you’re terrific. You can tell him, now. He can take it.”
“No.” He gave her a look, dead-on and imperious. Never before had he reminded her of Ol’ Tuck. But at that moment, he did. He said in a tone both flat and final, “It’s too soon.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“Think what you want. It’s my decision.” He said it as if it didn’t even occur to him that she might dare to go against him.
Ol’ Tuck. Definitely. Way too much like Ol’ Tuck.
And he was right. It was his decision. She wouldn’t go against him, not about this. He had the right to tell Brody in his own way and his own time.
She suggested, with care, “How can I help you, to get to know your son?”
He nodded, a regal dip of his head. “Yeah. It’s time we talked specifics.”
Her heart was racing again. And her palms had gone clammy. She feared the worst. That he’d say he was suing her for custody, that he’d demand she turn Brody over to him.
If he did that, all that would be left for them was an ugly legal battle, with Brody at the center of it, suffering for her bad choices, her lies—and for his father’s vindictiveness.
She tamped her fears down and tried to speak calmly. “Yes. All right. I, um, realize you’re going to want to spend some time with him—on a regular basis. I think we can work together to—”
“When does his school year start?”
Where was he headed? And why did she have a sinking feeling it wasn’t anywhere that she would want to go? “Late August,” she said. “The twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth, I think.”
He laid it on her. “I want you and Brody to move in here, with me, right away. I want a chance with him, a chance to catch up after all the years I didn’t have with him. A couple of months of him living with me should go a long way toward that. Before he leaves to go back to school, I will have told him that I’m his father.”
“But I don’t—”
“I’m not finished.” He gave her a long look. It wasn’t a friendly one. Then he continued, “I need you here, at first, to ease the way. I want him to feel comfortable and I want the visit to seem…natural to him. It won’t seem that way if you don’t stay here, too.”
She spoke up, though she knew he wouldn’t like what she said. “You could just tell him who you are.”
“I already told you. Not yet.”
“Tucker, I don’t like this. I think—”
“I don’t care what you don’t like, or what you think. I need you here, so my son will feel comfortable about staying with me. And I think you owe it to me—and to him—to be here, for a while, at least. Once Brody knows the truth, once he’s had time to adjust to being with me full-time, you’ll be free to go back to San Antonio. You can return to pick him up a few days before school starts.”
“And…after that?”
“After that, I’ll want time with him. Holidays, summers and school vacations, anyway. And we’ll be going to court.”
She felt vaguely ill. “Court?”
“He’s my son. I want it legal. I want a document that says he’s a Bravo attached to his birth certificate.”
“Yes. All right. Of course.”
He said, “The adoption might present complications.”
“The adoption?” She didn’t follow at first. Then the light dawned. “Oh. No. Henry never adopted Brody.”
“Why not?”
“We decided against it. For the reasons you just gave. When it came down to it, Brody was—and is—your son.”
“Plus, if I ever did find out you let another man have my son, who the hell knows what kind of trouble I might have made for your happy little family, right?”
She sucked in a long breath. “That’s right.”
There was more to it.
Henry had pushed—hard—for the adoption. He’d insisted it was the best thing, that Tucker never had to know. Lori had said no. In the end, she couldn’t do that. Tucker was Brody’s father and that could never be erased.
But there was no point in going into all that now. It would have served no real purpose, would have only sounded like more excuses, an attempt to make herself look a little less reprehensible—at the expense of her dead husband.
Tucker said, “You’ve been calling him Brody Taylor, though, haven’t you? Even though his birth certificate gives him your maiden name?”
“Yes.”
“No more. When he goes back to school, he’s going as a Bravo.”
“Yes. I’ll see to it.”
“You bet you will.” He looked at her as if he wouldn’t trust her to pass him the salt at the dinner table.
Her temper flared again. She doused it, suggesting carefully, “And for now, maybe we should just take it one day at a time. Just get through the summer and not worry about all the rest of it until we have to.”
He sat forward. “You’re saying you’ll do it. You’ll give me what I want. Tomorrow, you and Brody will move in here, with me.”
“Yes.”
His eyes darkened—with triumph and something more…
Something that brought a tiny, valiant flame of hope rising to flicker within her.
Was it possible?
Could he, just maybe, want more from her than her support while he got to know his son? Deep down, did he have some faint intention of trying to make it work between them, after all? Did he want her with him, at his house, at least a little bit for her own sake?
She wondered—and then she put that tiny hope away. It didn’t matter. Not right then. Right then, her lies and her betrayals stood high as a fortress wall, thick and impossible to scale, between them. He didn’t trust her—with valid reason. He had disconnected from her. And any dreams she might have finally admitted to having about the two of them…
Well, this didn’t look like a situation where dreams were all that likely to come true.
What mattered now was that Tucker and Brody should have their time together; her job would be to do all she could to make that happen.
She said, “We’ll move in tomorrow.”
“All right, then,” he agreed. “Let’s get through the summer. We’ll worry about the rest of it when fall comes around.”
Конец
