The Secret Father

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

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

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

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

“I understand,” he said.

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

“Where are you going, Olivia?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am his father.”

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

“You’re talking shared custody?”

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

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

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

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

She nodded. “Beside the church.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was starting to hate that TV show.

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

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

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

She was too young to be managing editor except her father owned the show and acted as the magazine’s editor in chief. To get a feel for her work, Zach had read stories from her earlier career, and then he’d scanned several recent issues. Olivia might have gone straight to the masthead because of her connections, but she was a good reporter.

What if she really was after a story? The possibility made him set his drink on the counter so hard the glass clanked. Could her job be the reason she’d come here?