The Secret Heir. Gina Wilkins

them started guiltily when they saw Laurel.

      “I thought you two were on your way home,” she said, hoping her voice sounded natural. “Is anything wrong?”

      Donna made a visible effort to pull herself together. “I’m just having a bit of a panic attack, I suppose. Even though I’m confident everything will go well tomorrow, I can’t help but dread it a bit.”

      There was obviously much more to Donna’s distress than concern about Tyler’s surgery. Knowing this wasn’t the time to pursue it, Laurel merely nodded. “I know. I feel the same way.”

      “I’m taking her home to rest now,” Carl said, tucking Donna’s arm beneath his and moving toward Laurel. “I hope you manage to get some sleep tonight.”

      “I’ll try.”

      Carl reached out to rest a work-roughened hand against Laurel’s cheek. “You lean on Jay through this, you hear? He’s a strong man. He’ll take care of you.”

      Laurel knew Carl was trying to help, but her instinctive response was to assure him that she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She was strong. She’d always had to be. She had learned very early in her life that being strong and self-sufficient earned her the respect and approval of others, while depending on someone else too often led to disappointment and heartbreak.

      “Take Donna home,” she said rather than directly responding to his words. “She needs to rest.”

      Both Carl and Donna looked vaguely disappointed by Laurel’s evasion, but then, she was used to sensing disapproval in them, she thought as she watched them walk toward the elevators. Still thinking of the words she had overheard, she entered Tyler’s room.

      Jackson sat in the rocking chair with Tyler on his knee as they watched a cartoon on the television together. Scooby-Doo. Their favorite.

      As usual, Tyler clutched the stuffed penguin he called Angus. Jackson had bought him that toy on one of their trips to the Oregon Zoo. Tyler was almost obsessed with the famous Humboldt penguins display there. He never tired of watching the funny little creatures waddling along their rock walkways or torpedoing through the waves and currents of their pool. Whenever Jackson took a rare Saturday afternoon off from work, he and Tyler usually visited the zoo, their special place.

      Laurel paused just inside the doorway for a moment, studying them. They looked so much alike. So perfect together.

      Emotions roiled inside her as she looked at them. Her feelings for Tyler, at least, were clear-cut. Overwhelming love. Pride. Fear for his future.

      It wasn’t so easy to define the way she felt about Jackson.

      He glanced up when she entered. Though he noted the soft-drink bottle in her hand, he made no comment other than to say, “Your boss called while you were out. He said to call if you need him or Emma for any reason. Said they would be checking on you tomorrow.”

      “That was thoughtful of him.”

      Jackson’s grunt could have been an agreement, or merely an acknowledgement that she had spoken. They rarely talked about her job, or his either, for that matter, since their work seemed to represent so many of the problems between them.

      Laurel settled in the recliner, cradling her soft drink between her hands. “I saw your parents on their way out,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Your mother seemed rather stressed.”

      “I thought so, too.” He glanced at Tyler, whose attention was still focused on the television program. “I guess we can both understand why.”

      “I suppose.” But Donna hadn’t been fretting about the surgery. Laurel had gotten the distinct impression that her mother-in-law was worried about something else instead. It had sounded very much as if Donna were keeping a secret from her son—a secret she was terrified Jackson would discover.

      Laurel couldn’t help speculating about what that secret was, especially since Donna had worried about medical tests bringing it to light. Was Jackson adopted?

      And if that were the case, how would Jackson react to the news if he were to find out? Why would Donna and Carl have kept it from him?

      Through her job with the adoption agency, Laurel frequently counseled prospective adoptive couples. Her advice was that such information should be provided to the adopted children from an early age. Secrets had a way of coming to the surface, and it was easier for everyone concerned if the truth was known from the start.

      Knowing how close Jackson was to his parents, she couldn’t begin to predict how he would react if he found out they had kept something like this from him for so long.

      Laurel was also disturbed by Donna’s comment about the strained state of Jackson’s marriage. Had Jackson been talking to his parents about her? The very possibility made her chest tighten.

      She stretched out in the recliner, propping her feet up as she took another sip of her drink, then set the capped bottle aside for later. She hadn’t slept much the night before, and weariness and stress were catching up with her.

      Still mentally replaying Donna’s overheard words, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sounds of the cartoon and Tyler’s giggles wash over her.

      Laurel dreamed of the day she met Jackson.

      The summer-afternoon party wasn’t a typical event for either of them. The purpose of the gathering was to celebrate the adoption of the homeowners’ infant son, and Laurel had been invited as the social worker who had helped arrange the adoption. The new father was a successful businessman who had recently hired the construction company Jackson worked for to build several new stores for him. Jackson, along with several of his management-level co-workers, had been invited to the gathering to welcome their client’s son.

      Later Laurel would think 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 her when their hands touched.

      They had left the party together a short while later. They’d driven to Cannon Beach, where they’d walked barefoot in the sand at sunset, listening to the shorebirds that nested on Haystack Rock. The salty breeze tossed their hair and tugged at their clothes—clothes they had abandoned in a hidden nook among the rocks after sunset. They had been daring and reckless and impetuous that night. By dawn the next morning, they had been in love.

      She dreamed of that beach. Of the birds and the rocks and the sand and the stars spread above them like an endless, bright future. She dreamed 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 of them had been prepared for….

      It was his gentle touch on her cheek that woke her.

      She opened her eyes to find Jackson’s face close to hers as he knelt beside the recliner. The room was quiet now, the television dark and silent. Tyler lay on the bed, curled around his penguin, sound asleep. Even the clatter from the hallway seemed unusually muted just then.

      “How long have I been asleep?” she asked, her voice still husky.

      “About an hour. You really went out.” His thumb moved against her cheek again. “There are tears on your face. Are you worried about tomorrow?”

      Tears? Remembering snatches of her dream, she pushed herself upright and ran a hand through her hair. “I suppose I am.”

      “It’s going to be okay, Laurel. Everything’s going to be okay.” His tone, combined with the set of his jaw, made it clear he would accept no other possibility.

      That obsessive need of his to be in control, to make sure everything in his world turned out exactly the way he wanted it to, was etched all over his face.

      As if he had read something of her thoughts in her expression, Jackson gave her a crooked smile. “I sound just like my dad, don’t I? Making