Reckless Secrets (2 page)

I was minoring in biology. I knew all about how paternity was figured, matching alleles in sixteen different DNA markers. I stared at the report. My DNA profile swam before my eyes.
 

Combined paternity index, CPI, which matched genetic markers, alleles—1,448,977. My heart stopped.
Probability of paternity—99.9999 percent.

The alleged father, Jason Front, cannot be excluded as the biological father of the child, Ellie Martin. This paternity test excluded over 99.99% of the male population from the possibility of being the biological father of the child tested.

I dropped my phone into the folds of my coat in my lap, covered my face with my hands, and cried.
 

I sat there, crying, broken with emotion, as the morning wore into afternoon and people appeared on the sidewalk, stumbling out of the dorms and laughing. Enjoying their day. Going to lunch and pregame activities with their dads.
Their dads.
I had a dad. I'd always dreamed of having a dad. If I'd known from the beginning…

But now, knowing messed up our lives—his with his new wife and baby, mine with Logan.

Girls and their dads walked by and shot me anxious, sympathetic looks.
 

I heard the whispers: "Bad breakup, has to be. Poor thing. And on Dad's Weekend."

And maybe it was the beginning of one. After all he'd been through, Logan was so vulnerable. This was no time to add more doubt and emotional trauma to his plate. I had to pull myself together before the game. I'd promised Logan and his dad I'd go with them. His dad had bought us tickets on the fifty-yard line of the alumni side. We were supposed to tailgate at some big campus tailgate event before that. But first I had to meet Jason,
Dad
. We needed a plan to deal with this.

I replied to the text he'd sent me, saying we needed to meet.
When? Where?

He replied immediately, like he'd been hovering with the phone in his hand waiting for my reply.
My office. In an hour?

The clock tower chimed the hour. Noon. I texted back.
Give me an hour and a half.

I needed time to shower and pull myself together.

Done. See you then.

The hour and a half both flew by and dragged on at the same time. I showered and dressed for the game in jeans and university logoed everything—football jersey, cap, sweatshirt, even down to my thong underwear. As I blow-dried my hair, it felt like I was moving in slow motion. Yet I was rushed as I applied my makeup.

My cell phone rang. I jumped. Logan was calling. I felt guilty already as I grabbed it.

"Hey." His voice had a sultry quality.

"Hi. Miss me already?" I asked, sounding way too happy just because the sound of his voice did that to me, yet at the same time trying to hide my nerves and my guilt.

"Yeah, that too." He had a grin in his voice that made my heart constrict and my lips curl into a smile almost against their will. "And calling with a slight change of plans. Dad wants to meet at the south entrance of the field house for the tailgate function at two instead of two thirty. Think you can swing arriving a half an hour early?"

I glanced at the alarm clock on my nightstand. That was cutting it close. Two only gave me half an hour with Jason. And there was so much to say…

Logan sensed my hesitation. "El?"

"Sorry. Just running behind and feeling rushed. That's cutting it close for me." I slid into my coat as I talked, grabbed my purse, and locked the door of my door room after me as I left.

"The old man has something up his sleeve, El, otherwise he wouldn't request an earlier audience."

I bit my lip as I let myself out of the dorm. The last thing I needed in my delicate emotional state was a run-in with Harlan Walker. "I'll give it my best shot. I'll try to be there. I have a few errands to run first."

"Okay. Fair enough. It's short notice. Text me if you're going to be late."

"Will do. Are you and Harlan going to any of the dad events while you wait?"

Logan laughed. "You mean like playing rec basketball or building a birdhouse together? My old man? Are you kidding?

"Collin, Zave, and I are tailgating in classic style—drinking heavily. I need the fortification if I'm going to be hanging with Dad the rest of the day."

The thought of Logan getting hammered before the game scared me just a little. Before I met him his drinking had gotten out of control after a labrum injury ended his college baseball career and dreams of the major leagues. His dad had been pissed about both. I pushed the worry aside. Logan could handle himself.

"A word of warning," Logan said, "keep your guard up. Dad will be itching for a fight with you today. You may have bested him last night, but he doesn't take losing lying down. You have his grudging respect, but that won't stop him. Dad plays dirty. Watch for a sucker punch."

"Thanks for the warning. Isn't that why I have you around, to protect me?"

He laughed again. "Yeah, El, I'll have your backside. But after twenty-one years Dad knows all my weak points. He's the king of the surprise attack."

My pulse raced as I rounded the corner to the open, pedestrian-only avenue we called the mall and the SUB came into view. "I'll be on guard. Gotta go." I slid my phone into my pocket, trying to compose myself.

Jason's office was in the computer science building, which was sandwiched on a hill between the student union building and the alumni entrance to the football stadium. People had already begun milling into the stadium for the afternoon game as I ducked into the quiet comp sci building like I was a spy off to a clandestine meeting.
 

As my heart raced, I hoped no one had seen me. Though I didn't know why I was so worried. Paranoia. I could have been one of the many computer geeks who would rather program than watch a football game. Must have been my guilty conscience. I felt almost nauseous.
 

Jason's text had given no indication how he felt about becoming a daddy twice in such a short amount of time. There was no
ha ha
in it to indicate joy or playfulness. I tried to console myself that people over thirty were weird about texts. They didn't know how to indicate emotion like they should. Everything came out serious, almost like a scolding.

Jason's baby Mia, my now confirmed half-sister, was only six months old. And here he was suddenly the dad of a bouncing nineteen-year-old, girl, too. For just a second, I wondered whether I should have brought a cigar with a pink band. Maybe that was too much. A pink balloon?

The IT department office was nearly dark and ominously silent as I approached it. The door was slightly ajar. Odd, because it was usually locked on the weekends. Jason had obviously opened it for me. Karen's desk was dark and so was mine. Jason's walled office was behind Karen's desk. His door was open and his light on. I slid into the main part of the IT office and closed the door behind me even though I felt like running in the opposite direction.
 

I hardly knew how I felt about this turn of events. I couldn't blame Jason if he was confused or angry, too. But that didn't mean I wanted to face him.

"Ellie?"
 

I jumped at the sound of his voice. "Yeah. It's me."

"Lock the door," he said. His voice was neutral and controlled.

Only he and Karen had keys. That secretive feeling washed over me again as I did what he asked, then went to his office. He was sitting in his desk chair staring at his computer screen. When I walked in, he looked awful, like he hadn't slept at all. There were bags under his eyes. If this had been a normal day in the office, I would have joked with him about Mia having a bad night. Instead, I stood hesitantly just inside the door.
 

"Come on in," he said, just like the first time I had met him—only he sounded a lot more tired than he'd been on that hectic first day of class. "I don't bite." He smiled, but it was obviously forced and tight at the corners. He looked uncertain as he studied me intently. "You know what my biggest fear as a parent is?"

I shook my head as I slid into the chair across the desk from him.

"Parenting a teenager." He tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a snort. "I thought I'd have years to gain experience and grow into the role."

"Don't sweat it. In another four months I'll be twenty." I forced myself to smile and sound jokey.
 

He smiled for real then, and there was admiration shining in his eyes, like he liked that I could joke about this sudden upheaval in our lives. "I don't even know when your birthday is."

"February twenty-fifth. You look awful," I said.

"As it turns out, mulling over the implications of a paternity test was worse than standing by helplessly while Lyssa gave birth." He made that snorting sound again. "February twenty-fifth." He sounded almost wondrous. He nodded, but it was like he was thinking and making a mental note of it. Or maybe he was counting backwards to the day, the one time he'd done it with my mom.

Yeah, that much I knew. He'd told me they'd only done it once.

I had a million questions I wanted to ask. I started with the most basic, phrasing it without accusing. "Does Lyssa know?"

He took a deep breath. "No. You and I made a deal. Until we decided together what to do…"

I nodded, but I felt sick. He didn't sound like he wanted Lyssa to know or that he cared to acknowledge me. Ignoring the whole situation was definitely one way of dealing with it. But it still hurt.

I took a deep breath, bit my lip, and nodded. "I don't want anything from you. That suing for college expenses, that was just to scare you into taking the paternity test." I had threatened him with a lawsuit to get him to take the damn test.

He looked sad. He nodded. "No, I know. I didn't think you were serious." He took another deep breath. "It's not that, Ellie. We promised each other to keep this just between us until we decided what to do." He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "It's complicated with Lyssa."

I nodded. I had known it would be. What woman wanted to hear her baby was not the special first child of her husband like she thought? Or that she was not the woman who made her husband a daddy? And if she ever met my mom, she'd really go crazy and wonder what kind of a man she'd married. Like I said, Mom is no prize. And I was willing to bet if Mom ever found out about Lyssa, she'd make her life miserable.

"I want to help you, Ellie. I do. But we have to think this through carefully. For one thing, there's your job." Suddenly, Jason was all business. Maybe that was his coping mechanism. "If the university finds out you're my daughter, you can't work for me. It's their policy. I've never heard of anyone getting around it." He paused.
 

I knew that already. It was part of the risk. And since Mom had frozen my college funds, I needed my job.

"I have plenty of connections in other departments, but mid-semester it will be difficult to find you something. All the positions are filled. It would be better, in that regard, to wait until the new semester, or even next fall for the new academic year."

What he said made sense, and was nothing I hadn't thought of before when I was trying to decide whether to reveal myself to him or not. But I sensed there was more to it. "Will you be in trouble because of me?"

He hesitated. "I don't think so. I shouldn't be. Not when the truth comes out."

"But you'll be embarrassed?"

He stared at me, obviously assessing me, looking like he didn't want to hurt me. "By the beautiful young woman you've become? No."

He was trying to be kind. I admired him for that. He really was a nice guy. But I knew all too well what kind of damage was possible for him. I didn't want to destroy either his career or his reputation.

"But?" I knew from his tone there had to be a but.

As he studied me I could tell he was trying to decide whether he could trust me. "It will be an issue with Lyssa."

My opinion of Lyssa involuntary plummeted. Me being an issue with her was natural. A shock. But I wasn't as much of a threat as I would have been even just a few years ago. I was grown, not a little kid she had to raise or share him with. I frowned. I liked her and had hoped she would be a good stepmom. Now it suddenly looked like she might be of the "wicked stepmother of fairytales" variety.

Jason rushed to her defense. "Don't get the wrong idea. Lyssa likes you. When she finds out you're my daughter, I know she'll love you. It's…" He sighed, looking like he was up against it. "Can I trust you with a secret?"