The Real Father (Twins) (Harlequin Superromance No. 927) (18 page)

But nothing happened. The house seemed as
empty as a stage set between shows. He scanned the windows, frustrated. Surely they were still here. The dedication ceremony didn't begin until noon, and it was only nine now.

He knocked again, louder. He'd knock all day if he had to. He wasn't going away until he'd said what he came to say.

After another minute, though, Jackson finally opened the door. He had clearly been dressing. His white shirt, though perfectly ironed to a crisp knife-edge along the sleeve, was unbuttoned at the cuffs and hadn't yet been tucked into his expensive wool slacks. His tie, the official muted stripe of the good-old-boy fraternity, hung loosely around his open collar.

Ross refused to let any of that bother him. Jackson's University Club tie didn't make him any more of a man, and Ross's department store flannel shirt didn't make him any less of one. And actually, now that he looked closer, Ross thought Jackson's eyes looked a little bruised around the edges, as if he hadn't slept well.

“Riser?” Jackson raised one eyebrow in a manner completely consistent with his tie. So much for the momentary hallucination that he was just another guy with ordinary problems that kept him awake at night. “Something I can do for you?”

“Yeah,” Ross said, feeling himself getting a little hot under his flannel collar at the supercilious tone. “Actually, Forrest, there is.”

“Okay.” Jackson waited. But Ross wanted to
calm down first, so he waited, too. They stared at each other across the threshold.

After a few seconds, Jackson began buttoning his cuff. He smiled at Ross. “Do you want me to guess? It would be fun, of course, but it might take a while, and I do need to be at the park by noon—”

“Stop talking, Forrest.” Ross took a deep breath. “I'll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to be quiet and listen, just listen, while I tell you how things are going to be.”

“All right,” Jackson said, his cool voice revealing only a pleasant measure of curiosity. “I'm listening.”

“Okay.” Ross twisted his neck, listening to the tension crack in the small bones, and took another deep breath. “Well, the first thing I wanted to say is that I'm sorry. I'll never be able to tell you how bad I feel about asking Beau to help me throw that game. I know I've implied before that it was partly Beau's fault, but it wasn't. I was young for a couch, but still, I was the adult. I was supposed to teach him and guide him. And instead I led him into that mess. I'll never forgive myself for it, and I don't expect you to forgive me, either.”

He paused. But if he had expected Jackson to jump in, to fall all over himself accepting the apology and offering absolution, he was wrong. Jackson merely continued to stand there, sliding the button on his other cuff closed with long, sure fingers.

“Okay, that's the first part. But there's more. I want to tell you that I actually do understand why
you're worried about my spending too much time with Tommy. I know I've had problems.”

He stopped, took yet another deep breath—what was wrong with the air out here?—and forced himself to rephrase it. “No. I had—I
have
—an
addiction.
And just because I haven't gambled in fourteen years, just because I've spent about a million hours in meetings working on it—well, that doesn't mean I'm cured. I know that.”

The cuffs were finished, and Jackson, without taking his cool, steady gaze from Ross's face, began deftly shoving his shirt inside his waistband. Still he didn't utter a syllable.

“Fine. So I'm not cured. But I
am
handling it. I have controlled it for fourteen years, and I can control it for fourteen more. And fourteen more after that. And, when I marry Annie and become Tommy's father, I'm perfectly capable of protecting that little boy from it, too.”

This was where Ross really did expect Jackson to jump in, unable to tolerate the very utterance of the phrase
Tommy's father.
But again the other man surprised him. He calmly picked up the edges of his tie and began wrapping one end around the other, swiftly creating a complicated, elegant knot.

“And I
am
going to marry Annie, Forrest. If she'll have me. That's what I'm here to tell you.”

Jackson slid the tie's knot up to the top in one smooth motion.

It annoyed the hell out of Ross. Was the man even human? How could he look so suave and pokerfaced, so unmoved by anything?

“Don't you understand me, Jackson? Do you even hear what I'm saying? I'm going to marry Annie. Don't you have anything to say about that?”

“Sorry.” Jackson smiled. “I didn't realize it was my turn yet.”

“It's not.” Ross knew he was behaving like an ass, but he just couldn't seem to stop himself. “Oh, hell. Maybe I'm not making any sense. But I'm angry, Jackson. I'm damned angry. It isn't all your fault, of course. I've been a fool, and a miserable coward, too. I'm ten years older than you are, and yet I've spent fourteen years under your thumb. I've spent fourteen years knowing you could destroy me with one sentence, and instead of just standing up and taking my lumps like a man, I've spent those fourteen years more or less hiding under the covers, wondering when you were going to do it.”

Jackson's smile had faded. “And now?”

“And now I'm sick of it. Now I'm finished with hiding and being ashamed.” Ross moved closer, close enough to be absolutely sure Forrest understood that he was willing to back up his words if necessary. “You can tell anybody you damn well please about my problem, Jackson. You can stand up in the Beaumont Pavilion and announce it over the microphone this afternoon if you want to. Because by then I will already have told Annie about it. And I don't think she's going to care. I think she's going to marry me anyhow. After that, I don't give a damn
what
you do.”

He stopped then, aware that his breath was com
ing too quickly. He hadn't meant to be brutish. He had only meant to be irrefutable.

“That's all, then,” he said roughly. “Now it's your turn.”

Jackson looked thoughtful. His golden hair gleamed in the morning sunlight, and, now that he was fully dressed, he looked every inch the son of privilege that he was. Ross braced himself, knowing that the handsome, pampered man before him was clearly as ready to scorn, as quick with contempt, as ever.

Except for his eyes.

Jackson's startling green eyes were touched at the edges with shadow—and with something that might have been respect. The shadows had been there all along…but had the respect just emerged? Or was it something that Ross, in his fever to proclaim his independence, had stupidly missed?

Jackson seemed to come to a decision.

“I've got something to give you, Riser.” Jackson stood back a little from the door. “Make that
two
things. Would you like to come in while I get them?”

Ross frowned. “No.” He didn't trust this strange calm. “No, thank you. I think I'd better wait out here.”

Jackson shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He disappeared then, into the elegant, spacious interior of a house Ross had never entered. For just a moment, doubt scratched at Ross's conscience. Was he doing the right thing? Could it possibly be the right thing to deny Tommy and Annie a life of
grace and comfort inside this extraordinary house? Could Ross Riser's brand of simple love ever make up for eight thousand square feet of luxury and history?

Especially if that history was Tommy's birthright.

Stoically, Ross brushed away the doubt. It would be Annie's decision to make. All he could do was present her with the choice.

Jackson took longer than Ross had expected, but he finally did return. And he was holding two peculiar items—a sports magazine and a small, dusty black velvet box.

He held out the magazine, a football periodical with a famous helmeted quarterback smiling out at them from the cover. “Tommy has a friend whose father reads football stats to him at night, in lieu of a bedtime story.” Jackson smiled. “Sounds supremely dull to me, but apparently Tommy thought it was cool.”

Ross took it cautiously. “Football stats?”

“I couldn't believe it, either, but that's what he told me.” Jackson lifted that eyebrow again, but this time Ross could see the humor in the glance beneath. “And one more thing—this won't score any points with Annie, but apparently he's pretty hot for a dog, too.”

“A dog.” Ross nodded stupidly, momentarily overwhelmed at the prospect of taking on a wife, a son and a dog. And bedtime stories…

“Why are you telling me all this, Jackson?” He eyed the other man suspiciously. “I thought you didn't want me near him. I thought you couldn't get
past my sins—I thought you were determined to make me pay.”

Jackson laughed softly, almost to himself. And when he did the shadows around his eyes grew even more pronounced.

“Maybe,” he said, “I've decided we've paid enough.”

Ross looked at him hard.
“We?”

“Yeah. You. Me. Beau. The whole sorry lot of us.” He held out the dusty black box and looked at Ross over it with an expression more serious than the other man had ever glimpsed on his rakishly handsome features. “Here. I want you to give this to Annie. And I want you to tell her something for me, okay?”

Ross took the box. “Okay.”

“I want you to tell her…” He paused. “Just tell her I'm ready whenever she is.”

“Ready for what?” Ross wished he weren't so confused.

“She'll know.” Jackson grinned. “Annie is an amazingly smart lady, haven't you noticed that yet? She'll know. Just give her the box, and tell her what I said. And then you'd better stand back, Riser, because things are going to get worse in this gossiping little town before they get better.”

Ross gripped the box, suddenly anxious. “Is this about Tommy?”

“Annie will tell you.” Jackson put a fraternal hand on the other man's shoulder, the first such gesture of their lifetimes. “Right now I have to go give a speech.”

A
UNT
L
AVINIA
was so cool. She didn't act like it was one bit weird when Liza asked if they could stop by and see Tommy Cheatwood before they went to the grand opening of the new park.

Liza was glad her mom had already headed over to the park, to check on any last-minute problems. Her mom would have asked a zillion questions.
Why Tommy? Why now?
Liza wouldn't have wanted to try to make up answers.

But Aunt Lavinia didn't ask anything. Liza loved that. She loved everything about Aunt Lavinia, actually. She wasn't pretty, exactly, with her short, straight white hair and her strict brown suits, and she certainly never fussed and cooed over you.

But she was smart, and she told great stories about the Forrest family way back in the sixteen hundreds. And most of all she was easy to be with. She seemed comfortable with herself, and that made you comfortable with yourself.

Liza had to swallow hard, thinking about when she went back to Atlanta, how much she was going to miss Aunt Lavinia.

“It's too bad Tommy won't be able to come to the party in the park,” Aunt Lavinia said as they
drove up to the redbrick apartment complex where the Cheatwoods lived. “I'll bet he's disappointed.”

Liza nodded. “Yeah, but it's not just his broken leg. He cut his other foot pretty bad that day, too, and it had to get stitches. He says that one hurts even more than the broken one. He can't even walk yet.”

“Well, tell him we'll bring him some cotton candy and a big pretzel tomorrow. The food's the best part of these celebrations anyhow.”

“And the fireworks.” Liza had really wanted to watch the fireworks with Tommy, so that they could pretend they were on the Planet Cuspian. Some of her other new friends would be there, too, but she hadn't told any of them about Cuspian yet.

And now she never would. Molly had seemed so quiet this morning. Liza had finally had to accept that nothing wonderful had happened with Jackson last night. And she knew what that meant. As soon as the school year was over—in just a few short weeks—they would be packing up and returning to Atlanta.

And she'd have to start looking for a new King Willowsong.

That was the saddest part of all. Because deep in her heart, Liza knew she would never find one.

Annie looked surprised but happy to see them. She took Liza right back to Tommy's room, where he was playing Vampire Blaster. That made Liza feel a little better, because she and her mother had given the game to him. That way he'd always have something to remember them by.

He paused the game and turned toward her. He seemed even thinner than ever, she thought. And his mouth looked kind of pinched, as if he hurt quite a lot.

But he smiled, obviously pleased, before he remembered to be too cool to care that she had come.

“Hey,” he said, fiddling with his pillows to sit up better, “how come you're not at the park?”

“We're going there next,” she said. “I just wanted to talk to you first.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?” Then, raising his eyebrows, he made a knowing O with his mouth. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What? Did it happen? Did he ask her?”

Liza tried not to look too sad. “No,” she said. She and Tommy had talked on the telephone last night, and they had discussed Molly's date. Both of them had agreed that the perfume and lipstick had sounded very promising. “Nothing good happened at all. She came home early, and she cried in her room when she went to bed.”

“Man!” Tommy thumped the covers. “Don't you just
hate
it when they do that?”

“Yes.” Liza hated even remembering it. She gazed at Tommy helplessly. “I think maybe something really bad happened. I think maybe they had a fight.”

For a minute Tommy looked worried, but then his face cleared. “Oh, well, that's okay. People in love fight all the time. You should hear my mom and Ross go at it sometimes.”

Liza braided her fingers in her lap. “Yeah, but my mom doesn't, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Tommy looked frustrated, and a little defeated, as if he had just run into a dead end he couldn't see his way out of. “Jackson doesn't either, now that I think of it. They're so, I don't know, kind of all held in, aren't they?”

“I guess so.” Liza hoped she wasn't going to start crying. She didn't want Tommy to remember her as a sissy. “So what about
your
mom? Has Coach Riser come by or anything?”

Tommy shifted the video game controller around on the bedspread pointlessly. Liza knew it was just something to do so that he wouldn't have to look at her right away. “Naw. Not that I care.” He raised his eyes suddenly, and Liza saw that he had recovered a portion of his usual cocky bravado.

“But who needs them anyhow, right?” He nudged Liza's knee with his elbow. “You remember what I said about dads, don't you?”

She nodded.

“What? What did I say?” He was grinning, egging her on, daring her to show the same spunky indifference he always had.

“I remember.” She smiled sheepishly. “But I'm not allowed to say that word.”

He rolled his eyes, as he always did when she was too prissy. “Man! You're such a
girl!
My mom and Lavinia are in the other room, you wuss. They can't hear you. Now tell me. What did I say about dads?”

Liza chewed on her lip, astonished that it felt so
strangely exciting to be just a little disobedient. Maybe this was why Tommy was always getting in trouble. Maybe he liked the way it felt kind of courageous, not quite so weak and vulnerable.

“They're all,” she said bravely, though she couldn't help lowering her voice to its tiniest whisper, “a royal pain in the butt.”

Tommy grinned at her proudly. “See? And the world didn't end, did it?”

But at that exact moment, a crowd of grown-ups appeared at the doorway to Tommy's room, as if they had all magically heard her being vulgar and had arrived to mete out punishment. Liza held her breath.

Tommy looked up, too. It was his mother, Aunt Lavinia, and one more, unexpected, person. Coach Riser.

Tommy and Liza exchanged silent glances.

“We need to go now, honey,” Aunt Lavinia said to Liza. “Tommy and Annie have more company, and I need to get to the park. The dedication speech starts in less than an hour.”

“Hi, Liza,” Coach said, smiling.

Liza smiled back. And then she saw what he was holding in the palm of his big hand. A small, black velvet box.

Liza's heart thumped twice, heavily. She knew what that was. A jewelry box. The kind of box the hero in the movies always brought when he asked the heroine to marry him. The kind of box that always had a diamond ring in it.

She saw Aunt Lavinia noticing it, too. And Tommy.

Tommy's mouth was hanging open. He looked at Liza, completely unable to be cool.

She smiled, suddenly very happy. This was good, so good. If her own dreams weren't going to come true, at least maybe Tommy's would. That would be something to hold on to.

“Well, bye, then, Tommy,” she said, standing up from the chair. “I hope your leg feels better. Because I think maybe you're going to start hurting in a brand-new place.”

He screwed up his mouth, trying to hide his smile.

“Shut up, Liza,” he said, but anyone could hear that the words lacked his usual sting.

 

T
OMMY WAITED
almost an hour while Coach Riser and his mother talked alone out in the living room. It seemed like forever—he even got bored with Vampire Blaster. Then he began to worry, because his mom had made him take his pain pill, and that always made him sleepy.

What if he fell asleep before he could find out what was going on?

Just when he thought he'd go nuts, though, Coach poked his head in the door.

“Mind if I come in?”

Tommy shrugged. “I don't care,” he said.

Coach sat on the same chair Liza had used, but he looked way too big for it. He looked downright uncomfortable, as a matter of fact, and Tommy got the idea it wasn't just the chair.

“I wanted to talk to you about something important,” Coach said.

Tommy turned off the video game. “Yeah?” He noticed the Coach wasn't holding the little black box anymore. That seemed like a good sign. “What?”

Coach shifted on the chair. “You know I've been dating your mom a lot.”
Well, duh.
Though Coach paused, Tommy didn't bother to answer that. He couldn't expect Tommy to walk him through this whole conversation. He was just going to have to spit it out.

“Anyhow, we've been talking, and we decided that we might like to get married.” Coach looked at Tommy, and it was clear that he was big-time nervous. “I thought I'd check with you, to see how you felt about that.”

Tommy pretended to think it over. “I guess it would be okay,” he said finally.

“Well, good.” Coach's face looked tons more relaxed, but he was still talking pretty goofy. “Good. That's really good.”

“Sure. It's good,” Tommy agreed. “So. You'll be…you'll be like my dad, or what?”

Coach hesitated. “I'd like very much to be,” he said. “If it's okay with you. I'll never be your real father, of course. Your father was a very special man. I think your mom is going to tell you a lot about him after I leave. But I don't want you to worry that I'd ever try to take his place.”

Tommy laughed, more like a snort, really. “He doesn't
have
a place. He doesn't even have a name, or a face, or anything. He's nobody.”

“Well, I'll leave that to your mom,” Coach said slowly. “Maybe you'll feel different when she's told you all about it. But anyhow, the part I wanted to straighten out with you was just…I wanted to be sure you're okay with my marrying your mom. With my becoming, you know…like your dad.”

He looked kind of sweet, Tommy thought. As if he really cared. For a minute, Tommy considered telling him how much he had been wanting a dad, how happy it would make him to finally get one. Especially somebody like Coach Riser, somebody who was big and strong and always on his side.

But Tommy pulled himself back from the brink at the last minute.
Whoa!
That must have been the pain pill making him weird. He darn sure wasn't going to start admitting any sissy stuff like that.

Not yet, anyhow.

“I told you,” he said, letting himself slide a little farther down under the covers. The pain pill was really making him sleepy. “It'll probably be okay.”

“Good.” That seemed to be Coach Riser's only word. But that was okay. Tommy knew what he meant.

“So you need a nap right now, or what?”

Tommy tried to keep his eyes open. “It's just the darn pills,” he said irritably. “They always do this. I would be fine without them. I'm not scared of hurting. But mom makes me.”

Coach smiled. “Moms are like that,” he said. And then he pulled a magazine out of his jacket pocket. “I brought a copy of
Quarterback
with me.
What do you say? Want me to read some of the stuff in here while you rest?”

Tommy just nodded. “That would be okay, I guess,” he said, letting his head drift down onto the pillow.

Coach began to read. He read for several minutes, a bunch of stuff about some quarterback's career statistics. Passing yards. Passing yards in one game. Passing yards in one season. Tommy lost track, but he loved the sound of Coach's voice. He hadn't ever noticed before, but Coach had a nice, deep voice. A safe voice.

“Good grief. This magazine is three months old,” Coach said suddenly, and Tommy heard the sound of rustling paper as Coach folded the magazine shut.

“It doesn't even have the stats from the Super Bowl, when he threw for another 310 passing yards. And four touchdowns, which puts him in the top three in the Central Division—”

Tommy tried to open his eyes. He wanted to tell Coach how cool that was, that he didn't even need the magazine. He knew more in his own head than Junior Caldwell's dad could find in a hundred magazines.

But Tommy's eyes wouldn't open. His mom's little white pain pill and the comfort of Coach Riser's voice had finally put him to sleep.

 

J
ACKSON LOOKED OUT
at the sea of faces in the crowd gathered at the park, waiting for the dedication ceremony. Mostly familiar faces. If you lived
your whole life in a city the size of Demery, you pretty much got to know everybody.

And everybody knew you.

They knew about the time you brought home the gold for Radway in the district track-and-field competition. And they knew about the time you got caught putting a black lace bra on the statue that stood in the middle of Milton Square. They knew you had a B.A. from Yale, and they knew your back porch swing had an intractable squeak. They knew you had never had the chicken pox, or a blind date, or a decent singing voice.

And they knew you had nearly died of grief because you had not been able to save your brother, when he drove like a madman through the night.

So what exactly had he thought he was hiding? There probably wasn't a single thing he could get up here today and say about Beau that this close-knit community of Demery didn't already know.

Except that he forgave him. And that, even more difficult, he forgave himself.

Jackson saw Lavinia, stolid and comfortably predictable in her no-frills brown tweed suit, readying her notes, preparing to deliver the speech. He made his way up to the dais and, when he reached her, he held out his hand.

“Maybe I should do that,” he said.

She hardly skipped a beat. She pressed the speech into his hands and smiled. “What an excellent idea,” she said. “Why didn't I think of that?”

But when he arranged the pages in front of him
on the podium, he saw that they were all completely blank.