by Ana E Ross
A long while after, when they lay exhausted and sated, Adam glanced at the clock on the nightstand. He wanted to stay where he was, cradled in the sweet haven of Tashi’s arms, but…
He sighed deeply and kissed her lips. His heart swelled with an amalgam of indescribable emotions when she opened her eyes. “Perhaps we should get dressed and have breakfast,” he said. “You have a new life growing inside of you. You have to stay strong and healthy for him. And if he’s anything like his daddy, he loves to eat directly from his mommy’s body.”
Her efficacious laughter was a hallowed symphony in Adam’s soul.
***
“Why aren’t we having breakfast on the master suite balcony as we always do?” Tashi asked as she descended the winding staircase to the first-floor.
“It’s part of your surprise,” he said squeezing her hand.
“What kind of surprise could there be in the formal dining room? I hope you didn’t change the furniture or anything, ‘cause I love the house just as it is.”
“Well, there is one addition, actually,” Adam responded as they turned at the foot of the stairs and walked down a long marble corridor decorated with sculpted full figure statues and busts of great men and women of old.
“Is it another statue?”
“Hmm. Kind of.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
He pulled her against his side and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll love it. I promise.” They stepped through the curved archway that led into the dining room.
When Tashi saw the man standing at the row of French doors that overlooked the courtyard below, her hand flew to her mouth. His back was turned to her, but his salt-and-pepper hair, his height, the curve of his wide shoulders and broad back were very familiar to her. She’d briefly studied that back when he’d pushed her behind him to shield her from the first round of gunfire.
He turned on her gasp, and that smile, that big, wide, white smile, made her throat tighten. “Agent Dawson?”
“Hello, Tashi.”
The next instant, Tashi was flying across the room to meet him halfway. She was clasped tightly in his strong arms as she gave in to the joyful sobs.
“Goodness, nobody has ever been this happy to see me.” His voice thundered in her ears. “And I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy to see anyone. Well, maybe one other,” he said, stroking his hand down her hair.
Finally, Tashi lifted her head and gazed up at him. His eyes were red and there were tears running down his cheeks. She stared into his kind brown eyes and took in the image of his roughened dark skin. She reached up and touched the scare on his cheek. He trembled violently.
“I thought you were dead. But I’m so thankful and happy that you’re not. Thank you for saving my life.” She closed her arms about him again, and laid her cheek on his chest, delighted, grateful to hear the thumping of his heart beneath her ears. He was alive. “You walk with a limp. You didn’t have one that night.”
He placed his hands under her chin and caressed her cheeks, gazing down at her with affection and tenderness. “I was badly wounded, my child. I didn’t remember anything for a while.” He swallowed. “That’s why you didn’t hear from me, and by the time I could put all the pieces together, I thought it best if I didn’t contact you or Adam.”
He turned briefly and smiled at Adam who was standing at the side bar where a continental breakfast was set up. He was holding an espresso cup in his hand, and nibbling on something in the other. Even though she knew she should, Tashi was too excited to eat.
“I’m sorry you had to spend all that time wondering about me, and living on your own.” Paul’s voice drew her back to him.
“The money helped,” she said with a bland smile. “It’s all in the past. I’m just happy you survived.” A shiver ran down her spine. “What about those men? Did you catch them?”
“Yes, dearest. The FBI raided them last night. Most were killed in a shootout, including Scottie and the head of the organization.”
He exchanged a brief glance with Adam, and Tashi knew that Adam had been with Agent Dawson for the past two days. He hadn’t told her what he was doing because he didn’t want her to worry about his safety. She loved him so much.
“The few who survived will spend the rest of their lives in prison,” Paul continued. “They pose no more threats to you. You don’t have to testify. I took the blame for shooting that man. Nobody knows you were ever involved and that’s the way we need to keep it for your safety, and that of your new family.”
Tashi took a moment to let it all sink in. She’d never thought about how she would feel about the news, when and if she ever got it. But now that she had it, all she felt was relief. She was free. She could live a normal life. “Oh,” she said, looking quizzically at him. “I know this is trivial, but all my stuff I left in my apartment—”
“I had it boxed up and stored in mine. I’m making arrangements to have it transported here.”
“Thank you, Agent Dawson. I will find a way to repay you.” She hugged him again then, holding his hand, she took him over to Adam and held his hand.
“You two,” she said looking from one to the other, “are the most wonderful men in the world. Except for my uncle, nobody has ever been this kind to me.” She looked at Paul. “Thank you for sending me to Granite Falls. Because of you, I met this man.” She smiled up at Adam. “I fell in love with him and I know he loves me unconditionally and completely.”
Tashi was sandwiched in a group hug, then Adam said, “Tashi, Paul has something he needs to discuss with you. I’ll leave you alone.” Before Tashi could protest, Adam was out the door with his croissant and his espresso.
All of a sudden the room was quiet, and filled with tension. Tashi folded her arms across her stomach.
“Let’s sit,” Paul said, walking her over to a love seat near the French doors.
They sat at opposite ends and turned toward each other. Tashi didn’t understand why she felt awkward, but she did.
“Well,” they both said together, and simultaneously caught their bottom lips between their teeth.
“You do that, too,” Paul said with a chuckle, tiny lines appearing at the sides of his eyes.
As Tashi continued to stare at him, a cold knot formed in her stomach. She might look like her mother, but the shape of this man’s nose, his lips, his eyes… Strange and disquieting thoughts raced through her mind along with the critical question that had been bothering her for a year and a half. Her hands twisted nervously on her lap. “Why did you rescue me that night, Agent Dawson?” she asked, her heart thumping because her gut told her she already knew the answer.
His chest rose and fell on a deep sigh and Tashi glanced at the wet stain on his light blue shirt left by her tears. “Tashi,” he began, looking directly into her eyes. “I rescued you because you’re my daughter. I’m your father.”
Tashi’s mouth dropped open. Shock rippled through her. She sprang to her feet and stepped behind the love seat putting distance between them. The information ripped her insides apart. For twenty-two years she had longed to know the identity of the man who had fathered her. Unknown was what had been written on her birth certificate in the space where the name Paul Dawson should have been. That pain had been locked deep within her heart all these years. And now this man whom she was just beginning to trust and admire was telling her that he was her father. He wasn’t a criminal, or a drunk. He was decent, kind, and loving. So why was it such a big secret all these years?
“If you are my father, where were you when I was growing up?” She threw the words at him. “Where were you when my mother died? When I was a little girl, all I ever dreamed about was that someday, some strange man would knock on our door and I would open it. And he would smile down at me, and say, “Hey, baby-girl, I’m your daddy, and I’m home to stay.” Why didn’t you want me? Why did you abandon me and my mother?”
Paul passed his hands across his face. This was exactly what he was afraid
of, what he had been dreading—his own child’s repugnance toward him. The pain of betrayal and desertion evident in her liquid green eyes and her teary voice were killing him all over again. He got up and walked over to her. “I wanted you, Tashi,” he said in a broken voice. “But I didn’t know about you until just before that night. I’d been watching you and Scottie—”
She shot him a withering glance. “You were following me?”
“Yes, trying to figure out the right time and way to approach you. But then my gut told me that Scottie was bad news, so I began investigating him. I learned about his plans for you just hours before you were to be shipped out. I raced to the house to stop you from being drugged. I couldn’t tell you who I was because I needed you to have only one thought in your head: survive.”
Her mouth tightened and she looked out the French windows thoughtfully before catching his gaze again. “So how did you find out I was your daughter?” she asked in a disillusioned voice.
“After your uncle died, I received a video your mother had made for me before she died. In it, she told me about you. There were clippings of the two of you together, playing in the sandbox in your backyard, eating ice cream, of you swimming at the club, your birthday parties with you blowing out your candles, and making wishes.” Paul sniffled. “Was that one of your wishes, baby? Were you wishing for me?” He wanted so much to feel her arms about him again, not as an FBI agent who’d rescued her, but as her father who loved her and would die for her. “I swear to you, Tashi, if I had known about you, I would have been there. I would have turned in my badge twenty-two years ago to be the kind of father you deserve.”
“Why weren’t you there?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Didn’t you love my mother? Is that why you weren’t together?”
“No. I loved your mother, Tashi. She’s still the only woman I have ever truly loved.”
“Then why didn’t she tell you about me?” She stomped her foot, and her voice raised several decibels.
“Sit, Tashi, and I’ll tell you,” Jake said quietly, as his leg began to hurt.
She reluctantly returned to her end of the love seat and he dropped down on the other. “When I met your mother,” he began, “I was a cop in Washington, D.C. and she was studying pharmacology at Georgetown University. She worked part-time at a coffee shop, and that’s where we met.”
“Adam and I met at a coffee shop. History repeating itself,” she said with a slight smile.
“Yes.” He so loved her smile. “You look so much like your mother, and you smell like her.”
Her smile deepened and he knew her anger was dissipating.
“We fell in love. We talked about our future—she becoming a pharmacist and me joining the FBI, and then one day, she asked me how I felt about kids. I told her that I didn’t want any until my career was established.” Paul closed his eyes briefly as the pain of that conversation hit him like a ton of bricks. He wished he’d added, but I’d give up everything if I unexpectedly became a father.
His lids popped open when he felt Tashi’s small warm hands on his knee. “It’s okay,” she said.
Her smile was comforting, encouraging. “We were walking down a dark street one night, when four members of a local gang jumped us and held guns to our heads. One of them recognized me as the cop who’d sent his father to prison for drug trafficking and illegal gambling. They wanted payback. I told them I’d go quietly with them if they let your mother go. I told them she was an escort and meant nothing to me. To prove it, they gave her a knife and made her cut my face.”
Tashi sucked in her breath, and her hand flew to her mouth as she gaped at the scar on his right cheek.
Paul’s body shook on a ragged breath. “As I stood there bleeding, she backed away with her hands pressed against her stomach and tears in her eyes. Once she was out of sight, I took down the thugs, but my heart died that night, Tashi. Evelyn dropped out of school and moved back to Cleveland. Two weeks later, I got a postcard from her saying that it was over and not to come after her. I wrote to her, called her and left messages until she changed her number. I flew to Cleveland to see her. She refused to see me, and went as far as to take out a restraining order against me.” He shook his head somberly. “I guess she never trusted my love and commitment to her. If she’d only talked to me, told me she was pregnant, I would have turned in my badge and married her. I just thought she’d stopped loving me.” He wiped at a tear.
“I’m sorry.” She reached up and caressed his scar with trembling fingers.
Paul caught her hand and dropped wet kisses into her palm. “I’ve missed your mother every day since that night. I feel so cheated.”
“We were both cheated. I guess Mommy didn’t know how much you really loved her.”
He glanced away for a second. ‘It eased my pain to know that she named you after my grandmother. Her name was also Tashi.”
“I have roots,” Tashi said, happy bubbles forming in her soul. She wrapped her arms about him, buried her face in his neck, and inhaled his natural male scent and the light odor of his cologne. He was her father. He wasn’t there because he hadn’t known about her. But as soon as he learned of her existence, he’d ironically put his career, and his life on the line for her. She couldn’t ask for a better dad.
“Just one last thing, Tashi,” Paul said, running his hand up and down her back before easing her reluctantly away. “Your mother didn’t kill herself. After I got the video, I began looking into her death. Some rich kids befriended her and forced her to steal narcotic from the pharmacy where she worked. When she threatened to expose them, they made it look like she overdosed and drowned in one of their pools. The people responsible for her death will be brought to justice. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make them pay.”
Relief flooded Tashi’s heart. “Uncle Victor always told me that my mother would never have left me alone in the world. He raised me to be suspicious of everybody. If I’d listened to him, Scottie wouldn’t have gotten close to me. I was so naïve and stupid.”
“No you weren’t, baby. You were being a young woman, doing what young people do, looking for love. I’m just glad I got that video in time, and that I got to you in time.”
“I cringe when I think of how different my life could have been if you hadn’t found me in time—” Her face puckered. “Now I don’t even know what to call you. I can’t keep calling you Agent Dawson.”
“Paul is fine.”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve always wanted a father, and now here you are. I’m calling you, Daddy. Daddy.” Her bright smile matched his.
With his heart overflowing with love and joy, Paul kissed her forehead then he pulled an envelope from his jeans pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” Tashi asked.
“A belated wedding present.”
“You didn’t have—”
“Just open it.”
Catching her lip between her teeth, Tashi opened the envelope then stared wordlessly at the form inside it. It was a brand new copy of her birth certificate. Her maiden name had been hyphenated to Holland-Dawson. And in the column where Unknown used to be, the name Paul Christopher Dawson was printed in strong bold letters. Tashi began to giggle uncontrollably as she hugged him. It was the best gift ever. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“Daddy’s home to stay, baby-girl. I retired from the agency and I’m moving to Granite Falls. I’m spending the rest of my life getting to know you, and hopefully, my grandchildren.”
Tashi looked toward the door as she heard a commotion outside the dining room. “Tashi, dove sei mia figlia? Tashi…”
“Arabella is asking ‘Where’s my daughter’?” Paul translated for her.
“I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”
“Had to learn it, and French and Spanish, too, in order to keep up with these four billionaires. Just started on Russian,” he said, rising and pulling her with him as Arabella came into the room, followed by Adam and Alessandro.
“Tashi
.” Arabella hugged her so tightly, Tashi had trouble breathing, and just when she thought she could take a breath, she was wrapped in Alessandro’s arms. And then they were spinning her around, talking excitedly in Italian, touching her hair, her face, kissing her cheeks. She loved having a family and people fussing over her. She never had that growing up. Her uncle loved her, but he was not overly affectionate. Adam’s parents, and her newfound father had no qualms about showing her how much they loved her. Her children would be so spoiled.
“Okay, Mom and Dad,” Adam said with a big grin on his face. “I think Tashi feels very welcomed to the family.”
“I do.” Tashi grinned at her in-laws as she looped her arms around her husband’s waist. Arabella looked stylish in a white designer linen suit that fitted her slender petite form perfectly. Her brown, gray-streaked hair fell loosely around her beautiful oval face, and Alessandro, a few inches shorter than his son, looked very relaxed in jeans and a yellow sport shirt. Gratefully, she noted that his black and silver hairline had not receded. But… she thought, glancing at his slightly emerging potbelly…
“Too much pasta and wine,” Adam whispered in her ears as Alessandro and Arabella turned their attention to Paul. “You don’t ever have to worry about me growing one of those.”
Tashi giggled. “Have respect for your father,” she said, feeling a sense of pride that her father spoke Italian like a native. And now that he was moving to Granite Falls, he could help her with lessons while Adam was at work.
“Tashi.” Alessandro came back to her. “I apologize for my behavior the day we spoke via satellite. I was out of line.”
“It’s okay, Alessandro—”
