The Secret Father (The Calvert Cousins 1) Read online

  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 s
mall.” 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.”

  “The Dogwood,” he said. “My uncle and aunt own it. Did you park in front of the courthouse?”

  She nodded. “Beside the church.”

  “Turn left when you leave the square. Go straight for about a block. It’s not that far from the bank, and you’ll see a sign in the yard.”

  “The bank that was nearly robbed?” she asked.

  “Tennessee Standard, the only bank in Bardill’s Ridge.” He stopped her again, taking a step nearer. “You really came because you saw my picture?”

  She nodded at the stranger she’d loved. His story—reality—took some getting used to. “Because I never knew my mother. She died when I was a baby. I don’t want Evan to grow up without one of his parents if you’re a good man.”

  “You have the resources and the skill to find out about me, so I’ll tell you I have a dead career, a broken marriage.” Wrath infused his tone with husky richness. “But I’m still Evan’s father.”

  She’d loved his voice when it was thick with any flavor of passion, but being a Kendall, she restrained a shiver of awareness to ask a question. “No one’s ever figured out the truth? No one else who knew you in Chicago?”

  “You were apparently the one mistake I made there.” A warning lit his eyes. “You’re not looking for a story, Olivia? I don’t think you’d want to write that kind of article about your son’s father.”

  He was right.

  STARING THROUGH the square panes of his kitchen window into the pitch-dark night, Zach reached for the phone. He had one thought, to tell Olivia he didn’t need time.

  But he remembered the rest of his family and let the phone go. He had to talk to his daughter, to his mother and to his ex-wife. For Evan’s sake he needed to prepare Helene. He turned to the fridge, opening the cabinet on his right at the same time to take down a glass.

  A bottle of Scotch on the top shelf tempted him, but he opted for a quart of milk and a brown plastic container of chocolate syrup from the fridge. Using the long spoon Lily favored, he mixed a big helping of her favorite elixir and wished she were here to share it with him. Ice-cold chocolate milk started their bedtime ritual on her weekends at his house.

  What would she think of a brand-new older brother?

  Zach sipped his chocolate. He could imagine Helene claiming he didn’t need Lily now that he had a son. And she’d blame their lousy marriage on his “subconscious” feelings for Olivia.

  Olivia had said she’d made a mistake with birth control. Helene had made a plan, which she’d later admitted had been the worst mistake of her life. She’d thought she was marrying a military superhero who’d use his contacts and the medal he’d never taken out of its box to build a life she’d dreamed of as she’d worked in a hospital.

  Her plan made no sense. Trusting her tender loving care, he’d shared his shame at being alive after losing the woman—whose life he was supposed to save.

  His mission had been to fly into a restricted zone on a chopper so stripped he couldn’t even carry the weight of a copilot. He was to pick up Lieutenant Kimberly Salva, a dear friend from the Academy, and bring her out. He’d failed. He’d needed the penance of guilt. Since the crash, he’d dreamed with rage that he’d actually killed Salva, who’d died in his hands on the floor of his chopper.

  As part of the therapy he’d soon quit, he’d listened to the tape of his radio calls. No matter wh
o told him Salva’s death hadn’t been his fault, that he’d done his best to save her, he continued to relive the moments he’d listened to. His obvious despair, his refusal to give up on her, had never relieved the guilt or the nightmares that had painted pictures like memories in his mind.

  Salva’s daughter, eight years old now, was growing up without her mother. How could he believe he had the right to survive?

  Inexplicably, Helene had imagined he’d ride an unworthy hero’s welcome into fame and fortune. But Zach had made another plan.

  Losing two years of his life, his identity as a pilot and, most of all, his faith in himself, he’d searched for respite in Bardill’s Ridge. Walking the woods he’d run as a youth, mending the barn he’d jumped off pretending he could fly, he’d come home because he’d needed the Calvert clan’s strength and the sustenance of the haze-covered, blue-and-green Smokies.

  Maybe he and Helene had never loved each other. She’d thought he was someone he couldn’t be. He’d been grateful for the physical contact he’d needed to remind himself he was still alive.

  After she’d become pregnant, he’d married her, and they’d come to Bardill’s Ridge where his new wife had quickly deemed her life pure hell. Zach had worked on his family’s farm for the first year. That had been bad enough in Helene’s eyes, but after he’d taken the sheriff’s position, she’d railed that “Andy Taylor” wasn’t good enough for her and their daughter.

  He was starting to hate that TV show.

  After his wife met Leland Nash and they’d fallen in love, Helene tried to convince Zach he had no right to his own child because he didn’t share Helene’s priorities for Lily’s future. He was just lucky Helene had found Nash and not some wealthy out-of-state tourist. Leland Nash’s money had made East Tennessee bearable for Helene. It had made short work of Zach’s marriage.

  And even shorter work of his ability to trust a woman who’d borne his child. Olivia seemed different, but his ex-wife had shown him honesty could be a moving target.

  After Olivia left his office, he’d researched her in every database he could access. She ran Relevance, a magazine positioned somewhere between U.S. News and People.