WE’RE ALL WITH YOU…
They certainly were. For Jenny, the next two hours passed in a blur, but what she remembered of her labor was a sea of family. Michael’s family? No. For now, they were her family. One by one, they came in and sat with Michael, who didn’t leave her side for a minute. They told her she was doing great, that they loved her and she looked terrific, and Michael looked paler than she did.
Lana. Shelby. Megan and Ellie. Garrett. Camille. The piano player started up again, and the party went on in slow mode. Waiting mode. No one was risking driving home in this rain, or maybe they all wanted to stay for Megan’s finale.
Or for Jenny and Michael’s finale.
“You’re doing great, Jenny,” Abby told her. “He’ll be here soon. Real soon. Push just as hard as you want to, honey. This boy of yours is coming through like a locomotive.”
And push she did, though it was like biting down on a sore tooth, or worse, and she really wanted to cry out in pain-maybe she did cry. But the faces around her told her it didn’t matter one bit if she hollered the place down, and Michael’s hands held her all the while.
Every inch of the way.
And finally…
“He’s crowning,” Abby said jubilantly. “I can see him, Jenny. The top of his head’s coming through. Let’s get Ford in here, because soon we’ll have a new little person to check over. Okay, ease back, Jenny. Now, once again- Push!”
“I can’t. I can’t. Oh…”
She felt him come. She felt her son move within her, and Michael’s arms slipped around her shoulders and lifted her so she could see her tiny, blue-white baby come slithering out into the world into Abby’s waiting arms.
“He’s…he’s…” She could scarcely believe what she was seeing.
“He’s just perfect,” Abby said, clearing the tiny airway and turning the baby over in her arms. There was a moment of absolute silence, and then Jenny’s baby son opened his eyes. He stared up and took one long look, then opened his mouth and hollered!
The piano player stopped as if he’d been struck. There was a hush outside the room. Then the new arrival opened his mouth for his second earthly yell, and was joined by laughter and applause filtering in from the room beyond. The Maitlands and the Lords were welcoming another baby into the family clan.
Ford was running an expert eye over the lusty infant, nodding and smiling his approval. He passed the baby to Katie, who wrapped him in the receiving blanket and placed the tiny baby into his mother’s waiting arms.
Jenny’s eyes welled with tears as she looked into her son’s face.
“Oh, Michael. Oh, look.” It was all she could do to speak. She pulled back the edge of the blanket with tenderness and awe, and her eyes flew to Michael.
And back to her son.
“He-he has red hair,” she stammered.
“Oh, Lord.” Megan had tiptoed into the room, unable to stay outside a moment longer. She crossed to look at the silent infant, cradled in his mother’s arms. “That’s just the shade of the triplets’ hair when they were tiny,” she breathed, stunned. “Just that shade. He’ll have hair just like his daddy’s.”
“But…” Abby paused.
“I’m not his daddy,” Michael said, but his eyes didn’t leave the baby for an instant. “Your husband must have had red hair, Jen.”
“My late-husband had blond hair,” Jenny whispered. Her eyes flew to Michael and held. “My now-husband has red hair. Michael, you’ve been so good to me. Maybe this is God’s way of saying he’s your son, too.”
“No…”
But she wasn’t listening. “Michael, he’s as much your son as Peter’s. More. You’ve protected us and cared for us and…” Her voice broke, and she lay back on her pillows, overcome.
Katie smiled and moved to take the little one from Jenny’s arms. “Let his daddy hold him,” she suggested, and before Michael could murmur a protest, the baby was lying cocooned in his arms.
He was a tiny, five-minute-old redhead. Wide eyes stared at Michael, filled with awe at this amazing new world. Wondrous eyes. Jenny’s eyes. And yet…
These eyes belonged only to this new little person, and Michael, looking at him, felt a protective urge that knocked him sideways. What had Katie said? Let his daddy hold him.
“You’re calling him Peter, aren’t you, Jenny?” Abby asked, watching Michael with a smile of satisfaction. Jenny shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks, unchecked.
“Nope. His name is Gary Richard Lord.”
“Gary Richard Lord?”
“Where did that name come from?” Katie asked.
“Richard was Peter’s father,” Jenny whispered. “Peter loved his father, and my son should have a part of his birthright. But Gary… I have a sense about Gary. I think a man called Gary Larrimore died a long time ago, and his death is the reason I’m lying in this room right now. With all my new family.”
“JENNY, we don’t even know if this Gary Larrimore had anything to do with us.”
“Yes, we do.” Jenny was almost asleep. She was snuggled into her pillows, her baby son in a makeshift crib by her side, and the world had let them be. There were only Michael and Jenny-and their tiny infant son beside them.
“You don’t know Gary Larrimore is my father,” Michael said steadily, trying not to turn and look at his-at the baby. “And even if he was…”
“He is. I can feel it.” Her eyes smiled at him with a trace of a twinkle. “Call it a mother’s intuition.” And then the twinkle faded. “And I can’t bear it,” she whispered. “The thought of your mother being pregnant all those years ago and her Gary being killed before you were born. Leaving her with a toddler, and heartbreak, and all those unfulfilled dreams. I can’t get her out of my mind, Michael. Whatever she did, wherever she is, or whatever she’s done, this is my way of saying thank-you.”
“Thank-you for what?”
“For giving me to you.”
And her eyes closed and he was left with nothing to say.
“GARY RICHARD LORD.” Garrett stared at his brother in amazement. Michael had left his wife and was in the living room. Megan had made up a bed for him next to Jenny, but he wasn’t ready for sleep yet. Garrett had sensed that, and was waiting in the darkened house when Michael emerged. The oldest Lord brother was clearly bewildered. “After…our father?”
“After some person she’s imagining was our father.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lifted. “Real or not, that’s quite a compliment.”
“It is.” Mike’s lips thinned, and he looked grim. “She’s generous through and through, my lovely Jenny. She just gives and gives.”
“So why the grim look?”
“We’re not really married.”
“Hey, I think you are,” Garrett said gently. “The way you look at her…”
“But not the way she looks at me,” Michael burst out. “Oh, she’s grateful-incredibly grateful-and I know she’s attracted, and she’d never do anything to hurt me, but as for love…” He took a fast pace around the room, then paused and stood staring out at the drenched garden. “Some aristocratic lowlife back in Britain killed that for her.”
“You mean he mistreated her?” There was caution in Garrett’s question. It was absolutely out of character for his brother to be exposing his pain the way he was now.
“Yes. No! I don’t know.” Michael was still staring outside, talking almost to himself. The events of the past few hours had shaken him to the core, and it showed. “The way I see it, he married her to frustrate his mother and he never stopped letting Jen know she was trash. As if Jen could ever be thought trash by anyone! But now…” He took a deep breath. “That little baby in there is the next Earl of Epingdale-in fact, I guess he’s that already, since his father’s dead. And before he died, Peter extracted a promise from Jenny that he’d be brought up to take over his title.”