Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(60)
“Yes, sir. I imagine I’ll feel the same way about my own kids.”
Because yes. He was going to be a father, and if some kid from the wrong side of the tracks knocked up his baby girl, he imagined he wouldn’t be quite as civilized as Frank Forbes.
Frank looked at him for a long minute.
Then, to Lucas’s extreme surprise, he sighed, all the anger seeping out of him like air from a balloon. He walked around his desk and hugged Lucas. “Welcome to the family. I don’t like how it happened, but I appreciate the fact that you’re owning up to your responsibilities. My daughter is smart, and she says you’re honorable and decent. She loves you, and whether I like it or not, you’re part of the family now.”
You could’ve knocked him over with a feather. Lucas had expected Frank Forbes to try to pay him off or threaten him. Possibly beat the shit out of him, which, Lucas admitted, he deserved.
Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Forbes took him and Ellen out to dinner that night. They asked about his family, expressed their condolence over the loss of his parents, murmured sympathetically when he told them the truth about his father’s criminal activity. In fact, Frank had already run a background check on him and knew full well how both parents died. And again, Lucas would’ve done the same for his daughter.
A daughter (or son) who was growing in Ellen’s belly right now.
Lucas did all the right things. Held her hand, held her chair, asked how she was feeling, went to the obstetrician’s office with her. He cooked for her, which she thought was charming, and listened to her when she talked.
He’d always wanted kids.
He couldn’t think about Colleen. That was forbidden now. He was with Ellen, and they were starting a family. The only thing to do was be a man about it.
Though it had been thrown together at the last minute, the wedding was at a huge downtown hotel with three hundred and fifty guests, five bridesmaids and an eleven-piece band at the reception. Frank made a speech and referred to Lucas as a fine young man who’d put himself through college, who knew the value of a hard day’s work. Hugged him, reminded him to treat Ellen like the princess she was, and seemed to bear him no ill will whatsoever.
Lucas went to work, worked hard, kept his head down and did what he was told. Came home to the beautiful apartment and talked with Ellen, who really was very nice. Put his hand on her belly and kissed her and smiled at her and slept with her, even if it still felt as though he was cheating on Colleen. If Ellen sensed something was off, she didn’t say anything.
And when they’d been married for six weeks, he got the call that Ellen was in the E.R. She wasn’t quite at twelve weeks, and the second he saw her face, he knew the baby was lost. Then he gathered her into his arms and kissed her head as she sobbed.
“It happens more than you might think,” the doctor said. “I’m very sorry.”
He took her home and lay in bed with her, holding her close. “You don’t have to stay married to me,” she whispered. “I know it was only because of the baby.”
He looked at her a long minute. “I’m not leaving you,” he said.
He’d been willing to stand by her when she was pregnant with his child; he damn well wasn’t going to leave her because of a cruel act of nature.
He grew to love her. Not the way he loved Colleen, no. But Ellen was good and calm and smart. He loved her parents, too—Grace was funny and generous and a little bit bawdy when she had a drink in her, and Frank...Frank was remarkably open and optimistic for a man who ran an empire. One newspaper article referred to him as “the Donald Trump of Chicago,” and Frank said, “Kill me now,” and laughed.
No, the Forbes family seemed to embody all the good Midwestern qualities—generosity, kindness, optimism and a very touching sense of innocence. “I’ve found that if you expect the best of a person,” Frank told him once, “you generally get it.”
“What happens when you don’t?” Lucas asked.
“Live and learn. Emphasis on learn.”
Lucas had always been a worker, ever since he collected bottles at the age of six to return for the deposit (that story had made Ellen cry). He worked harder and longer than his coworkers, hoping to show he wasn’t just some schmuck who was being promoted because of who he was. And he was promoted, moving up through the ranks from construction worker to foreman to project manager.
It was...well, it was good. But it was also hard; he was never far from the knowledge that he owed the Forbes family more than he could ever repay. That with one night, he’d changed the course of Ellen’s life...and his, of course. But mostly hers. She was the one who’d endured twelve weeks of morning sickness, and the one whose body had to let go of their baby.
Ellen didn’t get pregnant again. She went back on the Pill, which was fine; she went to law school, and then got hired by a big firm. She worked long hours, as did he, and seemed to love it. They didn’t talk about kids directly. Ellen didn’t seem to want to pursue it just yet. That was fine. They were young. There was time.
But it would’ve been amazing to have kids, Lucas thought, especially when he saw his nieces. He often thought of the baby who wasn’t...how old his son or daughter would be now, what it would be like to have a little one come running into his arms. To tuck a child in at night, straighten out the covers, to kiss a little head and say, “Daddy loves you.”