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Her Soldier's Baby
Tara Taylor Quinn
Will the truth heal him—or tear them apart?The baby she gave up for adoption long ago is a secret Eliza Westin has concealed from her husband. With good reason. Wounded soldier turned police Pierce Westin was Eliza’s high school sweetheart. He’s also her son’s father.Seventeen years ago, Pierce went off to war unaware that he’d fathered a child. Eliza's shot as a contestant on the Family Secrets cooking competition show is her chance to reconnect with the past. But once she finds her long-lost son, she can only hope that Pierce will embrace their newfound family. Or will Eliza lose the love of her life all over again?


Will the truth heal him—or tear them apart?
The baby she gave up for adoption long ago is a secret Eliza Westin has concealed from her husband. With good reason. Wounded soldier turned small town police chief Pierce Westin was Eliza’s high school sweetheart. He’s also her son’s father.
Seventeen years ago, Pierce went off to war unaware that he’d fathered a child. Eliza’s shot as a contestant on the Family Secrets cooking competition show is her chance to reconnect with the past. But once she finds her long-lost son, she can only hope that Pierce will embrace their newfound family. Or will Eliza lose the love of her life all over again?
“I have something to tell you.”
Eliza blurted the words before they could be stifled. Now she was on the front line without a shield.
He studied her. “Okay.”
“I have a secret, Pierce. A big one.” Clasping her hands together in her lap, she swallowed. In spite of all of the hours she’d spent thinking about this moment, preparing for it, she had no idea what to say.
Her heart pounded while her lungs tightened around the air she couldn’t seem to get enough of.
“But before I tell you, I need you to promise me that you won’t shut me out. That you won’t just go away and refuse to discuss it.”
“I’d never do that.”
“You have no idea what you’ll do. You don’t know the secret.”
“I know you. And I know how completely I love you.”
If only life were that easy.
Dear Reader (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c),
I feel like I should put a warning label on this one. I sent one to my editor when I turned in the book. She wrote back that she understood why when she sent the revision letter. It’s just that kind of book. One I think you wouldn’t want to miss. But my advice is to find a quiet place—and some alone time—to read it.
Her Soldier’s Baby started out as a somewhat typical, exactly-what-you-want romance novel. It has a lot of the elements we most like to read. A soldier. A secret baby. A nurturing woman with a backbone of steel when it comes to protecting her family. A bed-and-breakfast. Add in a little celebrity status when our heroine is chosen to appear on a reality cooking show and it clicks.
This story has all of those elements. It’s what Pierce and Eliza did with them that changed everything. I had no idea what I was getting into when I sat down to tell their story. I am still feeling every aspect of their journey, thinking about their choices, wishing they were real and I could invite them over for dinner. Or to be my best friends. I want to follow them into the future...
Instead, I give them to you.
I love to hear from my readers. Please find me at Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn (https://www.facebook.com/tarataylorquinn) and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn (https://twitter.com/tarataylorquinn). Or join my open Friendship board on Pinterest, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship (https://www.pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship)!
All the best,
Tara
www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com (http://www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com)
Her Soldier’s Baby
Tara Taylor Quinn


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Having written over seventy-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.
For my Heartwarming sisters and our readers. Thank you for welcoming me into the family...
Contents
Cover (#u7b943335-63a7-5327-80d2-74f512486baa)
Back Cover Text (#u51bfcb55-e48c-5fc7-ba4e-3caa78b8e181)
Introduction (#u216cfd0c-5696-5abd-b98e-5e3ea60fb10c)
Dear Reader (#u3b0d828d-c9ff-5ec8-9c69-adaed0aece2a)
Title Page (#ub2d2774c-419c-5773-bee0-e1ab3e0acad0)
About the Author (#u3411b791-b44a-5802-8050-082e6f252706)
Dedication (#u5bead8ca-a44e-560b-80b6-f535fd5f2d60)
CHAPTER ONE (#u378a19f0-8069-53ac-9769-f28b67010bd1)
CHAPTER TWO (#u14ad5e00-9dd7-598e-b00c-e946bdceb691)
CHAPTER THREE (#uaaeed7da-422e-5e01-b9df-c92dbf2d7f83)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ub4795cf6-1e08-5b2b-af47-229c2f0c320e)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u6a59e5dc-c0d3-51a8-8d65-75b5fb4ebd80)
CHAPTER SIX (#ubf998591-60c9-5669-b7b4-ed0789f82c1b)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u68360636-6cb1-5f11-b2c3-0867e3064b95)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
ELIZA CLUNG TIGHTLY to her husband, Pierce, pressing her body against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, her arms around his waist, pulling him in. Charleston International Airport was teeming with comers and goers and waiters that Friday afternoon. Businesspeople arriving home for the weekend, and others, like her, heading out.
Pierce gave her a tight squeeze—more akin to a pat on the head than a desperate hug filled with the emotional angst of having gone through this before, pledging to see each other again and then not.
She savored the contact.
“You’ve got your driver’s license, your boarding pass is on your phone and there will be a car waiting for you in Palm Springs. If your name is not professionally printed on a card, get a cab instead...” He’d started walking the five feet to the security checkpoint line. Once she joined the queue, he’d leave her.
“Remember, don’t make eye contact with men you don’t know, and—”
She shook her head. “I got it, Pierce. I’ve been keeping myself safe for a long time.” Having lived the majority of her adult life alone, she wasn’t worried.
“The world’s changing, Eliza, and California is not Shelby Island. Not everyone you meet is your friend, nor are they all safe for you to bring home.”
She knew that, too. Had a very careful vetting system and security measures in place for the guests she hosted at her successful Shelby Island bed-and-breakfast in an antebellum home just thirty miles down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.
She’d also been doing that alone for the majority of her adult life.
“I promise, I’ll stay alert, babe,” she told her husband—because she knew that these reminders were his way of supporting her choice to go.
“Just watch yourself going to and from the studio. You’re going to be all over national television, and who knows what kind of crackpot could come out of the ozone? You’re a beautiful woman and...”
She wasn’t. At five-five and a hundred thirty-five pounds, she wasn’t as tall and skinny as the California TV beauties. She wasn’t blonde, either. On good days, her brown hair had a bit of a shine to it. Mostly it just fell, all mousy-looking, around her shoulders, wherever gravity took it. But she loved that Pierce found her as good-looking as he had when they’d been an item in high school. Hard to believe that had been nearly eighteen years ago.
They’d reached the end of the line. Which was moving quickly. She stepped to the side to let a family of five pass. Mom, dad and the kids. That would never be her.
She looked up into Pierce’s big blue eyes—the only soft part of her military-trained cop husband—and melted when he met her gaze with all of the depth of his heart. That look...some days it seemed it was all that was left of the sweet, sensitive boy who’d left her just-turned-sixteen self to go off to basic training.
“I love you, babe,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
There. She took a deep breath. Came back to herself.
“I’ll see you in two days,” she told him. A promise. A pledge. A hope.
And a worry.
“Don’t worry about getting your bag when you come back,” he said. “I’ll park and come in.”
She nodded.
He kissed her. Just a peck. She wanted it to be more personal and might have pushed him into it if she hadn’t had a guilty conscience.
And off she went. To join the queue of strangers. To fly across the country to meet more strangers, to appear as one of eight contestants—all strangers—on the nationally syndicated Family Secrets cooking show—and to search for the one stranger who knew her from the inside out.
Literally.
A stranger Pierce Westin knew nothing about.
* * *
FROM A VANTAGE point against the wall, mostly concealed by a pillar, he watched her through security. And for as far as he could see her.
Because Pierce would never get enough of seeing his beautiful wife. It wasn’t just her big brown eyes, soft cheekbones, and lips that set the world on fire that drew him—though he loved all of that, too. No, it was just...her.
And the fact that she was in his life again. Married to him.
Some nights he woke up in a cold sweat and still couldn’t believe that Eliza Maxwell was his wife. He’d lie there, touching her shoulder, looking at her sometimes for more than an hour, to avoid going back to sleep. When he slept, she was, like the rest of his few good childhood memories, completely out of reach.
The fear that rent his gut when she turned a corner and was out of sight would be with him until her return.
And he would work his tail off. Protecting the people of Charleston, paying it forward—so that the law enforcement of Palm Desert protected her.
He might kid himself that he risked his life every day as a kind of penance—to pay for the sins of his past. But deep down he knew better. There was nothing he could do—ever—to make up for what he’d done. No way his soul would ever be out of debt.
As he reached his patrol car, the fear inside him increased. He wasn’t afraid of the job. On the contrary, his time on the streets, looking out for bad guys, taking them on, taking them in, was the only time he ever really felt comfortable.
What he feared was greater than mere physical death. It was the fear of a man who knew that he wasn’t good enough for the woman he loved.
Who knew that...someday...he would lose her. Again.
* * *
THERE WAS A little gathering for contestants Friday evening down in the lounge. Hosted by the hotel, there’d be wine and hors d’oeuvres, and a chance for all of them to get to know each other before traveling in the van to the studio the next morning. According to Eliza’s paperwork, seven of the eight contestants were traveling in from out of state and would be guests at the hotel.
The eighth, an eighty-one-year-old woman from Utah, had rented a condominium for the next two months in one of the popular senior resort communities for which Palm Desert was known. They’d all had a list of area options. For those who were going to be traveling back and forth for the weekend tapings, the host hotel was by far the best deal.
Eliza would have stayed with the crowd anyway. There was safety in numbers. And convenience in door-to-door transportation.
She took the car she and Pierce had arranged from the airport to the hotel. Paid the driver. Checked in. She was a couple of hours earlier than the three other contestants arriving that day. Three had arrived the night before.
Eliza could have made plans to get together early with them. Could go downstairs on the off chance she’d run into them.
Instead, she grabbed the big black shoulder bag she’d bought to use as a purse for the duration of her time on Family Secrets—a minimum of two weeks, a maximum of six—and made sure the folder was inside.
She opened that and looked for the pencil markings she’d made. Just a couple of numbers. A mnemonic device. She didn’t need it. The information she needed was etched so legibly on her brain, she was half surprised that Pierce hadn’t been able to read it in full.
After his time in Iraq, coupled with his police military training and his time on the job after he got out, her husband could see an ant on a paper plate at a picnic from a block away. His “sniffing out trouble” skills were honed to perfection.
The agency she needed to visit was in Anaheim. A good hour and a half west of Palm Desert. She already knew she could get a rental car from the hotel, and as soon as she’d dropped off her suitcase and quickly freshened up, she went down to the lobby to do so.
She didn’t need to look her best. She was going only to the agency. To see if she could get some information.
In deference to the questions she knew her husband was going to ask, she got a car with built-in navigation. And called him as soon as she was inside. Telling him that she’d only rented the car for the afternoon. She had some free time and didn’t want to be cooped up in a hotel when she was in sunny California for the first time in her life.
Pierce didn’t like her out and about on her own. At all.
But he didn’t question her desire to take a look around. He never questioned anything she did. Trusted her completely.
Which made the start of this particular journey that much more difficult.
Pierce didn’t trust often, or easily, but he’d always been able to trust her. Since the moment he’d come back into her life, she’d never given him reason to doubt her.
He’d needed that.
And she’d somehow worked it out in her brain that if she did that for him, she could make up for the part of her past that he didn’t know about. Make up for the one secret she kept. The one part of her life he wouldn’t recognize.
The part after he’d left for the army, and she’d left town—and the high school where they’d met and been a couple—to finish high school in South Carolina. Living with her grandmother.
The licensed nonprofit agency was located in a suite of offices in an upscale professional park. Following the instructions coming over the car’s system, she drove straight there. Parked. Stared at the door. This was a long shot. At best.
At three o’clock on Friday afternoon, the employees inside were probably winding down for the week. She knew from their website that they closed at five p.m., five days a week. And were closed all weekend, too.
A couple came out. His arm around her, his head slightly bent toward hers. They appeared to be in their midthirties, well dressed. Got into a royal blue BMW.
And she hadn’t come all this way to watch other people live their lives. Truth be told, she hadn’t come all this way to compete on a cooking show, either.
She’d auditioned for the show as a means to come all this way. If she hadn’t won the audition, she’d told herself she’d see that as a sign that she was to do nothing.
Likewise, if she got on the show, that was momentous enough to be considered a sign in the other way—it would be sure direction to act.
The fact that winning Family Secrets could allow her and Pierce the finances to get him off the streets was added impetus.
She’d been motivated by need and had been given opportunity, and now it was up to her to do all she could to make their future come to fruition.
And added to all of that, the unforeseen aspect... She really needed to win the competition for herself. Needed it badly. These past weeks of living in her future while knowing she was going back into her past had shown her something very clearly. Her whole life she’d defined herself by those in her life—her parents, Pierce, her grandmother and then Pierce again. And she was...weary. It was like she was constantly running to keep up, but never quite catching up because someone always needed something more.
But winning the competition...that was for her. To show herself that separate and apart from everyone else, she was just plain good at something. She was an individual with a talent that had nothing to do with anyone else in her life.
Maybe if she could believe that, if she could show herself that much, she wouldn’t constantly feel as though she had to earn the love of those around her. She could just love them. Serve them. And feel...like she was enough.
But first, she had to take care of her past.
CHAPTER TWO (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
WHILE THERE WASN’T a lot of crime on Shelby Island, there was plenty of it in Charleston, which was where Pierce worked. With the harbor and the beaches, the moderate temperatures and South Carolina charm, the city attracted all kinds. From drug users to homeless, vacationers to the rich and famous, illegal immigrants to some of the nation’s most respected leaders, Pierce, with his fellow officers, walked among them. Determined to keep the peace.
When a call came in, he put himself on the front line as often as he could. He was trained for all kinds of warfare. Had reflexes that outranked those of most officers.
And no fear of dying.
Some thought he was a bit too into danger and shied away from partnering with him. Others put in requests to ride with him.
He preferred going it alone.
And would have liked to stay on for a second shift when his was up Friday afternoon. But instead he parked his vehicle and headed out right on time. With Eliza gone, he had evening social hour welcoming duties at the bed-and-breakfast. He wasn’t good at it. Figured he probably put as many people off as he made feel welcome, but his wife didn’t seem to get that.
She had a full-time assistant. And a part-time one, too, for times like these when she couldn’t be at Rose Harbor B and B herself. The weekend’s meals were all prepared and in the refrigerator, ready to heat. As cooking was Eliza’s passion, she did all of it herself.
Someone would be at the house to check in guests and tend to unforeseen needs: a pillow that was too hard or too soft, an allergy to a particular kind of soap, menu preferences that a guest might have forgotten to fill in ahead of time.
Pierce’s job was simply to be present. To welcome Eliza’s guests into their home as though they were friends. To chat with them and assure them that they were happy to accommodate their needs.
And to fix anything that might be broken. A toilet with a flush valve gone bad. A leaky faucet. Things Eliza could do, too, in a pinch.
His wife, a Harvard graduate, had a lot of surprising talents. He thought of her, and the fact that it was still early afternoon in California, as he drove home. Had to toss his cell phone to the backseat while he drove in an effort to stop himself from calling. And he concentrated on the evening ahead.
They had four of their six rooms filled that weekend. Two to families in town for a reunion. One an older couple who visited at least once a year. And the fourth to a recent widow, traveling on her own.
Other than the mingling, Pierce was happy to be a part of Eliza’s venture. To contribute.
Mostly he was happy to be her self-appointed sentry. Checking out as many of their guests as possible, assessing, making certain that there were no signs of risk.
And if there were, to investigate further. Without anyone being the wiser, of course.
He was there to serve the woman he loved.
For as long as he could be of use to her.
For as long as he was more help than hurt.
* * *
ELIZA WAS SHOWN to a counselor almost immediately. Probably because there’d been no one else in the waiting room that late on a Friday afternoon.
“Mary says you’re here to ask about one of our clients?” the woman, Mrs. Carpenter, said as she shook Eliza’s hand. She told her to take a seat before sitting back down herself.
The counselor looked to be in her mid-forties, with short, dark hair and a reserved but friendly smile. She was well-dressed in a gray suit with a maroon silk blouse. Eliza hadn’t seen her shoes before she sat down behind her desk, but figured them for fashionable heels.
“I received a letter from your office,” Eliza said. “Just before Christmas.” And that was when she’d started looking around for a reason to visit California without arousing Pierce’s suspicions—and had come upon the Family Secrets auditions.
Sort of. She was a huge fan of the show. And had been trying to figure out a way to pursue the letter when she’d been watching Family Secrets one night and had seen that there were going to be auditions in Raleigh the week between Christmas and New Year’s...
She’d seen that as a sign. In her imagination, as she’d watched the show over the past couple of years, she’d fancied herself a contestant many times—without ever expecting the chance to make the fantasy a possibility.
Without ever believing she’d have the moxie to actually pursue such a thing.
Until that letter arrived.
She’d told herself she’d try out. If she did make it, it would be another sign. She was supposed to pursue the letter.
But Mrs. Carpenter didn’t need to know any of that. The last thing she wanted was for the woman to think she was some kind of kook.
“I got a letter,” she said. As heat spread up her body, causing the outbreak of an instant sweat, she stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carpenter. This was a mistake. I should never have come. I’m sorry for bothering you...wasting your time...”
The older woman stood, as well. Came around her desk to take Eliza’s hand, and then placed her other hand on Eliza’s arm. “Please, sit down,” she said, maintaining physical contact as she lowered to the chair next to Eliza’s. “You aren’t wasting my time. This is exactly what I’m here for.”
This. Eliza hadn’t even told her what this was. And just as she’d thought, Mrs. Carpenter had four-inch spiked heels on her shoes. They were gray. Patent leather. And definitely real leather.
Eliza liked shoes. Always had. An inexplicable weakness for one who’d always eschewed her parents’ penchant for keeping up appearances in their upper-middle-class crowd.
Pierce, the son of a single father who was a happy drunk, hadn’t been good enough for them.
And in the end, Eliza hadn’t been, either. The summer after her sophomore year of high school, they’d shipped her, their only child, off to her grandmother and bought a four-bedroom home on a golf course in Florida.
In their defense, they’d expected her to join them eventually. To graduate from high school in Florida. Her mother had decorated a suite just for her, with her own bathroom. Eliza was the one who’d opted to stay in South Carolina. They’d agreed to let her do so as long as she agreed to get good enough scores in high school to be able to attend Harvard.
She just hadn’t been able to picture Pierce coming home to that house in Florida.
As it turned out, he hadn’t come to South Carolina, either. Not until a long time later.
“That’s it. Just breathe. Calm will come,” Mrs. Carpenter said. Which was when Eliza realized the woman was still holding her hand.
She felt like an idiot. Slipped her hand out from the counselor’s and sat up straighter. “I had a baby.”
The sky didn’t fall.
“I’ve...actually never told anyone...not since the day they took him away from me.” She’d been sixteen. Had been in labor for almost two days. Had been certain she was going to die—that she was paying for having sinned so horrendously. She’d been delirious before it was over. “I never even saw him.”
She’d been told he was perfect.
“Was that your choice?” Mrs. Carpenter’s tone was soft.
It had been her parents’ choice. They’d also insisted that she be homeschooled during her pregnancy. Which was why she’d been shipped to her grandmother. Her mother’s mother had been a schoolteacher before she’d retired to go into the B and B business.
“It was for the best,” was all she said. Her parents had given in to her need to stay, permanently, with the grandmother who’d saved her life that year—emotionally if not physically. But their acquiescence had come with cost. After her baby was born, she was never to speak of it again. Not to tell anyone. Ever. When she’d started attending her new school her senior year, she was just a new girl. They said to handle it. Any other way would brand her as someone who couldn’t control herself. Who didn’t make wise choices. Who was irresponsible.
There was truth to that.
“So...you’ve never told anyone you had a baby?”
The caring in Mrs. Carpenter’s tone brought tears to her eyes. She shook her head.
“I notice you’re wearing a wedding ring...” The words trailed off.
Eliza looked over, meeting the counselor’s compassionate gaze. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
She expected some reaction to that. Horror. Disgust. Shock, at least.
Judgment.
“So, tell me about this letter.”
“I didn’t realize that Family Adoptions had sister agencies,” she said, naming the agency her grandmother had chosen in South Carolina all those years ago.
“We’re one of the few licensed nonprofits with offices around the country. It opens our pool of birth mothers and adopting families to suit everyone better, while still allowing us to do on-site home studies over the course of a couple of months for each one.”
Up until a month ago, Eliza hadn’t known the ins and outs of adopting a baby. She’d trusted her grandmother to make certain her son had a good home. She’d trusted the agency she’d visited one bleak day that horrible fall.
She knew now how families were vetted. The paperwork and legalities and home visits. The social workers assigned to prospective families. All of it had comforted her. She wished she’d done the research sooner.
And yet, how could she research something that, for all intents and purposes, had never happened?
She’d borne the child but had no rights to him. At all.
“I gave up all rights,” she said now. Except the one her grandmother had insisted upon. “Except that he’s allowed to know who I am. If he ever asks.”
Mrs. Carpenter nodded.
“His family got him through this office,” she said.
Feeling slightly woozy, muddled, Eliza stared at the gray patent leather shoes. Wondered how long she’d be able to walk in them if she owned a pair.
“Has he asked to see you?” The soft words broke into her consideration of crunched toes, foot cramps and blisters. None of which were likely to be a problem for her.
Because she’d been wearing heels since she was seventeen. And because she wasn’t likely to be wearing four-inch ones any time soon. She was an innkeeper. The owner of Rose Harbor Bed-and-Breakfast. Making a home away from home for hundreds of people every year.
“No,” she said now. “The letter just told me that he’d contacted your office to inquire about my identity. I guess I had the right to know that they’d given him what information they had on me. My name, where I was living at the time of the adoption and the office through which he originated.”
Nothing else. It was so...open-ended.
But tightly shut, too.
What if he wanted to find her and couldn’t? She’d married. Her name was different.
And the address was, too. Back then, her grandmother had lived in a separate house off Shelby Island. She’d managed Rose Harbor in those days. But the year Eliza had graduated from high school, when her grandmother had turned sixty and had been able to access her retirement fund without penalty, she’d used it to buy Rose Harbor.
What if he found her, came knocking on the door, and Pierce answered?
“I...came here to find out...”
She broke off as she started to shake. And get too warm again.
“If, as you say, you gave up all rights, I can’t give you any information on him.”
Swallowing, she attempted a smile, one she gave to reassure an agitated guest, and failed. “I know,” she managed. “I’m not asking. I just...wanted to know if you could maybe find out...somehow...if he wants to see me.”
Please, God. Yes. Let me meet my baby boy. Finally. Please. Just to touch his hand once. To look in his eyes one time before I die.
Oh. God. No. Have him be happy. Fulfilled. In want of nothing. Including the need to see the woman in whose body he was created.
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. “If there’s something in his file that indicates that he’s open to seeing you, I can pass on your information. But generally, if that were the case, the letter you received would have indicated as much.”
The counselor took her name anyway. The case number that Eliza had memorized from the letter that she’d shredded. Taking a bottle of water from the small refrigerator under a counter across from them, Mrs. Carpenter handed it to Eliza, asked if she’d be okay for a few minutes and, at Eliza’s nod, left the room.
Eliza wasn’t okay. Her fingers shook so badly, she dropped the cap of the water bottle after opening it. And in her black pants and white cropped jacket, Eliza dropped to her knees to reach under the desk it rolled under.
Back in her seat, she pulled out her phone. Read Pierce’s text telling her that he was home and that everything was on course for social hour.
He didn’t include any silly emoticons or anything that could indicate how very much in love he was with his wife.
But those words, reassuring her, read like an avowal of undying love.
Longing for the life she’d built, the adrenaline rush of being in her own parlor with guests who were happy with her accommodations, happy with the hors d’oeuvres she’d served them, Eliza wished she’d stayed home. Auditioning, traveling across the country like this...it had been a mistake. She should be home, basking in the knowledge that when her guests retired for the night, she’d be going to bed with Pierce. To fall asleep in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved.
She wanted to answer the text. Typed. Deleted. Typed. Deleted. She couldn’t lie to him. Couldn’t tell him where she was. Or why she was there.
She hated not being able to tell him.
Fear shot through her as she considered the Pandora’s box she’d opened.
But she hadn’t opened it.
Her baby boy had opened it. He’d asked about her.
There was no way she could ignore any possibility that he needed her.
No way Pierce would want her to.
And no way she could tell him that she’d given away the only child he would ever father.
CHAPTER THREE (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
LILY ELIZABETH MCCONNELL had been married thirty years. “Not long enough,” the fifty-something, salt-and-pepper-haired woman told Pierce as she stood, a china plate holding a couple of Eliza’s miniquiches in her hands. “You take it for granted, you know?”
Her eyes were glassy with emotion, but her voice was calm. Pierce respected the control. “I do know,” he said wholeheartedly. “Sad, isn’t it, that you have to lose something to realize what it meant to you?”
He hadn’t meant to speak that last bit out loud. But the woman’s need tapped into the vulnerability he normally had buried so deep he could pretend it didn’t exist.
He was always a bit off when Eliza was gone.
The well-dressed widow tilted her head. “You’ve lost someone, too?” she asked.
He’d walked right into that one.
Music played softly from good-quality speakers resourcefully hidden among the genuine antiques that filled—and garnished—the room. Classical piano. He recognized Pachelbel’s Canon only because it was Eliza’s favorite and she had what seemed like a million renditions of it.
He didn’t want to offend the guest, but he wished the couple in the corner enjoying the free wine were more open to socializing. Or that the families he’d been told had checked in would come downstairs.
“I have,” he told Mrs. McConnell, taking a sip from the glass of iced lemon water he’d poured before leaving his and Eliza’s private section of the mansion to do his duties as host.
There. They could have mutual understanding, as the strangers they were, and move on. Glancing over her shoulder, he noted the still-empty stairway. No families coming down yet.
Lily Elizabeth McConnell seemed as interested in his hand as he was in the staircase.
“You’re wearing a wedding ring,” she said when she caught him noticing her stare.
Awkward. And the reason he hated these things.
“Yet you’re here alone. Did you lose your wife?”
He knew how to parry a come-on. And did. Every single time he was faced with one. This wasn’t a come-on. If the woman’s tone hadn’t told him so, the pain in her eyes did.
“No,” he said. No playing with fate on that one. “I just assumed everyone here knew... Eliza’s away being a contestant on Family Secrets every weekend this month. This is our home, but the bed-and-breakfast, that’s all her doing. I’m strictly support staff when it comes to Rose Harbor.”
He helped her with the books, too. She ran all decisions by him. But the house was hers. Eliza had been running the successful B and B long before he’d come back into her picture.
Mrs. McConnell nodded. Looked down at her sensible, almost flat black shoes. He wasn’t the most sensitive guy around, but even he could tell that her pain, in that moment, was acute.
“What about kids?” he blurted. People her age relied on their kids. Didn’t they?
She shook her head. And he’d have gladly escaped to keep from saying anything else that didn’t help. “We... Harley and I...we never had kids. It wasn’t that we didn’t want them. It just never happened. And neither of us wanted to pursue other avenues. We figured if we were meant to be parents, we’d get pregnant.”
Were it him, he’d have pursued every avenue there was and any dirt lane, too. But this wasn’t about him. “I get what you mean about not being meant to be a parent,” he said before realizing that they’d ventured outside guest-welcoming territory.
“You and your wife don’t have children?” she asked. And he just stood there. Staring at her.
Eventually he shook his head.
And as though fate had stepped in to save him for once, footsteps bounded down the stairs. Mrs. McConnell took the interruption as an opportunity to move back to the food station that Margie, Eliza’s assistant for the past ten years, had laid out.
Maybe she thought he and Eliza had lost a child. He had, after all, told her he’d lost someone.
Lord knew why he’d said that. He’d never lost anyone he was close to.
His mother had taken off before he was old enough to remember her. His old man was gone, but since he’d been drunk so much of Pierce’s life, that hadn’t been a big surprise. At least he’d been a nice drunk.
Pierce had had no reason to commiserate with the woman’s loss as though he understood. Living without Eliza all those years—that had been his choice. He’d consciously opted not to contact her when he’d gotten back from the war in Iraq, a changed man. One who’d been hit by an explosive device that left him sterile.
After going by her place in Savannah, where they’d grown up, finding out that she’d moved to South Carolina the summer he left and that her folks were in Florida, he’d gotten on with his life. A life without her. Except for keeping tabs, just to make certain she was thriving. That’s how he’d known she was at Harvard while he finished his time in the marines as a cop at Quantico.
And known that she’d graduated and was running a bed-and-breakfast when he’d married a fellow marine shortly after getting out. And that she was still there three years later, when he married his second wife. A waitress from the coffee shop where he had breakfast every morning.
The woman had a young son. Pierce had fancied himself a father.
He just hadn’t been a good husband. Too distant. Too many nightmares. No desire to spend his off time with the woman he’d married.
Turned out, he hadn’t been a great father, either.
Nope, he hadn’t lost anyone. He’d made conscious choices.
And would probably make them again if he had a second go at it. Including the one that had resulted in an inability to father children. Some days he figured he’d deserved that. He’d still choose to join the army, too. If he was going to make anything of himself, get away from the reputation he’d earned as the son of the town drunk, get any kind of education, he’d have had to join up. He’d had no money for college. Nowhere to live, no way to support himself during the four years of attending classes to get a higher degree. No way to support the love of his life, or prove to her father that he was good enough for her, unless he joined the army, worked until every bone in his body ached, and earned not only money but also respect.
No, as hard as leaving Eliza had been, it was a choice he’d make again. For the same reasons.
Even the worst choice he’d ever made, given the same situation, the same intel, he’d make again, because when you made choices you got only the before, not the after. He hadn’t known that that one choice would irrevocably change his world. Change him.
One choice. A split second. The pull of a trigger.
And Pierce Westin had lost his soul.
* * *
“I’M SORRY FOR the long wait, Eliza. Thank you for your patience.”
Mrs. Carpenter came into the room quietly. Efficiently. All business.
From the chair she was clinging to like a life raft, Eliza nodded. Forced a smile. She didn’t do this whole fragile thing well. Her days didn’t require it.
Her life didn’t require it.
Because she’d kept her secret. Banished it to the past. Made a life without it, just as her parents had espoused.
She was beginning to see why they’d been so adamant. And figured they’d been right.
She watched the counselor take a seat. Fold her hands. And knew.
This wasn’t good news.
“I’ve looked through your file,” Mrs. Carpenter told her. “Your adoption was a bit...unique...” she said. “Private adoptions have more leeway as far as terms are concerned. According to your documents, your child is to be given any information we have about you, anytime he asks. But it was further agreed that even if you ask, you are not to be given information about him.”
She hadn’t known that.
“I’m assuming you knew that. Your signature was on every page.”
Okay, so maybe she had known. She hadn’t remembered. She’d been just shy of her seventeenth birthday. Scared to death. Heartbroken.
If only Pierce had contacted her. Even once...
If only she’d known then that her father had had a very firm talk with Pierce after he’d joined the army. Feeding Pierce’s fears that he wasn’t good enough for her. That she was destined for great things, a settled and successful society waiting for her, that nothing about her assets was suited to the moving around required by military life.
Pierce could have told her. Said now that maybe he should have told her that part. He’d still have joined up—and hadn’t wanted to bad-talk her father to her.
And what was done was done. They’d determined before they’d married seven years before that the only way for either of them to find happiness was to let go of the hurts they couldn’t change. And be thankful for all the great years they had left to share. To make the most of every minute of those years.
To realize that they, unlike so many others, had a special appreciation of their love that would prevent them from falling into the habit of taking that love, taking each other, for granted like they’d both seen happen with so many other couples.
“I can’t even know his name?” she asked, after taking as long as she could to assimilate her situation and pull herself together.
Clearly she hadn’t done either, yet.
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. To give the woman her due, she didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to get Eliza out of there.
“You do have the right to stipulate if you’d rather we not give him any further information about you,” the woman said after another few minutes of standby.
Eliza knew Mrs. Carpenter was waiting for her to go. She just didn’t.
Thoughts of the gathering in the hotel lobby, due to start in less than two hours, skirted across her mind. She watched the other contestants flit about like in some kind of weird movie. A flash of the lobby. A group of strangers.
“Can he give his permission for me to know about him?”
“His parents were willing to give that information at the time of the adoption,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “This is a strange situation. Clearly you feared that at some point in your life you’d want to revisit this situation, but from what you knew at the time of the adoption, with everything still clear in your mind, you wanted to protect your future self from the eventuality.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You’d been counseled for months. And asked your father to sign the papers, as well.”
She kind of remembered that.
“You re-signed them when you turned eighteen,” Mrs. Carpenter said softly, as though not sure what she was dealing with, a rational human being or a crazy lady. Eliza didn’t blame her. She wasn’t sure herself.
“I did?” she said.
“Yes.”
She might have. She’d been so messed up back then. Hardened. Hurting beyond what she could bear. Her parents—and her grandmother—just kept telling her to look forward. To effect that which she could effect. To use the past as a lesson. To take every opportunity to make a good life for herself.
She’d signed a few things. To be executor of her grandmother’s estate in the event that anything happened to her, even though, in Eliza’s mother’s eyes, she was still just a kid. Her mother had thought she should be the one with power of attorney over her own mother’s estate. It hadn’t happened that way.
Eliza’s grandmother had made a will of her own.
Taken out a life insurance policy.
A readmission of her adoption papers could very well have been one more piece of business to be dealt with and filed away.
Standing, Mrs. Carpenter came toward her. Eliza expected to be shown out. There really was nothing more for them to say. Instead, the woman sat down in the chair next to her and took Eliza’s hand. “Were you raped?”
What? “No!” Was that what her parents had told people? Was that how they’d saved face?
She’d thought leaving town before anyone had known she was pregnant had done that.
Mrs. Carpenter looked at her in a way that made Eliza feel like she was being professionally assessed.
“I had one very, very wonderful, if completely inappropriate, night with a boy I loved very much,” she said softly.
The words wouldn’t stay back. Wouldn’t remain unsaid. She and Pierce...that night...deserved better than that.
More words flew to her throat as though they’d all been waiting for release.
But with so many years of silence, she managed to contain them. They were making her nauseated, all bottled up in there. But in there they stayed.
Because what would she say? How crazy would this counselor think her if she knew that Eliza was now married to that same boy? But that he knew nothing about the son he’d fathered?
To know would do neither of them any good. It would be more of the hurt from the past that could prevent happiness in their future. More angst, acrimony. More whys without answers.
They couldn’t have their son. And Pierce couldn’t father another one. It seemed too cruel to let him know what he’d missed. And to what end? So that he could hate himself for not contacting her after he left?
So they could both die of what-ifs?
“I have to ask you again,” Mrs. Carpenter broke into her thoughts. Oddly, having come full circle, Eliza felt no more certain of anything, no less vulnerable. And yet she’d found her strength.
“Ask what?”
“At this point, all your son has done is make one query into your information. Do you want to update what we have so that, if he comes back, he can contact you?”
Her heart started to pound again. “Can you contact him and let him know it’s here? That I’ve been here and left updated information?”
She supposed she wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. She was disappointed. Hugely so. But back in control, she nodded. Took a breath.
Did she want this young man to be able to call her out of the blue? Any time of the day or night or year? Just to show up, unannounced at their door?
Yes! Of course! Absolutely!
And what about Pierce? What if he was having one of his bad spells? Or even if he wasn’t? Was it fair to him to open the door to this possibility? To the fact that at any moment, he could come face to face with his son without even knowing he had one?
If she did this...gave Mrs. Carpenter her information, gave her son the ability to contact her...she had to tell Pierce that the young man existed.
First.
“Can I call you and do that?” she asked now.
“Of course.” Mrs. Carpenter sat back.
Was Eliza no longer sounding like she was about to lose her marbles, then? She still felt like she was.
“You do realize there’s a possibility, given the internet, that he could find you anyway, right?”
Fear shot through her.
Mixed with excitement.
“That’s why I came,” she said. “To find out what the future might hold.”
Maybe she’d hoped to be able to see her son on her own. To know if finding out about him would cause Pierce more pain than good. To know if, regardless of the pain, their son needed them.
That had been the closer. If the boy needed them, she and Pierce had to put their own regrets, their own pain, aside and be there for him.
“I want him to have my information,” she said. “I want him to be able to contact me. But I need to take care of something first. I will be contacting you just as soon as I’ve gotten that done. I don’t know exactly when that will be...how soon...but it will be as soon as I can get it done.” She was babbling. Pedaling forward and back. Afraid for Pierce. Afraid for their son.
Mrs. Carpenter took her hand again. “That’s fine, hon. You don’t have to do this. That’s why you gave him up for adoption in the first place. So that he would be the son—the responsibility—of someone else. Whatever prompted you to do so...you clearly did what you thought best. What your parents thought best, too, based on what I read. You have no reason to feel guilty. Or obligated...”
“Oh, no. I want this!” She needed this. And hadn’t realized, until just that second, how much.
“It’s just...not just me...and I have to tend to others who love and need me...”
The woman nodded. Looking wise and understanding. And for the first time, Eliza felt like she was doing the right thing.
She stood. Walked to the door. And couldn’t quite step out. Not yet. Looking at the woman who’d somehow become a friend to her heart, she said, “Is there some way you can make a note in my file...to let him know...in case he comes back before I call...that I will be calling?”
“I can make a note that you said you would be calling.”
Eliza got the distinction. Mrs. Carpenter still thought she might change her mind. Or that she didn’t know her own mind.
She didn’t blame her. History wasn’t looking too good for her on that one. Recent history included.
But as Eliza left, as she drove back to Palm Desert and met all but one of her opponents in the contest, she’d never felt more like she and her mind were in sync.
They’d found each other again. Her thoughts and heart.
Somehow she was going to have to find a way to bring Pierce into the mix.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
THAT FIRST WEEK there was no televised show he could watch. The contestants would be shuttled from the hotel to the studio for their first taping the next morning, but it was for footage that would be woven in throughout the series as warranted. They were being introduced to each other, shown their kitchen pods, their green room and lockers. And then toured around the studio. Natasha Stevens, the show’s host, wanted them familiar with their surroundings when the competition began the next weekend.
For the next five weekends, Pierce was going to be sleeping alone. If Eliza won any of the four weekly competitions, there’d be a sixth trip to Palm Desert for her. And he’d be expected to accompany her in the event that circumstance came to pass. If she actually won the whole thing, he’d be called up on stage to stand beside her as she accepted her award.
Lying in bed alone that Friday night, his arms folded on the pillow, his hands propping up his head, Pierce stared at the ceiling. And pictured his beautiful, vivacious, loving wife up on stage, on national television, announcing to the world that he, Pierce Westin, was her husband.
It was way too early for him to be lying in the dark, too early to have stripped down to his T-shirt and briefs. Guests were still up and about. Someone could need something.
But social hour was over. And if no one had a problem that Margie couldn’t handle, he could lie there alone until morning without being missed.
When he’d come in, he’d kind of had a plan to turn on the television mounted on the wall across from their big four-poster bed. Thought maybe he’d take in one of the more violent suspense flicks he liked. The ones that Eliza read through. If she could bear to be in the room with the sound at all.
Kill ’em and die movies, she always called them.
He grinned. What did that really mean? If you killed them, you didn’t die. That was the point.
He’d brought a fresh glass of iced lemon water in with him. And a plate of Eliza’s macaroon cookies. They were sitting where he’d left them, side by side on his nightstand.
In the dark. Just like him.
He was waiting for Eliza’s call telling him her cocktail party downstairs was over and she was up in her room for the night. With the three-hour time difference, it might be a while. Still, he’d wait to speak with her before turning on a light.
Or starting a movie.
With the lights out, he could almost pretend she was there with him.
Not that he’d ever tell her—or anyone—that he had those kinds of thoughts. Doing so would only raise emotional expectations he’d be sure to fail to live up to.
And while he was more comfortable with his wife by his side, he wasn’t a sap. Or even a warmhearted guy. He was a man who’d done wrong. Who could never right that wrong. And who was spending the rest of his life serving others to pay an unpayable debt.
He was a man whose heart had ever been completely open only to one other—Liza Westin. She didn’t go by Liza anymore. And he wasn’t the same man who’d once loved with such trust and abandon. But he remembered...
He must have dozed off—a shock in itself—and sat upright when his cell phone pealed, catching it on the first ring.
“How’d it go?” He’d seen her caller ID with bleary eyes.
“Good!” Her upbeat tone had him on edge. Eliza wasn’t one to get overly excited. Not anymore, at any rate.
But then, she’d never been to California, or been about to be on national television before, he reminded himself as he listened to her tell him about the contestants she’d met that night.
A set of identical twin sisters who co-owned a bistro in New Orleans and were both contestants. Neither had ever been married, which Eliza found hard to believe because they were both quite striking, with dark hair and eyes and infectious smiles. There was the computer genius—she called him that because of his glasses, clean-shaved face and haircut—who learned to cook from his mother when he was a kid. He worked in a bank and entered cooking contests. The Family Secrets qualifier was his fourth major win, but he’d won hundreds of local contests.
“You’d have hundreds of wins, too, if you’d ever entered a cooking contest before,” Pierce told her, stacking their pillows together and settling back against them. Content to sit in the dark and listen to her voice for the rest of the night.
“I don’t know about that.” She chuckled. “All we really know is that I’m good enough to keep our guests happy.”
“You won the first contest you ever entered,” he reminded her dryly. “You won the audition contest to be there. That’s how good you are.”
“Yeah, well, you’re good for me, Pierce Westin, you know that?”
He wasn’t. But with her so far away, he wasn’t going to let on to her that she’d caught the raw end of their deal.
She told him about a man who owned a culinary cooking school in Idaho. Another one with a popular fast food stand on the beach in Florida. And a woman from California who’d confessed that she really wasn’t all that great a cook. She’d used a friend’s recipe to audition for Family Secrets because she was trying to break into the business.
“The cooking show business? If she’s not into cooking, why does she want to be in the business?” he asked, grinning. He loved it when Eliza’s tone took on that slightly sarcastic note. Not quite poking fun at people, but sounding as though she were asking him, Can you believe it? To his knowledge, she’d never used the tone with anyone but him.
Which was probably why he liked it so much...
“I wondered the same thing,” Eliza said, “but only to myself. Luckily, Mr. Beach Food Stand wasn’t as reticent and was able to ask her questions and draw her out. She’s hoping to break into show business,” Eliza said.
Pierce wondered what she looked like, but didn’t ask. He wasn’t going to spend what time he had with his wife talking about another woman’s appearance.
“Apparently she’s spent the past two years going on auditions, and this is the first gig she got.”
A gig that didn’t pay unless you won. Which you weren’t likely to do if you couldn’t cook.
“She’s hoping to get discovered when the world sees how photogenic she is,” Eliza continued. “From what I hear, several former contestants on Family Secrets have been offered full-time positions on other shows. One even got a show of her own.”
Pierce was ready to move on. Way on.
Eliza was photogenic. Gorgeous, in fact. And a fabulous cook. She could get offers...be lured from their quiet life. The only kind of life he could endure with a reasonable assurance of maintaining his equilibrium.
Was this the beginning of the end for them? Would this be how he lost her?
Shaking his head, he sat up. Turned on the light. Fear was a waste of time. And flights of imagination were not allowed in his world. Were not anything he could afford to indulge in. Ever.
He had a hard enough time keeping the nightmares manageable when he controlled every thought.
“You got the light on?” Eliza’s voice broke into the moroseness he’d allowed to enter their room.
“Yeah.”
“And the TV?”
“Not yet.”
“Sleep with the TV on, Pierce, please? Don’t try to prove anything...”
Sweet woman. Didn’t get that proving himself was all he ever did. “I won’t,” he told her. And then added, “And I will sleep with the television on.”
“We’ve gone almost a year without a nightmare,” she told him. “I’ll feel awful if they start up again because I’m off having a dream moment...”
She’d done the audition as a lark. Hadn’t expected to win. And had offered, many times, to turn down the opportunity when she did win.
“You have nothing to feel awful about, Eliza,” he said now, his voice filled with command. “The fact that you put up with the nightmares at all makes you an angel. I won’t have them preventing you from enjoying the best life has to offer you...”
Or forcing her to be less than her potential would allow, he finished silently, remembering a long-ago night when his not-yet father-in-law had come to him. Issuing the warning to stay away from his daughter.
“You are the best life has to offer me.” Her voice had dropped, and if she’d been there, he’d have taken her in his arms.
God, he missed her.
“So, tell me about the rest of your day,” he said, when he should have told her how much he loved her.
His breathing steadied as she talked about the magnificent mountains, the desert landscaping and all of the pristine green surrounding Palm Desert and its Siamese twin, Palm Springs. As she described the huge beds of colorful flowers on every street corner, he tried to picture her there. And wished, for a moment, that he’d agreed to go with her.
He might have gone, except for one key point neither of them had acknowledged—she’d never asked him to. From the moment she’d won the audition, the only question had been whether or not Eliza would take part in the show. Not once had she ever asked him to go with her or given him an opportunity to offer to go.
Right from the beginning she’d assumed he couldn’t, citing his work schedule. And the limited time off they had. He hadn’t pressed the issue. Partly because the idea of flying to California and hanging around a television studio surrounded by strangers who’d expect him to be social had left him more than a little uncomfortable. And he didn’t want Eliza thinking she had to tend to him, or worry about him, while she was there.
And there’d been another risk he hadn’t been willing to take—the other reason he hadn’t introduced the possibility of him accompanying her to California—the chance that she might just tell him she didn’t want him there.
Lord knew he wasn’t an easy man to live with. Laughing didn’t come as readily to him as it did her. He didn’t always have a lot to say. And he was overprotective. He didn’t blame her if she needed time away to be carefree and enjoy herself.
“Pierce?”
“Yeah?”
“I was...talking to Mr. Beach Food Stand tonight. His name’s Jason...”
The hesitancy in her voice bothered him. More than a little. He waited to see what was coming. Picked up the TV remote and pushed On, watching as the smart television booted up.
“He was talking about his kids,” she continued. “He has two of them. Two boys. Seven and nine.”
With the sound muted, he scrolled through channels. Waited for mention of a wife. A mother to the boys. Wondered why beach bum Jason had caught her interest enough to talk to him about it.
“Listening to him talk...it just made me wonder...maybe it’s time we talked about our future.”
Was she trying to kill him here? She was a country away, getting ready to become a television star, and she wanted to talk about the future, too?
“What about it?”
“I just...we never talk about kids...”
“What’s there to talk about? I can’t have them. You knew that going in.”
“I know.”
She was going somewhere with all of this. Pierce settled on a sports station. A rerun of a boxing match. Thought about smashing heads. Or getting his smashed.
Figured it would be preferable to this conversation.
“We agreed, before we married, that we’d both be happy with it being just the two of us,” he reminded her. Because it was the basis of their union.
Not because he thought he could hold her to it.
“I know.”
Pierce threw a mental punch, felt the satisfaction of it connecting. Took a harder one. And went dizzy.
She wasn’t going to say any more. He knew that. Just as he knew that she needed him to do so. To ask what was going on. To need to know why she’d brought up an already closed subject.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked, leaving the boxing ring and landing on a news station. He couldn’t hear what the announcers were saying. But headlines flashed up now and then. The stock market had taken a dip.
Something that didn’t matter to him directly. Or to Eliza. Their money was safely tied up. Together.
“A little,” she said, sounding subdued. “But not nearly as much as I would have been if I hadn’t already met so many of the others tonight. I’ve just never been on camera. I hope I don’t do anything embarrassing,” she said.
Relaxing back against the pillows, he scrolled through more channels, stopping when he found commercials. “You aren’t going to embarrass yourself,” he told her. A repeat of a conversation they’d had at least a half-dozen times since she’d won her spot on Family Secrets. Most recently on the way to the airport. And before that, the night before when he’d lain in the exact same spot and watched her pack.
“I could trip walking across the stage to my stool.”
“Which is why you packed your flat patent leather penny loafers.”
“What if I sneeze?”
“Say ‘excuse me.’”
“I might get tongue-tied and just stare.”
“Then they’ll cut that part out. This time isn’t live.”
“What if I get stage fright when it is live?”
“Everyone will get a chance to enjoy your beautiful face while you stare at the camera.”
“I might lose, Pierce.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to let you down.”
His heart was racing again, but in a way that didn’t strangle him. “You couldn’t possibly do anything, anything,that would let me down, Eliza,” he said. “I love you more than life.”
The words weren’t clear, sticking in his throat. But he got them out. And felt guilty—like he was holding her to him when he had no right.
“I love you more than life, too. You know that, right?”
“I do.” She loved the man she thought he was. The man he’d been. Not the man he’d become, whom she knew nothing about.
“Can we talk in the morning?” she asked. “Before I go?”
“If you’d like.”
“I’ll call your cell?”
“Yeah.”
“Sleep tight, Pierce.”
“You, too.”
Waiting until he heard her disconnect, Pierce turned off his phone’s screen but didn’t put it back on the nightstand. He’d sleep with it in hand. Just like he did every other time he spent a night apart from his wife. While she was gone, that phone was their connection. And his comfort.
Not that anyone would ever, ever know that.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
ELIZA DIDN’T EMBARRASS herself that first day in the studio. She enjoyed herself immensely. More than she’d ever imagined. Being around professional cooks, meeting Natasha Stevens in person, just looking around her small but state-of-the-art stainless steel culinary space made her feel like skipping around the room.
She was no longer just running a business her grandmother had left to her. Or being her father’s daughter who continued to be a disappointment to him. She wasn’t even just retired-medal-toting-military-man-turned-respected-cop’s wife. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she was someone in her own right. A chef worthy of national television. Her love of cooking, her cooking talents, were her own.
As she said her goodbyes at the studio, took a cab to the airport and boarded her plane home Saturday night, Eliza had another problem on her plate. Not only did she have an illegitimate son her husband knew nothing about, not only had she given away her sterile husband’s child, not only did she have to tell Pierce both of those things—but also, she now needed to win Family Secrets. Needed it with a burn inside that wasn’t going to let her rest.
All her life she’d been looking for her way. Her own mark to make on the world. She’d been looking for her purpose. Not her parents’ purpose for her. Not her grandmother’s. Or her guests’. Not even Pierce’s—not that he’d admit to any purpose for her but her own happiness.
Since the day she’d given away her baby, she’d accepted the fact that she’d given away any chance she’d had of knowing ultimate joy. From that point on, she’d been settling. Not allowing herself to want for more than she could have. Content to love those she loved with all of her heart, to serve them. To take her happiness through pleasing them as best she could. To avoid asking for more than she deserved. To be thankful, every day, for what she had. She’d lost her drive to be all she could be. To achieve more than what was placed before her. To pave her own way.
She sat in her window seat and stared out into the night, scared to death that she’d just found her way and that it might implode her entire world. Scared that Pierce wasn’t going to understand. Scared that she’d fail. And that she wouldn’t.
And more excited than she’d been in a long, long time.
* * *
PIERCE KNEW THE SECOND he saw Eliza walking toward him that things had changed. The lightness in her step, the easy smile on her face, were like a shield around her—keeping him out. Not because she’d had fun or was enjoying the beginning of her television experience. But because, for the first time since they’d reconnected, she wasn’t greeting him with a sense of relief.
Relief that they’d parted and made it back together again unscathed.
He almost let himself be convinced that he’d been imagining the difference. And yet, as the new week started—and next weekend’s separation loomed—a shadow seemed to lurk over their home.
Maybe that sense of darkness, of doom, was only in him. As Pierce took the Shelby Island exit Monday, he didn’t discount that possibility. His first call that day had ended in the arrest of a man for pulling his young daughter’s arm out of the socket and then backhanding her when she’d cried about it. He’d gone from there to take a report from an elderly woman who suspected her children were stealing from her. And then he’d been second on the scene at a convenience store robbery. Not exactly a bright, sunshiny day. In spite of the blue skies and seventy-degree weather report.
A few hours alone with Eliza, sequestered in their portion of their antebellum home, would probably work wonders on him. She was making his favorite steak dinner. Though he’d stood in the kitchen talking to her more than once while she’d made it, he knew only that the sauce had about three kinds of mushrooms and whipped cream, and the meat itself was crusted with sea salt. And that it was the best steak he’d ever had in his mouth.
He’d be having it at least twice that week as she timed herself from refrigerator to plate in preparation for the upcoming Saturday’s meat competition in Palm Desert. While the whole idea of the show was making him nervous now, he wanted her to win. And figured the steak would do it. At least enough to guarantee her a place in the competition’s final round.
The inn’s guests for the evening included just two separately roomed businesspeople who were regulars. Social interaction requirements would be minimal.
He was hoping for an evening walk on the beach. Or good tunes on in the exercise room while they took turns with the equipment. Something to use pent-up energy while still having her close.
Pierce had himself down for being the only one aware of any gloom when Eliza met him at the door with a very welcoming kiss. After he changed out of his uniform into jeans and a casual blue button-down shirt, she was actually the one who suggested a walk on the beach after social hour and their private dinner. So much for thinking that she’d been shielded off from him. They were as simpatico as always.
He couldn’t help watching her—like a man watched a woman—while she moved about the parlor, welcoming their guests back, asking about their days. In black leggings and a longish black-and-white variegated-plaid flannel shirt belted at the waist, she was the furthest thing from nightmares he could imagine.
The meal she’d prepared was superb, as always, but it was her smile, the warmth in those brown eyes as she waited for his assessment, that really filled him up.
Dishes done, she grabbed her sweater. Pierce might have suggested they stay home instead of taking that walk, but he took her hand as they set out to Shelby Island’s long stretch of public beach, content to be by her side in the cool evening air.
Right up until she said, “Can we talk?”
A rendition of “we need to talk.” And everyone knew what that meant.
He braced himself.
“Of course.”
“I just... I’m thinking about kids a lot these days, Pierce.”
Kids. He’d been prepared for changes due to television stardom. A need to fly permanently away from their lives on quaint and relatively safe Shelby Island. Her eventual dissatisfaction where he was concerned.
And...kids. Her mention the other night on the phone had not been casual. When she didn’t pursue it, he’d just hoped whatever question she’d had had been answered in the meantime.
There was much he might say. Much he probably should say. At least an inquiry into where she was going with this. An indication that he was willing to listen.
He walked beside her. Felt her squeeze his hand and didn’t squeeze back. He also didn’t let go.
“We said we’d always make space between us to talk about whatever we needed to talk about...”
He didn’t disagree. Still said nothing.
They’d reached the beach. Still holding his hand, she slid out of her flip-flops, bent to pick them up, then continued to walk. He’d noticed the hand-holding most.
Took note. Breathed a little easier. And told himself that he’d get through this...whatever it was...for her. And had never been more thankful for darkness. While streetlights emblazoned patches of sidewalk and blacktop up off the beach, nothing illuminated the sand but the moon.
He could see a couple of lights bobbing out on the horizon. And noticed three or four other people sharing the beach with them. All locals, he assumed, enjoying their beach before tourists completely took over. Spring break—the official beginning of Shelby Island’s tourist season—was only a few weeks off.
He knew specifically because it would be starting before Eliza finished with Family Secrets. She’d almost backed out of the show because of it...
“I know that you can’t father children, Pierce. You’re right, we talked about all that. And we agreed that just being together was enough for us...”
That was then. This was now. Things changed. People grew. Not always together.
Had Eliza’s biological clock started to tick? He thought about her pregnant. She’d be beautiful big with child. And would be an incredible mother, too. The best. Any kid would be lucky to have her.
He even thought for a brief second about asking her what she thought about artificial insemination before his psyche shut down on him. As it did every single time he tried to imagine himself in any kind of situation in which he had a relationship with a child.
The shutdown was his mind’s way of coping. And, according to the shrinks he’d seen in the army and again in the police department, it was a good thing. His mind’s way of blocking allowed him to be tough under pressure. Made him the go-to guy. The one who got the job done where others might crack.
As long as he understood that he had to deal with whatever his mind was blocking. He always had to remember to debrief in some fashion. Or have nightmares—his mind’s way of debriefing on its own.
Possibly both.
“Are you with me?” They’d walked several yards up the beach—far enough from the ocean that he could barely feel the chill coming off it. Sweating, he longed for a naked dive into the highest wave. Longed to conquer it, swim past it and let the ocean wash him clean.
“Yes.”
She knew him well. He trusted her to know that he’d listen to whatever she had to say. And do his best to support her in any way he could.
She even knew about the shutdowns. She just didn’t know what had triggered them in the first place. Or that there’d been one specific event that had done so.
Only a handful of people knew that. And none of them were talking. Ever. The pact was as rock-solid all those years later as it had been when it was made.
Not to save his butt. In some ways he’d just been the pawn. The one who drew the short straw.
But in the end, he’d been the perpetrator, too.
Because he’d made a choice. One he’d probably make again if faced with the situation again. And one he’d regret for the rest of his life.
And that was the crux of his predicament. You couldn’t be forgiven for something you knew you’d do again.
“When we were young, you talked about wanting to be a father.”
He didn’t miss a physical step, had only a bit of a mental blip.
“You were going to be everything your own parents were not...”
He heard the words. Didn’t relate to them. But held her hand. Because doing so was best for both of them.
“I know this is difficult ground, Pierce, considering your injury, but we need to talk about it.”
The thing was, the injury he’d sustained that had rendered him incapable of fathering children—it had been just. A man who’d taken the life of a child did not deserve to have children of his own.
He walked beside her. Would remain by her side for as long as she’d have him there. He’d made her that promise.
Of course, he’d promised, when he’d left his sweet young lover all those years ago, that he’d be back for her. He’d been too much of a kid back then to understand that life changed you—sometimes beyond anything that would fit into the life you’d left.
Still...he’d come back to her. Eventually.
“What do you think about adopting?”
Her words stung his skin. Hurt his ears with their volume. Tightened around his chest.
Pierce let go of Eliza’s hand.
CHAPTER SIX (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
SHIVERING AS SHE walked beside Pierce up the sidewalk that led to their home, Eliza refused to give in to the self-pity that was pushing its way up her throat.
He wasn’t cutting her off. Or out. He was experiencing something beyond his control. The result of having been sent, as barely a man, to fight a war that so much of the time made no sense to him. Pierce’s time in the Middle East had involved full combat against insurgents. The physical injuries he’d sustained, while horrendous, weren’t as horrible as the mental battles he still fought.
Her job as his spouse, his partner, was to understand his silences for what they were. He’d been up-front with her from the very beginning this time around. He’d let her know that he wasn’t the man he’d been.
He still didn’t get that, to her, he was. The essence of him, the heart and soul, was battered but intact. Pierce was every bit the boy he’d been. And so much more.
“I’m not asking you to bring a baby into our home, Pierce,” she said softly half a block from the inn. “Or even telling you, yet, that I want to. I just wanted to talk about kids. About us not having any. About how it’s hard sometimes. I wanted us to think about the fact that if we both wanted a child badly enough, we could check into adoption...”
She’d been thinking about it a lot. Anytime her brain hadn’t been filled with her son and Family Secrets and...Pierce. Her visit to the agency...remembering how it had felt, for those few brief moments, to be a mother. Thinking about the family who got to have a baby of their own through her. Picturing her and Pierce on the receiving side, instead of the losing side—no, not losing, giving. They’d been on the giving side.
For so long, ever since Pierce had come back and she’d known about his injury, she’d resigned herself to being half of a childless couple. Had thought it was her fate for having given away her baby. Pierce’s obvious struggle with his infertility had just been the final seal on the decision...
“I don’t want a child.”
They were the first words he’d spoken in almost half an hour.
“It’s just...well...when you married Bonita...it was because of her son. You said you married her because her son needed a father and you wanted to be there for him. Whether you think you were a good father or not, you still wanted to be one...” She was rambling. And he knew her well enough to figure out that she was upset. If enough of him was there with her to notice.
A few yards from home, he stopped, turned her to look at him. “I understand if you feel different, Eliza, but please hear me. I do not want a child.”
His words were a death knell to her future.
The deep emotion shining in his eyes, overflowing with all of the things he couldn’t say, held her heart tightly, passionately bound with his.
* * *
“NO.” INSTANTLY AWAKE, Eliza lay frozen. She hadn’t dreamed the fierce growl.
Was Pierce in the bed with her?
His body wasn’t touching hers, and she was afraid to move to find out if he was there. She hardly breathed but couldn’t hear his breath.
Pierce wasn’t a heavy sleeper. Waking to find herself alone wasn’t uncommon. When his demons were doing their worst, he’d get up and roam. Sometimes just in their suite. Sometimes outside on the grounds. Depended on how much air he needed to clear his mind.
Some nights he turned on the television and lay awake watching sitcom reruns. At first, she’d thought maybe the sound of the television had woken her. But she could tell by the lack of light and shadows on the wall that the TV wasn’t on.
“Nooooo.” The sound came again. Fiercer this time. And then it was a howl. A wail. No longer in doubt as to its origin, Eliza still didn’t move. Her husband was in a hell she couldn’t share. But if she startled him, he might mistakenly take her there.
Pierce had never hit her—or even swung her way—during one of his nighttime episodes, but he’d insisted that she go to counseling with him before she’d ever spent a night in his bed. She knew that it wasn’t impossible that she could inadvertently be hurt.
She also knew it wasn’t likely to happen. Not after all these years. Pierce was diligent with his mental and emotional awareness.
So much so that they’d gone so long without an episode that she’d thought perhaps he was over them.
Had hoped that her love, their life together on the island, gave him enough peace to keep the demons at bay.
It would help if he worked in a field other than the dangerous one he’d chosen. Dealing with thugs and break-ins all day was too reminiscent of battling insurgents. But it had been decided, with professional input, that in Pierce’s case, being out on the streets actually helped him work out some of the panic bottled up inside him. He was more at peace when he was doing something to help make the world a safer place.
The bed started to shake and so, then, did Eliza. Alarmed, she held her breath. He’d never convulsed before. Was he having a seizure?
Willing to risk a fist in the face if it meant saving her husband’s life, Eliza shot up and turned toward Pierce, ready to cram her fingers in his mouth and hold on to his tongue if need be—something she’d read you had to do to prevent someone having a seizure from swallowing their tongue. Nothing she had any real knowledge about at all.
Before she’d even touched his shoulder, she stopped. His back was to her. And now that she could see him, she knew he wasn’t convulsing.
He was sobbing. Leaning over him, careful not to disturb him, she saw his eyes were closed, but his face was soaked with tears. He was sobbing in his sleep. Something he had never done before.
She’d been told not to wake him when he was in the middle of a nightmare. But how could she sit there and watch her husband’s anguish?
She didn’t care if he lashed out, if he hit her. But if he did, he’d never forgive himself.
So Eliza lay back down. She closed her eyes and willed her breathing to an even cadence.
And she sent every ounce of love she possessed across the mattress to her husband.
She’d caused this.
It had been either the show, or the talk of children, or both. But there was no doubt in her mind that she’d done this.
Nothing else had changed in their lives. The show. And the kid.
And she didn’t think the show had sent him back to hell. He didn’t like her to be away on her own, but he’d known about the show for weeks. And had slept great the first night she’d been back. For that matter, he’d said he hadn’t had even a bad dream while she’d been gone.
But tonight, when she’d tried to open up the idea of adoptive children to him, he’d started to blip on her. Give her that blank stare that she’d grown to hate. The one that said he was off someplace in his mind where she couldn’t go.
Why had even the mention of him as a father set him off like this?
She’d promised herself that she’d tell Pierce they’d had a son before her flight back to Palm Desert on Friday. Telling him had been her primary goal for the week. She wasn’t going back if she didn’t tell him.
As she lay there, listening to her husband grieve, she made another decision. She wasn’t going to tell Pierce about their son until she knew why talk of kids had elicited such a strongly negative response.
Which meant that she also couldn’t call Mrs. Carpenter with the okay to release her information to her son in the event that he came looking for her again.
And that opened the door to another possibility...that after a second try, if there even was one, the boy would lose interest in her. There was a good chance he wouldn’t come back a third time.
And, based on the papers she’d signed, there was no chance at all that she could ever find him if he didn’t.
Pierce quieted. Sometimes his nightmares woke him. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they haunted him for days or even weeks. Sometimes he didn’t even remember having them.
She’d tell him about the episode. Knowing what was going on inside him was all a part of his accountability to his own health. She wouldn’t rob him of that right.
But she needed time to herself first. To figure out what she was going to do with the mess she’d made of her life.
Pierce had paid too high a price already for doing nothing more than serving his country. He’d already lost so much. He wasn’t going to lose her, too.
It was a promise she’d made to him. And one she’d made to herself. She’d failed her baby. She wasn’t going to fail his father.
By the time Pierce’s sobs quieted, Eliza’s cheeks were wet with tears.
Family Secrets, being a chef, glitz, glamour, awards and the bright lights of television were so far distant, she wasn’t sure the whole thing hadn’t just been a dream.
Well, she was sure. It wasn’t just a dream. She could feel the win pushing at her. Needing her as badly as she needed it. But maybe a dream was all it would be. All it could ever be. As her eyes closed and she finally drifted back to sleep, it was with the thought that she’d call Natasha Stevens in the morning and withdraw herself from the competition. From the show.
She cried about that, too. With sobs that shook her body.
But she didn’t change her mind.
The family secrets she’d already kept were more than she could handle.
* * *
PIERCE KNEW, AS soon as his gaze met Eliza’s in their bathroom mirror as they brushed their teeth Tuesday morning, that the fog in which he’d awoken hadn’t been because of a deep sleep.
He swore. She nodded.
He’d had another nightmare. After going almost a year without them.
Her look of compassion practically brought him to his knees. He didn’t deserve her. And had to find a way to tell her so. To talk of things he’d sworn never to mention. And hadn’t. Not to the multitude of professionals who’d helped him over the years. Not to his superior officers. Not even to those who’d made the pact with him.
He’d tell her. But not that day. Probably not any day soon. Someday, though.
After her television stint was through.
She deserved this chance. Deserved whatever came of it. And if it took her from him...she needed to never know the truth about the man she’d loved so purely.
His need to get to work, and hers to serve their guests’ breakfast, precluded any conversation that morning. But Pierce came home Tuesday night prepared to do a better job of communicating with his wife before he laid his head down to sleep again. He had to be responsible about the nightmares, stay diligent. To protect her.
And he knew exactly from whence this one had come.
They’d had a third check-in to the inn that day. A woman who was writing a piece of fiction that would feature the B and B. In exchange, Eliza had given her free room and board. She’d been so excited about the opportunity when the author had first contacted her.
Seemed like ages ago now. More than a month before she’d auditioned for, and won, her spot on Family Secrets.
If nothing else, the television show was giving her more publicity than she could ever have hoped. The inn was already booked through the summer but was starting to fill up through the fall and into Christmas.
“I just got my first booking for next summer,” Eliza told him as she met him at the back kitchen door when he came in from work on Tuesday. She was grinning.
He could feel her joy.
And see the sadness lurking in her eyes, too.
“Can we talk?” he asked, setting in stone the decision he’d made that morning. Several times throughout the day. And again that evening on his way home. “Tonight? After we’re through out there?” He nodded toward the door that led into the portion of their home that was open to the public.
He didn’t like the way she studied him, eye to eye, but he withstood it.
“Of course,” she said. And then she kissed him. Obliterating the world for just a moment in the way only she could. Giving him a different kind of mental blip. One that he could gladly succumb to for the rest of his life.
Life with Eliza required much from him. He’d give everything and more to be with her.
So he socialized with their guests, thankful to be able to look across the room and see her beautiful smile. He carried a box of the author’s files up to her room for her. Cleared empty dishes and ran the vacuum in the parlor after the crowd had dissipated. He even stopped by the library to chat with one of the businessmen who liked to spend an hour or two in the evenings sitting in one of the antique leather wing chairs, reading from the collection Eliza’s grandmother had amassed.
And when the house had settled, he joined his wife in the kitchen. Eliza was putting finishing touches on breakfast and preparing hors d’oeuvres for the two nights she’d be gone over the upcoming weekend. She’d given Margie a couple of days off to make up for working all weekend, and had spent her day cleaning and refreshing.
“Can I help?”
He couldn’t blame her for the surprised look on her face. Pierce’s kitchen skills were nil. Boiling water was debatable.
“I can chop,” he told her, meeting her gaze head-on. She’d barely slept the night before. He could tell by the shadows under her eyes.
And so, with her careful instruction, he took up knife and onion and set to work, slicing it into precise cubes. And then celery.
He’d come in to have their talk.
They worked in total silence.
But it was a peaceful silence, he told himself. Companionable.
Silence was right up his alley. But it wasn’t like Eliza not to fill in his gaps.
Words ran through his mind. Slowly at first. And then more rapidly. What to say? How much to say? When to say it?
He owed her. So much. For the previous night. For the past. And for the happily-ever-after he probably wouldn’t be able to give her.
“I did marry Bonita because I thought I could be the father her son clearly needed.” Celery stalks, cut into thin strips, took turns beneath his blade. Quick. Precise. Sharp cuts that left no strings.
He’d had some asinine plan back then that it would be his way of atoning for his sins. That he could give back some of what he’d taken. As Eliza had stated the night before, he had, at one time, thought that he’d make a great dad. Had wanted kids of his own almost as badly as he’d wanted Eliza.
Standing at the stove across the counter from him, she’d been stirring. Her hand still on the big metal spoon, she seemed to freeze, her spoon standing upright in the pan.
Pierce had more to say. He just wasn’t sure what. He chopped. And eventually she started to stir again, too.
They finished their preparation, classical music playing softly in the background. Did the dishes side by side. And went into their room.
He brushed his teeth while she washed her face. But when she was about to undress and get ready for bed, Pierce took her hand, led her over to the chintz-covered stool at her antique dressing table. He lit candles. Put on Beethoven. Turned off the lights.
And drew her a lavender-scented bath.
Tonight wasn’t about him. It was about making it up to her—all of the things she’d lost because of him, the things she continued to sacrifice.
It was about showing her the things he couldn’t say.
As his lovely wife sat on the edge of the tub, still in her robe, waiting for the bubble bath he’d started for her to fill, he slipped out to pour two glasses of iced lemon water. Placing them on one of her silver serving trays, he added a small dish of milk chocolate shavings—Eliza’s favorite indulgence—and, for himself, a couple of her chocolate cream cookies.
She looked up when he returned, tray in hand, fully dressed in his dark blue pants, shirt and slip-on boat shoes.
“You’ll stay with me?” she asked. Even now, she welcomed him.
Pierce swallowed. Shook his head. Set down the tray and handed her a water and the plate of chocolate.
“I wish you’d at least get comfortable,” she said, testing the water in the tub with a frown.
He was scaring her. The last thing he’d meant to do.
So he went to change into the blue chenille robe she’d bought him for Christmas, and sank to the floor of the bathroom, his back against the wall.
That was Pierce. Always with his back to the wall. Or against a wall.
Still in her robe, she’d turned off the water, but he knew she wouldn’t get in until he’d said what he had to say.
“Two things,” he said, keeping his voice low as he invaded the peace with which he’d purposely surrounded her. “First, it took less than a year of marriage for me to know that the man I am today, the man I became in the Middle East, could not ever be a father.”
Her chocolate sat untouched on the side of the double-wide cast iron tub—a luxury he suspected had been built in more modern times to emulate a tub of old. It had been holding court in the largely decorated with roses room the first time he’d visited Eliza.
“The responsibility, the constant need to be one step ahead, knowing that someone was relying on me for safety and security on a constant basis, being in charge of someone who could not always fend for himself...it triggered nightmare after nightmare. No matter what I did, how hard I tried, how much counseling I sought...the boy triggered nightmares.”
He knew why. His counselor hadn’t, not specifically. Because he hadn’t told him. But the PTSD professional had known enough.
“Last night was because of me,” Eliza said. “Because I wanted to talk about kids.”
“It’s not your fault, Eliza. And you need to talk about what you want and need. You have a right to. And our marriage needs you to do so. Our relationship needs it.” The words flowed freely when he was dealing with her. Loving Eliza was the one thing that had always come easy to him.
Too easy for her own good.
“And we need to deal with the fact that I am not a man who can have kids with you. Not in any way. Biological or not.”
Surrounded by roses, cast iron heart shapes adorned with roses, wallpaper depicting rose trellises, he felt like he was spewing ash on her beauty.
She wasn’t saying anything. But watching her expression, he knew she was thinking. Knew, too, that he had to nip any hope in the bud.
“It’s not just the nightmares,” he told her. He’d known that morning that he was going to have to give her more. Because they were dealing with so much more.
He wasn’t going to break the pact. Not yet, anyway. He couldn’t predict the outcome and was not going to get in the way of her reaching for her dreams. But she deserved the truth he could give her.
“I was a terrible father,” he told her. “Jeremiah thought I hated him. He was a good boy. Got good grades. Was respectful. I truly cared about the kid, but my silences scared him. So I’d try to talk and end up saying the wrong thing.” Because he’d had nothing to say. “I don’t have the ability to nurture a child. One night when I got home, Jeremiah ran up to me and threw his arms around my waist. I immediately dislodged them and backed up. And when I saw what I’d done, saw the hurt on his face, I still couldn’t hug him.”
He shuddered inside just thinking about that night.
“I was already sleeping in my own room by then, behind a locked door, because of the nightmares. I had to struggle, every day, for patience with Jeremiah. Listening to his boyish chatter, I’d go on a mind freeze and hope that he finished soon.” The boy would talk and Pierce would see all of the ways in which he was setting the kid up for hurt. For disappointment. Setting himself up for failure. And know that he couldn’t do anything to prevent any of them.
Jeremiah’s innocence had not belonged in his world, and he’d known it. Or rather, he hadn’t belonged in Jeremiah’s innocent world.
He belonged on the streets. Busting criminals. It was what he was good at. The way he could contribute good to the world.
“It got to the point that he refused to be alone with me,” Pierce told her the worst of it. “That’s when Bonita and I decided to divorce.”
He should have left months before then. He’d just hated to walk out on another woman.
And he hadn’t wanted to leave that boy.
“Pierce?”
Eliza’s soft tone drew his gaze. Her eyes should have been showing him...disappointment...at the very least. Instead, they were glistening with...him.
She’d sat in his darkness.
She loved him anyway. Still.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ucc7f806e-1278-584b-abdb-3f3f430e767c)
ELIZA TOOK A later flight on Friday. She had no exploring to do. Her visit to California had one purpose—competing on Family Secrets. Getting the win she so desperately needed. A personal reinforcement that would give her the strength to do the things she needed to do for those who loved her. For those she loved.
Her son, finding him, was on hold. Telling Pierce about the boy who might or might not even agree to meet them couldn’t be done just on her own timetable. She had to consider her husband. Care for him.

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