A Child Of His Own Read online

  He’d lost count of the untold hours he’d spent agonizing over the mistake he had made in marrying her. He could scarcely recall the reason. Love? Looking back, he realized that he had just assumed that what he felt for Allison was love. She was beautiful and ambitious, a complement to his skyrocketing career, or so he had thought. At first they’d been happy. The more money he earned in his climb to the top of his profession, the more she spent. It wasn’t the spending sprees he minded, though. It was the infidelities.

  The first time it happened he masked his pain and tried to understand. After all, he worked so much, and she was alone so often, and human, so very human. But it happened again and again, pushing his understanding to the brink of anger, and finally, to full-blown fury. He never guessed, when he had threatened to cut her off without a penny, to what lengths she would go when backed into a corner.

  A blur of events had ensued. There’d been sirens and people pointing fingers, a prosecutor and a jury, and three years of living hell that no pardon could ever erase.

  The first thing he did when he was released from prison was go to the office of the attorney who had arranged the adoption, only to have his hopes of claiming his child painfully dashed. Not having come forward within six months of the adoption, to his despair he learned that he had terminated his parental rights. He could still recall the feeling of utter desolation that had accompanied the news. Then he saw a glimmer of hope, like a ray of pale light at the end of a pitch-black tunnel, when an unwitting clerk let it slip that the child was a boy, and that he was living somewhere in the upstate New York area.

  Since that day, his search for his son had taken him from the Hudson River Valley to the Adirondack Mountains, from the Finger Lakes clear to the Canadian border, and now here, to this peaceful green valley in the Catskills.

  Ben drew a breath of crisp spring air into his lungs. All those years he’d spent amid the teeming humanity of New York City, he never realized that this kind of beauty existed so close to home. Whoever would have guessed that the white-as-milk, clapboard houses and steepled churches of the surrounding towns and hamlets were only a few hours away from his former existence? There was a calm up here unlike anything he’d ever known, an elixir for his bruised senses, and a feeling of unbounding freedom that only a man who has spent years in prison could truly understand.

  The sound of the screen door downstairs brought Ben’s thoughts back from the painful past to the uncertain present. A figure leaving the house caught his attention.

  She moved with long-legged grace down the narrow dirt path, unconscious of the eyes that watched from the second-story window, her ponytail brushing her shoulders in ribbons of golden light that slanted through the branches of the trees.

  He had to admire her courage. Getting the Dutch Mill up and running by Memorial Day was no small task. But it was more than her courage that intrigued him. Her composure was compelling. As they had stood on the wide weathered planks of the porch, her calm had remained unbroken. Had she been enraged? Surprised? It had been impossible for him to tell as he had looked into those sad and unsettling eyes. For a reason unknown to him, he’d been torn by an impulse to put his arms around her and comfort her.

  Now, as he watched her slender figure duck and disappear beneath the tarpaulin that covered the carousel, he was seized by a much more primal urge. He shook off the unnerving sensation and turned from the window. He’d learned in prison to suppress those kinds of emotions, and habits learned behind bars were hard habits to break.

  Chapter 2

  The Catskills weren’t really mountains at all, but a landmass uplifted and scoured by glaciers into gentle peaks carpeted in spruce, hemlock, birch, maple and oak. They were green, soothing peaks, created not for scaling, but for gazing upon from the front porch.

  This was the land of Rip van Winkle, where the legend of a headless horseman threw fear into travelers of dark and lonely roads, where places like Woodstock stood out in the hearts and minds of a generation, and where, surrounded by hills on the western edge of the Catskills, the Dutch Mill was.

  Thousands of tiny dust particles danced in the early afternoon sunshine that slanted through a hole in the roof of the carousel. It fell in soft golden light across the face of the woman who worked amid the prancing horses.

  The warmth that teased the air only yesterday had vanished like a fickle friend. In its place was a nip that sent a battalion of goose bumps marching across Dory’s flesh and turned the tip of her nose cold. Engrossed in her work, however, she was unaware of the chill as she dipped the paintbrush into the can of vermilion.

  With a hand as steady as a surgeon’s, she touched up the paint on the martingale adorning one of the spirited stallions. Carved from solid mahogany and carefully finished with special, aged patinas, it had sustained only minor damage in the fire that had destroyed two of its companions and a portion of the carousel roof. Dory had polished its eyes of glass, fastened a new tail of real horse hair, and restored it to its classic ornate design.

  As she applied the finishing touch to the scarlet strap that passed between the stallion’s forelegs, she tried not to think about the fire that nearly had destroyed the carousel. Yet even though her thoughts were focused on the precision of her work, in the deep dark recesses of her consciousness it lingered, the memory that never went away and that made every moment a painful one, even ones such as this when she was relaxed and engrossed in her work.

  Her gaze lifted involuntarily and moved down the row of horses. Most on this side of the carousel had sustained some damage. Some were in worse shape than others. Two of them had been reduced to ashes by the angry flames. That they hadn’t all been lost was thanks to the miracle of the sudden, furious downpour that had extinguished the flames and saved the carousel from destruction.

  It took a good deal of courage for Dory to bring herself to begin the restoration process. The petting zoo and games of chance simply weren’t enough to draw the crowds. It was the carousel that brought people from miles around. Many of the folks who brought their children had ridden these horses in their youth.

  Dory’s own childhood memories were centered around the gaily painted ponies, the lilting calliope music and the brass ring. As a little girl growing up, she had always known she would one day run the Dutch Mill just as her parents had done. The carousel was one of the oldest in the country, the horses hand-carved in the early 1900s in what was now a lost art. An art major in college, she had acquired the skills to restore the damaged horses to their original splendid condition, with their nostrils flaring, eyes gleaming with a touch of wildness, thick manes flying in an imagined wind. The colors on their flanks were rich and deep. Their harnesses were studded with jewels. Their hooves flashed with gold leaf.

  She had scoured the antique shops in the neighboring counties in search of horses to replace the two that had been destroyed in the fire. So far she’d found just one. The new arrival wasn’t the same as her beloved old friend, but under her deft hands it had been made to look just as splendid.

  It had taken hours upon hours of work, weeks upon weeks of sore muscles and aching joints, of eyes straining to see by lanternlight in the dead of night when Martin and Jason were asleep. The harsh Northeastern winter prevented her from getting much work done on the carousel, but with the shift of the season, trees dusted with green and the brooks running fast with melted snow, she picked up where she’d left off in the fall. When work on the horses was finished, there was the hole in the roof to repair.

  There were times when she wanted to throw down the paintbrush and just walk away, but she didn’t. No matter how painful or exhausting it was for her, the carousel was their bread and butter and had to be restored. Besides, the ever-haunting memory of the night of the fire would be with her no matter what she did. She might as well keep on with her work.

  These days, heavy shrouds of tarpaulin concealed the damaged portion of the carousel and gave Dory the privacy she needed to do the restoration work, and the so
litude to be alone with her memories.

  She knew she wasn’t to blame for Eddie’s death. It would have been suicide to rush headlong into the flames to try to save him. If she felt any blame, it was for not having been able to make their marriage work. If she felt any guilt, it came from the relief of having him gone.

  Eddie had always been a restless man. Soon after they were married, he lost interest in running the Dutch Mill. He tried his hand at a series of jobs, none of which he held for very long. At one time he had wanted a child, and when they adopted Jason, he seemed happy and about to settle down at last.

  For a girl born and raised in these low, rolling New York mountains dotted with dairy farms, trout streams, small towns and steepled churches, Dory was content to wake up happy each morning, and for a while she did, until that old restless feeling came back to Eddie with a vengeance.

  Things started to go bad after that. Eddie soon lost all interest in family life. At first Dory blamed the increasing trouble between them on his heavy drinking. Then she blamed it on herself. After a while there was no one left to blame.

  She could blame it on bad timing, rotten luck, or anything else for that matter, but in her heart, Dory knew it really came down to a case of poor judgment on her part when she married Eddie McBride.

  Dory was unaware that the paintbrush had begun to tremble in her hand, until a drop of scarlet paint fell from the tip of the brush and trickled like warm blood down the stallion’s chest. With a gasp she let the brush fall from her shaking fingers. In her haste to pick it up, she knocked over the can of paint, sending a stream of bright red spreading across the floor of the carousel. Muttering under her breath, she knelt down to wipe up the spill.

  When she had cleaned up the last of the paint, Dory lifted the tarpaulin and stepped down from the carousel into the noonday sunshine. Her half-smothered gasp was lost in the sudden, inexplicable quickening of her pulse at the sight of Ben coming toward her.

  “I finished greasing the rides,” he said, “and was wondering what Martin wants me to do next.”

  She swept an errant strand of chestnut hair from her face. “Why would you need Martin to tell you that?”

  Her movements were graceful and composed, and thoroughly entrancing in their unhurried, unrehearsed way. They were not without their effect on Ben, who shrugged and replied, “He owns the place, doesn’t he?”

  “What gave you that impression?”

  “I just assumed—” he began.

  “The sign out front says P. Jones, Proprietor,” she said. “That’s me. Dory is short for Pandora.” She lifted her slender shoulders in an expression that seemed to say “go figure,” and explained, “My parents had a thing for Greek mythology.”

  “That explains the P,” he said. “But I thought Martin said your name is McBride.”

  She should have known that something like that would not escape his notice. There was something a little too sharp in those dark eyes that told her he was no ordinary drifter. On the contrary, she suspected that there wasn’t anything ordinary about Ben Stone at all.

  “McBride was my husband’s name.”

  “Was?”

  “I’m a widow.” Inwardly, she pleaded for no more questions. To her relief, there weren’t any, only a long, hard probing from those dark eyes, which was almost as bad.

  Dory felt like a fly caught in the web of Ben’s stare. She knew it was crazy, but when he looked at her, she had the queerest feeling that he could see right through her, clear past her defenses to the core of her regrets.

  The sound of her grandfather’s voice, accompanied by a child’s laughter, diverted their attention. Dory’s face broke into a grin. “Are they back already? I swear, this morning has flown by as if on wings.” She was waiting, arms open wide, for the little boy who ran to her.

  “Mommy! Guess what we did at playschool today. We made a fort out of a big box, and it had windows and everything, and I helped make it.”

  Dory smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll bet it’s a great fort, too. Jason, honey, why don’t you say hello to Ben. He’ll be working here for a little while.”

  “Hi.”

  A small round face beamed up at Ben and a tiny hand thrust out to him. At first, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Then, feeling a little awkward and uncharacteristically shy, he reached down. The little hand disappeared in his own big strong one as he accepted the boy’s handshake.

  “Are you gonna be here the day we open? My mommy said I can ride one of the horses that go up and down. Maybe you can, too.”

  Ben looked down into that guileless face and didn’t know how to tell him that it was his intention to stay only a week or two. He had his own reasons for wanting to move on, reasons that had to do with a little fellow just like this one, although there was something about this tyke that filled him with a sudden longing.

  From out of nowhere an unfamiliar feeling welled up inside of him. It was strange and powerful and fleeting, and left Ben wondering what it was about this little boy that had him feeling so unexpectedly fatherly. Probably it had something to do with the fact that his kid would be about this age. But it was like nothing Ben had ever felt before. My God, he thought, if he felt something like this for this little stranger, what sort of emotions would he have for his own son? The realization that those kinds of feelings existed deep within hit him like a ton of bricks. The enchanting little face that beamed up at him made him acutely aware of how little he really knew about being a father, something he had never really taken into consideration when he had embarked on his search for his son.

  “Pop-Pop’s gonna show me the pollywogs,” the boy squealed with delight. “Wanna come?”

  “I’ve tried to explain to Jason that Martin is my Pop-Pop,” Dory explained to Ben, “but his young mind doesn’t quite grasp the concept of great-grandfathers. As far as he’s concerned, Martin is his Pop-Pop and that’s all there is to it.” Turning back to the boy, she said, “Sorry, sweetie pie, but Ben has work to do. You run along.”

  She sent him skipping back to Martin. “Go on, you two,” she called to them, “but be back in one hour for lunch.”

  Jason could tell time and was eager to prove it every chance he got. She watched proudly as he tugged on Martin’s sleeve for a look at his wristwatch. Screwing up his face, he concentrated on the numbers until they were fixed in his mind. Beaming up at Martin, Jason proceeded with his great-grandfather down the path that led to a stream where the newly hatched pollywogs awaited.

  Dory felt a gentle tugging on her heartstrings. Jason was the one bright spot in her life, the beacon that guided her through the dark waters of the past. She had lost a marriage, but she still had Jason. Feeling secure in the thought that nothing and no one would ever take him away from her, she turned back to Ben.

  He tried to mask his emotions as he watched the boy disappear around the bend and felt the deep and desperate loneliness that came from wanting his own child. “That’s a cute kid you’ve got there. How old is he?”

  “Jason will be five this September,” she said proudly. “Do you have any children?”

  Remembering bitterly that he had missed the first five years of his own son’s childhood, he swallowed down the lump in his throat and said, “No, no children.” He couldn’t tell her about that without telling her also about Allison and the rest of it. If she knew he’d spent three years in prison, he’d be out of a job. Not that it should matter to him. He’d gotten used to a haphazard existence. Yet for some strange reason it did matter. He didn’t want to lose this job. Something about this place piqued his curiosity. Something about the boy aroused new and frightening feelings. Something about the woman touched a cord deep inside.

  He envied the easy, natural way she had with the boy, and the love that seemed as genuine and as real as the air she breathed. When the time came...if the time ever came...he hoped he could be as good a father as she was a mother. But then, she’d had almost five years of experience at it, whereas he was a n
ovice, with nothing to go on except his own fears.

  He nodded in the direction Martin and Jason had gone, and remarked, “The boy must miss his father.”

  “Jason was just a baby when Eddie died. He doesn’t even remember him.”

  “You must show him pictures, though, so that he’ll remember.”

  “Yes, I’ve shown him pictures.”

  “It must be rough for a kid growing up without knowing his father. Maybe seeing pictures of someone who looks like him helps him feel somehow more connected.” He had noticed the lack of resemblance between Dory and the boy and naturally assumed the boy looked like his father.

  “It’s hardly likely that Jason will see himself if he looks at pictures of Eddie,” she said. “Jason’s adopted.”

  Adopted? A stillness came over Ben as the word sank slowly into his brain. That would explain the lack of resemblance between Jason and Dory, and lend some credence to the sudden, jolting feeling that said maybe... just maybe this was the son he was looking for.

  The thought was fleeting before Ben dismissed it as utterly ridiculous. So what if Jason was adopted? It was a coincidence, that’s all. Surely, it had nothing to do with him. Yet still the thought persisted. What if the possibility he dared not voice was, indeed, possible? What incredible irony that would be. But then, his life was filled with strange and incredible ironies.

  Like the self-contradictory irony that had him thinking that maybe he would stick around a little longer than he had planned. While the prospect of fatherhood frankly scared him, another part of him reasoned that it couldn’t hurt to get to know this boy a little better.