The Secret Heir

The summer-afternoon party wasn’t a typical event for either of them and later Laurel would think of what a cliché their meeting had been. Eyes meeting across a crowded room. Everyone else fading into a misty background. Her toes curling when he smiled. Sparks of sexual awareness coursing through them when their hands touched.

They had left the party together a short while later and had gone for a barefoot walk on the beach at sunset. The salty breeze had tossed their hair and tugged at their clothes—clothes they had abandoned in a hidden nook. They had been daring and reckless and impetuous that night. By dawn the next morning they’d known they were in love.

She dreamed of that beach, of conversation and laughter, of passionate whispers and hoarse cries.

Of two young people so desperately in love that they had let their emotions sweep them into a life neither had been prepared for.

GINA WILKINS

is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Harlequin and Silhouette Books. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms. Wilkins sold her first book to Harlequin in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of RT Book Reviews.

Be a part of

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

Once crazy for each other, a husband and wife lose their way. As an adorable little boy reunites them, this couple learns that sometimes love is meant to last a lifetime….

Jackson Reiss: When his son, Tyler, became ill, Jackson had to let go of his idealized version of a family. He realized some things took precedence—his child’s health…and his wife by his side.

Laurel Reiss: After a stormy upbringing, Laurel gave everything to Jackson until circumstances swept them into different orbits. With little Tyler in trouble, Laurel devoted herself to his care…and felt that strong passion toward Jackson reemerge.

Jack Crosby: The patriarch of the Crosby clan hadn’t exactly been an exemplary father. But as his children found happiness, he realized he had to make amends, even if it meant bringing long-buried secrets to light….

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

AVAILABLE JUNE 2010

 1.) To Love and Protect by Susan Mallery

 2.) Secrets & Seductions by Pamela Toth

 3.) Royal Affair by Laurie Paige

 4.) For Love and Family by Victoria Pade

AVAILABLE JULY 2010

 5.) The Bachelor by Marie Ferrarella

 6.) A Precious Gift by Karen Rose Smith

 7.) Child of Her Heart by Cheryl St. John

 8.) Intimate Surrender by RaeAnne Thayne

AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010

 9.) The Secret Heir by Gina Wilkins

 10.) The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly

 11.) Right by Her Side by Christie Ridgway

 12.) The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010

 13.) The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter

 14.) What a Man Needs by Patricia Thayer

 15.) Undercover Passion by Raye Morgan

 16.) Royal Seduction by Donna Clayton

For my family—immediate and extended—who have to live daily with the mood swings, panic attacks, distraction and paranoia of the average writer. Thank you for your love and your patience.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

One

L aurel Phillips Reiss was a strong, competent, self-sufficient woman. Everyone who knew her said so. She could handle anything.

Anything except this.

Twisting a shredded tissue between her hands, she looked through her lashes at the man sitting in a nearby chair in the hospital waiting room. His sun-streaked blond hair was tousled from running his hands through it. Strong emotions darkened his blue eyes to navy and hardened his chiseled features to resemble granite. Years of manual labor had toned his broad-shouldered body. Jackson Reiss looked fit, tough and strong enough to overcome any adversity.

Except this one.

His eyes met hers. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but even that silent response was a lie. She wasn’t at all okay.

Other people sat in the waiting room, clustered in tight units as they waited for news of loved ones. Conversations swirled around them, the volume fluctuating from muted to rather loud. Occasional bursts of self-conscious, too-cheery laughter were followed by nervous silences. On the far side of the waiting room, a young woman cried softly. Laurel watched as a man gathered her into his arms to comfort her.

The green upholstered chairs in which Laurel and Jackson sat were crowded together so that their knees almost touched, but they made no effort to close even that small distance. Laurel’s hands were in her lap, and Jackson’s were fisted on his knees. A plain gold band gleamed on the ring finger of her left hand. His hands were bare, since jewelry could be dangerous on the construction sites where he spent most of his time.

There might as well have been a wall between them.

A dark-haired man who looked maybe ten years older than Laurel’s twenty-six approached them with a respectful, slightly weary expression. He wore a white coat over a blue shirt and khakis. His tie was a riot of color. A nametag identified him as Michael Rutledge, M.D. “Mr. and Mrs. Reiss?”

Laurel surged to her feet as Jackson did the same. “How is Tyler?” she asked urgently. “What’s wrong with him?”

“If you’ll both follow me.” He motioned toward a row of doors at one end of the waiting room. “We can talk privately in a conference room.”

Laurel felt a band tighten around her heart. If he wanted to talk to them in private, then something must really be wrong, she thought in despair. Wouldn’t he have already reassured them if everything was fine?

Her body felt stiff and unresponsive when she tried to move. She stumbled a little, and Jackson reached out immediately to steady her. For only a moment, she allowed herself to sag against him, drawing on his strength. But then she squared her shoulders and stepped away from him. “I’m all right,” she murmured.

Her husband nodded and shoved his hands in the pockets of the faded jeans he wore with battered work boots and a denim shirt. Dressed more colorfully in a red jacket and black slacks, Laurel moved a couple of steps ahead of Jackson as she followed the doctor into a small room with four straight-back chairs arranged around a round table.

A box of tissues sat on the table. A smudged white board hung on one wall, and a peaceful painting of mountains and clouds hung on another. A tall green plant stood in one corner; it needed water, Laurel noted automatically, focusing on inconsequential matters until she was certain she had her emotions under tight control.

“Please, Mrs. Reiss.” Dr. Rutledge held a chair for her. “Sit down.”

She would rather have stood, but she sank to the edge of the chair. Jackson took the seat beside her—close, but again without touching her. Both Laurel and Jackson kept their eyes on the doctor as he took a chair across from them. Laurel started to speak, but discovered that her throat was too tight. Hearing Jackson draw a deep breath, she let him ask the question that was paramount to both of them.

“What’s wrong with our son?”

Before the doctor could reply, a forty-something woman with fiery red hair, a round, freckled face, and a plumply maternal figure knocked once and entered the room, carrying a thick file. “Sorry,” she murmured to the doctor. “I got delayed.”

“No problem.” Dr. Rutledge stood upon the nurse’s entrance. “Mr. and Mrs. Reiss, this is Kathleen O’Hara, the nurse practitioner who has been assigned to Tyler. She’ll be your contact person who can answer all your questions during Tyler’s treatment.”

Nodding perfunctorily to the nurse, Jackson waited only until they were seated before saying again, “What’s wrong with our son?”

Laurel tried to concentrate on the rather technical information the doctor gave them for the next ten minutes or so, but the words seemed to fly past her in a haze. She absorbed just enough to understand that her precious three-year-old son was suffering from a potentially fatal heart-valve defect.

“The good news is that we’ve caught the condition early,” Dr. Rutledge assured them, leaning slightly toward Laurel as he spoke. “All too often the first sign of trouble is when a young person with this defect—usually a male in his late teens or early twenties—drops dead after participating in a rigorous sport. That’s not going to happen with Tyler because we know what we’re dealing with.”

“You said he’ll need a couple of operations. One now and one more as he grows.” Jackson’s voice was rather hoarse. Glancing his way, Laurel saw that the sun lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened, and that much of the color had drained from his tanned face. “How dangerous are those operations?”

“I won’t lie to you. There’s always a risk during surgery.” The surgeon spent another few minutes outlining the possible complications, what Laurel had always thought of as the medical “C.Y.A.” spiel. He spoke with practiced compassion, a speech he had obviously made many times before.

Laurel had to make an effort to sit still and listen quietly when every maternal cell within her was urging her to run screaming to Tyler’s side, where she could gather him into her arms and protect him from harm. This wasn’t just any sick child Michael Rutledge was discussing in such bewilderingly complex terms. This was Laurel’s baby. The one perfect part of her life.

Jackson was the one who sprang to his feet, beginning to pace the small room with the barely restrained ferocity of a caged tiger. “How did this happen?” he demanded. “Was Tyler born with this condition or has something gone wrong since?”

“This is a congenital defect. He was born with it.”

Was it her fault? Laurel had tried to take very good care of herself during her pregnancy, staying away from caffeine, alcohol and cigarette smoke, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, taking her vitamins—everything she had been advised to do. Had she done something wrong, after all?

“The condition is almost always inherited,” the doctor explained further. “The condition occurs most frequently in males. Perhaps one of you can remember uncles or cousins, even siblings who died of heart failure in childhood or early adulthood.”

Laurel looked at Jackson, who was looking back at her in question. She shook her head. Her father had taken off when she was young, but she remembered him as a sports enthusiast who bragged about how healthy his family had always been.

Her mother’s family was known for long life spans. Both of Laurel’s maternal grandparents were still living back in Michigan, as far as she knew, though her extended family had been estranged since her mother had moved here to Portland, Oregon when Laurel was just a baby. Laurel’s mother, Janice, had said often that she expected to live to a ripe old age, since everyone in her family did—even the ones who smoked and drank and ate anything they wanted, she had boasted.

Janice had died young, but that had been due to stupidity rather than heredity. Janice had been driving drunk after a party.

“I can’t remember hearing anything like that about my mother’s family or my dad’s, but I’ll ask them,” Jackson said, pushing a hand through his hair again.

Laurel’s hands clenched suddenly in her lap. “Does this mean that my husband could have the same defect? Is he also at risk?”

“I’m 31,” Jackson reminded her. “I played football in high school and I’ve been doing construction work for years without a problem.”

“Which is a good indicator, but a thorough physical examination certainly wouldn’t hurt,” the doctor advised.

Laurel and Jackson had grown apart during the past three years, but she didn’t want to think about him being in danger. She was actually rather surprised by how strongly she had reacted when the possibility had entered her mind.

Now she concentrated fully again on her son. “When can I see Tyler?”

Dr. Rutledge pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “We’re running a couple more tests, but he should be back in his room in a half hour or so. I’ll send someone to the waiting room for you as soon as he’s ready. In the meantime, Kathleen has several permission and release forms to discuss with you. She’ll tell you more about what to expect during the next few weeks and answer any further questions for you. I’ll be seeing you both again soon.”

“Thank you,” Jackson said.

Laurel could only nod. She found herself unable to thank the surgeon for giving her news that had shaken the very foundation of her life. If something went wrong…if she lost Tyler…

She couldn’t even bear to think of that now.

“Dr. Rutledge has scheduled Tyler’s surgery for seven-thirty Friday morning, the day after tomorrow,” Kathleen began, opening the thick file to the first form. “Normally it would take a bit longer to arrange, but he had an unexpected opening and thought you might prefer to get this behind you.”

Jackson nodded. “He was right.”

“Good. Then we’ll start preoperative evaluation this afternoon—chest X-rays, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, oxygen saturation. Tomorrow you should be able to meet with the other members of Tyler’s cardiology team—the anesthesiologist and the intensive-care staff who will take care of him after surgery. He’ll be on a ventilator for several hours afterward, maybe overnight, until he’s awake enough and his heart appears strong enough to discontinue the breathing assistance. We’ll keep him here for seven to fourteen days, depending on how quickly he rebounds. You’ll be fully briefed on recovery care before he leaves us.”

Ventilator. Laurel gulped, barely hearing anything else the briskly professional woman said. The nightmare just kept getting more horrifying.

Jackson had several more questions for Kathleen, and Laurel tried to pay attention, but she had nothing to ask. She couldn’t think clearly enough to form a coherent question.

After Jackson had signed all the forms—Laurel’s hands were shaking too hard to hold a pen—the nurse closed her file. “I’ll go check on Tyler. The two of you are welcome to use this room for a few more minutes if you need some private time. Someone will let you know if the conference room is needed.”

Laurel could only nod again, clenching her jaw to hold back the tortured cry that seemed to be lodged in her throat.

Jackson watched the nurse let herself out of the conference room. The room was entirely too small. There seemed to be barely enough oxygen for two people. Tugging at the open collar of his denim shirt as though it were choking him, he turned to pace again, crossing the entire floor in four long strides.

His entire body practically vibrated with the need for action, the urge to do something to solve this crisis. That was his responsibility, wasn’t it? To keep his family safe and happy. He hadn’t been doing so well in the latter area lately, especially with his wife, but he had done his best to keep them safe. And now even that had slipped beyond his control.

What good was a father who couldn’t protect his child?

Swallowing a sound that could have become a string of curses or a howl of anguish, he pushed his hands more deeply into his pockets and turned to look at Laurel. She sat on the edge of her chair, her back very straight, both hands in her lap, both feet on the floor. Her shoulder-length, dark-blond hair fell in neatly arranged layers, and her red jacket fit her slender frame perfectly. In contrast to that cheery tone, her lovely face was drained of color, so pale she could have been carved of ivory.

When he had met her almost four years ago, Laurel had been a laughing, ebullient, self-admitted party girl. Drawn to her spirit and her laughter, Jackson had swept her into a whirlwind courtship and a hasty marriage. Barely ten months later, their son was born.

Sometime during the course of their marriage, Jackson had realized that Laurel’s laughter and chatter were as effective as any mask at hiding her true thoughts and feelings. As the months of their marriage passed, she had become quieter and more withdrawn from him. He could honestly say that she was even more of a stranger to him now than on the day they had met.

The one thing he knew without hesitation was that she adored their son. She had to be in agony now, just as he was.

He wished she would turn to him for comfort. That was something useful he could do, at least, perhaps finding some reassurance for himself in the process. But in all the time he had known her, he had never heard Laurel ask for anything. Her rather fierce self-sufficiency had drawn him to her at the beginning, but for the past three years it had been slowly driving them apart.

He felt compelled to make the effort anyway. Moving to stand behind her chair, he rested a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension vibrating in her muscles. “Laurel?”

She looked up at him. “Dr. Rutledge said Tyler should be fine after surgery.”

Jackson suspected she was repeating the doctor’s words as much to reassure herself as him. “Tyler will be fine, Laurel. Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

She swallowed visibly and nodded. Her fingers clenched so tightly in her lap that he heard a knuckle pop. “He’s so little,” she whispered, her sapphire-blue eyes filling with tears. “And they’re going to cut him open…”

Acting on instinct, Jackson drew her somewhat roughly to her feet and into his arms. She stood stiffly there for a moment, and he began to wonder if she would push him away. But then she collapsed against him, her body wracked with shudders as she clung to the front of his shirt. She wasn’t crying, exactly, he noted as he gathered her closer and rested his cheek against her soft hair, but her breath caught in ragged gasps that told him she was holding back sobs with an effort.

His protective-male instincts kicked into full force again. He wanted to promise her anything, do whatever it took to make their son well and ease Laurel’s pain. If he could trade places with Tyler, he would do so in a heartbeat. If money would solve the problem, he would get it somehow, even if it meant working longer than the twelve- to sixteen-hour days he already put in.

It tormented him that there was absolutely nothing he could do. His child’s well-being was in other people’s hands now. He hated that.

The conference-room door opened and an attractive woman in her early fifties rushed in, followed closely by a stocky, worried-looking older man.

“Jackson!” Donna Reiss clutched his arm as Laurel moved abruptly away. “The receptionist told us you were in here. What’s wrong with Tyler?”

Glancing quickly at Laurel, who had composed her face again into an inscrutable mask, Jackson knew their momentary bonding was over. Her thoughts were hidden from him now, as they so often were. Laurel didn’t seem to need him just then, so he turned, instead, to the person who did.

Taking his mother’s trembling hands, he squeezed comfortingly. “I’ll try to explain what the doctor told us.”

She clung to him, gazing up at him with both love and fear in her eyes. In contrast to Laurel, Donna always wore her emotions where everyone could see them. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s going to need open-heart surgery, but the doctor seemed confident the condition is correctable.”

“Open-heart surgery?” Donna repeated weakly. “Oh, no.”

Feeling her sway a bit, Jackson helped her into a chair. “Dad, do you want to sit down?”

Carl Reiss shook his gray head and moved to stand behind his wife. Like Jackson, Carl preferred to be on his feet, ready to do whatever he was called upon to do.

“Tell us what’s going on, Jay,” he said simply, using the nickname he always called his son. And then he glanced at Laurel. “Maybe you should sit, Laurel. You look awfully pale.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She crossed her arms more tightly over her chest and stood against one wall, as far away physically from the others as possible. And even farther away emotionally, Jackson thought.

Looking stricken anew, Donna turned in her chair to face her daughter-in-law. “Laurel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that I was so worried. But you must be frantic. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” The words were exactly the same she had used to answer Carl, but, as always, her tone was just a shade cooler when she spoke to her mother-in-law.

Donna directed her attention back to Jackson. “Tell me everything.”

He told her as much as he could remember, from the frantic call he had received from Laurel that morning through the talk with Dr. Rutledge. “They’re running a few more tests now,” he concluded. “We’ll be notified as soon as we can see him.”

One hand at her throat, Donna shook her head in disbelief. “Thank goodness Beverly is a former nurse’s aide who recognized the signs that something was wrong! If it hadn’t been for her, we might not have had any warning until it was too late.”

Laurel moved abruptly toward the door. “Excuse me. I need to…freshen up. Find me if they come for us,” she added to Jackson on her way out.

Knowing she wouldn’t want him to, he didn’t try to follow her.

Closed into the dubious privacy of a ladies’ room stall, Laurel finally let herself cry. She couldn’t handle this, she thought. Anything else but this.

Maybe if she had been a better mother. More attentive. A perfect stay-at-home mom, like Donna Reiss had been. Then Laurel, rather than Tyler’s nanny, would have been the one who had made note of the light-blue tinge around the boy’s lips after he’d been running, or the slightly ragged edge to his breathing at times.

Despite all the times she had played with him, tickled him, run with him, Laurel had never seen the warning signs. It had taken a nurse’s-aide-turned-nanny to realize that something was very wrong.

Laurel felt like such a failure as a mother—something she had feared since the day she had been told, to her shock, that she was pregnant. Still barely used to the idea of being a wife, she had almost panicked at the prospect of parenthood. What did she know about being a mother when she had never really had one herself?