Her Secret, His Son Read online

  Chapter Two

  “What do you think caused it?” one voice asked.

  “You don’t think she could be well … well, that way again, do you? After all, if it happened once there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen again.” Only Mrs. Masterson would ask such a crass question, Sara told herself while floating in the warm, comfortable world she presently resided in. She had no desire to leave. She felt the sensation of lying on something not very comfortable, but she still wasn’t about to leave her safe little world. She probably would have laughed at Mrs. Masterson’s assumption if she had had the energy. Somehow the idea of her being pregnant again sounded very funny when she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a date.

  “Perhaps if you would give her some air, she could recover sooner,” Tess said, exasperated with the nosy women.

  There were a few murmurs of protest and unwanted advice before Tess finally spoke to Sara in her no-nonsense voice, “All right, Sara, come back to earth. Everyone is gone now, and I have a few questions for you.”

  Sara slowly opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She knew she must be in the small room off to the side of the sanctuary that was usually used for the brides to wait in. How inappropriate for her to be here, she thought almost hysterically.

  “Why did you faint?” Tess asked bluntly.

  Sara struggled to sit up on the small couch. “I must be coming down with something,” she said, refusing to look at her friend. “I heard there was a new virus going around.”

  “Sara, this is me you’re talking to,” Tess practically hissed in an attempt to keep her voice down. “You are not the type to faint because of the heat, a virus or anything. You passed out for a very good reason, and I want to know what it was.” She crossed her arms in front of her, prepared to stay until she heard the whole story.

  “Well, I can tell you I’m not pregnant,” she quipped.

  Tess rolled her eyes. “That isn’t funny and you know it. You’re not the type to faint.”

  “Even in this modern day and age it is perfectly acceptable to faint.”

  Tess looked skeptical. “I’ll get Tim to take you home, and I’ll be over tomorrow to talk,” she assured her. She opened the door to find the boy hovering outside. “She seems to have a low-grade fever,” she lied without a qualm, saying it .loud enough for all the sharp ears nearby. “Why don’t you take her home for some rest?”

  Tim nodded and rushed to help his mother to her feet.

  “Tim, I can walk,” she assured him with a wan smile.

  He refused to listen to her protests and helped her outside to the car and drove out of the parking lot as if he was transporting a precious cargo.

  Tim helped her to her bedroom and suggested she lie down while he got her something cool to drink. Jackson pounded on the closed bedroom door demanding to know what was wrong and finally retreated when Tim told him Sara had fainted in church and needed peace and quiet.

  “Maybe you should take a nap,” Tim suggested nervously, clearly unused to seeing his mother ill, since Sara hadn’t been sick a day in her life as far as he remembered.

  She flashed him a reassuring smile. “I think I will. Thank you.” Her smile disappeared when the door closed behind her son. She got up off the bed and slipped off her dress, putting on her robe before lying back on top of the bed with the pillows propped up behind her.

  How could this happen? After all these years Jess showed up in her town and just by his presence threatened to blow her secret sky-high when she had carefully nurtured it for so long.

  “Mom is my daddy dead?”

  “No, honey, he’s just far away.”

  “Will he ever come to see me?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Mom, what’s a bastard?”

  “A very nasty word, and I don’t want to hear you use it.”

  “Then why do the kids at school call me that?”

  “Because they don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “A lot of things. I only wish I could tell you so you could understand. Someday I will. I promise. “

  Only she hadn’t. At least, she hadn’t said enough to truly explain what had happened sixteen years ago.

  How do you tell a boy you had fallen in love with his father, made love with him and created a new life? And because of her immaturity and pride, she hadn’t contacted her lover to let him know he was a father until it was too late. By then no one knew where he was.

  “Mom, I hate my father. It isn’t right you have to work so hard. It isn’t right. If he was here, I would kill him. I would!”

  The sad part was that Sara believed Tim. One day she and Jackson had talked about her few years at school and what she had given up by not being able to return to school to get her degree. That was the first time she had talked about that period of her life, and unfortunately Tim had overheard the conversation. His anger toward the unknown man increased even more after that.

  Sara closed her eyes. She had thought her life was settling down nicely. She had even thought again about selling the station and moving to a larger town. The trouble was she virtually had no skills, and she knew Jackson wouldn’t leave Henderson, and she certainly couldn’t leave him behind. No one else would take care of the feisty old coot, and he had lived in her house for so long she considered him part of the family. He may not have been the most appropriate paternal substitute for Tim, but he was always there whenever the boy needed him, and Tim did listen to him.

  Sara thought back to that moment in the church when her eyes had met astonished dark brown ones. He had looked just as shocked as she felt. The years had treated Jess kindly. His body was still lean and rangy, his hair still dark with only scattered strands of gray. She smothered a laugh threatening to erupt from her throat. Jess Larkin a preacher; her wild, unconcerned with-propriety lover was now a preacher. From the first time she had met him she knew he walked a fine line regarding the law, but she had still loved him, because he had never done anything to frighten her. No, he only loved her as much as she had loved him. Well, it appeared he had finally tumbled off that line and the direction he had taken was unexpected. What had prompted him to go into the ministry? There had to be a good story behind that, but she wasn’t about to hear it. Henderson was a small town, so she would be unable to avoid him all the time, and she certainly couldn’t change churches without causing questions, so she would just go about her business as before. After all, she wasn’t the newcomer here. Besides, the town’s minister wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the town’s scarlet woman.

  Surprisingly Sara did eventually fall asleep. But her dreams were punctuated with scenes from the past.

  The first time she had met Jess she had been a waitress in a coffee shop near the college, and he had come in late one night looking as dangerous as the world outside the cozy confines of the restaurant. She had left with him when her shift was over and never looked back.

  Jess had been a rebel then in every sense of the word. He thought everyone over the age of twenty-five was the enemy even though he was the ripe old age of twenty-two, and he had no use for anything that hinted of convention. And Sara, who knew so little about life and love, adored him. She thought he was everything she wanted, and oh, how she was going to reform him! She would graduate from college, get a good job, make sure Jess finished school, and they would marry, buy a house and have children. Only one item on her list came true. She just hadn’t realized that Jess didn’t have the same dreams.

  What prompted him to become a preacher? The question nagged in her brain. Had the outlaw decided a more-than-conventional life was for him? And who accomplished what she never could?

  Sara tossed and turned in her bed until midafternoon. When she finally awoke, she had a hazy memory of Tim knocking on her door and asking if she was all right then the door opening softly and closing just as carefully.

  All too soon she would have to sit Tim down and have a long talk
with him about his father. The day of reckoning was rapidly approaching. She could feel it in her bones.

  JESS WAS DOING quite a bit of thinking about Sara that same afternoon. After a hearty meal of good old-fashioned Southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes and a slice of berry pie, Reverend Mapes retired to his room for a nap, and Jess fixed himself a large glass of iced tea and wandered out to the backyard to lounge in the hammock that hung under two leafy trees. It was just as hot in the shade as in the sun, but he didn’t care. He had a lot of things to think over, and he preferred being outside to do it.

  Sara here. How ironic to see her after all these years. He recalled how he had hated her in the beginning for leaving him without a word, and then thoughts of her were relegated to the back of his mind as he concentrated on his studies, and later his first preaching position took precedence.

  Oh, there were times when some little thing would bring her memory to the surface, and he would wonder what she was doing, but that was all. A love as young as theirs had been couldn’t survive sixteen years. In fact the few times he did think of her he would figure she’d gotten married and had children. He even pictured her pleasingly plump with four children, a large shaggy dog, a station wagon and a husband who made her happy. Instead of four, he only saw one child and no husband, and she certainly wasn’t plump, but still pleasing to the eye. Reverend Mapes had told him the boy was Sara’s fifteen-year-old son, and there had never been a husband. A boy who looked very much like Jess had at that age. The idea shook him badly. The older man intimated that some of the townspeople condemned Sara for keeping her son, and while he hadn’t voiced his own views, Jess read easily between the lines. Reverend Mapes thought a great deal of Sara and felt she had been hurt enough in the past without taking on any more.

  He stretched out, looking up at the tree that shaded this corner of the yard. A part of him wanted to rush over to her and ask if the boy was his. Was he a result of one of those nights that had been so beautiful for the two of them’? He would probably never know. Besides, what if she told him no? How would he feel if the boy wasn’t his, because his age would mean she had gone to someone else right after leaving him? While the knowledge wouldn’t hurt him after all this time, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to know such brutal truth.

  Jess had lived around enough small-minded people over the years to see that Sara wasn’t considered the most popular woman in town. He had seen how coldly many of the older women had treated her, and he felt angry toward these people. He also knew it wouldn’t be long before conflicting stories about Sara and her son would be filtering his way. And there would be a few who would hope he would judge her just as harshly as they did. He grimaced.

  That was the problem with small towns. Everyone had to put their two cents in. And with him being single, he wouldn’t have it easy. He had already received several invitations to dine at various congregation members’ homes. He wouldn’t be surprised if he would find an unmarried daughter, niece or granddaughter in the house. He proudly admitted to himself he’d stayed free this long, so it would take a pretty stubborn lady to catch him now. With that thought his eyes drifted shut, and he dozed on and off for the rest of the afternoon.

  SARA WANTED TO PLUNGE right into the morning. Last night’s quiet had given her too much time to think, time to think about things better left forgotten, about dreams that had been shelved.

  Sara’d had her share of dreams, a wish to teach high school history, to travel all over the world during school vacations, to have a nice home and family. Instead she was running a gas station and working on cars in order to make a decent living. Her once-lovely slim hands were callused and rough, her nails kept short out of necessity and her long hair only trimmed when she thought of it. No wonder there were days she felt sorry for herself. But she refused to give in to self-pity for too long; there was too much to do and self-pity wasn’t worth the time or effort.

  Today she would fill her time with activities and people. She needed to stop reflecting on the past and all the what-might-have-beens and get on with her life.

  On the way downstairs she stopped by Tim’s room and knocked loudly on his door. After hearing mumbles that no human being should have to get up so early, she reminded him to strip his bed so she could put clean sheets on it and went into the kitchen. Jackson was already there drinking his first cup of coffee.

  “Is breakfast ready?” Tim asked, entering the large room. “I’m starved.”

  “You’re always starved,” Sara retorted, taking a skillet out of a cabinet and the eggs and ham slices out of the refrigerator. “How many eggs do you want?”

  “Five or six.”

  “Tim, you’re eating me out of house and home.”

  He grinned, a grin her battered heart told her was the image of his father’s. Damn, how was she going to handle this? “I’m just a growing boy, remember?”

  She looked at the T-shirt straining over his rapidly broadening shoulders. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  Tim wolfed down his breakfast and left with a vague wave of his hand.

  “Try and go to school today,” she called after him. “You just might like it.”

  But by then Tim was out of earshot; she was sure it was intentional. Sara sighed as she got up with the dirty dishes and set them in the sink for washing. Usually she rinsed them off and waited to wash them at lunchtime. This time she decided to get them done now. Besides it gave her something to do while she talked to Jackson, and she wouldn’t have to worry about looking at him directly.

  “Jackson, I may have to leave town,” she told him in a low voice, staring down at the plate she was slowly washing with a soapy dishcloth.

  “Why?”

  She drew in a deep breath. She wasn’t going to be able to put him off with a fabricated story; Jackson could see through the most intricate of lies. “The new minister is Tim’s father,” she said quickly before she lost her courage.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he breathed.

  “At the rate you’re going I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she said wryly, setting the clean dish aside and picking up Jackson’s dirty dishes.

  He grinned. “As long as I know I’ll find all my friends down there I’ll die a happy man.” He sobered. “What’re you gonna do?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. But if the wrong people find out, it could ruin Jess’s reputation, and I couldn’t do that to him.”

  “Not even after what he did to you?” Jackson sputtered.

  “It was a two-way street, Jackson. We both were wrong, and we were too young. Right now I’m just going to wait and see what happens.”

  “What if he comes after you?”

  “He won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He didn’t before, why should he now?” she said softly. “And maybe if I’m lucky, he won’t realize that Tim’s his son, and I won’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Jackson didn’t look convinced as he muttered he better get down to the station to open up. As he opened the door, he turned back to look at her. “Girl, I’m always here,” he said gruffly, then hurried out the door.

  “You wonderful old man,” she murmured, trying hard not to cry in the dishwater as she finished her washing up.

  When Sara arrived at the station, Jackson was putting the final touches on a car that had been left there the previous day. Their days were usually pretty busy, not slacking off until midmorning. At first she furtively watched each car pulling up to the pumps for fear Jess would appear. She knew she wasn’t ready to see him again just yet, even though it would eventually have to happen. In a town this size and with only the one gas station there was no way out.

  She had finally relaxed and was sitting in the garage chatting with Jackson while he worked when the outside bell chimed.

  “You’re in charge of the pumps today,” Jackson told her, not looking up from the engine he was working on.

  “Slave driver,” she grumbled, rising
to her feet and sauntering outside. She shaded her eyes with her hand as she walked down to the pumps. She didn’t recognize the fairly new Ford Bronco and wondered who’d bought himself a new truck. It wasn’t until the driver climbed out and walked around to the pump side that she momentarily froze. The bright sunlight turned into a gray haze surrounding her.

  The eyes, the hair, the angular features, the lean body she once knew as well as her own appeared the same. The only difference was the absence of sheer arrogance in his manner. The young man once determined to take the world by storm seemed to have grown up.

  Haven’t we all? she thought drily as she approached him. “Reverend,” she said as coolly as possible as she opened the gas cap and inserted the nozzle in one smooth motion. “Do you want the tank filled?”

  “Hello, Sara,” His voice was deeper than she remembered and music to her ears. Except it was a song she would have preferred to have kept in the back of her mind. “Yes, I would, thank you.”

  She was grateful he didn’t offer to do it himself. She needed something to keep her hands busy, or she would definitely scream at him, demand that he stay away from her and her son. Those thoughts were more than enough to strengthen her backbone. Her face remained calm, her eyes blank. She could have been confronting a complete stranger instead of an old lover and the father of her child.

  Jess’s thoughts ran along the same vein as he watched the fragile-looking woman move about. She hadn’t changed a bit, except in her manner to him. This was not the laughing girl who used to greet him every day. Judging from the faint lines of strain around her lips, she hadn’t had much occasion to smile lately. He found it difficult to believe Sara had a teenage son, their son. Why hadn’t she tried to contact him? He silently admitted there wasn’t an ironclad guarantee that the boy was his, but he remembered the old Sara, and he couldn’t imagine she would have gone from him to someone else. What they had shared had been too special for her to dismiss him so casually. Although, he reminded himself, she had left without a word to him; that could certainly be considered a casual dismissal. No, that wasn’t Sara. There had to be something else. Questions about Sara and her son had been nagging him for the past twenty-four hours, and he hoped to have some answers soon. Right now he doubted he would get anything from the tight-lipped woman standing nearby. So instead he leaned against the hood of his truck and watched her, storing up new mental pictures to compare with the old.