The SEAL's Stolen Child

Chapter Two

Garrett planned to be at Eve’s by sunrise, but his mom talked him into the more reasonable hour of nine. A mistake. In the night, Hal had indeed died. The place now crawled with attorneys and funeral-home suits.

Upon ringing the front doorbell, he’d been greeted by a uniformed maid, then shown to the solarium. “Ms. Barnesworth will be with you shortly.”

“Thanks.”

This had been Eve’s favorite room. Was it still?

Garrett had to admit, it was pretty cool. Outside, it was fifty and raining, yet in here the weather was always in the balmy eighties, smelling of loamy earth and sweet orchids. Beneath the domed glass ceiling resided a tropical rain forest, complete with palm trees, blooming hibiscus and a pair of huge, red lories. He couldn’t believe the birds were still alive. What were their names? Rhett and Scarlett? Brick paths meandered alongside a slow-moving stream. In the massive room’s center were wrought-iron tables surrounding a splashing, three-tiered fountain.

Garrett had a seat, trying to let the soothing surroundings calm his erratic thoughts. What if Hal’s deathbed ramblings were true, and he and Eve did share a son? He was no P.I., and didn’t have a clue how to find a child who no doubt Hal had wanted to remain lost.

“I almost called you.” When Eve appeared, his pulse soared. She wore a figure-skimming black dress and matching pumps. Her long blond hair had been restrained in a fancy updo he didn’t much like. This flawless woman wasn’t the Eve his memory knew. He’d first loved her messy, wearing her red-and-white cheer warm-ups with a crooked ponytail, painting homecoming posters while sitting on the gym floor. A lousy painter, she’d always managed to get more on her and her surroundings than whatever she was supposed to be creating.

“Why didn’t you?”

She shrugged, joining him at the table. “What would we have said? All of this seems easier handled in person.”

“Probably true.”

Hands clasped, she said, “Daddy’s lawyer will be here soon. I find it easier to think out here than in my father’s office.”

“Agreed. Last time I was in there wasn’t good.”

“What did he say?”

Her question and overall fragility threw him off guard. How many times had he rehearsed what he’d do should their paths ever cross? Yet now, all of that escaped him. Her complexion pale, body rail thin, his sole thought was to wonder when she’d last had a decent meal.

Garrett cleared his throat. “Hal told me our baby died and that you’d chosen to complete your basic education in a Connecticut finishing school. Had Google been what it is now, I probably could’ve found you, but…” He shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”

She stared past him, deep into her own world. “I was so devastated over losing the baby, I just did what I was told. To go from feeling life growing inside you, to grueling hours of lonesome labor, only to come out on the other side with my arms empty, I…”

“For what it’s worth, I hurt, too. I used to have nightmares you’d died. I spent so much time moping my folks took me to a shrink. I know you loved your father, but I’ve gotta tell you, the man meant nothing but trouble to me.”

“Good. You’re both here.” Barry Stevens had been Hal’s personal attorney, friend and Coral Ridge bigwig for decades. Every edition of the Coral Ridge Gazette carried an ad for the guy’s law firm featuring the Scales of Justice, along with Barry’s meticulous swoop of white hair and supersize smile. Though they’d never formally met, the lawyer extended his hand and worked his trademark smile as if they were long-lost friends. “Garrett, good to see you. Each and every one of us here in town is darned proud of all you’ve accomplished.”

“Thank you, sir.” Garrett would’ve preferred a more flippant retort but, for Eve’s sake, kept his sarcasm to himself. If he’d been president, it wouldn’t have been good enough for Garrett to be with Hal’s little girl.

“Okay.” Barry set a few files on the table before taking his seat. “Eve has filled me in on her father’s deathbed confession and in doing so, I believe, given me just cause to break attorney-client privilege.”

“Wait…” The comprehension of this suit’s admission hit Garrett harder than any stray bullet. So it was true? He actually had a son? Mind spinning, chest tight, he found it hard to breathe. During the endless night, he’d convinced himself the whole thing was a cruel joke. That in the morning, Hal would pop out of bed with his pompous barrel laugh, bragging about how he’d gotten them good. “You knew about this from day one, yet did nothing to stop it?”

“Slow down there, partner.” Barry tidied his files. “My hands were tied.”

Eve started to cry.

“The only thing Hal told me—and this was only after a couple glasses of Macallan Scotch—was that your son hadn’t died. I pressed him for more, told him you both had a right to know, but he admitted neither of you had even wanted the baby, so this resolution was best. Absolved you both from any guilt, so you’d feel free to get on with your lives.”

Barry reached out to comfort Eve, but she pushed him away. “Don’t touch me.”

The lawyer held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I advised Hal he’d handled the whole situation poorly, but he was insistent no one ever know.”

“Where is our son now?” Garrett pressed clenched fists to his knees. There was so much he wanted—needed—to say, but what would going off on this guy solve?

“God’s honest truth?” Barry’s expression was sober. “I don’t have a clue.”

* * *

“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?”

“I am, but it’s complicated.” She rubbed the back of her neck before leaving him to refill her coffee. “When you told me and your dad Eve was pregnant, we were both so afraid for you. Had you two married, the odds against you would’ve been nearly insurmountable. Who knows? In a way, though it was unspeakably cruel, maybe Hal did do you two a favor. Can you honestly say you’d have made it through BUD/S with a newborn and wife?”

* * *

ON THE MORNING OF EVE’S father’s funeral, the same church she’d been married in was now packed to standing room only. More people who’d come to show their respects lined the street outside. The same organist who’d played for the last Florida gubernatorial invocation hammered away on old Southern hymns. Considering her father had made all of his own plans, she’d have thought he’d hire a New Orleans jazz band. But then as much as he’d enjoyed a party, that would’ve been too much of a spectacle. He’d also enjoyed the nice, solemn ceremonies of life, so why wouldn’t he also enjoy them in death?

As much as Eve longed to give in to the ball of emotions souring her stomach, she stayed strong as she knew her father would’ve wanted. Contrary to what Garrett believed, she refused to think her dad deliberately set out to hurt either of them.

The scents of roses, lilies, carnations and a dizzying assortment of other arranged flowers made her head pound and eyes water to such a degree she could hardly see the words on the hymnal’s pages. It was only her allergies making her a wreck. No matter what, she refused to give in to her grief in this too public arena.

At the service’s end, the funeral director whisked her into a white limo for the short trek to the cemetery where her father had wanted to be buried next to her mother in the family tomb.

Eyes stinging and throat hurting, she remembered sitting in the same spot over a decade earlier, only at least she’d had her father’s hand to hold. Now she sat alone.

Though the day was sunny, a brisk, cold wind whipped the open tent sheltering the mourners. Tuning out the pastor’s words, her mind’s eye saw her father speaking what she now knew had been his last words.

I lied. Your son’s alive. I took him.

She didn’t want her thoughts to go there. Instead, she wanted to remember happy times. The two of them traveling to Europe together. Sharing morning tea in the solarium. She refused to think of him shrunken and sallow in his final days. He was the most powerful man she’d ever known and she’d been so proud to be his daughter. But now…

I lied.

Now a seed of doubt had been planted as to whether or not her father’s motives had been pure.

Above all in life, evident by a funeral larger than any the town had ever seen, Hal Barnesworth valued his standing in the community. His reputation and pride. Had she returned home with a baby, his efforts to spirit her away to deliver her son far from his beloved town would’ve been for naught. Everyone would’ve known what an awful parent he’d been. After all, who didn’t keep close enough watch on their teenage daughter and allowed her to end up pregnant?

He’d been ashamed of her and her actions and hid her away as surely as he would’ve a poor business decision.

Horrified by the emerging picture of who her father really was, she brought trembling hands to her mouth. When it came to his negative opinion of Hal, Garrett had been right. Was he here? Watching her? Thinking her a fool?

A gust of wind toppled the portrait of her father that he’d wanted displayed on a stand beside his casket. Though the funeral director leaped to action, promptly setting it back in place, Eve found the incident apropos. A symbol of how her mighty father had fallen—at least in her eyes.

Garrett, are you out there? Somewhere in the crowd?

Did she want him to be?

Thankfully, the service soon ended and Eve went through the motions of placing a white rose the pastor handed her atop her father’s casket, then thanking the crush of well-wishers for coming.

A Palm Beach caterer was setting up an invitation-only reception at the house, but all she wanted was to escape.

Voice hoarse from the sheer number of people she’d spoken with, she was unprepared when a stocky man approached, flashing her a Miami Herald press badge. “Eve Barnesworth?”

“Y-yes.”

“I wonder if you might confirm a story I’ve got a lead on.”

“Excuse me?”

“My source says your father employed a number of illegal immigrants, but bribed local officials to look the other way. Care to comment?”

Knees rubbery, Eve searched for something to steady her, but found only air. How could this day get worse? How insensitive was he to bring up such a hot-button topic here?