My Baby, Your Son. Anne Peters

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СКАЧАТЬ game. “So he struck out. That’s no reason for you to sit here cussing.”

      “Oh, for—” Thoroughly exasperated, with himself most of all, Jared choked back the rest of the expletive and forced himself to watch the game. Or, at least, to look as if he were watching it. They were in the ninth inning. The Gulls were at bat. Tyler was back in the dugout…

      And what the hell would April Bingham be doing back in town?

      The question intruded on his honest desire to concentrate on the game because, when it came right down to it, Jared knew he hadn’t seen a ghost. It had been April, all right, over there by the fence. Ten years hadn’t really changed her much. She still wore that hair of hers—shades of ash streaked with gold—falling in waves from a middle part to halfway down her back.

      And anyway, over the years he’d caught her on TV a few times. Concert specials with the likes of Pavarotti and other opera greats. The kind that took place in cities like London and Paris and Rome.

      So what in blue blazes would the kind of star she had become want in a backwater like Capstan? To take stock of her recent inheritance? Behind the dark shades, Jared squeezed his eyes shut. Grinding his back teeth, he thought, Fat chance. The woman’s presence spelled trouble, pure and simple. He could feel it in his gut.

      The feeling stayed with him through sundaes and banana splits with the team at the Dairy Queen. And it lingered during the subsequent drive home with his nine-sometimes- going-on-thirty-year-old son who seemed to have a weighty problem of his own to deal with, if his fidgeting was any- thing to go by.

      “Dad?”

      “Hmm?” Taking his eyes off the road a moment, and dragging his dark thoughts away from the subject of April Bingham, Jared sliced an inquiring glance toward his son.

      “Tommy’s mom is real nice, isn’t she?”

      “Real nice,” Jared concurred, wondering what was up. He didn’t have long to wait to find out.

      “Any chance you’d wanna marry her?”

      “Addie?” What the hell? Jared tossed his son another look. This one from beneath raised eyebrows. “Any, er, special reason you feel that I should?”

      “Well…” Tyler, sprawled in a position only someone of his young years could assume, squinted into the sun. “Tommy’n me’ve been talkin’…”

      “S’that so?”

      “Mom’s been dead almost a year…”

      “That’s true.” If only thoughts about Regina’s fatal car accident still haunted every waking hour of his days.

      “An’ Tommy says his mom really likes you.”

      “I like her, too.” Jared kept his eyes on the road and his face straight. The conversation and his son’s unsubtle efforts at matchmaking might seem amusing to him, but this was obviously something very close to Tyler’s heart. The question was how to make it clear to the boy— gently—that as far as he was concerned, he and Addie Mansfield were just good friends. Being single parents— and not by choice in either of their cases—they had a lot to talk about, a lot of notes to compare. And he really did like her.

      But who knew better than he that, in the long run—or even in the short—friendship and affection were poor sub- stitutes for what his younger brother Sean called the “Big L”?

      “It’d be kinda neat, havin’ a brother,” Tyler said wist- fully.

      “I can see how you’d feel that way.” Being the middle child of a mixed bunch of six, Jared certainly could sym- pathize. “Having brothers and sisters is a lot o’ fun. Most of the time. On the other hand—”

      “Tommy’d really like a brother, too,” Tyler interrupted Jared’s attempt at rationalization through platitudes. “An’ he says his dad wouldn’t mind if you married his mom on account of he divorced her to go farmin’.”

      “Farming?” Jared frowned. Last he’d heard, Thomas Mansfield, Sr., was a traveling salesman out of Seattle. “You sure?”

      “Yup.” Tyler’s nod was emphatic. “Miz Mansfield even said. She said, ‘That man’s always lookin’ for greener pas- tures.’”

      “Oh. I see…” Jared cleared his throat. He briefly de- bated setting Tyler straight on those “greener pastures,” but decided to leave well enough alone. “You guys sure’ve been talking, haven’t you?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Trouble is—” Jared cleared his throat once again “—people don’t just up and marry somebody just because their kids think it would be a good idea. I mean, I like Tommy’s mom a whole lot, but—”

      “Tommy says she really likes you, too.”

      Jared acknowledged the interjection with a smile and a nod, but continued to make his point as though Tyler hadn’t interrupted. “Like I said, it takes a heck of a lot more than liking each other for two people to get married.”

      “Oh,” Tyler said dejectedly. “You mean like you gotta be in love, right?”

      “That’s right.” Jared affectionately rubbed his son’s bristly short fair hair. “How’d you get so smart, anyway?”

      But Tyler wasn’t to be diverted. He ducked away from his father’s hand, angling around in the seat and facing Jared with arms folded across his chest and his chin stuck out. “I know that Mom wasn’t my real mom.”

      “So?” Puzzled as to where this unexpected turn of the conversation was leading, and unaccountably wary, too, Jared sent his son a frowning glance. “That’s never been a secret in our family, so what’s your point?”

      Tyler returned the frown in spades. “I heard Grammy and Auntie Colleen talkin’ in the kitchen a while ago and Grammy said how sad it was that you weren’t ever really in love with Mom. So how come now you say people oughta be?”

      “What?” The shock of what he’d just heard from his son made Jared almost put the truck into the ditch. What in the hell had his mother been thinking of, making a state- ment like that? Even though it was true, he damned well didn’t appreciate having his private life bandied about by a couple of gossip hens like his mother and sister. Within earshot of his son, yet.

      Struggling to control the swerving pickup, he eased it to a stop on the shoulder. He rammed the gear into Park, draped an arm across the steering wheel and turned to his son. “Now listen, Tyler…”

      “No, Dad,” Tyler shocked him by obstinately interrupt- ing. “I wanna know why can’t you just be with Miz Mans- field like you were with Mom?”

      “Because it’s not that simple.” And one marriage with- out passion is enough in any man’s lifetime.

      Engaging in a weighty exchange of glances with his tru- culent offspring, Jared wondered how he could ever have imagined he’d be able to raise this boy to manhood without ending up in a corker of a discussion like this at one time or another.

      But…damn it. Jared wiped a hand across СКАЧАТЬ