A Dad At Last. Marie Ferrarella

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      “You all have to be exhausted,” she acknowledged, looking at the others. “Why don’t we postpone any sort of celebration until I can do this up properly?” Her eyes swept over Connor first, then touched everyone in the room one by one until they came to rest on Lacy. The mother of her grandchild.

      “Sounds good to me,” Jake murmured. He slung his arm around Camille, his eyes drooping just a shade. “Care to prop up a hero? Help me up to bed and I’ll give you all the details, bit by bit.”

      Before Camille could comment, Abby’s beeper went off, pulsing red numbers. Angling it away from her belt, Abby made out the telephone number. It was only vaguely familiar. She made a guess.

      “Probably Mrs. Marlow. She looked ready to pop when I saw her in the office yesterday. Twins this time.” Two cups of coffee should give her a second wind, she estimated, sighing. “Another post-midnight delivery. Perfect ending to a perfect day.” On her way to the den and the telephone, Abby stopped long enough to brush a kiss on Connor’s cheek. “Nice work, cousin. Looks like you found the family just in time.”

      He wasn’t sure if she was referring to the fact that, in being reunited with the Maitlands, he was able to get the help he needed to recover his son or if there was something else behind her words. All he did know was that the term she’d applied to him was incorrect.

      He wasn’t her cousin, he was her half brother.

      It was on the tip of his tongue to say something. But it wasn’t up to him to make the correction, he reminded himself. The words, whatever she ultimately chose them to be, belonged to Megan. He knew the circumstances surrounding his birth and his subsequent secretive adoption. He’d only learned them recently himself. Connor couldn’t even imagine what Megan must have gone through, thinking him dead all these years, only to have him turn up now, not her nephew, as she’d believed, but her son. Had to be a lot to deal with. He owed it to her to be the one to let the others know.

      Or keep the secret to herself.

      He had a lot to deal with himself, he thought, finding out he had a child of his own he hadn’t known about. He supposed in a way that gave him something in common with his birth mother.

      It was going to be hard, making the transition. Thinking of Megan Maitland as his mother instead of Clarise O’Hara, the woman who had raised him. The mother he’d buried almost two years ago.

      Reaching the foot of the stairs, Connor glanced toward Lacy. Part of him was tempted to remain with her. To say things to her that had occurred to him both before and after he and the others had rescued Chase. But he didn’t want to be hasty. There was a wealth of feelings churning inside him, feelings that had to be sorted out and examined before he did anything about them.

      He had learned a long time ago not to say things in the heat of the moment or when he was too exhausted to think clearly. Anything worth saying would keep until morning, when he was more lucid and had the time to think things through. He didn’t want to say things to Lacy he’d only have to take back later, no matter how much he suddenly wanted to say them. She’d been through enough without having him add to her grief.

      “Night,” he murmured, nodding at Shelby and her brothers, who were on their way out the door, then at Lacy and Megan. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

      Lacy tightened her arms around her son, watching the only man she’d ever cared about, the only man she’d fallen in love with—not once, but twice—disappear up the stairs.

      Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Megan. “I guess maybe I’d better be leaving, too.”

      Megan shook her head. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no condition to drive anywhere tonight. Look at you—you’re flushed and your eyes look like they’re liable to close any minute. All we need now is to have you fall asleep at the wheel and drive into some ditch. You’re staying here tonight. The nursery’s still there for Chase, and you’re welcome to your pick of bedrooms.”

      “I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you,” Abby advised Lacy with an affectionate wink. “No one’s ever won.”

      Lacy smiled her gratitude. She was exhausted. “Then I guess I’m staying the night.”

      Megan patted her arm. “Smart girl. Now let’s go and get you settled in.”

      Though she liked the independence she had so recently embraced, it was nice, Lacy thought as she followed Megan up the stairs, being taken care of just this once.

      CHAPTER TWO

      CONNOR FELT like hell.

      He probably looked it, too, he surmised, making his way down the back stairs. It was early, and the others, he assumed, were still asleep. Just as well. He preferred it that way. Fewer people to interact with. He wasn’t exactly at his social best at the moment.

      He hadn’t gotten more than a thimbleful of sleep before he’d given up and gotten out of bed. There was so much on his mind, so many emotions running rampant through him, demanding to be addressed, that when his body had finally surrendered to exhaustion, the sleep that had come to him had been fitful, leaving Connor more tired, if possible, when he awoke than when he’d finally fallen asleep.

      He was no fresher this morning than he had been hours before. And therefore, he concluded, he was in no better condition to make decisions now than then. Worse, if he were being honest.

      So when he stumbled down the stairs, led by instinct to the kitchen and, he hoped, mud-strong coffee set on a timer, and came across Lacy and Chase instead, the reaction that suddenly came over him was not one he fully trusted. Likely, it had more to do with his physical state than his emotional one.

      But it was the emotional one that was responding.

      A feeling of awe and something Connor couldn’t quite put a name to filled him, pushing its way to every corner of his being like late morning sunshine seeking to chase out the last remnants of the night’s shadows.

      Lacy, her back to him, was feeding the baby. Connor leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and quietly watched this tiny, shining moment of motherhood in action.

      He’d always kept his own counsel, playing everything so close to the chest, it was almost completely undetected by the average person who passed through his life. No one could ever have accused Connor of being an emotional man. He had always believed that emotions got in the way of things. To give in to them undermined your stamina, your resolve. The way to face life was stoically, shouldering responsibilities that came along and moving ahead one day at a time. If that sort of philosophy made the road lonely, at least the terrain was negotiable. And, ultimately, that was the most important thing.

      But this, whatever “this” was, didn’t fit into his way of life. This feeling didn’t even have a name, at least not one he was willing to affix to it. But it had breadth and texture and substance nonetheless, looming suddenly rather large in his world.

      And it had to do not only with the small being who had come into his life less than twelve hours ago, but with Lacy, as well.

      Connor straightened, trying desperately to straighten his thinking, as well. This thing he was struggling with was just responsibility under a different guise, nothing more, he told himself. That was what was nagging at him, defying definition. Just an overwhelming sense of responsibility.

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