The Secret Heir Read online

  Embarrassed by the reminder, she shook her head. “I’ve already forgotten most of it.”

  She remembered the key points, of course. Tyler’s disconsolate cries. Her own frantic, but futile, efforts to reach him. That haunting voice that questioned Laurel’s competence as a mother, preying on her deepest insecurities.

  “You don’t have nightmares very often. At least, not that you’ve mentioned.”

  “No. Not since childhood, really.”

  “You had a lot of nightmares when you were younger?”

  They hadn’t talked much about her childhood—her choice, mostly, since so many of her early memories were unhappy ones. She’d never wanted to compare their upbringings too closely, since Jackson’s had seemed so idyllic in contrast to hers. The one thing she had never wanted from her husband was pity.

  But maybe it was time she shared a bit more with him, so he could understand her a bit better. Past time, actually. She deliberately kept her tone light as she answered his question. “I went through a stage of having them almost every night. I guess that’s why I identified so strongly with Tyler when he went through that phase last year, even though I was older when mine started. Fortunately, his didn’t last long.”

  “Did your mother sleep close to you when you had nightmares? Did she comfort you the way you did Tyler?”

  Here was the tricky part. Still unwilling to draw on his sympathy, she chose her words carefully. “You’ve heard me say enough about her to know better than that. My mother told me that big, strong girls didn’t need anyone to reassure them after a nightmare. Good, smart girls told themselves it was just a bad dream and went back to sleep without disturbing anyone else.”

  Watching her face a bit too closely, he grimaced. “You told me you pretty much raised yourself. That your mother was gone a lot.”

  “My mother left me home alone by the time I was six years old. I was already making my own meals and doing my own laundry, putting myself in bed and getting myself off to school in the mornings. She was usually too tired from partying the night before to get up that early. My father was in and out of my life until I was ten or eleven, when he took off for the final time.”

  She paused, thinking again of Donna’s boast that she had never left her son alone. “Our mothers were very different.”

  “Mine might have been a bit too involved in my life at times,” Jackson murmured. If he felt pity at the description of Laurel’s youth, he kept it to himself. Probably because he knew her well enough to know how much she would dislike it.

  She had never heard him say anything that close to a criticism of his mother’s child-rearing techniques. There had been times when she’d wondered if he had ever felt smothered by Donna’s somewhat obsessive mothering, but she’d never quite had the courage to ask. It had been such a sensitive topic for them from the beginning.

  She liked to think she had split the difference between their mothers—maintaining her own life through her job, yet making sure Tyler had the very best care she could provide during the hours she was separated from him.

  “It’s no surprise we turned out so differently,” she murmured. “I wonder why it took us so long to realize that.”

  “Maybe because we were too blinded by lust?” he suggested, a hint of teasing in his voice as he moved his hand slowly down her bare arm beneath the short sleeve of her T-shirt.

  She shivered. “That’s entirely possible.”

  Shifting his weight, he rose on one elbow to lean over her. He rested the fingertips of his free hand against her jaw. “Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t still be good together. Maybe we’ve let those differences push us apart in the past, instead of using them to make us stronger together.”

  The words sounded good, Laurel mused, but she wasn’t entirely sure anything had really changed between them. They had come closer together during their son’s medical crisis, but would it really last when their lives returned to normal? Despite what he had said about celebrating their differences, almost since their honeymoon had ended she had felt as though Jackson was subtly trying to mold her into someone more like his mother.

  Perhaps it was an unconscious effort on his part, but she had always sensed that he wanted her to be different in some way. More dependent on him. More content to stay home while he went out and did his providing-for-the-family routine.

  “And now you’ve drifted away from me.”

  She focused on his face again. “I was just thinking that we should get back to the hospital soon.”

  Visibly unsatisfied with her response, he gazed down at her. “We have a little while yet. I told Dad we’d be back by six and it’s only four-twenty now.”

  She started to roll to the edge of the bed. “I’ll put the clothes in the dryer while we shower and have a bite to eat. They should be dry by the time we’re ready to leave.”

  “Wait.” Cupping her cheek in his hand, he lowered his mouth to kiss her. His lips moved firmly against hers, and the tip of his tongue slipped between her lips.

  Considering everything, her immediate response was rather surprising. She would have thought she’d have been too worried and impatient to get back to the hospital to be sidetracked by a kiss. Apparently, she’d have been wrong.

  Maybe it was because she so desperately needed a distraction that she found herself wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back. Heat radiated from his bare chest through her thin shirt, a warmth that seemed to soak through her skin and swirl inside her abdomen. She shifted restlessly beneath him, her hands sliding hungrily down his back.

  Jackson made a guttural sound and gathered her more tightly against him. It was instantly obvious that she wasn’t the only one who had become so quickly and intensely aroused. Apparently, they both needed a temporary escape from reality.

  They made love silently, fluidly, quickly. They didn’t bother with foreplay, since they were both so ready. They didn’t waste time fumbling around, since they knew each other so well in this respect. They achieved their satisfaction almost simultaneously.

  Just for a moment, they clung to each other, reluctant to end the closeness. Laurel wanted very badly to believe Jackson’s assurances that things were getting better between them. But she knew their problems were still there, not resolved, perhaps not even fully identified yet.

  Even as the warmth faded, she felt anxiety creeping back in, an urgency to return to the hospital and to Tyler. Either Jackson felt her start to stiffen or he was having similar feelings, because he didn’t try to detain her when she rolled away from him.

  “Go on and shower,” he told her. “I’ll put the clothes in the dryer.”

  “Thank you.” She hesitated briefly, feeling as if there were something she should say, but nothing came to her. Gathering fresh clothing into her arms, she turned and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  To everyone’s relief, Tyler was moved into a regular room Monday afternoon. He was already more alert, only lightly medicated for discomfort, feeling just well enough to be fussy. Laurel stayed busy reading to him, watching videos with him, anything she could think of to keep him entertained.

  The other parents still in the ICU waiting room seemed almost as pleased as Laurel that Tyler was recovering so well. Laurel made sure to convey her hopes that their children would soon be healthy again. She hugged Carol before she left, promising to come back and check on Patty, who was still showing gradual signs of improvement.

  Only a short while after Tyler was moved to the new room, Jackson left for his job site. He approached the subject very delicately, as if expecting Laurel to be angry with him for leaving, but she waved him off. He really did have to work, she acknowledged, and it wasn’t as if there was anything he could do at the hospital.

  She tried not to think of her own work being dumped on the other caseworkers because of her absence. Right now it was more important for her to be with Tyler—and as Jackson had pointed out, his job provided Tyler’s heal
th insurance.

  Now that they were out of ICU, more visitors were allowed. A few of Laurel’s friends and co-workers stopped in during the course of the afternoon to ask if she needed anything. Though she assured them all there was nothing she needed, she was genuinely pleased by the sincerity of the offers.

  She was even able to greet Beverly Schrader with a warm smile late that afternoon. Tyler, who had been growing tired of the game Laurel was playing with him, welcomed his nanny into the room with a crow of delight.

  “Hi, Beb,” he said, using the nickname he had given her early in her employment.

  “How’s my angel?” Beverly approached his bed with a gaily wrapped gift in her hands.

  “I had a operation,” he told her, pointing toward his chest. “And I got a needle in my arm,” he added, glaring at the securely taped IV that he’d been complaining about all day.

  “So I see. Your gammy told me you’ve been very brave. And I heard a nurse say you’ve been a very good boy.”

  “Well…pretty good,” Tyler muttered with a furtive glance at his mother. He was obviously thinking of a near-tantrum a little while earlier, before they’d begun the game.

  “Considering everything, he’s been admirably well-behaved.” Laurel gave him a smile to show him the earlier lapse was forgiven. After all, there had been a few times during the past couple of days when she’d been perilously close to a tantrum herself.

  “I brought you a present, Ty-Ty.” Beverly set the box on the bed beside him. “Would you like me to open it for you since you have one hand tied down?”

  Though not as vigorous in his enthusiasm for a gift as he normally would have been, Tyler nodded against his pillow. “What is it?”

  “Let’s see.” Sitting on the bed beside him, she efficiently removed the wrapping paper to reveal an equally colorful box. She opened the top and drew out a funny-looking stuffed hamster dressed in scrubs and a stethoscope. It danced and sang a few lines of “Doctor, Doctor” when its tummy was pressed.

  Smiling, Tyler immediately reached for the toy, activating the song again. Laurel could tell he was getting sleepy once more, a result of the medications and his lingering post-surgery fatigue. He mumbled a few more comments to Beverly, and then his eyelids seemed to grow too heavy for him to hold open any longer. He fell asleep with the hamster still in his hand and his beloved stuffed penguin tucked into the sheets with him.

  “I think he’s out.” Beverly ran a hand lightly over Tyler’s hair as she spoke quietly.

  “The pain meds make him sleep a lot still. The doctor said they’ll gradually cut back on the dosage during the next few days.”

  “He seems to be doing remarkably well.”

  “He really is. He even walked a little this afternoon. They want him to get back into his regular activities as quickly as possible.”

  “Donna told me you’re going to stay home with him from now on.”

  Rather incongruously, it suddenly occurred to Laurel that Beverly actually looked somewhat like Donna, or maybe the way Donna might have looked more than twenty years ago. Blond, blue-eyed, delicately pretty, obviously intelligent. Why hadn’t she noticed the resemblance before?

  “I’ll be staying with him while he recuperates from the surgery,” she agreed somewhat absently. “I’m not sure how long it will be, so I’ve taken an indefinite leave of absence from work. I know my boss will take me back when I’m ready, since qualified caseworkers are so hard to find.”

  “Oh. So you are planning to go back to work?”

  “That’s certainly my intention. Not until I’m sure Tyler’s fully recovered, of course. I’ve thought of working only part-time until the fall, when he’ll be old enough to enter a good preschool program.”

  “I see. Donna said—I must have misunderstood her.”

  Or maybe she hadn’t. Laurel wondered just what Donna had told Beverly.

  Deciding to let that particular subject go, she said, instead, “I’m not sure I’ve told you how much I appreciate the excellent care you gave Tyler while you worked for us, Beverly. Neither Jackson nor I were aware of the signs you saw that something was wrong with Tyler. I’ll always be grateful to you for putting us on alert so that we were able to get early treatment for him. You might very well have saved our son’s life.”

  Beverly looked both pleased and self-conscious in response to Laurel’s praise. “I just told you what I suspected. You were the one who took my concerns seriously enough to immediately follow up on them. I’m glad I had some experience with pediatric cardiology while I worked as a nurse’s aide.”

  “So am I,” Laurel said fervently. “Will you go back to nursing now, or will you look for another nanny position? I’m more than happy to write a glowing letter of recommendation for you, of course. I’m sure you’ll have your choice of employs, since good nannies are even harder to find than social workers.”

  “Actually, I’d like to go back to school to get my R.N. degree,” Beverly admitted. “I mentioned it to your husband the other day, and he seemed to think it was a workable idea. I told him I was worried about having enough money to live on while I’m in school, but he said he’s sure there are grants or student loans available for nontraditional nursing students.”

  Jackson hadn’t mentioned the conversation to Laurel. Either he had been so distracted with Tyler that it had slipped his mind, or he’d thought Laurel was too preoccupied to be interested. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Beverly. You’d make such an excellent nurse, especially in pediatric care.”

  “That’s what I hope to get into.”

  “I have some associates through Children’s Connection who might know something about student grants or nursing scholarship programs.” She was thinking specifically of Leslie Logan, whose charitable activities were almost legendary. Surely Leslie would have some advice to pass on to Beverly. “I’ll ask around when I get the chance if you’d like me to.”

  “I’d really appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I can do. Literally.”

  Beverly didn’t linger much longer. Promising to check on Tyler’s progress again, she brushed a kiss across the sleeping child’s forehead, then let herself out of the room.

  Laurel spent some time after Beverly left berating herself for becoming so irrationally threatened by the nanny during the past few days. She could only chalk up the paranoia to stress and her own vulnerabilities, though neither was a sufficient excuse.

  Promising herself she would do everything she could to help Beverly achieve her career goal, she laid her head back against her chair. She should take advantage of Tyler’s nap to get some rest, as well. She suspected she was going to need all her energy when he woke again.

  Nine

  Donna showed up an hour later, rousing Laurel from a light doze. “I’m sorry,” she said as she tiptoed into the room. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I wasn’t really asleep. Beverly came by earlier and gave Tyler that new toy he’s holding.”

  “That was nice of her. I’m sorry I missed her.”

  “Did you get all your chores done today?”

  Donna turned her face so that Laurel couldn’t see her expression. “Yes. How’s Tyler?”

  “He’s been sleeping since Beverly left. He’s still making almost miraculous progress, according to everyone here.”

  “He’s a strong little boy. Like his daddy,” Donna murmured, laying a hand on Tyler’s sheet-covered leg.

  “And his grandfather,” Laurel added lightly, picturing Carl’s solid strength.

  Donna raised a hand to her throat. Her fingers trembled visibly as she toyed with the pearl necklace around her neck. Of course Donna wore pearls, Laurel thought wryly. Her hair was always perfect, her makeup was always immaculate, her shoes and purses always matched. It was as if she made a deliberate and concentrated effort to be the perfect “TV mom.” Yet now the facade seemed to be developing a few cracks.

  Laurel couldn’t help wondering why it wa
s so important to Donna to play that impossibly perfect part. And she wondered what was going on behind the flawless mask now.

  Maybe she should try to find out what was bothering her mother-in-law. After all, she was a trained social worker, skilled at dealing with other people’s problems. But maybe it wasn’t her place to pry into Donna’s concerns. Maybe Donna would resent her for even trying.

  She settled for a tentative, “Is anything wrong, Donna? You seem…troubled.”

  Donna dropped her hand and straightened her shoulders beneath her tasteful knit top. “Nothing I’m prepared to talk about at the moment.”

  Well, that was clear enough. Laurel laced her hands in her lap and subsided into silence.

  After a moment, Donna sighed. “I didn’t mean to sound curt. I suppose I’m just stressed.”

  Deciding it would be better not to point out that they had all been under stress lately, Laurel merely nodded.

  Donna seemed to feel the need to fill the taut silence that lay in the room after their exchange. Sitting on the very edge of the other chair, she cleared her throat a few times, then asked, “Did Beverly tell you she’s thinking about returning to nursing school?”

  “Yes, she did. I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

  “So do I. Especially since you won’t be needing her anymore now that you’ve quit your job.”

  “I haven’t quit my job. I’m simply taking leave until Tyler’s well.” She had said the words so often she repeated them almost robotically.

  Donna frowned. “You’re going back?”

  “Donna, I’ve said all along I planned to return to work. I don’t know where you got the idea I wasn’t.”

  “I…well, I just assumed—I mean, you let Beverly go, and Jackson seemed okay with that.”

  “We let Beverly go because we can’t afford to keep paying her while I’m off work for the next couple of months. We didn’t think it was fair to keep her dangling without pay, so we told her she should be making other arrangements.”

  “So Jackson really doesn’t mind that you’re going back to work?”