The Tycoon's Son. Shawna Delacorte
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a picture of Wyatt and her at a party, the night they had ended up making love on the beach.
It was the night their son had been conceived.
She closed her eyes as she held the photograph to her heart. In a barely audible voice she whispered the feelings that she had tried so desperately to bury. “I’ve tried to purge you from my existence, erase the memory of what I thought we once meant to each other. But, God help me, I havcn’t been able to do it.”
She forced away the tears that tried to well in her eyes. It had been a little less than a month after the photo was taken that Wyatt had disappeared from her life. His father said Wyatt had felt smothered by her. She tried to think, tried to put herself back in that place again. Was it possible that she had unconsciously made emotional demands on him following their night of lovemaking? She had not meant to. Making love had been as much her responsibility as it had been his.
She shook her head. She did not know what had happened.
She replaced the photograph, locked the box, and put it back on the shelf. Then she did something she had never done before. Rather than going back to work, she poured herself a glass of wine and took it to the glass-walled back porch.
She sat all alone and sipped her wine while she thought about the future. She had handled the shock of losing her mother when she was still in high school, of Wyatt leaving her, of discovering she was pregnant with Wyatt’s child, of her husband dying and now her father’s death. She did not know if she had enough strength left to endure any more—and that most certainly included Wyatt’s sudden reappearance in her life.
Richie had been without a father and role model during his formative adolescent years. He would soon be fifteen. Somehow she had to find a way to make everything work out while seeing to it that her son was protected from any more emotional upheavals. She sat quietly on the porch, vacillating between memories from the past, the problems of the present, and her fears of what the future held.
“Mom! What are you doing home?”
Richie’s voice startled her. She had not heard him come in. She glanced at her watch. “Oh...I didn’t realize it was so late.” She looked over at her son, who was standing in the doorway. “I just needed a little break from work, that’s all.” She stood up, taking her empty wineglass with her. “I’d better get back to the store. You get busy on your homework and I’ll start dinner in a couple of hours.”
“I don’t have any homework. I did it all at school.”
Vicki looked skeptically at him. “How did you manage that?”
“Mrs. Winters had some kind of emergency and had to leave, so my last class was just a study hall. I did everything then.” Richie turned toward the door. “So, I’m going to ride on the trail in the hills.”
“Okay, but be sure you’re back in two hours.” She called after him as he ran out the door, “You stay away from Mrs. Thackery’s house. I don’t want her complaining to me again.”
Wyatt had tried to force himself to work all afternoon, but he could not concentrate on anything other than the feel of having Vicki in his arms once again. It had been an impulsive gesture, one that he should not have given in to. She’d had him wrapped around her little finger once before, then walked out on him. The last thing he needed was for her to realize how easy it would be for her to accomplish it again. He did not want her to see the extremely vulnerable spot that still existed inside him where Victoria Dalton Bingham was concerned.
He finally gave up trying to work, left the house and strolled down the path toward the stables. Maybe a hard ride through the hills would settle the nervous tension churning inside him.
Fred Olson looked up from his desk when Wyatt entered the tack room, a quizzical expression covering his face. “Afternoon, Wyatt. Somethin’ I can do for ya?”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt you, Fred. I thought I’d take one of the horses out for a ride.”
“Need any help saddlin’ up?”
“I can handle it, thanks.” Wyatt grabbed a saddle, blanket and bridle and left the tack room.
It was just the type of afternoon for a brisk ride. The sky was blue, the sun just warm enough to take the coolness from the air without removing the crispness. He urged his horse into a trot as he cut across a field toward the stand of trees that marked the edge of the old trail he had enjoyed so much as a young man. Just as he emerged from the trees to join the trail, something flashed around a corner, startling his horse.
The animal reared, throwing Wyatt off his back, and the dirt bike and its rider skidded into a ditch. A moment later a teenage boy ran toward Wyatt as he lay on the ground.
“Are you okay, mister?”
Wyatt slowly got to his feet, testing his left leg before putting his full weight on it. He brushed the dirt from his jeans. “Yes, I seem to be all right. How about you?”
“Yeah.” The teenager glanced back over his shoulder. “But I don’t know about my bike.”
Wyatt grabbed the reins of his horse, then walked toward the ditch. “Well, let’s take a look at it and see. ”
The boy set the bike upright and Wyatt bent down to check the frame and wheels. A couple of minutes later he stood up. “It seems to be okay, except for some scratches in the paint. Hop on it and see if it rides the way it should.”
Wyatt watched as the young man rode about fifty feet down the trail and then back again. “How does it handle?”
“Handles okay,” the boy replied.
“You do know you’re trespassing on private property—” he saw the objection form on the boy’s face and his posture take on a defensive stance “—although the signs seem to have disappeared and I saw where the fence needs replacing.”
He scrutinized the teenage boy for a moment. “So, what are you doing out here zipping around a horse trail on a dirt bike? Do you live somewhere nearby?” he asked, neither angry nor accusatory, merely curious.
“Yeah, I live in town. Me and my friend Tim were riding on this trail the other day. I didn’t know this was someone’s property. I guess Tim didn’t know it either.”
Wyatt placed his foot in the stirrup and swung up on his horse. He looked down at the teenage boy, taking a moment to study him before speaking. “Try to be more careful from now on, okay?”
“Sure thing, mister.” The boy got back on his bike and rode in the direction of town.
Wyatt watched as the boy disappeared around the curve in the trail. Something about him touched Wyatt, something that seemed familiar, but he did not know what it was or why. The disturbing feeling continued to nag at him as he rode back to his house.
Richie arrived home just as Vicki returned from work. He did not move fast enough to hide the results of his mischief from her scrutiny.
“What happened here, Richie? How did you rip your shirt and what happened to your bike?”
“It’s nothing, Mom. I was riding in the hills and some guy came out of the woods on a horse. He got thrown off and I skidded into a ditch. That’s all. It was no big deal.”
“No big deal? Someone could have been seriously injured. Who was this man?”
“I don’t know, just some guy on a horse.”
“He didn’t tell you his name?”
The irritation sounded in Richie’s voice. “I don’t know who he was. He didn’t get hurt. I didn’t get hurt. The horse didn’t get hurt. My bike only got a couple of scratches. That’s all there was to it.”
“What, uh...” The nervous jitter started in the pit of her stomach. “What did this man look like?”
“I