Loe raamatut: «His Secret Son»

Chapter One

The place hadn’t changed, Lindsay Brookes thought with a touch of nostalgia as she drove her SUV down Main Street. The tiny Northern California town where she’d been born and raised seemed caught in a time warp. The Victorian buildings that housed eclectic shops and restaurants had stood proudly for well over one hundred years, surviving the passage of time and even the occasional earthquake. Had she really thought they would undergo some sort of drastic modernization in the mere decade since she’d been gone?

Just because she’d worked so hard to make over the shy, awkward girl who’d graduated from Clearville High didn’t mean the town had changed, too. Didn’t mean the people who lived there would see how much she’d changed.

Shoving away the old insecurities, she sucked in a deep breath and tightened her hands on the wheel. She had her reasons for returning to her hometown, and the faster she accomplished her goals, the sooner she’d be back in Phoenix, where she belonged. Where people only knew her as the strong, confident woman she was now and had no memory of the painfully shy, desperately lonely girl she’d once been.

As she glanced in the rearview mirror at one of her reasons for coming back, her heart filled with love—and yes, concern—at the sight of her son with his ever-present tablet in hand.

“Robbie? Robbie?”

“Huh?” He blinked as he looked up through his too-long blond bangs, his eyes slightly unfocused behind his Harry Potter–frame glasses.

It worried her a little, how fixated he was with his video games though she strictly limited them to ones she thought appropriate for a nine-year-old boy. She tried to monitor the time he spent playing them, too, but that was more of a challenge.

You were the same way at that age, she reminded herself even if it had been books and not games that had captured her imagination and led her away into the land of make-believe. But as much as she loved her son—his sweet shyness, his quirky humor, his sometimes scary intelligence—she didn’t want him to follow so closely in her footsteps. She wanted him to have fun that didn’t involve a high-definition screen and make friends who lived outside a computer-generated world.

“What do you want on your pizza?” she asked even though she already knew the answer.

“Pepperoni and peppers.”

Lindsay didn’t know where her son’s craving for spicy foods came from. She could barely handle more than a few shakes of black pepper. Had to be from being born and raised in Phoenix, where Mexican restaurants dominated the landscape along with palm trees and cacti.

A sudden image teased the edges of her memory—a brown-haired boy with laughing green eyes popping jalapeño slices into his mouth like candy—but she shoved the thought away. “Okay, pepperoni and peppers, but only on half, okay? You know Grandma Ellie and I don’t like hot stuff.”

Lindsay found a parking place on the street outside the pizza parlor and cut the engine. Lowering the visor, she took a moment to check her hair and makeup. Not that she expected a fashion disaster to have taken place during the fifteen-minute ride from her grandmother’s house, but it never hurt to check.

Her honey-brown hair was still caught back in a clip at the nape of her neck despite Robbie’s request to ride with the back window down and her daytime makeup—a soft brown eyeliner to highlight her blue-green eyes, mascara and a touch of lip gloss—was still in place. She took a moment to wipe a small smudge from the inside corner of one eye and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

In her job working at a PR firm, she’d learned how much appearance mattered. And though she was on vacation, she saw no reason not to look her best. Especially when she never knew who she might run into...

Her stomach trembled at the thought, and she ran her suddenly damp palms down her beige slacks. As she climbed from the vehicle, the late-afternoon sunlight warmed her face and she took a moment to enjoy a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean.

The summer temperatures rarely rose above seventy, a refreshing change from the scorching heat they’d left behind. Back home, she’d already dug up all but the hardiest of flowers she’d planted during the mild winter and early spring, but here towering red and yellow snapdragons, purple petunias and snow-white alyssum flowed from brick planters. The green-and-white-striped awnings above the plate-glass windows waved in welcome, as did the open doors along the street—few of the buildings needing or even having the air-conditioning that was an absolute necessity living in the desert.

She wasn’t alone in taking a moment to appreciate the gorgeous late-May day. Tourists strolled along the sidewalks and posed for pictures on benches outside the small shops. Families walked hand in hand—some heading toward the pizza parlor, others for the ice cream shop across the street. A group of laughing, roughhousing teenagers jostled by—all talking over each other in an almost indistinguishable babble—but Lindsay overheard one remark loud and clear.

“I can’t believe we’ll be starting college in three months!”

She did a quick double take at the trio. They all looked so young, sometimes it was hard for Lindsay to believe she’d ever been that age. Hard to believe that by the time she graduated, she’d already been—

“Oh, awesome! They have video games!” Robbie’s voice cut into her thoughts.

As if he hadn’t been playing a game the entire ride into town, she thought wryly.

Caught up in his excitement, he charged toward the restaurant doors.

“Robbie, wait! Watch—” Lindsay saw the accident waiting to happen but was too far away for her words to do any good as her son barreled into a man exiting the pizza joint. “—where you’re going,” she finished weakly, relieved when the man reached out to steady her reeling son with one hand without dropping the large pizza boxes balanced in his other.

“Whoa there, bud! No need to hurry. There’s still plenty of pizza left inside.”

No need to hurry.

The words—the voice—slammed into Lindsay’s gut. She might have gasped, but the blow knocked the air from her lungs. Bright flashes of memory assaulted her, and she wanted to close her eyes, but she knew from too many sleepless nights that only made the images so much more intense.

“No need to hurry... We have all night.”

So she steeled herself to face Ryder Kincaid for the first time in a decade—the familiar green eyes, rich brown hair, the sexy half smile that had stopped almost every girl’s heart in high school—including her own. He’d always been undeniably gorgeous, even back then, and now... Lindsay swallowed. Now those good looks had been magnified by ten years’ worth of distance, ten years’ worth of maturity as he’d grown from a boy to a man.

That sexy smile was still there as he met her gaze. A dimple flashed, somewhat at odds with the five o’clock shadow defining the planes and angles of his sculpted cheekbones and rugged jawline. Her heart pounded as he stepped closer, the moment she’d at once dreaded and anticipated for all these years, finally at hand.

She’d pictured it a hundred times—his heartfelt apology for the way he’d treated her following that one warm spring night their senior year. Her cool dismissal as she proved once and for all how much better off she was without him.

How much better off they were without him.

But time, as it turned out, didn’t change everything.

Not Ryder’s smile or the casual nod he tipped in her direction before he walked by without a word.

And not Lindsay’s shock as memories grabbed hold, dragging her back to the stupid, naive and lonely girl Ryder had used and tossed aside.

For a split second, the rich, tangy scent of pizza and whistles from the video games inside changed. Transformed into the slightly musty smell of a high school hallway and the peal of the morning bell from over a decade ago...

After years of silently, hopelessly loving Ryder Kincaid from a distance, she had finally, finally gotten noticed. More than noticed. So much more than noticed, and Lindsay had known her life would never be the same. She’d waited—heart pounding with excitement and anticipation—as she stood by his locker. A few fellow students glanced her way, as if wondering what she was doing in an area where the cool kids hung out, but she held her ground. Because soon everyone would know that she and Ryder Kincaid—Ryder Kincaid—were a couple.

She caught sight of him as he walked down the hallway, his hair falling over his forehead in a casual tousle, his green eyes laughing, his easy stride all loose-limbed confidence. He was surrounded by a group of friends, but then he’d always been so popular. Quarterback and captain of the football team, he had several scholarship offers. Everyone wanted Ryder.

Excitement soured into nervousness, but Lindsay pushed the feeling back. Everyone wanted Ryder, but he wanted her. Last Friday night had proved that. And so she waited for him to notice her, for his eyes to light up the way they had at Billy Cummings’s party. Waited for him to pull her into his arms, to kiss her the way he had done only a few days ago. This time in front of all his friends so the whole high school would know that she was his girl...

Waited and watched in stunned, sickened disbelief as he walked right by her.

With a smile and a nod.

This isn’t high school. This isn’t high school. Lindsay repeated the words again and again. You’re not that same girl.

Jerking her shoulders back, she held her head high as she marched toward the restaurant. She caught sight of Ryder’s image in the large window as he strolled away, his broad shoulders, narrow hips and long denim-clad legs on display even in a wavy reflection. She watched as he jerked to a stop and slowly turned around. Saw the puzzled frown on his handsome face and thought maybe, just maybe, she heard him call out her name.

Lindsay kept going without breaking stride.

At least this time, she’d been the one to walk away.

* * *

Ryder Kincaid had known when he moved back to his hometown that he would have to eat more than a little crow.

Okay, so he had left town as the golden boy, the kid with the magical arm who’d taken their high school to the championship game and won it three out of four years. He’d been the captain of the football team, he’d been prom king and he’d dated the head cheerleader. He’d had scholarship offers from several colleges, and he’d chosen the biggest and best school to come knocking—even if that scholarship had only paid for part of his education.

After all, he’d been the big man on campus and all the best things in life were yet to come.

Big man on campus, he thought wryly. Big man in a small, small school in a small, small town.

He hadn’t realized how small until he left. Until he spent his college career riding the bench—except for one magical fourth-quarter comeback he’d engineered his junior year—backup to a kid who’d gone on to be drafted by the NFL and was enjoying the professional career Ryder had only dreamed about.

Still, he’d made the most of his college years, taking part-time construction jobs to pay for all his scholarship didn’t cover and earning a degree in architecture. He’d gone on to work at one of the most prestigious firms in San Francisco. A firm owned by his wife’s—now ex-wife’s—family. A job more than a few people around Clearville seemed to think he’d gotten on nepotism alone since the end of his marriage had also signaled the end of his career.

So, yeah, he’d had to grin and bear it when people jabbed him with the glory days of high school—“Peaked too soon, didn’t you, Kincaid?”—and when they rubbed in the loss of his career—“You know what they say, never a good idea to work for family”—even though he really didn’t think he deserved all that.

He’d had big dreams in high school—all centered on a game and a girl he loved. How did he end up the bad guy, the failure, when they had been the ones to betray him?

Ryder pushed aside the bitterness as he climbed the front steps to his brother’s house. His family, at least, had welcomed him back with open arms, though they, too—or his mother at least—still looked at him with the question in her eyes. Where had it all gone wrong?

Marriage in the Kincaid family was supposed to be forever. His and Brittany’s had barely made it to the six-year mark.

He balanced the pizzas in one hand, the hot crust warm even through a layer of cardboard, as he gave a quick knock and opened the front door. The sounds of kids playing—his nephews and whatever friends they might have invited over—rang out from the back of the house, and for an instant, Ryder thought of the boy at the pizza parlor. The one who’d barreled into him on his way out.

He’d gotten a quick glimpse of blond hair, glasses too big for a narrow face and a skinny body. After that, Ryder’s attention had been claimed by the woman trailing behind.

After his marriage to Brittany and their turbulent on-again, off-again relationship spanning back to high school, Ryder had learned to keep his awareness when it came to the opposite sex well under wraps.

That didn’t mean he didn’t notice beautiful women. Hell, he was still a guy. And the woman who’d been standing on the sideway was definitely a beautiful woman. Her dark blond hair had been pulled back from her delicate features and wide blue-green gaze. At first glimpse, her eyes had widened with concern, then surprise as her warning to the boy died on her lips. Pale pink lips that had glistened with a hint of expertly applied makeup.

She hadn’t had the look of a local picking up pizza for the family. Jeans and T-shirts were the typical dress code for almost every eating establishment in town, and her beige linen slacks and pale green blouse guaranteed she’d stand out—as if her beauty alone wasn’t enough to set her apart from the crowd.

His instant attraction had caught him off guard. The ink on his divorce papers was barely dry, so even looking at another woman felt as smart as hitting himself in the head with a hammer. For the second time.

Only as he’d walked away did he realize that the woman looked familiar. Something in the not quite blue, not quite green of her eyes. In the expressive eyebrows a shade darker than her hair. In the heart-shaped contours of her face.

If the woman had indeed been Lindsay Brookes and if she’d ignored him as he’d called out her name, well, that was one smackdown he definitely deserved.

When he thought of the way he’d treated her after that one night their senior year, Ryder cringed. He tried hard not to think about the way he’d so pointedly dismissed her. He’d had his reasons at the time, good reasons, though Lindsay couldn’t have known that. She couldn’t have thought anything other than the obvious—that he’d slept with her on the rebound during another breakup with Brittany, used her and tossed her aside.

“Hey, why the frown?” his older brother, Bryce, asked as Ryder stepped into the kitchen. “Don’t you know pizza’s happy food?”

“It’s...nothing really.” He set the boxes on the granite island as he accepted the bottle of beer Bryce handed him with a nod of thanks. He couldn’t help smiling as his brother moved around the kitchen with an ease that caught him a bit off guard.

Sure, all Bryce was doing was chopping a quick salad to add some veggies to their “guy night” dinner, but it was still strange to see him in his role as a dad. At times, when one of the boys called out “Dad,” Ryder still expected his own father to be the one to answer, not his brother.

Though Ryder had tried to visit once or twice a year, getting together with Bryce’s family over the holidays or taking a trip over summer break to Disneyland hadn’t clued him in to how hands-on his brother was in his day-to-day dad duties. Since moving back the previous fall, Ryder had gotten a real chance to see Bryce, and his wife, Nina, in action.

The couple worked well together, their conversation filled with lighthearted teasing, respect and a love that had stabbed him with a sense of envy—even before his divorce.

“Do you remember Lindsay Brookes?” he asked. “She was in my grade in school.”

“Think so. Real bookworm, right? Kind of a know-it-all?” Bryce asked as he made quick work chopping a green pepper.

“Yeah, but she wasn’t like that. Not really.”

“I don’t recall the two of you being friends back then.”

“She helped me out our senior year.” He’d always prided himself on getting decent grades, despite his jock status, but that year he’d done more partying than studying and his test scores had started to reflect that. “She tutored me in calculus.”

“Sounds like a brain to me.”

“Oh, yeah, she was supersmart.” Ryder gave a short laugh. “And she couldn’t seem to stop herself from pointing out when someone made a mistake. She thought she was being helpful. She never seemed to get that the other kids didn’t see it that way.”

“Right after graduation...she surprised everybody when she started hanging out with that Pirelli cousin, right?” Bryce asked over his shoulder as he opened the fridge and pulled out a small carton of tomatoes.

“Yeah, I guess they’d gotten to be friends over the years when he came to town to visit his family, but then that summer...” Everyone else might have been surprised to see the shy, quiet girl hook up with the brooding Tony Pirelli, but all Ryder had felt was relief. He couldn’t have broken her heart too badly if she’d immediately fallen for another guy. Lindsay and Tony had been inseparable that summer.

“I don’t know what a hunk like that sees in a book-brain like her,” Brittany had scoffed when the two couples ran into each other at the Fourth of July picnic in the town square.

Ryder had made some sound of agreement, but he’d known then that he’d done the best thing—if not the right thing—in breaking things off with Lindsay. Though he and Brittany had broken up during that brief period when he slept with Lindsay, his girlfriend would have made Lindsay’s life a living hell had she found out about the two of them.

“That’s right. And then—” Bryce cut off, and he made a face as he put down the knife. “When did we turn into a couple of women gossiping in the kitchen?”

“Probably about the same time you put on that apron,” Ryder said with a tip of his beer bottle in his brother’s direction.

Bryce looked down before defensively saying, “Hey, these tomatoes are juicy.”

Ryder’s grin faded away as he thought of what his brother hadn’t said.

And then Lindsay got pregnant.

He and Brittany had already moved into their dorms by then, but the Clearville grapevine traveled long-distance. When he first heard the news, for a panicked, “what the hell am I going to do?” moment, he’d wondered even as his brain rejected the very idea.

Couldn’t be mine.

It was just one time.

We used protection.

No way. There’s no way...

And then Brittany had quickly filled him in on the details—how everyone knew Tony Pirelli was the father, how his family was in an uproar because Tony refused to marry Lindsay, how Lindsay’s family had left town in disgrace. All of it as juicy as Bryce’s vine-ripe tomatoes.

“Why the trip down memory lane anyway?”

“I heard she’s in town for a few weeks to help out her grandmother, and I thought I might have seen her when I was picking up the pizzas. She looked...good.”

“Her grandmother?” Bryce asked, an incredulous note filling his voice.

“No, not—” Ryder caught sight of the smirk his brother was trying to hide a split second too late and tossed a nearby towel into Bryce’s grinning face. “Very funny.”

Catching the towel with ease, he draped it over one shoulder. “I’d say Lindsay’d have to look spectacular to catch your eye. Haven’t you sworn off all women since the divorce?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Although the hell of it was, Lindsay had looked spectacular. But more than that, she’d had an air of confidence, of success. A woman who’d found her place out in the big wide world and a far cry from the girl who’d struggled to fit in at tiny Clearville High. “I was glad to see that she’s doing well.”

In a small way, it eased the burden of that old guilt he’d been carrying around. Sure, he’d been a stupid, horny teenager, but that was no excuse for treating Lindsay the way he had. He owed her an apology and an explanation at the least and, maybe if he was lucky, a way to make up for his behavior at best.

Thanks to the phone call he’d received earlier that day, he knew he’d get his chance soon enough.