The SEAL's Stolen Child

* * *

“HOW COULD HE DO THIS to me—us?” Seated in her father’s oversize leather desk chair, Eve felt lost. Barry and his crew had long since left and she’d learned Hal had preplanned his funeral down to which hymns he wanted sung and what he wanted to wear. She’d known her father liked to be in charge, but one more revelation about just how controlling he truly had been might send her over the edge.

Garrett glanced up from the file he sifted through. “Wish there was something I could say or do. Pretty much from day one, I didn’t hit it off with your old man, but I get how to you, he hung the moon. You’ve gotta feel like you’re losing him twice.”

“Yeah.” It was uncanny how even after all the years between them, Garrett still knew her thoughts. Much more time together and they’d be back to finishing each other’s sentences. “Find anything?”

He flashed her a half smile. “You own a cabin in Aspen.”

“Swell.” Covering her face with her hands, she sighed. “All this money, yet I’d trade every cent to turn back time.”

“What would you do different?” He moved on to the next folder in a cabinet filled with hundreds—none labeled.

What a loaded question.

Would she go back far enough just to claim their baby? Or further still so that they’d never shared their first joke, kiss or attempt at making love?

“More like what wouldn’t I do?” Cheeks superheated, she dived into her own file relating to the buying and selling of Exxon stock.

“You regret us ever being together?”

“I didn’t say that.” She moved on to the next file. “I just meant I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

“One of them being me?”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t the one who for all practical purposes vanished. If you’d wanted, you could’ve found me a dozen different ways.”

“It wasn’t that easy,” she lied. So what if she had called him or written? What good would it have done?

“My point, exactly. Because from my way of thinking, if you’d have told me where you were, I’d have done anything in my power to get you back. Hell, steal a car if I’d had to. That’s how much you—” Suddenly he slapped his latest file to the finished stack and pushed himself up from the floor. “I’ve gotta get out of here. Clear my head.”

“Garrett…”

The look he shot over his shoulder was painfully cold. “What?”

“Nothing.” Coward. Tell him how your dreams had been filled with just such scenarios. Of him riding to your rescue and the two of you, with your sweet baby, all living happily ever after. “Are you coming back? We still have days’ worth of paperwork to sift through.”

“Yeah. I’m just going for a walk. Unlike you, I finish what I start.”

* * *

GARRETT KNEW HIS WORDS were a low blow. Maybe even cruel, but Eve acted as if she wasn’t even human. She might’ve shed a few polite tears over her father dying, but beyond that, she struck him as unflappable. Oh, her fragile appearance told him she possessed a full set of emotions, but she wasn’t giving them away for the mere price of asking.

He’d loved her more than his own life.

Not only had he lost his son, but her.

Such plans he’d made for the three of them. He couldn’t afford college—at least not right away, but their town had plenty of good factory jobs that would have allowed him to set them up in a starter apartment. Eve could’ve stayed home with the baby, or if she’d wanted, his mom probably would’ve watched their son to allow Eve to work at a part-time job. Sounded sappy, but while they might not have been living in a mansion, their little home would’ve been rich in love.

Gunmetal-gray sky threatened rain, and Garrett jogged back to Eve’s. The sooner they found their son the better. If there was one thing this unexpected reunion had taught him, it was that his instinct to never trust the fairer sex—with the exception of his mom—was right on target. Eve’s lack of communication hadn’t just hurt him all those years ago, but annihilated his old way of life. He’d abandoned plans for finding a job, instead opting for the navy in the hopes hard work and a little adventure might raze the girl from his head. Only after entering the SEAL BUD/S training program had he been pushed to the point that he’d been physically incapable of thinking about Eve or their son. Only then had his healing begun.

What he’d never expected was that seeing her again would open old wounds.

Just as rain started to fall, Hal’s housekeeper let him inside. Juanita had emigrated from Cuba and worked at the mansion for over twenty years. Round and perpetually smiling, she sported as many wigs as varieties of cookies he remembered her baking. Today, she’d gone for a full mane of red curls. “Miss Eve is napping, but she told me to tell you go in office and I bring you snack.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay.”

“Okay,” she said with a firm nod and toss of her curls. “I bring sandwich.”

Laughing, he knew no matter how much he’d learned during years of combat, when it came to battling Juanita, he’d never win. Which begged the question, how was Eve so dangerously thin?

After forcing down a hoagie, Garrett returned to work on Hal’s files. How he’d run this town for so long when his own effects were in chaos was another mystery. He must’ve bought manila folders by the thousands, cramming them all into a few cabinets with seemingly no order. Stock certificates were housed alongside a newspaper clipping of Eve marching in a parade. If there was information to be gleaned in this office, it wasn’t going to come easy.

“You’re back.” Eve still wore her dress and heels, but her once smooth hair was mussed. Had she actually succumbed to a nap?

“And?” She’d expected him to bolt.

“You’re right, you know.” Slipping off her heels, she curled onto the end of a leather sofa, drawing an afghan from the back to cover her legs. The night was cool enough to warrant a small fire in the hearth, which Garrett easily could’ve accomplished. Might be petty, but in their battle, he’d already given her too much ground. No way was he also volunteering to make her more comfortable. “I’ll admit, back then, I owed you some sort of explanation—at the very least, a proper goodbye.”

“I’m good. You don’t owe me squat.”

“Then why so bitter?” Her voice was soft, so soft. Just as he remembered, only throaty, sexy. Trouble was, she’d already destroyed him once and he damn sure wouldn’t let her again.

“Why do you think? After eight years of mourning my son, I discover he’s alive, only I don’t have a clue where. My whole adult life I’ve trained to efficiently solve any problem, but this…” He shook his head. “We should hire a P.I.”

“No. I’d like this handled as discreetly as possible. Losing my dad is painful enough. I don’t want our search for our son to become a public spectacle. And for the record, you don’t have to take your anger out on me. I’m just as much a victim as you. Daddy may have meant well, but that doesn’t excuse him for committing a horrible wrong.”

“True,” he conceded. “But I’m not the one in my twenties, still calling a conniving old man Daddy. He committed a crime—against both of us. It doesn’t matter whether he meant well or not. Had the man survived, I’d have had him charged with kidnapping.”

“Please, Garrett,” Eve quipped, “don’t hold back. Let me know how you really feel.”

* * *

“GEEZ, MOM.” GARRETT SAT at the kitchen table and shoveled leftover turkey and gravy into his mouth. “I get that Eve loved Hal, but she seems to accept what her father did. Like she’s resigned to the fact that what’s done is done and there’s nothing she can do about it.”

Nursing her coffee, his mom asked, “You think she’s wrong? That it will somehow serve her to hate the father she’s only just lost?”

“What’s the matter with you?” Eyes narrowed, Garrett dropped his fork to his plate. “Buying in to the whole Barnesworth small-town royalty facade?”

“Only because you’re understandably on edge, I’m going to let that slide. I know next to nothing about Hal, but as your grandmother already told you, Eve’s mother was an amazing woman. She did wonderful things for every charitable organization in town—nearly the whole state. All I’m saying is that I admire Eve for keeping her cool. In less than twenty-four hours, she’s lost her father, gained a son and become the head of a miniempire that employs half this town.”

Garrett helped himself to cranberry salad. “Thought old Hal was mayor.”

“He was, but he also owned the canning and shoe factories, as well as at least a dozen other businesses all over Florida. Last I heard he has contracts with several big-name New York designers who want their brands made in the U.S.A.”

Snorting, he said, “That supposed to make me feel better? That the lying old coot was at least patriotic? This is your grandson. Why aren’t you more upset?”