A Dad At Last. Marie Ferrarella

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      Lacy knew what they were trying to do and she was grateful to all of them. But it still didn’t quell the uneasiness she felt. The uneasiness that continued to grow.

      “If they’ve been successful, why haven’t they called?” She heard herself demanding.

      Strong, terse, the voice hardly seemed to belong to her. But she’d been through a great deal these past few months.

      This last year and then some, she amended mentally. She’d had Connor’s baby in secret, only to be forced to leave him on the doorstep of Maitland Maternity Clinic for his own good. And she’d lost eleven months out of her life when Janelle had assaulted her in that alley behind the hospital, leaving her for dead. Leaving her to wander through the misty, cottony world of amnesia when she came to, with no knowledge of herself or the child she’d left unguarded.

      Lacy looked accusingly at the silent telephone on the coffee table. “Why isn’t the phone ringing right now?” It didn’t seem like an unreasonable request. “There’re five of them. One of them’s got to have a cell phone—or change for a public phone.” She knew the answer to her own question. “They’re not calling because something went wrong.”

      Watching Lacy, sharing her agony, Megan felt her heart contract.

      She’d been like that once, Megan thought. Forty-six years ago, pregnant, unmarried and deserted by her baby’s father, she’d been just like Lacy. Scared, frightened and not knowing where to turn. So she had turned inward and somehow found the will to go on. Like Lacy, she would have kept her baby once he was born. But unlike Lacy, someone she’d trusted with all her heart had taken her baby from her at the moment of birth and lied to her. A lie that would come back to haunt her.

      Her father had told her that the son she’d had as a result of a young, impetuous romantic interlude with Clyde Mitchum had been stillborn. After she’d cried an ocean of tears, she’d pulled herself together and found the strength to continue. Not just continue but eventually win the heart of William Maitland and, with him, forge a dynasty of her own.

      Now that wonderful family she and her late husband had created were there to offer their support to her whenever she needed them.

      Megan couldn’t help wondering how far that support could be stretched. Once they knew Connor was not her long-estranged nephew but rather her long-lost son, would that support break down? Or would it rally and grow stronger still for the adversity the situation represented?

      She could only pray for the latter. One way or another, she would have her answer soon enough.

      But right now, it was her grandson she was concerned about. Her grandson who had to be rescued and brought back to the fold. The details and explanations could be handled later. First things first.

      She slipped an arm around Lacy’s thin shoulders, feeling as if, in a way, she was somehow stepping into the past and comforting herself.

      “There are dozens of reasons they haven’t called, Lacy, and none of them are bad.” A slight smile curved her lips. “And no matter what the television commercials would have us believe, not everyone carries around a cell phone in their hip pocket.”

      “And even if they did,” Shelby interjected, “it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Garrett can’t remember to charge the one I gave him to save his life. Says it’s a nuisance.”

      Lacy sighed, praying they were right. That it was just a matter of not taking the time or finding the opportunity to call. Maybe they were, even now, on their way home. Home with her son.

      But she couldn’t calm down.

      The agitation was growing steadily, threatening to consume her. “Well, right now it’s a nuisance I really wish he’d put up with.” She could only hope that didn’t come out as short as it sounded. Lacy knew that Connor didn’t own a cell phone, but that shouldn’t have prevented him from finding a way to call.

      She looked at the telephone again, willing it to ring. It remained silent.

      He wasn’t calling because something horrible had happened. She just knew it.

      Unable to remain still, she began to pace again, her eyes all but riveted to the front door with every step she took. Why weren’t they back yet? The meeting was for midnight. It was past two.

      Unable to remain on the sidelines any longer, Shelby checked her pockets for her car keys. “Maybe I’ll just take a ride up to the sugar factory to see if everything went the way it should have.”

      Megan instinctively took a step to block her way. “No.” It was an order. “It’s too dangerous.”

      Shelby looked at the Maitland family matriarch. Years ago Megan had taken Shelby and her brothers and sister under her wing when their own parents had abandoned them. Though she had arranged for the children to be adopted by friends of hers, Megan had always been like an aunt—or at times a second mother—to the Lord children. Shelby realized there was no point arguing, but she wasn’t happy about doing nothing.

      Sensing the struggle she’d created within the younger woman, Megan mitigated her words with logic. “Besides, they might be on their way home already, and you’ll wind up missing them. No sense in driving up there for no reason. Better to stay put.”

      “All right.” Shelby relented, slipping her keys into her pocket. “I’ll give them another half an hour, but after that I’m out of here.” As if to back up her position, she took out her cell phone and held it up for inspection. “And I’ve got a fully charged cell phone, so if they do show up while I’m gone, you can reach me the minute they walk in.”

      “I’ll go with you,” Lacy told her. Megan opened her mouth to protest, but Lacy wasn’t about to be talked out of it. “I can’t take this waiting any longer, Mrs. Maitland, and if I pace anymore, you’re going to have a path worn through your tile.”

      Megan shrugged carelessly. As if that mattered. “I was getting tired of that pattern anyway,” she quipped. “And I know how you feel.” Her eyes held the younger woman’s. She saw doubt. “I really do.”

      There was something in the older woman’s eyes that spoke to her, though for the life of her, Lacy didn’t understand how Megan Maitland could have the vaguest idea what it was like to be an unwed mother whose child had been kidnapped. Megan, who together with her husband had founded the prestigious Maitland Maternity Clinic, where the country’s rich and famous came to have their babies, rubbing shoulders with desperate young women who had their backs up against the wall and nowhere to turn—women for whom the clinic had originally been created. But Megan Maitland was far removed from the world Lacy knew. She could easily buy and sell half the people in Austin without blinking an eye. How could she possibly know what it was like to be so destitute that she had nowhere to turn?

      But she did have somewhere to turn, Lacy reminded herself. She had a job as a chef at Austin Eats Diner. Shelby Lord had taken her in and given her that job when she had amnesia. After a blow to the head had restored her memory, Shelby said nothing had changed. The job was hers for as long as she wanted it.

      So she had a job and friends now, friends who had been eager to help reunite her with her baby. Friends who were willing to risk themselves and the ones they loved to do it. She might not have money like Megan, but she was rich in her own way. Rich in friends.

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