A Bachelor and a Baby Read online

  Jerking the receiver back to his ear, Rick’s fingers tightened around it.

  “What’s wrong?” he echoed, barely keeping his fury in check. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, old man. You lied to me.”

  There was an uneasy pause on the other end. “Richard? Have you been drinking?”

  Rick dragged his hand through his wet hair, pacing back and forth around his desk. “No, I haven’t been drinking. I also haven’t been seeing things clearly, either.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” He blew out an angry breath. Damn it, he’d thought he could at least trust his own father. “I could see why Mother would have lied to me. She always wanted things her way, wanted to control my every move just the way she did yours. But you, Dad, you forged that check and made me believe something that tore me apart. Didn’t you give even a small damn about me?”

  There was another long pause on the other end.

  “How did you find out?” Howard asked as he realized it was finally over, finally out in the open. The subject was one that had never been completely buried for Howard Masters, even though he’d tried to put it out of his mind over the years. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  Rick was surprised that there wasn’t even the vaguest attempt at denial on his father’s part. He didn’t know whether that made him angrier, or relieved that he was finally going to confess.

  “I did what I should have done eight years ago. I talked to her.”

  Howard Masters had been preparing himself for this ever since he’d made the suggestion that the home office be moved from Georgia. It had been his way of orchestrating things. “I’m glad it’s out in the open.” He only hoped his son believed him.

  “Glad, are you?” Rick sincerely doubted that. He struggled to keep his voice down. If he started shouting, he knew Mrs. Rutledge would hear him. Though she was more family to him than either of his parents ever were, he didn’t want to bring her into this. “Then why the hell didn’t you tell me yourself? These last couple of years when we were working together, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I tried. More than a few times.” His conscience had kept goading him to tell Rick. “But things got in the way.”

  “What things?” Rick demanded. What could possibly have kept his father from telling him the truth after his mother was gone?

  “Business.” Howard hesitated, then told him the truth. “Cowardice, I suppose. We were getting closer and I valued that. I didn’t want to risk losing you. And before that, there was your mother to reckon with.” Opening that can of worms would have caused an even greater schism in the family.

  That was a poor excuse. “Mother’s been dead for three years.”

  “You seemed to be happy with your new life,” his father said lamely.

  “Happy?” he demanded. “Dad, I’ve never been happy a day in my life, except when I was with Joanna.”

  “If it means anything, I’m sorry.” Howard sighed. “Ever since the heart attack, I really have been trying to find a way to tell you. I decided the best way was to make you come back to Bedford for more than four hours. I knew Joanna still lived there. I was hoping circumstances might bring you together.”

  Some of the anger left. Rick realized that his father had deliberately decided to move company headquarters out of Georgia. His father had insisted on it, even when Rick had balked and said it wasn’t a good idea. His protest had been drowned in a sea of statistics his father had sent to him showing why the move was advantageous.

  Rick dropped into his chair and tilted it back. “This doesn’t get you off the hook, you know.”

  “I know. That’ll take time. I hope I’ll have it.”

  In the last year, his father had come face-to-face with his own mortality and no longer took for granted that he had an infinite amount of time. It was a far cry from the man who’d once acted as if he was going to live forever.

  Rick thought he heard a woman’s voice in the background, calling his father’s name. “Who’s that?”

  “Someone who’s made me realize more clearly that I should have never stood in the way of your happiness, no matter how convinced your mother was that it didn’t lie with that girl.”

  “She has a name, Dad. Joanna.” Rick paused. It had never occurred to him that his father might find someone. The relationship with his mother had been such a failure, he would have thought that would have stopped his father from ever venturing out on the field again. “What’s the name of the woman with you?”

  “Dorothy.” Rick could hear a smile in his father’s voice as he said the name. “Richard, maybe someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  But not now, not yet. It was going to take him time to work through this. Time to resolve everything in his life. It was the second time that his parents had upended everything for him, and it was going to take a while before things could get back to some semblance of normalcy.

  “We’ll talk later.” He didn’t trust himself to say anything further right now.

  Rick replaced the receiver. He sat, staring at the telephone for a long time.

  The sound of crying roused him. Rick realized that he must have dozed off. Small wonder. Going over quarterly reports was guaranteed to put anyone to sleep. He’d sought refuge in work the way he always did when his thoughts began to crowd in on him. Once, when he’d left Bedford for the east coast, it had been his saving grace.

  His mouth felt like cotton. Rick stretched, his muscles aching from sleeping in an easy chair. The thick binder that had been on his lap slipped to the floor. He bent over to pick it up.

  The crying got louder.

  The baby was crying. Joanna’s baby.

  Joanna.

  He nearly stumbled as he got up. Rick tossed the binder onto his desk and left the room, stopping only to shut off the light behind him.

  Making his way to the rear of the house, he knocked on Joanna’s door, the wonder of everything seeping into his system all over again. She was here, in his house, with a child, after all this time. There was happiness, but there was a sense of unrest as well, that he couldn’t quite banish.

  It was all new, he counseled himself. He had to give himself time.

  When there was no answer, he tried the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. He opened it slowly, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to be there for her if she needed him. Wanting her to know he was there. Because of pain and altruism, they’d both hurt each other before. He wanted her to know that somehow, things would be right this time. This was one of the small steps in getting there. Helping her out in this new position she found herself in.

  He saw her standing by the window, moonlight and a small night-light from the other room mingling to create a surreal atmosphere in the room. She was wearing the nightgown he’d gotten her, and he could feel his gut twisting at the sight of her.

  The black nightgown was far from practical, made of lace, nylon and unfulfilled dreams. The light from the moon was thrusting its way through the material, highlighting her body just enough to make him ache. Just enough to make him remember.

  Her hair was loose about her shoulders, tousled as if she’d just gotten out of bed. He longed to run his hands through it, through it and over her, reclaiming what had once been his.

  Maybe he should leave, he thought, before she saw him standing there.

  But she was holding the baby to her, trying to soothe her. Mother and baby both looked distressed. “What’s wrong?”

  She turned, startled. She hadn’t heard him come in. Her attention had been completely focused on the baby. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He smiled, crossing to her. “You didn’t. The baby did.”

  She still thought of them as a unit, she and the baby. Or maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly at all. She’d had a nightmare just before Rachel’s crying had woken her. A nightmare in which Rick’s parents were surrounding her, l
arger than life and saying over and over again that she wasn’t good enough for their son, that loving her would only bring him down. After all these years, she supposed a part of her still believed that.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” He looked at the tiny wailing human being scrunched up against her chest. “How long has she been fussing?”

  “A while now.” She’d done all the right things, why wasn’t Rachel going back to sleep? She’d been so good up until now.

  Had she done something wrong?

  Joanna looked tired, he thought. He brushed her hair back from her face. “Want me to get Mrs. Rutledge?”

  “No.” The word came out more fiercely than she’d intended. She lowered her voice. “Rachel is my responsibility. What kind of a mother would I be, handing her off to a nanny every time she made a sound or needed something?”

  His mother, he thought, but kept the response to himself. Joanna wasn’t anything like his mother and making the comparison would only upset her. So instead, he said, “A mother who knows how to accept help.”

  She was tired and frustrated, but it was something she was going to have to learn how to deal with. Her mother used to have a saying. No one ever fell from heaven pre-taught. That went for mothers, too.

  “Mrs. Rutledge has been helping ever since I walked through the door. She deserves to sleep.”

  “So do you.” He looked at the fussing infant. “Did you change her?”

  “Of course I changed her.” She realized she was snapping and amended her tone. “Sorry. I fed her, too.”

  “Then maybe all she needs is to be rocked a little.” He held out his hands. “Here, give her to me.”

  She hesitated. She so wanted to do this right. “But it’s late, you should be in bed.”

  He lifted a shoulder, letting it drop carelessly. “Nobody to be there with. I could stand a little companionship.” Not waiting for Joanna to give him the infant, he took the baby from her. “Here, I won’t drop her. I’m the one who held her first, remember?”

  Reluctantly, she surrendered Rachel to him. She would never have thought he would want to bother himself with a baby. It made her realize that there was a lot about him she still didn’t know. “Mrs. Rutledge told me you fed her earlier.”

  He smiled down at the bundle in his arms. “Mrs. Rutledge talks too much.”

  “She dotes on you, you know.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.” He sat down in the rocking chair in the corner and nodded toward the bed. “Why don’t you lie down for a while? I’ll take over.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” Even as she protested, Joanna sat down on the bed and slid back. “I mean, it’s not as if you were her father.”

  His eyes met hers across the room. “No, but I could have been, if I believed in making donations. Don’t argue with me. Lie down.”

  “Just for a second,” she murmured.

  It was the last thing she said. She fell asleep watching Rick rock the baby in the chair where Mrs. Rutledge had once sat, rocking him.

  The last thought she had before she drifted off was that it was nice to have traditions in your life.

  Seven

  Rick’s cell phone rang just as he was hurrying into his car. In deference to his position as vice president of Masters Enterprises, he was driving his Mercedes rather than his beloved Mustang.

  It was a compromise. His father had wanted him to use the chauffeur-driven limousines, the way he had. The senior Masters maintained that it was more fitting. But Rick preferred being in the driver’s seat himself. Preferred being in control. He supposed he got that from his mother. He considered it the only positive link between them.

  He put his key into the ignition, then pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. Flipping it open, he paused before starting the car. “Masters.”

  “Mr. Rick, it’s Nadine Rutledge.”

  There was no need to introduce herself. No one else called him Mr. Rick or had quite that soft, Southern lilt in her voice.

  Apprehension tightened his stomach. The last time he had heard from Mrs. Rutledge via telephone, it had been to inform him that his mother had died. His first thoughts were of Joanna and the baby.

  “What’s wrong?”

  As always, Mrs. Rutledge’s voice was low-key, soothing. “I’m not all that sure whether something is wrong, Mr. Rick, but Miss Joanna left.”

  “Left?” Echoes of the past came hurdling at him. Mrs. Rutledge couldn’t mean that Joanna had left permanently. “Left where? Where did she go?”

  “To her house, or what’s left of it.”

  Relief was short-lived. What could Joanna have been thinking, going there now? He’d already given her a report on the condition of her house, brought her purse to her with her credit cards and wallet in it. Why this sudden need to go? Or, if she had to see it for herself, why hadn’t she at least waited for him to get home?

  “Did you try to stop her?”

  It was evident by her voice that although Mrs. Rutledge was the one who ran everything in the house and had done so for his father after his mother’s death, she didn’t feel that it was her position to deter Joanna physically from doing what she wanted.

  “I told her she shouldn’t be doing this, but she insisted. I gave her my cell phone.” It was clearly her way of compromising.

  Frustration waltzed through him. Had Joanna taken his car? “Is she even supposed to be driving yet?” He vaguely recalled Joanna saying that her doctor had warned her against it.

  “That just pertains to a week after delivery. It’s been almost two weeks,” Mrs. Rutledge reminded him. “But she’s not driving, she took a cab there.”

  “Damn it,” he muttered. Exasperated, he glanced at his watch. He was meeting with the architect for the new home office in half an hour. Well, that was just going to have to wait. Joanna’s well-being was more important than steel girders and Doric columns. “Do me a favor. Call my office and tell Celia to reschedule my meeting with Donnelley and Sons. Have her tell them something came up and I’ll see them at their office this afternoon at two.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “I already do.”

  Ending the conversation, Rick flipped the phone closed. He tossed it on the seat next to him, not bothering to waste time putting it away.

  He couldn’t help wondering what was going on in Joanna’s head. Damn it, why was she doing this to herself? Seeing everything she loved destroyed would only be hard on her.

  He turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of his parking spot. She’d been so busy this last week and a half, learning her way around this new phase of her life. Learning to be a mother. He’d thought that, beyond making an appointment with her insurance agent for sometime later in the week, Joanna had put the fire and its consequences out of her mind. At least temporarily.

  Apparently not.

  Just showed him he had no idea what went on in her head. He didn’t know if he liked that or not.

  For the last week and a half, despite the fact that Masters Enterprises was an international corporation and that if he was going to remain a hands-on leader, there was enough work to keep him busy around the clock, he found himself ending his days early. Coming home just to share the experience of parenting with Joanna, or watching quietly from the sidelines, absorbing the essence of mother and daughter.

  When he’d seriously thought of their future while they’d been going together, it had never really included this phase of it. He’d envisioned the two of them flying to exotic locations, making love in all four corners of the world. Attending the elegant parties that were so much a part of his world. Enjoying life and each other. Alive with excitement. The thought of babies had only remotely entered into the scenario. Babies meant tedium, his parents had taught him that.

  But babies weren’t tedious. They represented a completely new, completely different kind of excitement. One marked with joy. And although he tried not to give it too much thought, sharing his days w
ith Rachel and Joanna was bringing him in, centering him in a way he’d never thought he’d be centered.

  He didn’t want just to be a spectator, he wanted to be part of it all.

  Was it the newness that was pulling him in like this? The feeling of recapturing the past in a whole new, different way? Would this exhilarating feeling and his involvement ultimately fade as he became accustomed to what was going on?

  Rick turned down the next street, away from the building. He didn’t try to fool himself. He was a different man than he’d been eight years ago. He’d grown in different directions, grown without Joanna at his side. She’d grown as well. He’d only had to look at this turn of events and her choice of single parenthood to know that she had.

  Could the two halves fit together again, after all these years?

  He didn’t know.

  What he did know was that rooting around in the ashes of what had been her home since childhood couldn’t be good for her.

  Rick pushed down harder on the accelerator, going faster as he kept an eye out for any police cars that might suddenly appear behind him.

  Speed had never been particularly alluring to him. He ordinarily kept within the legal ranges without giving it much thought. But he found himself having to ease back on the accelerator now, flying through lights that were about to turn from yellow to red.

  He made it across town to her development in record time.

  Approaching her block, he could still detect a very faint smell of smoke even after all this time.

  Or was that just his imagination?

  His imagination had never been a particularly vivid one, except whenever Joanna entered into the picture. Everything that had to do with her was amplified, always just a little larger than life,

  There was no sign of a cab on the block.

  Maybe Mrs. Rutledge had been mistaken. Maybe Joanna had just gone to meet one of her friends for an early lunch, or decided to go shopping for clothes. She’d absolutely forbidden him to buy her any more things. Maybe she’d decided to replenish her nonexistent wardrobe on her own.