voice caught Travis’s attention. Accepting the legal papers, Travis sat down next to his client. “You didn’t forget the deed, did you?”

  “It’s on the desk in the study,” Shawn answered evasively. And then he smiled and shook his head. “But no, I didn’t forget it. I left it there on purpose,” he confirmed. And even that had taken a little sleight of hand to accomplish. “Not an easy thing to do when you have a young woman guarding you like a hawk.”

  That hadn’t been his impression the other evening. Shana had been watchful, but she hadn’t devoted her attention to the man exclusively.

  Curious, Travis asked, “Why would she feel she needs to guard you?”

  “I fell a year ago,” Shawn explained. “Didn’t break anything except for my pride, but Shana’s afraid I’ll do it again and this time, she figures I might not be so lucky.”

  That made sense, Travis thought. And then he got down to the real question. “Why did you leave the deed at home, Mr. O’Reilly?”

  Shawn smiled into his chins. “So I could send her back to fetch it. If I asked her to step out so that I could talk to you alone, she’d be suspicious. I’d have no peace until she wormed it out of me.”

  The man would have made a good lawyer, Travis couldn’t help thinking. He obviously liked to talk. “Wormed what out of you?”

  Shawn grew a little more serious. “What I’m about to tell you.”

  Travis leaned over and lifted the frosted silver pitcher he’d had Bea set out. Very carefully, he poured out two glasses of ice water, and then handed the first to Shawn.

  “And it’s something you don’t want her to know.”

  Shawn sighed quietly. “She’ll find out eventually, but hopefully, not while I’m alive.” He flushed slightly and paused to take a long sip from the glass that had been passed to him. “She might not forgive me once she finds out and I really couldn’t bear that. I wasn’t the one who wanted to keep it from her.” He placed the glass back down.

  It was obvious to Travis that regret gnawed away at the older man. He waited quietly for the man to go on at his own pace.

  “That was my wife’s call,” Shawn said as he continued. “And, with each year that passed, it became more and more of a burd
en, and more and more of a bone of contention.” He blew out a breath as he shook his head. “Shana should have been told years ago. By my wife,” he emphasized, “who was always so good with her. Grace would have made her understand.” His eyes were full of contrition. “And not hold it against us.”

  “Shana’s adopted?” Travis guessed.

  He couldn’t think of anything else that might arouse such concern, such reluctance. Adoption was always a hard matter to approach and it only became more so with each year that went by. With the passage of time, it wasn’t the adoption itself that became a sore subject, but the fact that it was kept a secret for years.

  “Yes,” Shawn admitted after a beat, then added, “in a manner of speaking.” He looked uncertain as to how to continue. These particular words did not come easily to him. “But it’s not exactly what you think.”

  Travis waited for the man to continue. When he didn’t, Travis didn’t push. The man was obviously ready to “confess,” to rid himself of the weight he’d been carrying around for the duration of Shana’s existence.

  Although it was just the two of them in the room, Shawn leaned in closer as he lowered his voice. “Anything I tell you here today doesn’t get out, right? It’s just between the two of us.”

  Travis nodded. “Just between the two of us,” he echoed, then, to further set the man’s mind at ease, he specified. “Our conversation is bound by the attorney-client privilege.”

  “You wouldn’t tell Shana?” Shawn pressed, desperate for reassurance. “I mean, she is part of all this.” He waved his hand in a circle to include the documents he’d just brought and, Travis assumed, the living trust he wanted set up.

  “Yes, but you’re the one retaining my services. That makes you my client and it entitles you to privacy. You can tell me anything and I can’t, and won’t repeat it,” Travis told him.

  Shawn still needed convincing. “What if Shana becomes your client? What then?”

  “It still holds,” Travis said. “You’re separate people, separate cases. What she tells me in confidence I can’t tell you and what you say under those circumstances I can’t tell her.” He added a coda. “Unless you want me to.”

  “Oh God, no.” Shawn’s laugh had no humor to it. “I don’t want her to hate me.”

  The words made Travis think of another scenario, a theme and variation of the first and one that might arouse a sense of guilt in the man. “Is she your daughter, Mr. O’Reilly?”

  “Legally and in my heart,” Shawn told him with feeling.

  Travis shook his head. “No, I mean, is Shana the result of an affair?”

  The look on Shawn’s face told him that he’d guessed right.

  The admission obviously weighed heavily on him, causing the older man’s words to emerge slowly and with far less enthusiasm than was his custom.

  Shawn had been carrying around the secret with him for a very long time and while he really wanted to rid himself of the burden, it was hard just releasing it at will.

  “Yes,” Shawn finally answered, “she is. But the affair wasn’t mine.”

  Travis looked at the man in surprise. “Your wife had the affair?”

  “Hell, no.” Shawn snorted with feeling. “I married a really beautiful woman, boy, and I’m proud to say she was as faithful to me as the day was long. Even when I didn’t deserve it,” he added with a touch of remorse. The next moment, it was gone. “No, the one who had the affair—if you could call it that—more like a one-night stand that went on for a week—was my daughter.” Then, in case there was any doubt, Shawn added, “Susan.”

  Travis hadn’t expected this twist. “Susan is Shana’s mother?”

  “Yes.” The single word dripped with heartache, even after all this time.

  Travis tried to wrap his mind around the implications. “That would make you—”

  Shawn’s snow-white head bobbed up and down. “Her grandfather, not her father, yes.” A heavy sigh accompanied the words. “My wife wanted to protect Susan. She also wouldn’t hear of her terminating the pregnancy or giving the baby up for adoption. She was very family oriented, my wife. She told Susan that if she had the baby, we would take care of everything, including her.”

  A melancholy smile twisted his lips. Travis could tell how sad it made him, admitting to his daughter’s shortcomings. “Susan was only sixteen at the time and smart enough to know she had no place to go, even though she threatened to run off with that no-good bum who got her pregnant.” Another short, humorless laugh preceded his words. “Lucky for us, he disappeared early in the game. Seems he ‘didn’t know’ she was underage. Anyway, Shana was born and we adopted her. Because she insisted, I promised my wife I’d never tell anyone the real story and I never did—until now.”

  He paused and looked at Travis for a long moment, his eyes searching the younger man’s face. “What you do with the information I just gave you is up to you,” he continued. “All I ask is that you keep this to yourself until after I’m gone from this earth. I really couldn’t bear to have Shana look at me any other way than she does now. It would kill me.”

  Travis could sympathize with both Shawn and Shana. Shawn had done what he thought was best, trying to protect his granddaughter. But even so, once she found out, Shana would feel betrayed because the person she loved the most had kept such a vital piece of information, of her life, from her. Moreover, finding out her sister was really her mother would undermine the very foundation upon which her life was built, pulling it out from under her.

  “Well, hopefully, we won’t have to face that eventuality for a good, long time,” Travis told him.

  Shawn shook his head. “If you’re talking about my health, boy, you might just want to change those adjectives.” The man grew even more serious. There was pain in his voice. “I don’t have very long, Travis. That’s why I wanted to rush this living trust thing along. My doctor said I’ve got congestive heart failure and the damn thing’s progressing at a really fast pace. Shana doesn’t know,” he added, confirming Travis’s suspicions. “So you see, I’ve got to get all my affairs—so to speak,” he said, a slight smile curving the corners of his mouth, “in order—and make sure that someone besides Susan has this information. I don’t want Shana to be blindsided by her,” he added fiercely.

  “You know, as hard as this might be for you, I think you should be the one to tell her.” Shawn began to protest, but Travis held his hand up, silently asking to be heard out. “She’d feel less betrayed if it came from you. And eventually, she’ll understand why you did it.”

  Shawn shook his head. “I always thought of myself as a brave man. I’m not afraid of dying. But I’ll tell you what I am afraid of. I’m afraid of the look of disappointment in her eyes, boy. Afraid of seeing it and knowing that I was the one who put it there.”

  How much worse would the words sound coming from a stranger? Or what if she stumbled over the truth herself? She would feel that much more betrayed. “I still think Shana would take it better if it came from you.”

  “Took what better if it came from you, Dad?” Shana asked cheerfully as she entered.

  Both men turned toward her, clearly caught off guard by her entrance. She stopped and looked from her father to the cute lawyer.

  Had she interrupted something?

  “I’m sorry, should I have knocked?”

  “No, this is about you,” Shawn said, recovering, his mind working rapidly to construct a plausible statement to back up his words. He decided to go with what he’d planned to ask the lawyer to do when he drew up the living trust.

  Shana sat down at her father’s other side and opened her large purse. She took out a stamped, slightly yellowed document.

  “Here’s the deed you wanted. It was just where you said it would be.” Shana placed it on the coffee table in front of her father, then raised her eyes to his face. “Even though it was supposed to have been in your briefcase,” she added tactfully, nodding at the case on the table. “Like I asked you if it was w
hen we left the house.”

  Broad, squat shoulders moved beneath the jacket. “I’m an old man, Shana. I forget things.” His expression was baleful. “What can I say?”

  “Don’t give me that,” she chided. “You are not an old man, Dad,” she said with affection. “No more than I am. You just pretend to be one when it suits you.” Glancing at her father’s lawyer, she knew she wouldn’t get anything out of him. The man was paid to keep his mouth sealed. So, she went back to the source and leveled her gaze at her father.

  “Now, what is it that’s about me?” she prodded. When he eyed her blankly, she played along. “What you were talking about with Travis when I walked in.”

  Stalling, Shawn O’Reilly was the face of innocence. “Oh, that.”

  He didn’t fool her for a moment. He might have had some bouts with illnesses, but the man’s mind was as razor sharp as ever.

  “Yes, ‘that.’”

  In his mind, Shawn finalized something he’d been contemplating for the last two days after a great deal of soul searching. “I was just telling Travis here that I’ve changed my mind about the living trust.” He drew himself up. “I’m not going to divide everything equally between you and Susan.”

  “Oh?” This was the first she’d heard of it. Shana looked at him in surprise.

  Travis nearly did the same thing. At the last moment, he managed to keep himself in check. Until O’Reilly had said that, he’d just assumed that the man was gathering his courage together to make a clean breast of it and tell Shana the truth.

  Since her father wasn’t elaborating, Shana turned to Travis for an explanation. “What did he say he wanted to do?”

  Not sure where this was going, Travis passed the ball back to his client. “Why don’t you let him tell you?” he suggested. He was careful to avoid calling Shawn her father. The less deliberate reference to that, the better.

  Patiently, she turned her eyes back to her father. “Dad?”

  Shawn took a breath and began. “Well, darlin’, I know a father’s supposed to love his kids equally, but I’m only human, not some angel. You’ve been the one who’s always been here for me. You’re the one who changed her life around when I had that thing with my heart five years ago—”