TRACE (The TRACE Series, #1)

by Deborah Bladon

  I pull his arms around my waist as I lean back into him. "I wouldn’t change anything about your body either."

  The sigh that escapes him reverberates through me. I knew I'd end up back in his apartment. I couldn’t have known that after he'd fucked me slowly in his bed, that he'd draw a warm bath for me while I closed my eyes. I'd awoken to him scooping me up into his arms and carrying me into the bathroom. The candles that surround the large tub were the only light as he helped me step in before he slid his body behind me, water flowing over the edge and hitting the dark tiled floor.

  "Tell me how old you are, Vanessa."

  "You don't know how old I am?" I push my head back so I can catch a glimpse of his face. His hair is wet and pushed off his forehead. A fine mist of moisture has beaded on his upper lip.

  "I think I know how old you are." His hands edge down my body until one is resting against my core. "I think you're twenty-seven."

  "I'm not twenty-seven." I push my legs apart wanting him to circle my clit with his skilled fingers.

  "You're twenty-six." It's a statement, not a question.

  I graze my hands over his knees. "No. I'm not twenty-six."

  "Tell me," he whispers into my neck. "Tell me how old."

  "I'm twenty-four." I lean back against him. "You're thirty-two. I saw it on your chart."

  "You're so young." He chuckles in a low tone. "How the hell did I end up wanting you?"

  "I'm not that young." I slap his thigh playfully. "I'm very mature for my age."

  "You're perfect for your age. You're perfect for me."

  ***

  "Take it down your throat." He's leaning against the counter in his kitchen, his hands on the back of my head. "Fuck it, Vanessa. Fuck it all with your mouth."

  I feel my eyes watering at the sheer girth of it. When I first dropped to my knees, and I took the spongy head of his cock in my mouth, his desire for release had taken over. He'd held my hair in his hands as he slid between my lips. He'd started fucking me slowly, curse words rolling off his tongue slowly and sensuously.

  I moan as I feel it swell even more when I cup his heavy balls in my hand. I push back to pop it out of my mouth, wanting to flick my tongue over the tip.

  "You know how to suck me." He looks down, his gaze meeting mine. "Christ, look at you. Look at your tits and your mouth."

  I smile around his cock, knowing that the slight pressure of my tongue on the underside will bring out a low groan. It does. He throws his head back as his hands grip tightly to my hair.

  "I have to fuck it, Vanessa." He suddenly reaches back to grab the edge of the counter. His fingers splayed out across the marble. "I want to come all over your tits."

  I feel my core ache at the image of that. I move my body slightly, grab hold of the base of the thick root and slide my mouth slowly over it as he chants my name.

  I don't pull back when I feel the first burst of his release hit the back of my throat. I want to taste him. I need to have this.

  He pushes back hard, grabs hold of his cock and pumps everything he has onto my face and my breasts.

  I stare up at him as he levels his breathing, his cock still resting in his palm.

  "That was fucking amazing." He looks down at me. "You're fucking amazing."

  I push myself forward, open my mouth and run my tongue over the semi-erect tip of his cock, collecting the last drop onto my tongue.

  "That right there," he stops to pull in a deep breath. "That right there makes me want to keep you here forever."

  Chapter 17

  He's fallen asleep. I didn't think it was possible but Garrett Ryan has finally run out of steam. He's next to me, his breathing deep and controlled. I've stared at him for at least the last thirty minutes, debating whether I should pull my jeans and sweater back on and go home. I know if I do, I'll wake up to a bounty of messages from him asking me why I bailed. He wants me to stay. He said it before he drifted off to sleep when he was telling me about his childhood in Boston.

  I've avoided talking about myself. He hasn't asked any direct questions and I haven't offered anything. I can't yet. I won't share who I am until I have a clear picture of that myself.

  I slide out from under his arm and pull on the white dress shirt he threw on the floor when we first walked into his bedroom. It's large, so large that I have to roll up the sleeves. It smells like him. It's the scent of his skin and his cologne.

  I pad quietly out of the bedroom and into the living room. I reach for my purse, retrieving the notebook before I sit in an oversized brown chair. I pull my knees up to my chest and open the tattered pages to where I last read.

  The words flow together, each more painful than the one before as my mother writes about entering her forties and the deep ache within her heart to be a parent. She wishes she had worked harder and saved more so she could travel to a place in the world where children are given to foreign families who have meager means but a lot of love to give.

  She writes about her friends who are mothers and how they ignore their children even though they've been given the greatest gift a woman can have. The names that she's written are foreign to me. I don't remember any of them. I don't recall the descriptive details of the park by her home where she sat for hours at a time watching the children playing in the grass and swinging on the swings.

  I watch my tears fall onto the paper as I turn the last page to read the pain she's in. Her loneliness is evident in the cursive handwriting, each letter so structured and woven into the next, even when her heart was breaking apart.

  "Vanessa?" His voice is filled with sleep.

  I twist in the chair to look at him. He's wearing pajama bottoms and a slight grin on his face. "I was worried that you left without waking me."

  I want to run across the room and into his arms. I want him to hold me and I want him to know me.

  "What are you reading?" He takes long strides towards me. "Is it that notebook you had at the pub?"

  I close the cover carefully not wanting to disturb the bindings that are almost falling apart. "It belonged to my mother. I found it in the safety deposit box."

  He pulls on the fabric of the pants before he lowers himself to the table in front of me. "Is it a diary?"

  "It's something like that." I hold it close to my chest wanting to keep its secrets buried within the pages.

  "Is reading it helping you?" He reaches for my left foot, massaging it in his hands. "Are you learning anything about her?"

  "I am," I say hoarsely. "There's a lot about her I didn't know until now."

  "It's a treasure then." He leans down to kiss my ankle. "You're lucky you have it."

  I don't answer because I don't consider myself lucky at all. I won't until I understand who I am and how I came to belong to Rowena Meyer.

  ***

  "What time does your flight from Maine get in?" He straightens the lapels of his navy blue suit jacket.

  "I'm on a morning flight." I glance down at my smartphone. "I'll be at La Guardia before noon and then I have to work the night shift."

  He exhales quickly. "You're leaving to go to Maine today; you're coming back tomorrow morning and then working?"

  "That's my entire itinerary," I tease.

  "When do I get to see you?"

  I pull my hair into a high ponytail as I study his reflection in the large mirror in his bathroom. "I can come by your office tomorrow afternoon. I've never been there."

  He pulls me into his chest, his broad arms enveloping me. "I'd love that, Vanessa. Shit, I'd love to have you there but I have to be somewhere else tomorrow afternoon."

  I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do. I have no idea what's waiting for me in Maine. I don't even know if I'm going to find a match to the storage locker key but I do know that the promise of coming back to New York to see Garrett's face will make the entire ordeal bearable for me.

  "I'll stop by the hospital tomorrow night." He brushes his lips across my forehead. "You'll text me and tell me when you're br
eak is and I'll be there."

  "My break is usually at two in the morning when I'm on the night shift."

  "I'll be waiting in the cafeteria for you."

  "You'd get up in the middle of the night to come down to the hospital to sit with me for thirty minutes?" I cock my brow at his reflection.

  "I would go anywhere at any time to see this beautiful face."

  Chapter 18

  "You better believe I remember her." He claps his plump hands together. "Your mother is a looker."

  She is. She was. My mother was beautiful for as long as I can remember. Even now, that her hair has grayed and wrinkles have overtaken the landscape of her face, she's still one of the most breathtaking women I'll ever know.

  "You look nothing like her." He points out. "How do I know you're really her daughter?"

  I yank open my purse and fish frantically for my wallet. I open it quickly, pulling open a zippered compartment before I feel the edges of a small, rectangular photograph. I scoop it into my palm.

  "My mother and I took this when I was fifteen. We were at Coney Island." I hold the picture towards him, mindful of the fact that it's one of the few of the two of us together. We'd sat in a photo booth and had made ridiculous faces as the flash blinded us. This photograph is the only one where we're both smiling brightly. It's the last picture I have of my mother and me together, where her gaze is actually focused on the camera.

  "That's the woman I remember." He pulls the picture closer to his nose, his head diving down to look below the line of his bifocals. "You look good in this too."

  I accept the compliment with a smile. "I'm glad you remember her."

  "She rented 7A." He gestures down a long hallway of lockers. "It's one of the inside units."

  "I have the key." I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to pull it free. "I wasn't sure if you'd still have her things. I thought you might have auctioned them off."

  "No way." He chuckles as he leans against his desk. "Your mother and I were friends. She gave me a watch in exchange for keeping her stuff here. I always hoped she'd come back to get it."

  I don’t question the watch or its worth. It's inconsequential now. What matters is that when I walked through the doors of this building, the third I've been in today, I finally found the missing piece of the puzzle I've been searching for. I'm ten feet, and one lock away, from knowing all of my mother's secrets.

  ***

  Zoe rubs her hand over her brow. I can tell that she's on the verge of tears. I am too. I have been since I arrived back in New York this morning.

  After I'd rummaged through the boxes of old clothes and holiday decorations in my mother's storage locker, I'd felt numb. I'd sat in the corner, holding tight to a toy doll she'd packed in a cardboard box with all the Mother's Day cards I'd given to her. I'd picked up two before the pain of knowing that she'd never smile at me the same way she did when I was a child overtook me. I'd wept in the tiny space all alone, convinced that I'd never know where I came from and who gave me away.

  I reached to pick up the small pink suitcase my mother had given me on my tenth birthday when we took a weekend trip to Disneyland. She'd worked two jobs to save for the trip and I'd spent months at Aunt Nora's after school and in the evenings while my mother waited tables for meager tips so she could take me to see the place where dreams are made of.

  I remember the trip's every rich detail. We'd stayed at a cheap motel in Anaheim and shared breakfast sandwiches bought from a local fast food place. There wasn't enough money for the rides, so we'd sat on benches, and closed our eyes, imagining what it would feel like to raise high in the air on a rollercoaster, or splash through the water as we raced down a mountain. It was the perfect three day trip. The pink hard shell suitcase that sat on the floor in the storage locker was proof of that.

  When I reached to pick it up, the latch fell open. It had rusted over time and as I bent down to scoop up the papers that had fallen onto the concrete floor, my entire life had shifted on its axis.

  I'd left the space with the broken suitcase in my hands, calling back to the man at the desk to donate everything else.

  I'd fallen asleep feeling nothing and woke the same way. I don't remember boarding the plane or getting into the taxi that brought me to Zoe.

  I'm here now and as she clings to me and sobs, I stare at the yellowed newspaper clippings and the grieving face of the woman with blonde hair and the same blue eyes as me. She'd turned her back in Central Park for not more than a brief moment and when she turned back, her little baby girl was gone.

  Chapter 19

  "Are we still on for tonight?" Garrett growls into the phone.

  I pull in a deep breath. "I need to work tonight. I'll be at the hospital at eleven."

  He's preoccupied. I can hear voices in the background and movement. "I'm looking forward to seeing you. I miss you, Vanessa."

  I can tell that it's shifting to something more than two people who crave each other. He'd called me several times yesterday but I couldn't talk. I couldn't bring myself to even utter a word to myself, let alone him. I'd explained it away with bad cell service in Maine when I finally answered just now.

  "I miss you too," I say it softly wanting to know how it feels on my lips. I do miss him. I want to tell him what's happening. I want him to tell me what to do but I can't. I won't. I have to find my way out of this maze by myself.

  "I have a confession." He chuckles. "I can't believe I'm about to tell you this."

  I close my eyes. "Tell me what it is."

  "I took a picture of you that night you were reading your mother's diary," he pauses before he continues. "You looked so perfect sitting in the chair in my apartment, wearing my shirt."

  My voice is thick as I try to hold in everything I'm feeling. "I don't have a picture of you. Can I take one when I see you tonight?"

  "You can take as many as you want. I need to go." His voice shifts slightly. "I have a busy day but I'll be at the hospital at two. I'll kiss you in the middle of the cafeteria for as long as I can."

  I cradle the phone against my ear, wishing he could talk for just a moment longer. "I'll be there."

  The line goes dead and I close my eyes as I lean back into the seat and stare out the window of the dark sedan Zoe had called for us. The driver is taking us through the crowded streets of mid-town Manhattan as we make our way to the Upper East Side and the townhouse where Francesca Tomlin lives.

  ***

  "I'm scared," I whisper as I hold tightly to Zoe's hand. "What if I'm not her daughter?"

  "We don't have to do this today." She rests her tablet in her lap. "We can go back to my place and research it more."

  I know that she sees the panic in my expression. After she'd read all the clippings in the suitcase about the missing child from twenty-four years ago, Zoe had opened her tablet and typed in the name of the mother. We were flooded with images of her as she aged. There were pictures of her stunning home where she hosts charity fundraisers and dinner parties for some of the city's theatre greats. She is beautiful and giving and when I'd scrolled through the image results, I saw the shape of my nose, and the curve of my brow. I saw a familiarity in another's face that I've never seen before.

  "I think I should just go to the door and talk to her." My heart leaps with the idea of seeing her face right in front of me. "I won't say who I am. I'll just talk to her for a minute."

  She nods as if she thinks my plan holds any merit at all. "If she's your mother, she'll know Vanessa. She'll feel it inside."

  I know she will. I sense it already. I know it's not wishful thinking that has brought me to the woman's doorstep. It's the words my mother wrote within her notebook, it's the newspaper clippings, but most of all it's the thin brightly colored rope bracelet I saw wrapped around her wrist in some of the photographs. It's the same colors as the bracelet I'm holding in my hands.

  "Do you want me to go to the door with you?" Zoe nods towards the shuttered windows of the townhouse. "It would be e
asier if I was next to you, holding your hand."

  She's right. It would be easier to have her support right next to me but this is a moment I've longed for since I was old enough to understand that there was a woman on the earth who had carried me within her body and had endured the pain of giving birth to me.

  "I think I need to go by myself." I point towards the concrete steps. "Can you wait here for me though?"

  "I'll be right here with the driver until you come back." She pats the seat between us. "I promise I won't go anywhere."

  I lean towards her to pull her into an embrace. I need her strength. I need the belief that she carries within her that everything is supposed to turn out a certain way because of fate. It's how she lives her life since she met her husband and it's only given her the gifts that she's always wanted.

  I want this to be the end of my journey. I want Francesca to open the door and pull me into her arms and cry because I've finally found her. I want that but I know that when I knock on the door, the woman who answers may not feel anything for me. She may view me as one of the many solicitors who roam the city's streets trying to sell magazine subscriptions or calendars for charity.

  I push open the door of the car, dart my head back to look at Zoe one last time and step onto the sidewalk.

  Chapter 20

  "I'm here to see Mrs. Tomlin," I say with every ounce of strength I can pull from within me. I'd knocked softly on the door twice before ringing the bell.

  "Mrs. Tomlin?" The shorthaired woman scratches her chin as she stares down at my face. "Francesca Tomlin?"

  "Yes," I nod as I try to peek around her body to the interior of the townhouse. "My mother was a friend of hers many years ago and I was hoping she could spare a moment to see me."

  "What's your name, dear?" she asks as she peers past my head to where the town car is idling on the street. "I'll need to know your name."

  "It's Vanessa," I answer in a muted tone. It may be Charlotte Tomlin. That was the name of the child who was taken from her mother's clutches when she briefly turned her back.