A Time to Forgive and Promise Forever (18 page)

He couldn't. Not with the boy standing there, looking at him with those innocent eyes. No matter how little he welcomed this news, how angry he was at the woman he'd once loved, he couldn't say anything in front of the child.

He took a breath. “We have to talk.”

Miranda turned the child toward the swinging doors. “You go on back to the kitchen. I'll be with you in a little bit.”

The boy nodded. After another curious glance at Tyler, he pushed through the door.

He gave the child—his child—another moment to get out of range. He heard the swish of the kitchen door closing. He could speak, if he could find the words.

“Well, Miranda?”

Her soft mouth tightened. “Not here. Anyone might walk in.”

The fact that she was right didn't help. His son.
The words pounded in his blood. “There must be privacy somewhere in this place.”

She gave a curt nod, then led the way to the room on the right of the hall.

Tyler shut the door firmly, glancing around at overstuffed, shabby chairs, walls covered with family photos, a couple of toy cars abandoned on a round pedestal table. He didn't remember being in this room before, but that wasn't surprising. Miranda's family had been as opposed to their relationship as his had been.

He swung toward Miranda.

“Well?” he repeated. “Why did it take you eight years to let me know I'm a father? Or didn't you want child support until now?”

She flinched, her eyes darkening. “I don't need or want anything from you, Tyler.”

He suppressed the urge to rant at her. Tyler Winchester didn't lose control, no matter what the provocation. That was one of the keys to his success. “Then why send me that picture now?”

“I didn't!”

Even through his anger, he had to recognize the sincerity in her voice. And he couldn't deny the shock that had been written on her face when she'd first seen him.

“You mean that, don't you?”

She nodded.

“Then who?”

“I don't know. Does it really matter? You know.”

“I should have known eight years ago.” His anger spiked again. “Why didn't you tell me, Miranda?
Even if our marriage was a mistake, surely I deserved to know I had fathered a child.”

She crossed her arms, hugging herself. He'd thought, when he first saw her, that she didn't look any older than she had at eighteen. Now he saw the faint lines around her eyes, the added maturity in the way she stood there, confronting him.

“Well?” He snapped the word, annoyed at himself for the weakness of noticing how she looked.

She spread her hands out. “I don't know what you want me to say, Tyler. By the time I knew I was pregnant, our marriage was over.”

He'd told himself he barely remembered that one short month. That wasn't true. He remembered only too well—remembered the furious quarrel with his father over his involvement with a local girl, remembered storming out of the beach house intent on showing the old man that he could manage his own life.

A runaway marriage would do it. He hadn't found it difficult to persuade Miranda or himself that was their only option. They'd come back from their secret honeymoon to face the music—to tell both their families they were married.

Miranda's father had been disapproving but ready to accept the inevitable.

Not his. His father had ranted and raged at both of them, his emotions spilling out like bubbling acid. And then he'd had a heart attack. He'd died before the paramedics reached him.

Tyler slammed the door on that memory. He'd
better focus on the present. “You were having our baby. I should have been told.”

Anger flared in her heart-shaped face. “You wanted the divorce.”

“I had a right to know,” he repeated stubbornly. He moved toward her a step, as if he could impel an explanation. But this wasn't the old Miranda, the sweet young woman who'd been so dazzled by love she'd gone along with anything he said.

“What was the point?” She brushed a strand of coppery hair away from her face impatiently. “You were busy taking your father's place and saving the company. You had a life mapped out that didn't include a child.”

“And you figured you didn't need me.” That was what rankled, he realized. She hadn't needed him then, didn't seem to need him now.

“I had my family.”

She gestured toward the groupings of family photographs hung against the wallpaper, the movement sending a whiff of her scent toward him. Soap and sunshine, that was how Miranda had always smelled to him. She still did, and he was annoyed that he remembered.

“They thought you shouldn't tell me?” This branch of the Caldwell clan had never had much money, as he recalled. He'd have expected them to be lining up for child support long before this.

She glanced at him with an odd expression he couldn't quite pin down.

“They were as opposed to our marriage as your
family was, remember? They never held with marrying someone from a different world. My daddy said only grief could come from that.”

“Looks like he was right, doesn't it?”

Her chin lifted, looking considerably more stubborn than he remembered. “I have Sammy. I don't consider that a source of grief, no matter what.”

“Sammy.” He didn't even know his son's full name. “What's the rest of it?”

She didn't look away. “Samuel Tyler Caldwell, like mine.”

It struck him, then, a fist to the stomach. He had a son. Somehow, he had to figure out how to deal with that.

“Didn't he ask questions about his father?”

She winced. “Of course he asked. Any child would.”

“And did you bother telling him the truth?”

“Sammy knows his father's name. He knows our marriage ended because we weren't suited to each other.”

It was what he believed himself, but it annoyed him to hear her say it. “Why does he think I never came around?”

“When he asked, I told him you had to work far away.” For an instant there was a flicker of uncertainty in her face. “Eventually he stopped asking. He gets plenty of masculine attention. My father, my brothers, my cousins—he doesn't lack male role models, if that's what you're thinking.”

It hadn't been, but now that she said it, he knew the sprawling Caldwell clan would take care of its own.
But Sammy was his son. He didn't know what that was going to mean yet, but it had to mean something.

“I'm his father.”

She crossed her arms again, as if she needed something to hang onto. “He doesn't have to know you were here. You can leave, and we'll go back to the way things were.”

“I don't think so, Miranda.”

“Why not? You don't want to have a son.”

“Maybe not, but I have one. I'm not just going to walk away and pretend it never happened.”

She took a breath, and he seemed to feel her gathering strength around her.

“If you mean that, then I'll have to tell him you're here.”

His world shifted again. He had a son. Soon that son would know Tyler was his father.

H
ad she ever felt quite this miserable? Miranda sat on the porch swing, staring across the width of the inland waterway at the sunset over the mainland. Maybe, when she was eighteen and discovering that she couldn't function in Tyler's world. And that her fairy-tale marriage wouldn't survive the strain.

At the sight of Tyler standing in the hallway that afternoon, all the pain of losing him had surged out of hiding. Tyler was back—Tyler knew about Sammy. Somehow she had to come to terms with that.

This old swing, on the porch that stretched comfortably across the front of the inn, had always been a refuge. It wasn't today.

She closed her eyes, letting the sunset paint itself on the inside of her lids.
Lord, I don't know what to do.

No, that wasn't quite right. She knew what she had to do. She had to tell Sammy his father was here,
before her son heard it from someone else. She just didn't know how.

Please, Lord, help me find the words to tell Sammy without hurting him.
Panic gripped her heart.
Don't let Tyler's coming hurt him. He's so young.

Certainly there weren't any easy words for this situation. Telling her family that Tyler was here had been difficult enough—telling her son would be infinitely worse.

Her mother had been comforting, her father rigidly fair, silencing the angry clamor of her three brothers, who wanted to dump Tyler into the deepest part of the channel. Her sister, Chloe, married now, hadn't been present, but she'd undoubtedly join them as soon as she heard.

Her father had been firm. Tyler had a right to see his son, Clayton Caldwell had said. They'd have to put up with it, for Sammy's sake.

That had been the only thing that would make the twins and Theo behave, she suspected. David and Daniel considered themselves substitute fathers, while Theo had always been a big brother to his ten-years-younger nephew. None of them would do anything to hurt Sammy.

She rubbed her forehead tiredly, then tilted her head to stare at the porch ceiling, painted blue as the sky. She cherished her family, but coping with their reactions had made it impossible for her to work through her own feelings about Tyler's reappearance.

Maybe she wouldn't have been able to, anyway.
Just the thought of him seemed to paralyze her with shock.

“Momma?” Sammy pushed through the screen door and let it bang behind him. “Grandma says you want to talk to me.”

She forced down a spurt of panic and patted the chintz-cushioned seat next to her.
Please, Lord.

“Come sit by me, sugar. We need to talk.”

Sammy scooted onto the swing. Those jeans were getting too short already, she noticed automatically. He was going to have his father's height.

His face clouded. “I studied for my arithmetic test. Honest.”

She was briefly diverted, wondering how Sammy had done on that test. What she had to tell him made arithmetic unimportant for the moment.

“I know you did.” She ruffled his hair, and he dodged away from the caress as he'd been doing for the last year or so, aware of being a big kid now. For an instant she longed to have her baby back again, so that she could savor every single experience.

Tyler had missed all those moments. Tension clutched her stomach. Was he angry about that? Or just angry that she hadn't told him about his son?

Sammy wiggled. “Is somethin' wrong?”

“No. I just need to tell you something.” She hesitated, searching for the words.

“Somethin' bad?”

Sammy must be picking up on her apprehension, and that was the last thing she wanted. She forced a smile. “No, not bad. Just sort of surprising.”

Say it, she commanded.

“You know the man who was here this afternoon, when you got home from school?”

He nodded.

She took a breath. “Well, that was…Tyler Winchester.”

Sammy jerked upright on the swing. “My father?”

“Your father. He came to see you.”

Her son's small face tightened into an expression that reminded her of his grandfather's when faced with an unpalatable truth. “He never wanted to before.”

“Sugar…” He didn't know about you. Her throat closed at the thought of saying that. She ought to, but she couldn't.

“He wants to see you,” she said finally. “He wants to get to know you.”

Sammy slid off the swing and stood rigidly in front of her, his solemn expression at odds with his cartoon-character T-shirt. “When?”

“Maybe tomorrow after school?” She made it a question. “If that's okay with you.”

“I'll think on it.” That was what her father always said when presented with a problem. I'll think on it.

“All right.” She was afraid to say more.

He went to the door, his small shoulders held stiffly. Then he paused. “Will you come up and say good-night?”

She couldn't let her voice choke. “In a minute.”

She watched him disappear into the house. He'd taken it quietly, as he did everything, but this was a
bigger crisis than he'd ever had to cope with in his young life. And she was to blame.

Had it really been for Sammy's sake that she'd hidden his existence from Tyler? She struggled to say the truth, at least to herself.

She'd been so distraught when she'd come home from Baltimore, her marriage in tatters, that she hadn't even realized what was happening to her body. By the time she did, she'd already been served with the divorce papers. The trek she'd made to Baltimore in a futile effort to see Tyler and tell him had only convinced her that their marriage was over.

She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the breeze off the water. She'd made her choice. This was the world for her son—the secluded island, the patient pace of life, the shabby inn, the sprawling Caldwell clan who'd accepted him without question as one of them.

Now Tyler was back, with his money and his power and his high-pressure life. He wanted to see his son.

What if he tried to take Sammy away? The question ripped through her on a tidal wave of panic. She wasn't as naive now as she'd been at eighteen, but she still knew that power and money could sometimes overcome justice.

The Winchester wealth might dazzle Sammy. She couldn't compete with all the things Tyler could give him.

Worse, Sammy could risk loving him, as she had. What were the chances Tyler would walk away again, leaving broken hearts behind?

 

Tyler pulled into the shell-covered driveway of the Dolphin Inn that evening, his lights reflecting from the eyes of a shaggy yellow dog who looked at him as if deciding whether to sound an alarm. His son's dog?

That was one of the many things he didn't know about his child. Maybe that was why he hadn't been able to stay in his room at the island's only resort hotel.

He'd never intended to start a family. The example his parents had set would be enough to sour anyone on the prospect of parenthood. It was too late now. He'd fathered a child.

Deep inside a little voice said, Run. Go back to Baltimore, forget this ever happened.

Tempting, but impossible. Would he eliminate those days with Miranda if he could, even knowing how their relationship would end?

Of course. Their marriage had been a mistake, pure and simple, born out of sunshine and sultry breezes.

He got out of the car, his footsteps quiet on the shell-encrusted walk. The dog, apparently deciding he wasn't a threat, padded silently beside him. He rounded the building and had to force himself to keep walking.

Miranda's family waited on the wraparound porch, at least the masculine portion of it. She'd told them.

Tension grabbed his stomach. They had no reason to welcome him. They couldn't stop him, but they could make this more difficult if they chose.

“Evenin'.” Clayton Caldwell didn't offer his
hand, but at least he didn't seem to be holding a shotgun.

“Mr. Caldwell.” He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. “Is Miranda here? I'd like to talk with her.” Has she told our son about me?

Miranda's youngest brother shoved himself away from the porch railing. “Maybe she doesn't want to talk to you.”

The kid's name floated up from the past. Theo. Theo had the height of all the Caldwell men, even at seventeen or so. Dislike emanated from him.

“That's enough, Theo.” Clayton's soft Southern voice carried authority. He eyed Tyler for a moment. “Miranda's down at the dock.”

Tyler jerked a nod, then spun away from their combined stares. He walked toward the dock that jutted into the channel between Caldwell Island and the mainland, aware of the men's gazes boring into his back.

Miranda stood with her hands braced against the railing, her jeans and white shirt blending into a background of water and sky. She must have heard his footsteps crossing the shell pathway, then thudding onto the weathered wooden boards. She didn't turn.

Caldwell boats curtseyed gently on the tide on either side of the dock as he approached Miranda. Her slim form was rigid.

Slim, yes, but there was a soft roundness to her figure. The bronze hair that had once rippled halfway down her back brushed her shoulders.

It's been eight years, he reminded himself irritably. Neither of us are kids any longer. If they hadn't been kids, fancying themselves Romeo and Juliet when their families tried to part them, maybe that hasty marriage would never have happened.

Then there'd be no Sammy. The thought hit him starkly. That would be a harsh trade for an untroubled conscience.

Miranda turned toward him, her reluctance palpable. He looked at her without the anger that had colored his image of her earlier.

Her shy eagerness had been replaced by maturity. She probably had a serene face for anyone but him.

That serenity had been the first thing that attracted him to her. She'd worn her serenity like a shield even while she waited tables at the yacht club, taking flak from spoiled little rich kids. Like he had been.

Just now her body was tight with apprehension, her face wary. She stood outlined against the darkening sky, and the breeze from the water ruffled her hair.

One of them had to break the awkward silence. “Should I have called before I came over?”

She shook her head, the movement sending strands of coppery hair across her cheek. “It's all right. I thought you'd probably come back tonight.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “We have things to settle, I guess.”

“Yes.” He bit back the horde of questions he wanted to throw at her. Why didn't you tell me? She still hadn't answered that one to his satisfaction. “I take it you've told your family.”

“I didn't have a choice. You can't come back to a small place like Caldwell Cove after all these years and not cause comment. You must remember what the grapevine is like.”

“We were summer people. The island never included us.”

Her face shadowed, and he almost regretted his words. Summer people. The wealthy visitors who owned or rented the big houses down by the yacht club had always maintained a clear division between themselves and the islanders.

“I guess not,” she said carefully.

“Did you tell Sammy?”

She rubbed her arms, as if seeking warmth. “I told him.”

“How did he take it?” He didn't know if he wanted his son to be glad or sorry he was here.

“He was upset. Confused.” She shook her head, and he saw the stark pain in her eyes. “I tried to explain.”

“I hope you did a better job of explaining it to him than you did to me.”

“That's not fair.”

“Funny, but I don't feel too much like being fair, Miranda.” The anger he'd thought he had under control spurted out. “It isn't every day I find out a girl from my past had a baby she never bothered telling me about.”

“I tried to tell you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tried how? I wasn't that hard to find. A letter or phone call would have done it.”

Some emotion he couldn't identify flickered across her face. Once he'd known the meaning of her
every look, every gesture. At least he'd told himself he did. Maybe that had been an illusion.

“I came to Baltimore,” she said slowly, not looking at him. “Not long after I'd gotten the papers.”

He didn't need to ask what papers. His mother had wielded the Winchester clout as easily as his father. She'd pushed the divorce through in record time.

“You didn't oppose the divorce.” That wasn't what he'd intended to say, but it just came out.

“No, I…” She stopped, seeming to censor whatever she'd been about to say. “That doesn't matter now.”

He leaned against the weathered railing next to her, studying her down-tilted face and wishing he could see her eyes. “If you came to Baltimore, I didn't see you.”

“I changed my mind,” she said carefully. “I did what I thought was best for all of us. Maybe I was wrong, but it's too late now.”

He stared at her, frowning. He wanted to push for answers, but maybe she had a point.

“All right, forget what we did or didn't do then.” He didn't think he could, but he'd try. “Let's talk about now. Is Sammy angry about his father showing up after all this time?”

“Not angry, no.” Her grip on the railing seemed to ease. “Confused, as I said, but he's a much-loved, secure child. He can deal with this.”

None of that love and security in Sammy's life came from his father. Well, fair enough. Tyler hadn't had that from his father, either.

Again he had the urge to walk away. All he could offer this child was money. He'd lost the capacity to form close relationships a long time ago, if he'd ever had it.

He couldn't leave until he'd talked with Sammy. He owed both of them that much, at least.

“When can I meet him?” He threw the question at Miranda.