Love on the Line (14 page)

The subtly painted walls of Dr. Garret’s office did nothing to calm Ryan’s nerves. He’d been wrong when he’d thought that the trainer’s table was his least favorite place to be. Sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for a cheek swab, listening to the muted sounds of the staff moving in the halls and the ring of phones in the distance, ratcheted his nerves into high gear. But he wanted to clear the slate. If the DNA test proved he wasn’t the father of Elaine’s child, maybe he could. Tom was persuasive; he saw now why the guy was one of the hottest attorneys in the country. He had a way of leveraging reason and facts. And he’d convinced Ryan that the fact the test would reveal was an important piece of information if Ryan was going to get a grip on his life going forward.

What Ryan hadn’t told Tom was that the main reason he was submitting to the humiliation of the DNA test was Cara.

He didn’t want to enter a relationship with her with any baggage he’d have to conceal. He didn’t want any baggage at all. A sensitive woman like her wouldn’t want to start a relationship with a guy who had a kid—a kid he wasn’t allowed to see, a kid that he’d signed away all rights to.

He’d left a message on her machine telling her he needed to move their date. And just to stack the odds in his favor, he’d said that if she didn’t call back, he’d be at her place at eight Sunday night. He’d just have to hope that the day game didn’t run into extra innings.

Tom had arranged an agreement and payoff with the judge: if the DNA test proved that the kid wasn’t Ryan’s, he’d pay out a lump sum and Elaine would have to sign a gag order. A gag order that would keep Ryan from becoming the center of a feeding frenzy for the press. Ryan said a silent prayer for the timing of the season—fans were more interested in the playoffs than they were in vague rumors about players’ lives.

The door opened and Dr. Garret came in.

He wasted no time in swabbing Ryan’s cheek. Ryan said another prayer of thanks when all the doctor asked about was whether Ryan thought the Giants could go all the way this year. A true fan was a blessing Ryan hadn’t counted on. He suspected that Tom had prepped the good doctor, told him of Ryan’s reluctance to submit to the test in the first place. How things had changed in a couple of weeks. Meeting Cara had made him want a life he’d never imagined. A life with roots, a fresh start in a community he was growing to love. But first he’d have to wait for the test results. It would be a very long four days.

When Tom’s number flashed on Ryan’s phone on Friday, Ryan’s muscles tightened from head to toe. He’d had four days to consider the possibility that the kid was his. Possible, but not likely. Still, even with the odds in his favor, the possibility left a sour feeling in his stomach. He’d wrestled with what he’d tell Cara if the unlikely chance morphed into a hard-core reality. Signing his rights away was the real kicker. What woman could love a man who’d turned his back on a kid? It didn’t matter that Elaine hadn’t offered him a choice. He hadn’t fought, he hadn’t tried. He hadn’t thought.

“I had them put a rush on your test like you asked,” Tom said. “No match. Not even close. The kid’s not yours.”

Tom’s words boomeranged in his head. He stared out his living room window, eyes fixed on the line of fencing across the back acreage. The light feeling he’d imagined didn’t come.

“This is good news, Ryan. I’m sending the sign-off papers over by courier.” He paused. “You there?”

“Just getting my head around it.” He paced to the window. “Thank you, Tom. For believing me.”

“It’s not about belief, buddy. This is about the truth.”

There was glee in Tom’s tone. And pride. Ryan didn’t feel either.

“Well, maybe this news will cheer you up—a minor league player stepped up to claim the child as his—he was a perfect DNA match. He has rights, Ryan, and he intends to exercise them. And he has a good attorney; I checked the guy out.” He paused again, perhaps sensing Ryan’s disbelief. “The father’s not rolling in bucks, but he’s a decent guy. The kid will have a dad. And maybe it’ll all work out for the three of them.”

Relief swept Ryan then, coursing into knotted spaces he hadn’t known he’d tied off. His relief was more for the kid than for himself. He would have worried about that kid for the rest of his life.

“You’re free.” Tom’s voice drilled into Ryan as the truth he’d known all along bloomed back to life.

“Go win us some games,” Tom said in a jovial tone. “I want to see one of those Series rings up close.” He chuckled and then added, “But be careful with the ladies. The Internet’s buzzing after that triple you blasted.”

He didn’t need Tom to caution him, but he appreciated his enthusiasm. And his excellence. He’d never have been free without Tom on his team. He had a night with Cara ahead, a night that he’d looked forward to more than he wanted to admit. And he could enter her world with a clear conscience, thanks to Tom’s dogged pursuit of the truth.

Chapter Eleven

Straight up, Alston. I need the numbers and timing straight up.” Cara didn’t mean to sound short with her attorney—no aspect of the hornet’s nest she was in was his fault. She tempered her voice when she asked, “How much do I have left out of my own funds that could go to the Albion Bay clinic project?”

“Maybe a hundred thousand, but more like fifty. You have several large three-year obligations to pay out, most from long-term grants you made before you moved to Albion Bay. The women’s shelter in the Bronx eats up most of your allocation.”

“The town council is determined to build out the whole project, all at once. Not do it piecemeal.” She didn’t succeed in hiding the exasperation in her voice.

“One could admire them for their vision.”

“In the meantime someone could
die
out here without better emergency access. It’s nuts. We’re talking bake sales, Alston. Do you know how long it will take for them to raise money with that sort of effort?”

“You never were much of a cook.”

She ignored his attempt at humor. “They rely on the local vet for emergencies,” she added.

“I shudder at the thought.”

“
My
side, Alston. You’re supposed to be on my side.” She flipped through her notes from the community meeting. “The way the town has set things up, there’s not even a way for me to have you anonymously funnel funds to an on-call doc. It’s absurd.”

He didn’t repeat his earlier argument that she could choose to step into her role as president of the Barrington Foundation and in a few months fund almost anything she wanted. For all his strait-laced manner, Alston was the one person who understood why she’d chosen to live a quiet life in Albion Bay.

He was the one person besides Quinn that she’d told about her near breakdown three years before. After Laci’s body had been found in the surging surf near a remote beach resort, she’d had to talk to someone. She’d tried to talk to Quinn. He was her twin, and they shared secrets and hopes, but Quinn didn’t get how deeply Laci’s death had shaken her. And her therapist had been on vacation in a remote village in Africa; and there was no way she was going to phone some on-call therapist she didn’t know and didn’t trust.

Alston had listened. Alston knew Laci’s family, knew that the family and Cara had tried for years to get Laci to go into rehab, had tried to help her escape the drugs and the vampires of the underbelly of the New York social scene. Twice Cara had driven Laci to a rehab center. And twice Laci had left before the first week was out.

When Laci had run off to Barbados with a guy she’d met in a club, Alston had helped Cara track her down. But they’d found her too late. The guy had dumped Laci for another partying heiress, an heiress who put out for him. Laci, unstable and abandoned, had taken her life. For almost a month, her sweet friend’s face had been plastered across the tabloids. Every tidbit about Laci’s life was fodder for the front covers of
Us Weekly
and
People
. A jilted, beautiful, jet-setting heiress taking her own life was the perfect story for media hype.

Cara made a decision the day the news broke. Laci’s death cemented her resolve to pry herself free and find a way to live the life she’d always dreamed of, a life where she would be appreciated for herself and not for her money. A life in a town where she could trust others because they wouldn’t have ulterior motives for being her friend.

No one knew how much time there was to live. She wasn’t willing to bet the odds.

But she hadn’t counted on the crushing guilt and fear that threatened to engulf her. For months she’d turned every conversation with Laci over in her mind. The if-onlys and the maybes and the what-ifs rushed at her until she could barely find the strength to dress and go to see her therapist.

Few people understood that she’d felt caged—forced to live in a world that didn’t suit her in any way. Her close friends would smile and nod, but no one really believed that she wanted out. That she wanted to live like a normal person, away from the hype. To live in a world where what she did mattered.

Leaving and starting over had been her road to sanity.

Settling into Albion Bay, wrapping the routines of a simple life around her, had helped her heal, helped her find her feet. Helped her carve out a life that had meaning.

Without Alston’s help, she never could’ve pulled it off.

But he was right, she faced a dilemma and there was nothing simple about it. It was one thing to turn her back on the hype, the lifestyle, the preconceived expectations that came with being born into privilege and wealth, and another entirely to deny that now that she’d seen up close what the foundation’s funds could do, how the money could be put to use, that she didn’t care.

She gripped the phone and rubbed at her throbbing temple with her other hand. Her chest tightened, constricting her breath. She’d fought for her freedom, and now the fight had turned on her. The community that had saved her, that had healed her, needed help for itself, a kind of help she could provide. But that help would come at a very dear price.

“Cara?” Alston’s voice pulled her back from her thoughts.

“I’m here. I was just thinking. What about submitting funding for the clinic as a discretionary grant?” She knew the idea was a dead end before the words left her mouth.

“If you don’t accept the presidency,” he said in a level voice, “you’d have to be voted on to the board. The next round of nominations comes up in a year. But even then, discretionary grants are limited to ten thousand dollars per member.”

“What about using capital from my personal foundation to fund the clinic?”

“We’ve been over this, Cara. Your foundation allows you to only spend interest; there’s no way around that. And as I said, the majority of your funds are already committed.”

“What if I sell my place in Southampton?” It was the one thing from her former life she hadn’t let go of. Too many good memories. And her brother still used it as a summer retreat.

“That would take time. Your parents would have to sign off on their share.”

“Theirs is a ten percent share, for goodness’ sake! I could buy them out tomorrow.”

“
If
they agreed. Let’s wait on thinking about the Southampton place—see what you do.”

“I’m not
doing
anything, Alston. We have to figure out a way around this.” She hated the petulant sound of her voice. But maybe petulance was always the sound made by creatures cornered by forces they couldn’t wrangle.

“What about the money he left to me directly, the money not in the foundation? You said it’s more than a billion dollars. Couldn’t I take a loan against it?”

“It’s not yours until you’re twenty-five.”

“Alston, there must be
something
you can do.”

The silence on the other end of the phone told her more than she wanted to know.

“Maybe Dray Bender would fund a grant for the clinic, pass it through?” Now she really was reaching.

Alston let out a sharp breath. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t. I suspect he’s funneling funds to people he owes favors. Besides, I have no leverage over him and neither do you, unless you’re at the helm. And if he sees the name of your town on a grant request, he’ll know where you are. It won’t take long for him to figure out your situation and play it to his advantage. And though your father has honored his promise to keep you under the radar, Bender is aware that you have high stakes in maintaining your anonymity. There’s nothing about the man to trust. He played your father, or he wouldn’t be heading the foundation.”

Cara rubbed at her forehead. When she’d set up her home in Albion Bay, she’d never expected to hit a wall like this. Sitting on the sidelines at town council meetings, knowing full well she could help, was torture. But did she have the strength to face reentering the world she’d fought to leave behind? The world that had crashed in on Laci?

She didn’t want to imagine how her relationships with people in town would change once word got out. People who weren’t outright angry at her deception would likely be polite—but she knew too darn well the gap that big money created. She’d faced that gap in boarding school with the scholarship girls and she’d faced it at nearly every non-profit she’d given grants to. The deference during site visits she couldn’t wriggle out of, the careful words and gestures by well-meaning staffers as they attempted to pretend that she was just like them. The people who tried to pretend there was no difference were almost worse than the ones who were awed by it. She hated it.
Hated
it.