A Dad At Last by Marie Ferrarella Page A

could. Easily. He proved it the moment he discovered I was pregnant.” She eased herself past the shell of pain that still lingered, even after all this time. “In one of those funny little twists of life, he turned out to be a very distant cousin of the Maitlands’, disgruntled and bitter at the way life had lefthim in the shadows while shining down on Harland Maitland and his family.
    â€œBut none of that mattered to me. What did was that I was pregnant and determined to have my baby even though my father tried to convince me to find a way to ‘shed my problem.’” It was her father’s euphemism, not hers. There was a fresh emptiness in her heart. Her father had sold her baby. Megan didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to forgive him. “When I wouldn’t follow his advice, he decided to take matters into his own hands. The day I gave birth quickly became the saddest day of my life.” Unconsciously, she raised her chin, still needing to stave off the pain the memory generated. “My father told me my baby had been born dead.” Megan felt tears gathering, and she struggled to keep them back. “I was sure it was somehow my fault. I had no way of knowing that my father had sold his own grandson to Harland Maitland, who turned around and presented that baby to his only daughter, Clarise, and her husband, Jack O’Hara.”
    She wanted to look at Connor, to see his expression as she made these revelations to everyone. To see if she could glean how he felt.
    But she was afraid to. Afraid he was still bonded to Clarise and would resent her for any perceived criticism of the only mother he’d ever known. Or that the entire experience of being lied to had left him hollow and lacking any emotions at all.
    Jake ran his hand along the back of his neck. The hairs there were prickling. “So how did you discover what happened?”
    After having the family beset by a legion of women, all claiming that Chase was the product of a union between them and one of the Maitland men, including him, he held any revelation suspect at the moment. He’d taken a liking to Connor, had been there when the original deception about the false Connor had been uncovered. But this was asking all of them to take a giant leap of faith.
    â€œThere’s a paper trail,” Megan answered, and she thanked God for it. Otherwise, who knew how long they would all be in limbo while this was being untangled and verified? “The secret apparently was too much for Harland to bear, and just before his death he put everything down in two letters, one for William and one for Clarise. Somehow Jack intercepted the letter for Clarise and found out the baby was mine. That’s when he engineered a rift with William and took Clarise and their son, my son—” she had to add that, needed to make the distinction “—and moved away. By this time Connor was already three, and Jack must have figured Clarise would be devastated to give the baby up. Apparently Clarise didn’t find out the truth until her husband died when Connor was sixteen. Even then she chose not to tell her son the whole story, but wrote him a letter and entrusted it, with Harland’s letter, to her lawyer, instructing both to be delivered on the first anniversary of her death.”
    Megan sighed and looked regretfully at Connor. “I should never have believed Petey when he claimed to be you, but his version of what happened was exactly the same as yours, and you have Clarise’s letter to prove it.”
    Megan had tried putting herself in Clarise’s place, all those years ago, and she could understand the woman’s actions. Clarise was probably afraid that Connor might curse her memory and Jack’s once he discovered the deception about his birth.
    While he sympathized with what his mother had to be going through, making this painful revelation to them, R.J. still harbored a few doubts