She choked a little. “So blind,” she whispered, sounding far away—more than thirty years in the past, Jackson figured.
He stayed quiet, knowing she would continue when she was ready, but keeping a supporting hold on her cold, trembling hands.
“One morning this man came in for coffee. Oh, he was something. Blond, blue-eyed, tanned. Expensive clothes and a way of carrying himself that let everyone know he was somebody important. He was in his mid-thirties—seventeen years older than I was. I took one look at him and I fell hard. I’m pretty sure I made a fool of myself fawning all over him, flirting and flaunting myself at him. When he left, he tipped me twenty dollars for a three-dollar order of pie and coffee. I spent the rest of the morning giggling and daydreaming about him. The next day he came back.”
It wasn’t hard to guess where the story was leading. His jaw clenched, Jackson nodded for her to go on.
“He was married,” she said flatly. “He had children. But he told me his marriage was an unhappy one, and that his wife was a cold, bitter woman who didn’t understand him. I fell for it like the silly, shallow teenager I was.
“I was his mistress for almost two years. I suspected that I wasn’t the only one, but I refused to believe it, because the things he said to me sounded so perfect and sincere. He told me he would leave his wife as soon as he could do so without causing too much pain to his kids.”
She swallowed audibly. “He gave me money, but he wanted me to keep my job at the diner. I didn’t ask him why, but I kept working. I saw Carl there almost every day. He knew I was headed for big trouble, and he tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I liked him a great deal, considered him a friend, but I was too stupid then to know the difference between a real, decent man and a flashy, selfish opportunist.”
“You’re being awfully hard on yourself, Mom,” Jackson murmured. “You were just a kid, for crying out loud.”
“I should have known better,” she argued flatly. “I did know better. But I didn’t care about his wife or his kids. I wanted him to marry me. I wanted the money, the prestige, the good life he shared with them. The more demanding I became, the further he drew away. Until he quit coming around all together. I hounded him, chased after him, begged him. We had a big scene when he told me it was over. I was devastated.”
“And that’s when you turned to Dad?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She swallowed, then said woodenly, “A few weeks after the big break-up, I realized I was pregnant.”
Jackson’s heart fell into the pit o
f his stomach. Acting on blind instinct, he released her hands and sprang to his feet, shoving his fists into the pockets of his jeans.
A startled curse escaped him in a hiss. His mother didn’t even bother to reprimand him for it, as she would have at any other time.
Several long moments passed while Jackson tried to deal with all the implications of her admission. And then Donna spoke again, her voice barely recognizable. “I waited until it was too late for an abortion before I contacted him again. I was convinced he would leave his wife and family then. It never occurred to me that he would refuse even to talk to me. I got a note from him denying that he was the father of my child, threatening to expose me as a slut and a gold digger, and ordering me to stay away from him. I received that letter on my twenty-first birthday. I was almost six months pregnant.”
The sound that escaped Jackson then sounded much like a growl. He couldn’t seem to make himself look at her now. He stood with his back half turned to her, his head down.
Donna didn’t give him time to speak before she forged on. There was no emotion at all in her voice now, just an obvious determination to finish this. “Carl was worried about me. He came to my apartment to check on me, and he found me unconscious. I had taken a handful of pills. The letter I had received was lying beside me.
“He rushed me to the hospital, where the staff saved my life…and yours. Carl has always said you must have had a really efficient guardian angel, because you survived that to develop into a full-term seven-and-a-half pound baby, and because you were never seriously injured in any of the reckless stunts you pulled as an active, growing boy.”
Carl, Jackson thought with a hard swallow. The dad he had grown up idolizing and emulating. The man he now knew was not his biological father.
Donna moistened her lips before saying, “Carl convinced me to marry him a few days after I was released from the hospital. I was scared and depressed and lost, and he wanted to take care of me. He hasn’t stopped taking care of me—of us—since. He loved me without question. He loved you with all his heart from the moment he first held you in his arms. And before our first anniversary had passed, I had learned the difference between obsessive infatuation and true love.”
A stranger’s voice came from Jackson’s mouth when he asked, “Why are you telling me this now?”
And why the hell haven’t you told me before?
“I figured it was inevitable that you would start asking more questions about blood types and genetic history. That there was a risk you would figure it out for yourself. And I thought both you and Tyler deserved to know what other medical conditions you might have inherited.
“I contacted the man who fathered you and asked him about the heart defect. He admitted that he’s had heart problems himself, and that he lost several cousins and uncles to early heart attacks—a couple who were only in their early twenties. He’s going to warn his other children to watch for the condition in their families and to be screened for the defect themselves.”
His other children. Jackson’s half-siblings. He couldn’t go there right now. “I need to think about this.”
“I know. But I need to tell you one more thing. You should know who your real father is.”
For the first time since he’d been a kid, Jackson wanted to yell at his mother. He wanted to shout at her that his real father was Carl Reiss. And he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything in his life for it to be the truth. “I don’t care what his name is.”
“You need to know,” she insisted. “It’s Jack Crosby.”
It took him a moment to place the name. And then he scowled. “The computer millionaire?”
“Yes. He has become a very wealthy, powerful man. He’s almost seventy now, married to his second wife, who’s much younger than he is, of course. And he wants to meet you.”