The Secret Father

As the plane drifted on descent, she opened Zach’s dossier. After his accident, he’d spent three months in a hospital outside San Diego. Four months after that, he’d married one of his nurses. Within eight months of their marriage, their daughter, Lily, had been born.

Which explained his silence. Had he been sleeping with Helene and her at the same time? Even six years later she felt like an idiot for trusting him.

Zach had been her first love. Tall and tough, unstoppable in his pursuit, he’d made her think she was all that mattered to him in the whole world. Combine that with his status as her father’s last choice, and she’d hardly known how to resist.

Looking back through newly opened eyes, she no longer believed in his passion or her own. She’d taken a stupid risk the night she’d forgotten her birth control. And after his supposed death, she’d made up a loving father for her son. The part where Zach had abandoned her never came into her stories.

Finally she’d tried not to remember Zach at all. But then a day would start when Evan woke with sleepy, is-it-morning eyes that reminded her of his father, or he startled her with the long capable fingers that looked too uncomfortably much like Zach’s.

She closed the folder and peered through the small window at the deep green forest flowing beneath the airplane. Dark and verdant, as mysterious as Zach’s true intentions. What had he wanted with her? Not that she’d expected forever, but a phone call to tell her she was no longer in the picture would have been nice.

Looking at mountains that seemed to have no border with flat land, she felt like an intruder. She’d once prayed Zach would ask her to meet his family. Now, possibly in front of them, she had to find out who he really was so she could decide whether to tell Evan he hadn’t died.

Olivia slipped the folder back into her soft briefcase and then fished out another clean, almost untouched file Brian had put together for her. She hadn’t told Evan or Brian the truth, so she had to go home with some kind of story.

The bank photo lay on top. Beneath were clippings from all the other stories Brian had gathered on the attempted robbery.

After the plane landed, Olivia collected her bags and packed them into her rental car. As soon as she left the airport, the road began to rise. The interstate, narrowing into two lanes, had been cut into red clay and granite hills spiked with evergreens, smoothed by icy-looking streams.

Like a bad omen, clouds covered the sun, dulling the red and gold leaves of the hardwoods. Rest stops and traffic came few and far between, and her ears began to pop at the higher elevation.

She fumbled in her purse and briefcase for gum, but Evan must have found her stash. Her boy was a fiend for gum. She gave up and yawned to clear the pressure.

As she passed the first mileage sign for Bardill’s Ridge, she breathed a sigh of relief. She ought to be able to find Sheriff Calvert’s office just in time for her appointment.

At her turnoff, she followed the long ramp away from the interstate. No sign of life stirred within the trees. Such a heavy dose of nature could make a city woman a little anxious.

At the end of the ramp a sign pointing to the left offered her the chance to turn back. To the right Bardill’s Ridge waited. Olivia opened her window and breathed in pine-laden air.

She could go home, continue the life she’d made with Evan and tell Brian the story on Zach hadn’t panned out. Her heart pounded in jackhammer fashion.

A right turn would change her life, but it might also bring her son a father who could love him. What choice did she have?

She turned right and the road inclined again. Soon a white church spire peeked out of the leaves. Just beyond the spire a redbrick cupola topped a black-shingled roof. Extremely Norman Rockwell. Olivia’s heart rate returned to normal. She could handle a Norman Rockwell town.

In front of her, a tractor turned off a dirt road onto the shoulder. The driver lifted his ball cap as she slowed to pass him.

That never happened in Chicago.

On the outskirts of Bardill’s Ridge, she passed a large blue clapboard feed store. The sign that clung to the roof of a wide veranda-cum-loading dock shouted Henderson’s in capital letters. Sticks of straw blew into the road from the bales on the porch. The men hoisting feed onto their trucks and into the backs of their SUVs looked up from their chores as she slowed to the speed limit.

Zach had been right when he’d warned the bank robber that people here noticed strangers. She passed a library, two small churches and too many curious faces.

Farther down the street, a sign painted with cartoon bears and rabbits and a bouncing typeface proclaimed the building behind it the ABC Daycare. Olivia missed Evan with a keen ache as the boys and girls spilled across the play yard.

Closer to the center of town, there were more office buildings. As she passed them the women and men who strode the surprisingly busy sidewalks watched her. No matter what he decided to do about Evan, Zach would have to explain about her after she left town.

Olivia glanced at her watch. Five past two.

At the next stop sign she glanced right and found the big white church. She turned, but had to stop again on the edge of a small square encircled by wrought iron. On one side stood the church. Beside her, a curlicued, Victorian theater promised the latest releases. Opposite, a high school looked buttoned up and busy, with papers on the windows and a teacher holding class outside as his students inspected a maple’s bright shedding leaves. The redbrick building across the square was the courthouse, Bardill’s county seat, according to a tall, black sign posted out front.

Olivia glanced at her briefcase, containing both folders and a photo vital to her plan. Zach had told Brian she’d find him in his office in the jail at the back of the courthouse.

She parked and grabbed her things. Fighting wind, she slipped into the square, via an iron gate. Her heels slid on the cobblestone path that crisscrossed the grass. At the other side of the park she exited through another gate and crossed the wide street. Breathing hard, she climbed the courthouse steps and scoured the map at the front door.

The jail was a left off the long, tall lower hall. Just beyond, a glass door led to a closer parking lot. Olivia swore and tried to tame her wild hair as her shoes clicked loudly on the marble.

Reaching Zach’s office door exactly on time, she twitched her skirt into place, tugged at her sweater’s neckline and then watched her right hand tremble on the doorknob.

If she’d known she was pregnant before Zach left, she would have told him. She was simply doing what she would have done then. If Zach didn’t want Evan, she could still say she’d done her best for her son.

She opened the door, anticipating a dispatcher. Instead, Zach looked up from paperwork spread on a wide, scarred oak desk.

His dark blue uniform emphasized lean muscles and the dark blond hair that nearly touched his collar. From ten feet away, a bleak shadow in his green eyes startled her. He was the same man, but he looked at the world from a different point of view. Something had drawn extra lines on his face and added more than six years of weariness to his eyes.

Olivia clung to the doorknob, rocking back on her high heels.

Zach stood and came around his desk. His gaze swept her, cataloging her head to toe. Not the way he had when they’d been lovers, but the way a stranger took stock of someone he might not entirely trust.

Olivia forgot how to breathe. How much had she changed? It didn’t seem to matter. Zach’s smile held no hint of recognition.

He held out his hand. “You must be Olivia Kendall.”

CHAPTER TWO

HIS VOICE WAS AS THICK as if he were thinking of making love to her. He clearly was not, but Zach’s low, husky, I’ve-waited-for-you-all-my-life tone had seduced her when they’d met the first time.

She’d been unable to forget him. He obviously hadn’t bothered to remember.

Seeking composure, she crossed to his desk and offered her hand. “Call me Olivia.” For Evan’s sake she had to feel out the situation and wait for the right moment to remind Zach of their past.

The moment he closed his fingers around hers, the past flooded back, images of his hand on her waist, at her breast, the male scent of him as he’d lowered his head to kiss her. She gritted her teeth, recognizing the texture of his palm as if she were touching her own skin.

Why had this man remained such a part of her? As if what she wanted to feel didn’t matter. She backed up a step. He had to release her. Curiosity flickered in his gaze, but not recognition. Her first love had forgotten her.

“Have a seat.” Zach gestured to two leather armchairs that flanked a low table in front of his desk. “Coffee?”

“Thanks.” A few moments’ distraction might remind her why she’d come. Sitting, she unzipped her briefcase.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Both, please.”

With a pleasant, interested smile, he handed her a foam cup and then took the chair beside hers. He stretched his legs in front of him. “You’ve come a long way to talk about a bank robbery that didn’t come off.”

She busied herself with her briefcase zipper, covering her shock at his continued detachment. She’d made a child with this man, but she’d clearly had no idea who Zach Calvert was beneath his skin. She plucked a business card from her briefcase and passed it to him. “Let’s talk about your suspect.”

Without a glance at her card, he slid it inside his uniform pocket. “I’m not sure I can add to the stories you’ve already seen.”

Such a weak attempt to stall woke her share of Kendall determination. “I’d like to talk to the guy.”

Zach glanced toward the back where the cells probably were. “The FBI already picked him up.”

Olivia pulled out the robbery folder. “I read that he belongs to a local militia group?”

“Not local, from a town over the Kentucky border.”

Zach sounded defensive, protecting his town’s reputation. He still loved his home. What were his current feelings on family?

Olivia studied his knife-sharp collar, his gleaming black shoes, their high shine a hint of the Navy officer from Chicago. Addicted to danger and flight, he’d still been drawn to this rural mountain town, but he’d never mentioned a need to settle here for good.

Whatever had happened to him had made him focus on home and hearth. He’d quickly had a daughter. How would he feel about their son?

She gave herself a mental shake. “Did the guy want funds for a specific action?”

“He requested an attorney when he regained consciousness. By the time we found a public defender, the FBI showed up and took him to their office in—” He stopped as if he hadn’t meant to say so much. “The feds are investigating the robbery and the suspect’s affiliations.”

“So you disarmed him, but now you’re out?”

He frowned, interest turning into irritation. “I did my job when I kept him from killing any citizen of this town.”

She was searching for a sense of responsibility that belied the way he’d left her. “Weren’t you afraid the guy might kill someone when you attacked him?”

“I recognized his gun.” His matter-of-fact tone implied anyone would have, and anyone would have acted. “I just had to make sure he was unconscious before he applied enough pressure to the trigger to fire.”

“Your Navy training helped you do that?”

He narrowed his eyes. “How did you know I was in the Navy?” His tone had dropped another disquieting octave.

“I investigated your background before I came.”

His expression went protectively flat, but antagonism jerked a muscle tight in his jaw. “What do you want, Ms. Kendall? Why come all the way from Chicago to talk about a three-day-old story?”

He suspected ulterior motives. It was the moment she’d waited for, and she went blank. All she could think was how loudly the clock ticked on his desk.

Time to come clean. “Why are you pretending you don’t recognize me?”

His chiseled face hardened to stone. “I’m pretending?”

She licked dry lips. “Maybe not.” Her father would be appalled. No one forgot a Kendall. She’d cared so much for Zach, his response humiliated her, but Evan’s best interests made her go on. Finding out who Zach had become was worth some loss of face. “You and I met each other six years ago in Chicago while you were in the Navy.”

“Chicago?” He sounded as if he’d never heard of the city.

“This is ludicrous. Surely you remember Chicago even if you forgot me?”

“No.” He stood, his posture guarded, danger in his eyes.

She was probably seeing the same gaze the bank robber had just before he’d found himself unconscious. She rose on shaking legs and wiped her clammy palms down the sides of her skirt.

She could describe every sinew beneath Zach’s dark clothing. She could tell him he slept with one arm crooked beneath his head, the other flattened on his belly. She should have the advantage. Instead, she was trying desperately not to collapse at his feet.

He turned to his desk. “I was stationed in California until an accident forced me to resign my commission.” His mouth tightened. “Why are you here?”

Now they both understood she had the advantage, and Zach didn’t like it.

“I came to talk to you.” His stare accused her of setting an ambush. Maybe she should let him cool down before she told him about Evan.

“I have no information you’d want to print, Ms. Kendall.”

“You know my name is Olivia.”

He turned toward the door, his dismissive attitude suggesting she use it. “We’re done.”

She groped inside her briefcase for the framed picture she’d packed that morning. Zach shifted his hand to his holstered pistol. It wasn’t in the least funny, but Olivia wanted to smile. He didn’t trust easily either.

“I’m sorry to do it this way.” She hadn’t come here to be unkind. “But I don’t think you’ll believe me without proof.” She held the photo against her chest. “I met you in Chicago. You were taking some kind of a class. I believed we cared for each other.” She broke off. “I’m rambling because I’m nervous, but here’s what happened. You left for a training mission—it was supposed to last two weeks—but I didn’t hear from you for over a month, and then I saw a wire release that said you were dead.”

He stared. For a moment, time tunneled. She was trying to reach him, but he’d left her behind. “Zach, look at this photo.” She turned it, showing him his son’s face.

At first his eyes widened. His nostrils flared with each deep breath. When he opened his mouth, a sigh eased between his lips. “No.” Anguish added a syllable to the word.

Olivia held as still as she could, considering she was trembling. His “no” didn’t mean he’d denied Evan was his child. He could have trouble believing he’d forgotten his son.

“I would have told you I was pregnant, but you left before I knew.”

Without looking at her, Zach came back, his leather belt creaking in the thick silence. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He curled his fingers around the photo’s frame and her hand. Unable to bear the heat of his touch, she let the picture go.

“I’ve seen his face all over my mother’s house.”

She didn’t understand. “What?”

“In photos of me.” He looked up, his gaze soft, yet wounded. “He’s six?”

“Five.” What the hell was going on? “What happened to you?”

“I honestly don’t remember Chicago. I trained there for a mission in a place not many people know about. I was on a team no one talks about.” He met her gaze—no, he held hers with his intensity. “I was supposed to fly in and pick up an officer who was stuck in a place she shouldn’t have been. She was killed, and I suffered a head injury that destroyed part of my memory—the two years before the accident—and you were part of the time I lost.” A mixture of anger and despair fired his glance. He nudged the robbery file she’d dropped on the floor when she’d stood. “I also learned about weapons then.”

His story was hard to believe. “Why did the wires say you died? Why did the Navy tell my father you were dead?”

“The Navy?”

“My dad asked Captain Kerwin Gould, your commanding officer, what happened and he spouted the story about a failed training mission off San Diego.”

“Your dad?” Zach nodded in recognition. “James Kendall, I get it. Did he mention you when he talked to Admiral Gould?”

“Admiral?”

Zach shook his head. “That’s his rank now. Did your father tell him you were pregnant?”

“No. I only wanted to find out what happened.”

“But he would’ve told your father the truth if he’d known. He gave you the story we discussed. It kept me out of the media. I didn’t want the public mess any more than the Navy did.” Failure filled his eyes with heartrending emptiness. He lifted his hand to the back of his neck, striking her dumb as he twisted his head, a grown-up version of Evan under stress. “I came home—here—after I left the hospital.”

“What about your apartment in Chicago?” Having a place suddenly made no sense. “Why did you— Your things were all over those rooms, pictures of your family—were they even your family?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his neck again. “The apartment belonged to the government. We were advised to bring our own belongings and make ourselves look like full-time residents. They figured one Navy officer in uniform looked like any other.” He sat on the corner of his desk. “I’m not even sure who packed my stuff and sent it home. It was just waiting when I got here.”

“But what about your career? You were gung ho.”

His faint smile softened the lines in his face. “I resigned because the surgeons decided my injury made me unfit to fly.”

Six years he’d been gone, and he’d never remembered she existed. “How can I believe you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t blame you. I’ve had to ask Admiral Gould or other pilots about what happened.” Guilt thinned his features. “I’ve listened to the crash tapes.”

She couldn’t ask for those details. They were too personal to him, too horrible to her. “How big is this team?”

“I have two friends who also went through the training.” He angled the photo so they could both see Evan’s innocent, laughing face. “You came here because of him? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? Why pretend you wanted to interview me?”

She didn’t sugarcoat her answer. “I couldn’t trust you. You were dead until you showed up foiling a bank robbery.”

“Why didn’t you look for my family?”

“You talked about them, but reluctantly.” Heat swept up her throat. “I thought you didn’t want to tell them about me.”

“Because of my job.” She shared the desolation in his eyes. “I could skim over the facts, but I wouldn’t have felt safe involving you in my life outside Chicago.” He stared at Evan, not realizing he was telling her he hadn’t shared the depth of her feelings. “They’d have loved my son.”

“At the time I was—” The agony of losing him swept back for a moment, but he’d never really been hers to lose. She shouldn’t have come here. She blinked, gripping reality. Her son still needed his father, and Zach deserved explanations as much as she. “My dad was disappointed in me and I was scared, and later the idea of telling your family became as difficult as telling you is now.”

“What about a funeral?”

She glanced at the nearest window, where orange and red leaves brushed the glass and shielded the rest of Bardill’s Ridge from her view. “My face was in the news because I’d graduated from college, and my father’s important. I didn’t think I could hide who I was in a town this small.” And she hadn’t been up to pretending indifference.

“The boy makes everything different.”

“Different, how?”

“I want to see him.”

Good. She’d been hoping for that. “His name is Evan. Evan Zachary Kendall.”

He stared at his son’s face, a smile curving his mouth slowly, as if smiling no longer came easy.

“I wanted him to have something of yours. Your name was the only thing I could give him.”

“Thank you.”

Zach’s simple gratitude touched her, but she couldn’t let down her guard yet. She lived in Chicago. Zach lived here. They both had rights to Evan if Zach wanted access.

She grimaced. Access. A sterile term for making a life with a child.

“You can have the picture.” She latched her briefcase and lifted it, comforted by its familiar heft in her hand. A touch of the cynicism she’d learned after Zach’s disappearance came back to her. “I’m not a big fan of amnesia stories.”

He didn’t seem to care. “It’s the only one I have, and it’s true.”

Subjects who lied usually put on a big defensive show. But sometimes not.

“What you do next is up to you. I read that you have a daughter with your ex-wife, so I know you’re facing complications. If you really want to see Evan, you have to make a decision you can live with the rest of your life.”

He nodded, but she reiterated to make sure he understood.

“I mean this is a lifetime commitment.”

He reached for her arm, but then stopped short of touching her. “I won’t let you take him away.”

She shrugged, her heart pounding in the back of her throat. He’d been twenty-six when they were together. She’d been more mature than most of her peers, but the balance of power had clearly lain with him. She didn’t intend to let that happen again.

“I won’t leave him alone with you until I’m sure you’re telling the truth. What if you aren’t good for him?”

His chest expanded beneath his shirt. Anger glittered in his eyes, but he controlled it so quickly she might have imagined it.

“I understand,” he said.

That seemed to be that. She headed for the door.

“Where are you going, Olivia?”

His use of her name stopped her. “To give you time to think.”

He set the photo on his desk, staking an unambiguous claim. “I share custody of my daughter Lily, but my ex-wife thinks I’m bad for her.”

Olivia’s stomach tightened, but she tried to look calm. At least he wasn’t going to hide anything from her. “You’re bad for Lily?”

“I should have said not good enough.” His bitter smile held no humor. “My bank account could use some more zeroes. Helene married up when she became Mrs. Leland Nash, and she thinks Lily would be better off without her ties to the common folk.”

“Leland Nash?” She’d read that name in Brian’s file. “She married the bank president?”

He nodded. “I love Lily, and I fight for time with her. I don’t want another troubled relationship with a child of mine, so I’m telling you what you’ll hear about me when you dig deeper.”

Again, her tongue felt tied. Was this his side of the story or a side? “I don’t understand about your ex-wife.” Money and social standing were the last thing Olivia cared about, but then again, she’d always had too much of both. “My first concern is Evan, and I’m giving you a chance to be his father.”

“I am his father.”

“You’re talking genetics. Evan needs baseball games, Band-Aids on his knees and to trust that you’ll show up at his door when you say you will. Don’t let an urge to do the right thing make this decision for you.”

“You’re talking shared custody?”

He was calm under fire, but the concept of sharing anything about Evan filled her with terror. “Maybe. Someday.”

His tension eased, but as he crossed the room and reached for the door, she moved out of his way. He simply held on to the doorknob, effectively keeping her in the room. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I’d even been aware…”

“We’re way past apologies.” But his gentleness boded well for her son. “You don’t remember, and it all ended a long time ago for me. We’ve both made different lives. You just have to decide what you want to do about Evan before we talk again.” She patted her pocket. “I’m staying at a bed-and-breakfast.” She’d written the place’s name on a slip of paper that morning, a bit fearful the only accommodations she might find would be her old Girl Scout tent on the side of the road. “I found it on the Internet.”