The Secret Son. Tara Taylor Quinn

      At the flat stomach he’d been admiring in that alarmingly gorgeous gown she’d been wearing so elegantly all evening.

      You, me and another man’s baby, he amended. So heartsick he was dizzy for a moment.

      Even if it hadn’t been months since he’d made love to his wife, the baby she was carrying couldn’t be his. During his early twenties, Jefferson had contracted mumps. He’d been left sterile.

      “What do you want to do?” He found the question floating somewhere in the red haze of his mind.

      “I have no idea.” She shook her head, looked up at him with complete honesty. “I know it’s ludicrous and completely unfair, but all I’ve been able to think about is talking to you. It’s what I always do when I can’t figure something out.”

      A patch of clearness appeared in the haze. “So let’s start with the basics,” he said.

      She needed him to help her sort out the problem. He knew how to do that.

      She needed him. He could think again.

      “I’m pregnant,” she said, as though making a list. “I’m never seeing Jack again.”

      “You’re going to have the baby.” He knew that wasn’t an option. He was, publicly at least, a right-to-lifer. She was, too.

      Before life had become so confused, he’d been a right-to-lifer, period. But he’d been in Washington a long time. He’d heard stories, seen things. Too many things. He wasn’t sure where he stood, personally, on most issues anymore. There were always two sides.

      With good people, well-intentioned people, on each of them.

      Erica was staring at him, her eyes wide. Startled. He raised his brows in question.

      “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she said, sounding more like the little girl of twelve she’d been when he’d first met her twenty years before.

      Since he’d married Erica, people had been saying he’d robbed the cradle. No one knew that, most of the time, Erica was the more mature of the two. She was so determined. So focused and sure of her course.

      She sat tall, holding herself rigid, one slim body against the world—hiding so much. He’d never seen Erica let herself need anyone. Except for me, he reminded himself. That stood for something. Everything.

      Jefferson’s needs vanished. His fears, the pain and disappointment, were buried beneath the compulsion that was stronger than self.

      Picking Erica up, he cradled her like a child. Carried her to their bed. Lay down with her, turning her so he could spoon his body around hers. Enveloping her in his safety. He did this because she allowed herself to take comfort from him.

      For those moments Jefferson did what he could to protect her from the agonies of living.

      Just as he’d been trying to do—in one way or another—for most of her life. Far more important than career, fantasies or ambitions, Erica was everything to him. Precious. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t return his love, that she couldn’t love him the same way he loved her.

      Eventually Erica turned over, cuddled next to him, her pale face only an inch from his own. “I don’t know how to protect you from this,” she said. “I can’t stand it that you’re going to be irrevocably hurt, no matter what. That you’ve done nothing, and yet you’ll pay the greatest price.”

      Done nothing? He’d married a woman young enough to be his daughter. Robbed her of the chance to find a man who could raise the passion of youth in her.

      A man who could give her children.

      But for now, none of that was important. Now they were solving problems. Dealing with facts.

      “Don’t you think you should contact your Jack?” Her Jack. He hated those words, punished himself with them.

      “I can’t.”

      “Why not?” Tense, Jeff waited to hear that the other man had used Erica and then dumped her. Waited, knowing he’d have to fight the urge to hunt the other man down and kill him with his bare hands.

      “Because I don’t have any way to find him.”

      “He refused to give you even that much?” The acid was back.

      “No, he tried. I didn’t want to know how to find him.”

      “Because of me.”

      “Yes.”

      He’d spent the past three years reaching for heaven. And landed in hell.

      “So we’ll track him down.”

      “No, Jeff. In the first place, he’s unlisted.”

      “He’s FBI.”

      “Ex. He’s independent. And good. You know as well as I do that means he’ll be untraceable. They’ll protect him. He doesn’t exist.”

      Still, there were ways. “And in the second place?”

      “It won’t make any difference to him.”

      “Trust me,” he told her, lying as close to her as he could get. “It’ll make a difference.”

      When she shook her head, dark tendrils of that short textured hairstyle he loved flew around her eyes. Making her look wild. Making him feel a little wild.

      She was his wife, dammit.

      His.

      “The baby will only be more reason to stay away from me,” she said softly.

      Jeff was finding it hard to believe that Erica had fallen for such an insensitive son of a bitch.

      “It’s too late for him, Jeff.”

      He listened while Erica gave him the horrifying account of two deaths—Jack Shaw’s wife and his baby daughter. Listened to her words, but heard how much Erica loved the other man. Heard the way her voice softened and knew that he was never going to instill that kind of love in her.

      Heard and felt hope die.

      And yet he knew she was probably right: It was too late for Jack.

      “And even if there wasn’t all that to contend with,” she said, her mouth still only an inch from his, “there’s his job. There’s no way a man like Jack could risk his life every day if he knew he was leaving behind someone who needed him every bit as much as the person he was going to save—because when he goes to work there’s the possibility that he’ll have to offer his life in exchange for that of a hostage.

      “The only way he can cope with Melissa and Courtney’s deaths is by spending his time preventing the same thing from happening to someone else. It makes their lives—and their deaths—count. They didn’t die in vain.”

      Jefferson could understand that, too.

      “So who has to know the baby isn’t mine? Other than you, I haven’t told anyone I’m sterile in over thirty years.” Jeff’s heart started to pound. Was he really considering fatherhood at his age?

      Adrenaline pumped through him. He felt a new surge of life, excitement and anticipation.

      Him. A father. It was a dream he’d given up forty years ago.

      Erica sat up. Her gown had slipped, revealing more of her cleavage than she normally exposed. “I can’t let you do that, Jeff,” she said. “I love you too much to see you make such a sacrifice.”

      She loved him.

      The front of his tuxedo pants was fuller than when he’d zipped them up a few hours ago.

      “What sacrifice?” he asked, thinking quickly. Desperately. He had a chance to keep the woman he loved.

      He looked up at her. Her flawless skin, full lips. The honesty blazing