Come to Me

“I’m a private investigator. It’s my job.”

He sounded so curt! He was probably still annoyed about the “no details” discussion they’d just had. Men could be so sensitive, especially when it came to their lovemaking skills or their manliness. Sam Travers was a star when it came to manliness. She couldn’t even begin to guess about the other, and it would be best if her mind did not go there.

Sam was silent as he drove, and for once Lizzie was silent, as well. What did Jenna look like? Were there sisterly similarities or was she her own person, distinct and individual? Maybe Jenna wouldn’t even like Lizzie. Maybe she’d think a fully grown sister was lame and unnecessary. Maybe they had nothing in common; maybe they weren’t sisters at all.

Jenna had a family—maybe even other siblings by now; she didn’t need a sister popping up out of nowhere. Lizzie’s physical reaction to the idea of confronting the girl was much like the one she had when she looked at Sam too closely. Jitters. Squirming. Shaking. Only this wasn’t quite so… pleasant. She was terrified that her plans were about to go very wrong.

“Turn the car around,” Lizzie said abruptly.

“We’re almost there.”

“This is a mistake.” Boy, was it a mistake. Going to Sam’s office, digging into old secrets, thinking she could manufacture a family out of thin air… all mistakes, one after another.

“Are you still worried about the way you’re dressed?” Sam asked. “Jenna won’t see you, I promise. We’ll stay back and watch, that’ll be it for this time.”

Lizzie shook her head. “No, the whole thing is a mistake. Dad was right to keep Jenna’s existence a secret. If I meet her I’ll blow it, somehow. I always do. I’ll open my mouth and say something stupid and that’ll be it. Jenna doesn’t need me. She already has a family.”

Sam didn’t argue, but he didn’t turn around, either. He turned into the parking lot of a very nice private school, one Lizzie knew to be very expensive. Talk about exclusive! The lot was pretty full, so they had to park at the far end. He pulled into a space away from the other cars, turned off the engine and faced her, one casual hand on the steering wheel, his eyes not at all casual.

“You know that I believe revealing your possible relationship to the girl would be traumatic for her.”

Lizzie nodded, the move jerky and too fast. “You were right all along,” she said quickly. So let’s get out of here already!

Sam’s face remained even and calm. Did he never show emotion? Did nothing ruffle his feathers? “I also believe you need to see her, even if from a distance. If you don’t, you’ll regret it later.”

She didn’t immediately agree or disagree. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was best to get it over with, to get a look at the girl and move on with her life. She was curious, after all. A little curiosity wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “A quick look, then.”

“Just a look.”

Staring into Sam’s calm blue eyes made Lizzie feel calmer herself. Everything would be okay. She’d just have a look to prove to herself that Jenna was well cared for and happy. She flung open the passenger door and stepped out of the car before she could change her mind.

Lizzie was drawn to the sounds of shouting and cheering and the occasional whistle. Sam fell into step beside her, too close, not close enough. She wanted to reach out and take his hand and clutch it, but she didn’t. He’d think she was a total wuss if she clung to him just because she was about to get a long-distance look at the girl who might be her sister.

The soccer field was well-groomed, and the girls that played upon it were dressed in blue-and-gold or red-and-white uniforms. The metal bleachers held a collection of parents. Most of them watched the game with genuine interest and excitement. A contingent of younger siblings played in the grass beside the bleachers. It was a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, a healthy slice of family life. If Jenna had a perfect existence, who was she to mess it up?

Not far from the edge of the parking lot, in the shade of an ancient elm tree, Lizzie stopped. “Which one is she?”

Sam studied the players for a moment, and then he pointed. “There, in blue and gold. Brown ponytail. Number 8.”

Lizzie’s eyes were glued to number 8 when the girl took control of the ball and turned. It was difficult to tell from a distance, but did she look a little bit like their dad? Lizzie’s heart thumped. Did she have Charlie Porter’s longish nose and narrow eyes? Jenna had that coltish look girls of her age sometimes had, leggy and thin and awkward, on the edge of turning into a young woman, but yes, there was a definite resemblance.

Jenna’s brown hair didn’t have quite the same slightly reddish tint Lizzie’s had, but there wasn’t but a shade or two of difference. Not that there weren’t thousands upon thousands of girls and women with the same color hair.

Lizzie didn’t realize she’d reached for Sam’s hand and grabbed on until he squeezed. She knew she should end the contact, let go and maybe take a step away from the man at her side. But she didn’t.

“Jenna’s mother passed away four years ago,” Sam said. “She lives with her stepfather, Darryl Connelly, in what can only be called a mansion. She attends this school, plays soccer and takes ballet, and her yearly allowance is probably about the same as my annual salary.”

“Monica died?” Lizzie had never thought Monica Yates would make a decent mother, but for Jenna to lose her mom so young had to be traumatic. Her stomach knotted. At the age of eight they’d each lost their mother—in very different ways.

“Heart troubles, difficult surgery.” The explanation was simple, but it was enough.

“Which one is Connelly?” she asked, her eyes turning to the parents.

Sam motioned, this time to the bleachers. “Top row, to the right.”

Unfortunately Connelly was one of the parents who weren’t watching the game. He gave the attractive woman at his side much more of his attention. Lizzie was incensed, for Jenna’s sake. When she’d played softball, her dad had been the loudest, most belligerent parent in attendance. He’d embarrassed her countless times, which was as it should be. This guy didn’t even care about the game.

Jenna scored and her team celebrated. Someone sitting near Connelly had to punch him on the arm and tell him that his daughter had scored a goal. He smiled and clapped dutifully, and so did the woman at his side.

Too late.

So Jenna had money. Money was nice; Lizzie wished she had more of it herself, but cash alone wouldn’t make anyone happy. She and Charlie had never had much money when she’d been growing up, but they’d gotten by just fine and they’d been happy. Most of the time.

Jenna’s teammates congratulated her, and soon the girls lined up at the center of the field to resume play.

“Seen enough?” Sam asked softly.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

He squeezed her hand again and then dropped it, taking a step away from her—as she’d known she should but had not. Lizzie tore her eyes away from Jenna and stared up at Sam. She was suddenly much more certain about what she had to do. “It’s not enough. I can’t seriously doubt that she and I are related. She looks so much like Dad, and maybe even a little bit like me. Jenna is my family, like it or not. How am I supposed to tell from a distance if she’s happy?”

“That fact that she bears a subtle resemblance to Charlie is hardly proof,” Sam said sensibly.

Lizzie was in no mood for common sense! “It’s proof enough for me.” At least for now. “How am I supposed to know that she’s happy?”

“Trust me, she’s…”

Frustrated, Lizzie interrupted. “She has a big house, she goes to a great school, she can buy herself anything she wants. That doesn’t mean anything!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You said you didn’t want to shake up her life.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“If your father had thought for a moment that Jenna wasn’t safe and content, he would’ve done something about it years ago,” Sam argued.

“Dad let her go as a baby,” Lizzie said reasonably. “He couldn’t have known whether or not she was okay now.”

“Dammit, he did,” Sam said sharply. “You’re not going to like it but here’s the truth. After Jenna’s mother died, Charlie kept very close tabs on the kid. If he didn’t think it was right to stir up her neat little world, what makes you think you should do it?”

Lizzie no longer stared at her sister. Instead she glared up into Sam’s traitorous blue eyes, and her heart broke as certainly as it had at fourteen, when he’d married an unkind, unworthy woman, whose only claim to fame had been her freakishly large boobs.

The only way Sam could’ve known that her father had kept tabs on Jenna was if he’d known about the child himself. He’d known all along.

Lizzie was pissed, perhaps rightly so. He should’ve told her up front that he knew of the girl’s existence. Instead he’d tried to spare her feelings; he’d tried to make things easier for her and still honor Charlie’s wishes. But at some point he’d decided he didn’t want to lie to her anymore, not even by omission.

Ten minutes after leaving the school grounds, after enduring ten minutes of absolute silence, Sam pulled into a bakery parking lot. Lizzie’s normally warm hazel eyes shot daggers at him. “You want a doughnut, hotshot, you wait until after you’ve taken me back to my car.”

“No,” he said, opening his door and stepping into the spring sunshine. Lizzie remained in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, eyes straight ahead. Sam walked around the car and opened her door as if they were on a date and he was being a perfect gentleman. When she didn’t move, he offered her his hand.