Found: One Son

by Judith Arnold

  “It’s still early in the day here,” she pointed out to Jeffrey, not bothering to explain the time-zone differences. “So when we get off the plane, we’re going to visit an office.”

  “What office?”

  “It’s a detective agency called Finders, Keepers.”

  THEY TOOK A CAB NORTH from the airport into the city. Jeffrey was beside himself. Before today, he’d done so little traveling—but in the past six hours he’d been on a jet plane, flying three thousand miles from home, and now he was riding in a car through a city so exotic even Emmie gaped at her surroundings. “Oh, boy! Another hill!” Jeffrey would cheer each time the cab vaulted over another of San Francisco’s roller-coaster roads. They caught glimpses of the Bay, the water so turquoise it looked unreal to Emmie, who was used to the North Atlantic’s green and gray hues. They ogled tidy stucco buildings, multihued Victorians, town houses stacked along the slanting sidewalks like dominoes. Emmie wondered if the slight nudge of a building at the top of the hill would push it into the next building, and into the next, until they all tumbled down to the water’s edge.

  Van Ness was a reasonably level street, and the building that bore the address of Finders, Keepers, which she’d found in a phone book at the airport, looked interchangeable with any number of office buildings in Boston. Emmie and Jeffrey rode up the elevator and stepped out to find themselves face-to-face with the front door of Tyrell Investigative Services, which was evidently the parent company of Finders, Keepers.

  She approached a secretary inside and asked for Finders, Keepers. With an appealing casualness, the young woman didn’t inquire if they had an appointment or tell them to wait while she contacted some inner office by phone but simply said, “Follow me.” She was a sturdy, energetic woman with lush brown curls of hair tumbling around her face. Emmie felt skinny and pallid next to her, and dowdy in her wrinkled cotton dress. The woman’s slacks were crisp and fresh looking—but then, she hadn’t just disembarked from a transcontinental flight.

  “Where are we going?” Jeffrey asked in a stage whisper that could probably have been heard across the bay in Oakland.

  “To talk to a special detective,” Emmie whispered back, holding his hand so he wouldn’t wander off. They passed two offices with their doors open and were led into a third one. The walls were clean and white, a side counter held a computer with its screen saver swirling, the window overlooked the traffic on Van Ness and the broad desk at one end faced a framed poster of two ballet dancers performing a pas de deux.

  “Have a seat,” the young woman said, gesturing toward two upholstered chairs near the desk. As Emmie sat, the woman circled the desk and sat facing them. “I’m Maggie Tyrell,” she said, “the president of Finders, Keepers. You caught me at a quiet moment. What can I do for you?”

  Emmie blinked and sat up straighter. This effervescent young woman was going to save her life?

  Well, she’d found Emmie for Michael, hadn’t she? If she could do that, surely she could find Michael. “I understand you find missing lovers?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, I—I’m missing someone.”

  “You miss Michael?” Jeffrey piped up, squirming in the oversize chair. “I miss him. He taught me all about baseball. Ask me a question about baseball,” he boasted to Maggie Tyrell. “I know everything about baseball.”

  She grinned. “Do you think the Giants have a shot at the pennant this year?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I only know about the Red Sox.”

  Maggie chuckled. “I guess you’re from Boston, huh?” She turned back to Emmie, her smile expectant.

  Emmie nodded. “And I guess we both miss Michael,” she said. “He was a client of yours. He hired you to find me, and you did... and now he’s gone and I need to find him. Michael Molina is his name.”

  Maggie’s expression changed. She gazed curiously at Jeffrey and then back at Emmie. “You’re Mary-Elizabeth Kenyon, the teacher,” she said. Emmie was surprised that the detective remembered, and even more surprised when she added, “And this must be Jeffrey.”

  “Yes, this is my son Jeffrey.” Emmie ruffled his hair.

  Maggie leaned back in her chair and shook her head in bewilderment. “I suppose it’s none of my business why he left you. He went to an awful lot of trouble to find you, and the last I heard it was going well. I believe in true love, Ms. Kenyon—but though it breaks my heart to admit it, sometimes it just isn’t meant to be.”

  “This is meant to be,” Emmie insisted. She’d never been surer of anything in her life. “I love him, and we thought—we both thought there was something insurmountable standing in our way. But it’s not insurmountable. I need to find him, to tell him that.”

  “Well.” Maggie studied her for a minute, then shrugged. “This is so simple I’m not even going to charge you. Let me just give him a call—”

  “No.” Emmie leaned across the desk, prepared to block Maggie’s hand before it reached the phone. “He might say he doesn’t want to see me. Please—if you could just tell me where I could find him—he lives somewhere around here, doesn’t he?”

  “Across the Bay, in Berkeley.” She regarded Emmie for another minute. “I feel a little funny about this. If he really left you, maybe he doesn’t want to see you again.”

  “Maybe I didn’t want to see him when he showed up at my house six weeks ago,” Emmie shot back.

  Maggie conceded with a nod. “All right.” She swiveled to her computer, called up a file and located his address. She copied it onto a sheet of paper and handed it to Emmie. “It’s about a twenty-minute drive from here. Do you have a car?”

  “No. We can take a cab.” Emmie didn’t want to think about how much money she was spending. She would gladly live in debt for the rest of her life if it gave her a chance to make things right with Michael.

  “Okay. Do me one favor, though.”

  “Anything.”

  “Let me know how it goes, all right?”

  “All right.” Emmie stood and shook Maggie’s hand. Then she turned to Jeffrey, whose energy had flagged. He sat lethargically in the chair, apparently suffering the aftereffects of a long, long day that was not yet close to being over. “Come on, Jeffrey. Let’s go find Michael.”

  “Okay,” he said, dragging himself out of the chair.

  “He’s adorable,” said Maggie as Emmie took his hand. “I can see why Michael...well, just go and find him. Good luck.”

  JEFFREY FELL ASLEEP during the drive across the Bay to Berkeley. Emmie gently shook him awake as the cab stopped in front of a courtyard of pretty garden apartments. The buildings were Spanish-style, white stucco with red-tile roofs, arched doors and windows and attractive grillwork with flowering vines twining through the wrought iron. The architecture reminded Emmie of San Pablo.

  San Pablo, when everything had been possible. When the future had spread before her, golden and beckoning. When she had trusted her heart.

  Just like today.

  She led Jeffrey up the walk to the door with Michael’s number on it and rang the bell. He might not be home—or, worse, he might be home and not alone. But she’d come this far, and she wasn’t going to retreat. Even if he had a woman with him—if he could be brave enough to fly across the country to find her, not knowing what he might find, she could be brave enough to ring his bell.

  After a minute, the heavy oak door swung open, and there he stood. Alone, dressed in blue jeans and a wrinkled white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his hair disheveled and his eyes as dark as onyx. He was clearly startled. But before he could speak Emmie said, “We have something to tell Jeffrey.”

  “We do?” He peered down at the sleepy boy clinging to his mother’s leg. Then he knelt in front of Jeffrey and said, “Hey. How are you doing?”

  “I’m tired,” Jeffrey said. “We miss you.”

  Michael stared at Jeffrey for a moment, then stared at the floor, at the wall, at the terra-cotta courtyard beyond his front door. Everywhe
re but at Emmie.

  “We miss you,” she echoed. “Maggie Tyrell at Finders, Keepers gave us your address. Can we come in?”

  Michael straightened up. She saw his neck move as he swallowed. “Sure,” he said, stepping aside and gesturing for them to enter.

  His town house disconcerted her. Everything was so neat and clean—not that she’d ever seen any evidence that he wasn’t a neat, clean person, but the furniture was sparse and tasteful, the tile floors shiny and the rugs devoid of mud or brown grass clippings, the sofa cushions in place and the tables all matching. It occurred to her that he was quite welloff—and that he didn’t have a child living with him. “This is your home?” she asked, amazed, then embarrassed by her amazement.

  “I guess so,” he said enigmatically.

  She turned to him. “What do you mean, you guess so?”

  He watched as Jeffrey let go of Emmie’s hand and crossed to a deep-slung leather easy chair. He climbed into it and curled up, his eyes open but bleary with sleepiness. Once Jeffrey was settled, Michael steered his gaze back to Emmie. “Do you really want to tell him?”

  She nodded, aware that revealing the truth to Jeffrey would be one of the riskiest, most difficult things she’d ever done. “I was going to tell him myself, but I thought we should do it together. Be-sides...” She averted her eyes and admitted, “I didn’t have the guts to do it myself.”

  He touched her cheek, cupping his hand around her face and tilting it until her eyes met his. “Are you sure you want him to know?” he asked in a hushed voice. “He knows so much else about me—”

  “We’ll deal with that,” she said. “He took the wrong things from your story. I can try to teach him the right things—but I need you with me, Michael. You can teach him better than I can.”

  He scrutinized her face for a long minute. “I don’t want him to turn out like me,” he whispered.

  “I do.”

  His hand trembled against her face, and he let it drop. Then he turned to the drowsy boy, crossed the room and hunkered down in front of the chair. Emmie joined them, dropping to her knees next to Michael. “Are you still awake, Jeffrey?” Michael asked.

  Jeffrey nodded. “Whatcha whispering about? Is it a secret?”

  “It was,” Michael told him. “But not anymore.” He glanced at Emmie—seeking support, she thought, gathering his hand in one of hers and Jeffrey’s hand in the other. “I’m your father, Jeffrey.”

  Jeffrey’s eyes widened. He said nothing.

  Emmie nodded. “It’s true, Jeffrey. When we knew each other, so long ago—remember when that man Max told you about San Pablo? We knew each other then.”

  “I loved your mom,” Michael said, his voice wavering slightly as if straining beneath the weight of his emotions. “But I had to leave her. And I didn’t even know it when you were born. I didn’t know where you and your mom were. It took me years to find you.”

  Jeffrey gazed at Emmie, questioning. “I have a daddy?”

  “You always had a daddy,” she reminded him gently. “You asked me, and I said your daddy was a man I loved, but he went away. But he left me with you, which I always considered the greatest gift I’d ever received.”

  Jeffrey thought this over. He shifted to stare at Michael, then twisted back to Emmie. “He killed a man.”

  “It was a terrible thing,” said Michael, drawing Jeffrey’s attention back to him. “And I’m sorry it happened. But at the time it was the only thing I could do, and so I did it.”

  “He was a bad man.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re a hero.”

  “I’m just a man, too, Jeffrey. I’m not a hero.”

  “You’re my daddy,” Jeffrey declared, his tone leaving no doubt that he considered that synonymous with being a hero. He smiled, then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  Michael and Emmie remained on the floor near Jeffrey’s chair for a long while, until he started to snore. Then Michael stood and, offering his hand, helped her to her feet. The light had faded, throwing long shadows across the elegant living room. Emmie was tired, too—but more than tired, she was edgy, her nerves jumping, her heart drumming. She’d just gotten through one of the riskiest, most difficult conversations she’d ever had—but she was facing another just as risky, just as difficult.

  She started with the most important part. “I love you, Michael.”

  He smiled sadly. “Love was never the problem between us.”

  “You wanted my forgiveness.” She took his hands in hers, ran her thumbs over his warm, smooth palms, sought strength in his grip. “What happened in San Pablo happened. The only thing I had to forgive was your leaving me the way you did—and I forgave that long ago. You couldn’t help it. You had to go.”

  “But—”

  “The rest, Michael...it’s not for me to forgive. Your friend Max convinced me that what you did was heroic—but I didn’t need much convincing. He only told me what I knew in my heart.” She felt tears welling up, crowding her eyes, but kept going. “It’s you who have to forgive yourself. I didn’t stop you from leaving Wilborough, and I should have. But you were the one who left—because you couldn’t forgive yourself.”

  He inhaled, gazed down at her, sighed. “Emmie. It used to haunt me. I couldn’t get it out of my head. L thought I was over it, but... I’m not. It still haunts me.”

  “I know. You’re still haunted by your brother’s death, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Some things you aren’t meant to get over. Your brother, San Pablo...you learn to live with them. You learn to forgive yourself and go on.”

  He sighed again. “Emmie.” He touched his lips to her brow. “I missed you, too. God, I missed you.”

  “Why did you say you guessed this was your home?” she asked.

  He glimpsed Jeffrey, deeply asleep on the chair, and then smiled crookedly. “I had a wild dream that Wilborough could be my home someday. I wanted to believe that could happen.”

  “Believe it,” she murmured to him. “We want you home.”

  “If you want me home...” He closed his arms around her and held her tight, making her feel safe and secure, letting her know she was in the arms of a hero. “I’ll come home.”

  They held each other in the fading light, just steps from their sleeping son. So close to each other, Emmie knew that they had both come home. And this was also something they would never get over. It wasn’t a wild dream. It was simply love.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5359-9

  FOUND: ONE SON

  Copyright © 1999 by Barbara Keiler.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or In any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, end all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Table of Contents

  “We’re connected, Emmie.

  Letter to Reader

  Books by Judith Arnold

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPT
ER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Copyright