The SEAL's Secret Daughter

by Christy Jeffries

  Instead of using his lips, though, the challenge in his eyes had a deeper impact on her nerves. “Bye, Mon. See you tomorrow at six.”

  * * *

  Tuesday night, Monica arrived at the apartment carrying two boxes filled with quilts, throw pillows and some knickknacks that put Ethan’s crooked, fake plant to shame. He wasn’t sure that anything could spruce the place up, but he was willing to give it a shot if it meant he wouldn’t lose Trina.

  Monica even came bearing already framed photographs. She put a picture of Trina and Tootie playing tug-of-war with a shoelace in Ethan’s room and a picture of Ethan wearing his tool belt and a flannel shirt in Trina’s room. On the fireplace mantel, she put a picture of him and Trina riding the ski lift—looking like happy father and daughter adventurers, despite the fact that Trina had taken the lift right back down. There was also a picture of Trina and Gran doing a dance move in the Alvarezes’ living room.

  “Who took these?” he asked, absently scratching at the back of his neck. He certainly didn’t remember posing for any of them.

  “I found the first two on Gran’s phone and got them developed. I took the one of Trina and Gran dancing, and Freckles didn’t tell me how she came by the one of you guys on the slopes. It’s a small town and I guess she has her connections.”

  He’d assumed that most people in town knew that Monica was helping him with Trina, but hope threaded through him at the realization that she wasn’t keeping their relationship a secret. In fact, she was obviously enlisting the help of the locals in an effort to be a part of this support system Trina kept mentioning.

  As Monica stood in his living room surveying her handiwork of throw pillows and knitted afghans and half-burned pillar candles, Ethan came up behind her. When he put his hands around her waist, she startled but she didn’t pull away. She peeked behind them, probably to make sure Trina wasn’t in the room, and then she leaned back against him. Man, this felt right. Lowering his lips to her neck, he asked, “What about a photo with you in it?”

  She stiffened, but he didn’t let her go far. Moving to the other side of her neck, he murmured, “Maybe I’ll ask around over at the VFW and see if anyone got a shot of you in that short green dress. Wearing those sexy cowboy boots...”

  She sighed as his fingers crept underneath her soft, blue sweater and danced along her warm skin as his palms made their way over her rib cage.

  “When can I see you again?” he asked, his lips now just behind her ear. He felt her shudder, but the oven timer squawked and she practically jumped out of his arms.

  As they utilized the polka-dot tablecloth she’d brought over, he sat across the dining table from her, eating a premade chicken potpie he’d picked up from the café and watching her try and pretend that she wasn’t thinking about their next time together.

  On Wednesday afternoon, despite Trina needing several reassurances from him in the morning that everything would be fine—as well as two bathroom passes while she was at school—the home visit went off without a hitch. The first thing Ethan did was offer up a prayer of thanks that nobody, especially his daughter, had seen through his false bravado. The second thing he did was send Monica a text message to celebrate the caseworker’s recommendation that Trina stay with him.

  She was at Legacy Village and replied with a picture of Gran painting a very unfortunate likeness of Elvis during the watercolor class. My grandmother thinks you look like him.

  Ethan chuckled to himself before typing a response. I’ll take it. You can give it to me tomorrow night when we meet at Patrelli’s to celebrate.

  She met them for dinner on Thursday night and, when Trina went into the back room of the restaurant to play arcade games, Ethan reached across the table and took Monica’s hand. “When are we going to see each other again?”

  “I’m seeing you right now,” she said, but her eyes dropped to his lips and all of his blood dropped to his lower parts.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe this weekend?” Monica’s voice came out in a shy whisper and Ethan doubted he could wait that long.

  Friday morning, he dropped off Trina at school and when Monica arrived to the library nearly an hour before it opened, he was waiting in the parking lot with a stack of books Trina had checked out and already read.

  “I hope you’re not here to pick up that new Navy SEAL book that came out on Tuesday,” Monica said as she exited her car. “Mr. Simon beat you to it and checked it out yesterday.”

  “Mr. Simon can keep it,” he replied, trying to keep his lips from sneering in disgust. An embedded journalist had written a fictionalized account of Ethan’s unit and, from what he’d heard from Luke, the story contained a rather heroic retelling of the night Boscoe had died. “I already lived the nonfiction version and it’s something I’d like to forget.”

  He felt the weight of her gaze as she studied him. “So that was you in the book? The one who single-handedly fought off all those insurgents in the middle of a crowded marketplace? And then carried your partner’s body up to the roof and jumped across several buildings to make it to the medic’s helicopter?”

  “Well, I remember there being a lot more to the story than that.” Specifically, the part about how he’d been the one to inadvertently lead his partner into the ambush in the first place. Monica tilted her head, her eyes full of comfort and a willingness to listen. However, Ethan didn’t get many moments alone with the woman and he didn’t want to waste the current one by talking about his past mistakes. He held up the stack of Trina’s books. “Anyway, I’m actually just bringing these back.”

  “You know you can use the book return.” Monica pointed to the metal box with a drop slot. “You didn’t need to wait for me to get here.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to get you alone.”

  She looked at her watch, then looked at him, then looked at the empty parking lot. “I have to open the library in forty-five minutes.”

  “All I need is thirty,” he replied with a hopeful lift of his forehead.

  Inside the closet-sized storage room behind the circulation desk, Ethan hoisted Monica onto a metal book trolley and then proceeded to prove that he only needed half that amount of time.

  She sighed contentedly when he withdrew from her and he couldn’t help but watch her flushed chest rise and fall with each breath afterward.

  He was already looking forward to the next time he could see her. “Someday, we’ll have to actually make it to a bedroom.”

  “Well, we certainly shouldn’t make a habit of doing it here.” She felt around the shelf beside her until her hand landed on her discarded glasses. When she got them on, he helped her down to her feet before she tugged her skirt back over her hips.

  “I’d suggest going to my job site next time, but starting Monday, Kane and I are building a new fish cleaning station near the Lake Rush boat launch.”

  “Is the city paying for that? Because the council postponed their vote on my request to expand our audiobook collection.”

  “Don’t worry. Nobody is paying for it.” He held up his palms. She lifted an eyebrow and he continued, “I’ve been known to give back to the community on occasion.”

  “You’re racking up quite the list of good deeds, Ethan Renault.” Monica folded her arms in front of her. “In fact, I’ve seen your name on the visitor log over at Legacy Village every day this week.”

  “Well, the day shift nurse said I’m the only one who can get your gran to slow down long enough between activities to drink a meal replacement shake.”

  Monica rubbed at the crease between her brows.

  “What’s wrong? Are you worried about your grandmother?”

  “Well, that. And the fact that I’m not so sure we should be crossing all these boundaries and becoming so involved in each other’s lives.”

  Ethan buttoned up the front of his jeans. “Don’t you think i
t’s a little too late for that, Mon?”

  Nicole was heading quickly in her direction when Monica finally arrived at the check-in desk at Legacy Village later that afternoon. On the phone, the nurse had explained that they had things under control, but wanted to keep Monica informed about this latest episode.

  The whole drive down there, though, she’d been beating herself up over the fact that she couldn’t rush to Gran’s aid sooner. But at least her grandmother was being taken care of by professionals and wasn’t home alone or wreaking havoc on the local businesses on Snowflake Boulevard. By the time she’d pulled into the parking lot, Monica wasn’t any closer to deciding if a memory care center was the right choice or not.

  “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” Monica said, already dreading the worst. “We had our teen reading challenge meeting and I couldn’t close the library until four. Is she okay?”

  “She’s doing better now. Our doctor was making rounds and gave her a little sedative. She isn’t asleep yet, but she’s not crying anymore. Ethan is in her room with her.”

  “Ethan’s here?” Monica asked, slapping the visitor sticker on her chest as she strode down the hall with Nicole on her heels.

  “I called him when you said you couldn’t be here right away. Mrs. Alvarez kept asking for mijo and I’ve heard her call him that before.”

  Trina was sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs in the hallway alcove near Gran’s room, her headphones in her ears and her backpack at her feet. It must’ve been a really bad episode if Ethan had come straight from the school and was making his daughter wait outside.

  When Monica slipped inside the room, she saw Ethan in a chair near Gran’s bed. The older woman was fully dressed, but under the covers and holding Ethan’s hand.

  “Gran?” Monica whispered, brushing the silver hair off her grandmother’s forehead. Her paper-thin eyelids fluttered open.

  “There you are, Bettina. Look who came to stay at the hotel. My mijo.” Gran’s bony fingers squeezed against Ethan’s hand and she mumbled something in Spanish that sounded like a recited prayer.

  “That was nice of you to come keep her company, Ethan,” Monica said.

  “It’s not Ethan,” Gran replied, her words forceful yet somewhat slurred. “It’s Fidel. My Fidel. He’s finally home.”

  Ethan smiled when Gran patted his cheek but, when the older woman closed her eyes again, he got Monica’s attention and mouthed the words, “Who’s Fidel?”

  “My dad.” Monica hadn’t replied out loud either, but just feeling the answer against her lips pierced her heart. She sat on the edge of the bed and her grandmother looked up. “How are you feeling, Gran?”

  “Never been better.” Gran’s smile was faint, but genuine. “I have my son home and we’re finally going to be a family. Look at all those muscles he built up while he was at the academy.”

  What academy? A prickling of unease spread through Monica as her grandmother kept talking.

  “Don’t I have the best son in the world, Bettina? He’s always taken such good care of me.”

  Monica’s jaw locked into place to keep her from responding the way she wanted to. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to correct someone who was confused by Alzheimer’s as long as their confusion wasn’t harming them. But Gran’s current bout with mistaken identity was bringing back some pretty painful memories for Monica. Especially since her deceased, deadbeat father was now getting unfair credit and glowing accolades when it was she who’d put her life on hold to take care of her grandmother.

  “My mijo is going to take such good care of his baby girl, too,” Gran continued to no one in particular, now. “As soon as he puts all those bad guys away, he will come home and take care of us. I know it.”

  Gran mumbled something else before her eyes drifted closed and remained that way for a few minutes, suggesting the sedative had finally taken full effect.

  “Nicole said that a lot of people with dementia or Alzheimer’s can get pretty anxious around this time of day.” Ethan’s voice was soft and low, probably because he didn’t want to wake Gran again and have her confuse him for her low-life son. “The nurses called it ‘sundowners’ because it comes on when the sun goes down. It’s not exactly my best time of the day either.”

  She knew he was trying to help, trying to make Monica feel better, but his compassion and understanding were only driving that wedge of unease in deeper. Between her guilt for leaving her grandmother at a nursing home and her sudden resentment that Gran wasn’t even aware of how hard Monica was trying to do her best, she was dealing with too many emotions to add an ill-advised attraction to a single father to the mix.

  Her grandmother let out a snore and Ethan gently extracted his hand and stood up. “The doctor said once the sedative took effect, she’d probably be out for the night. I’ve got to go get Trina some dinner. You wanna come with?”

  “No, I’m not very hungry. What do you think she meant when she said you got back from the academy?”

  Ethan lifted his shoulders. “Did your dad go to some sort of prep school?”

  “Nope. He was a local kid, as far as I know,” she replied, thinking of the boxes in the attic where Gran had stored her father’s old things. Obviously, her grandmother had been beyond confused and clearly hadn’t known what she’d been talking about. Although. This was different. Most of her episodes were usually centered around something she wanted or something that had actually happened in her past. Gran had never completely made something up out of the blue before.

  “Okay, so maybe we can still get together this weekend?” Ethan asked.

  “Sure,” she said absently, as she focused on Gran’s slurred words. Dealing with her grandmother’s episodes had become such a part of Monica’s routine, it was hard not to worry that the disease had become contagious. If her own mind was now slipping, as well.

  Ethan studied Monica for a few more moments before placing a light kiss on her lips and walking out the door. She moved to the chair he’d vacated, but after about five minutes, when it became clear that Gran wasn’t going to wake up and answer her questions anytime soon, Monica headed out to the parking lot and drove straight home.

  Determination fueling her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The return trip up the mountain was a complete blur, as though Monica’s hands and feet were operating on autopilot, while her mind spun out of control. Letting herself in the house, she dropped her purse at the door and grabbed a package of Oreos from the kitchen before heading up to the attic.

  Two hours later, Monica was sore from sitting cross-legged on the uneven wooden slats. Her eyes hurt from the lack of decent lighting and her brain was even more confused than when she’d started this pointless task.

  The boxes contained all the same pictures and trophies and high school yearbooks she’d seen before. Her dad had been an all-star in both track and baseball at Sugar Falls High School, and had graduated as salutatorian. He’d gotten a scholarship to the University of Idaho, which was where he’d met her mom. There were a couple of wedding photos, but that was where all the clues ended. So how did her father fall into such a bad crowd?

  The memories she had of him were few and far between, but most of them involved him leaving for long periods of time and then returning later with a book and a tight squeeze, teasing her about how big she was getting. She remembered looking forward to those visits, but she also recalled Fidel Alvarez’s sudden presence having the opposite effect on his wife. And how could Monica enjoy seeing her dad when her mom was so clearly miserable?

  One time, he’d showed up on a motorcycle, stayed a night or two and then fought with her mother before leaving in the middle of the night. When Monica was six, she’d gone on a long road trip with just her and her mom. She couldn’t think of the name of the prison, but she remembered being fascinated by all the tattoos covering his arms when they sat acros
s from him in the visiting area. She also recalled him being upset with her mother for bringing Monica.

  Her mom had said that her dad would rather live with a bunch of druggies and crooks than be with his own family. That’s when she’d made Monica promise never to fall in love with the same type of guy—a guy who didn’t put his family first.

  After her mother died, Monica made a promise to herself to not even give the man who’d fathered her a second thought. There’d been a couple of times in high school when she’d see his name on one of the plaques in the trophy case and she’d thought about doing some online research to find out more about him. After all, he obviously had a criminal record and she might be genetically predisposed and at risk for heading down the same unfortunate path.

  Then she’d come to her senses and convinced herself that any answers she might uncover would only depress her. Instead, she’d buckled down on her studies and wouldn’t attend so much as a school dance, let alone a party, just to prove that she was nothing like him.

  The sound of a lawn mower rumbled to life and Monica looked at the time on her cell phone. It was almost seven o’clock on a Friday evening, which meant that Mr. Simon must be getting a late start on his yard maintenance. Either that or he needed a ploy to spy on poor Mrs. Fitzroy’s delivery driver.

  Wait. Mr. Simon had lived next door to Gran since before Monica was born. Maybe he could give her some insight about the man who’d abandoned her. Her legs revolted when she rose to her feet, but her circulation was back to normal by the time she got outside and waved down her neighbor.

  “What can I do for you, Monica?” Mr. Simon had shut off his lawn mower, but he was blatantly staring at the big brown truck now driving away. His eyes narrowed behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Awful late in the day to deliver a package.”

  “Mr. Simon, do you remember my father?”

  “Fidel? Of course. Who wouldn’t remember him?”

  His daughter, Monica thought. “Gran’s been asking about him a lot. Can you tell me anything?”