by Diane Saxon
Finding Zoe
Atlantic Divide Book 3
Diane Saxon
Published 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62210-039-2
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © Published 2013, Diane Saxon. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Blurb
Returning to England after eleven years, Cormack Blunt stumbles across the woman who he thought was lost to him forever. The woman he had never forgotten. And he realizes that the sweet young girl he once knew has managed to keep a secret from him.
Zoe Chance can’t believe that the young man she loved eleven years before, now a famous movie star and action hero, has turned up out of the blue and wants answers. Not only that, he wants her son too.
Forced to confront him, she realizes that it isn’t a fight to keep her son that causes the problem but the fight to keep her own heart.
Dedication
To my daughter, Meghan Louise, who wanted my heroine to be a vet with strange, green eyes. Thank you for your unending support.
Prologue
“Take the check, Zoe.”
The hard New York twang grated on her nerves as she sat in a plush, cream-colored armchair opposite Cormack Blunt’s agent in the nineteenth-century Davies penthouse suite in Claridge’s.
“I don’t want his money. He loves me,” she declared with all the conviction of an eighteen-year-old.
“Of course he doesn’t love you, honey. He’s tired of you. You’re an embarrassment. He needs you to stop clinging, for the love of God.”
Heat filled her cheeks, hot and florid. Desperate, Zoe met the cold, hard eyes of the middle-aged woman.
“I want him to tell me. He’ll see me.” That’s why she’d come all the way to London. To see him. To surprise him. Looked like the surprise was on her.
“He’s busy. He’s just about to make the biggest career break of his life. He does not need you holding him back.” Astral Heaven, agent to the stars, fished in her tote bag and tossed a photograph onto the occasional table.
“There. That’s the woman he’s going to marry.”
Zoe raised her icy fingers to her burning cheeks.
“Don’t be sick, she must be fifteen years older than him.”
“Of course she is. She’ll be the making of him.”
The woman slapped another photograph on the table. Zoe stared. Mac, her Mac with his arm wrapped around the tall, willowy, blonde star, Emilia Southern, and he looked…deliriously happy as he laughed down into the pale, ethereal beauty’s face, their eyes centered on each other.
Refusing to believe, she shook her head as her stomach churned. Her chest felt like a leaden weight had just been sucked to its very depths.
“Take the money.”
“I don’t want his money.” Quieter now, doubt seeped into her veins, crawled into her chest.
“He said you would need it. Take it.”
Her heart cried out; her mind screamed. How could he be so disloyal? Why had he told his agent she needed money? It was supposed to be between them. She’d bared her soul to him, told him her deepest secrets, all of them bar one, and he’d betrayed her. She sagged back into the depths of the chair, limp and defeated.
Astral nudged the check toward her again, insistent.
“Take it, you know you want to. You can train to be a vet.”
One last show of defiance, she stared into the woman’s dead eyes and her conviction wavered.
“He said he loved me.”
“He’s an actor, darling. Of course he said he loves you. He loves everyone.”
“But…”
The woman’s hard blue eyes pierced her, unrelenting. She reached out, tapped the check with her perfectly manicured talons.
“Take it.”
Zoe leaned forward, her heart crushed, her confidence annihilated, and slid the check from under the woman’s fingers and across the table toward herself. She grasped it for a moment, unthinking, before she stuffed it into her purse, leaped from the chair, and rushed blindly for the door.
She found the underground and clasped her bag to her chest. London at rush hour was bad enough, but a country girl like her hadn’t a clue. Euston Station. She had to get off at Euston Station, buy a ticket, and catch the next train back to Shrewsbury. The Aberystwyth train was the one she needed.
He’d come after her. He loved her. She’d show him the check, and he’d fire his agent.
Pain raged through her young, bruised heart as conviction filled her head.
The train was on the platform about to depart. Panic made her fumble, drop her debit card and ticket. As she bent over, someone dashed into her, pushed her down. Her face scraped along the pavement; skin ripped from her outstretched hands as they skidded across the rough ground. After staggering to her feet, she ran for the Aberystwyth train.
She sat, tears streaming, blood flowing, with barely the wits about her to push her debit card back into her bag.
He’d come after her. When he found out. He would come.
She sat, calmer now, resolute. A tissue, donated from the silent woman opposite, was clutched in her hand. Heartbeat regular, breath slow.
She looked at the check. Her blood smeared across it. Fifty thousand pounds. There wasn’t a moment’s doubt in her mind. She’d give it back to him when he came. He wouldn’t marry another woman; he couldn’t. He’d said he loved her. It wasn’t just because he was an actor that he’d said it. He loved her, and she believed him.
She glanced at the man opposite. His newspaper caught her attention.
EMILIA SOUTHERN ANNOUNCES CORMACK BLUNT IS THE MAN FOR HER.
Sick, she closed her eyes; her fist closed around the check and squeezed tight as she leaned her weary head back.
He wouldn’t come. He didn’t love her.
She’d never be able to tell him now. She was pregnant.
Chapter 1
Almost eleven years had passed since he’d been there. Right at this very spot in the heart of Shropshire, England. Eleven years and his heart soared as he stood at the top of Major’s Leap on Wenlock Edge, careful not to get too close to the bluff in case his fear of heights got the better of him. He breathed in the fresh English air, filled his lungs with it.
He gazed over the acres of rich land. He’d forgotten the contrasts of color in the bright English countryside. The lush bottle-green of the trees against the bright emerald and pale jade of the square fields with their acres of crops swaying opulent and thick, contrasted with handkerchiefs of vivid yellow rapeseed fields sitting comfortably next to the mud-brown of the newly plowed areas. Forest-green hedgerows divided the land, populated with poppies splattered randomly over the landscape like droplets of blood.
As the warm English summer wind buffeted him, he closed his eyes and wondered why it had taken him so long to come back.
“Mr. Blunt?”
He knew why.
“Mr. Blunt, sir…are you ready?”
It was because of her.
“Mr. Blunt…”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
Opening his eyes, he sighed. He
took a moment longer to scan the landscape, tracking the clear, pale blue sky; he drew his gaze across the horizon. He smiled as he recognized the rise of The Wrekin in the distance and remembered her telling him the tale of some giant dumping a shovel of dirt on the plains of Shropshire, which made the hill.
With a wry smile he turned away, saddened for a moment as he wondered what had become of her. From time to time she still managed to make his heart ache.
He turned away from the view, from the memories, from the dull throb in his chest.
He’d made them all park in the small, rutted parking lot. His entire entourage, nineteen of them, had trudged up the rough terrain of Wenlock Edge just so he could take a look at the view. Like he’d looked at the view so many times—so long ago.
“Are we ready to rumble?”
He glanced around at the expectant faces, the puzzled looks, and the concern. He flicked his eyes down to their inadequate footwear and guilt tugged at him.
“Let’s go. Where did you say we were staying?” Businesslike now, he strode off with purpose toward the parking lot, sparing a quick look at the donkeys on the way down. There’d been donkeys there eleven years ago.
“Shrewsbury. The Prince Rupert.”
He hadn’t been important enough to stay in a hotel the last time he’d been there. It had been a trailer in the middle of a field. He’d loved it.
They reached the parking lot, and Mac looked at the vehicles, hesitated.
“I’ll tell you what. You all go and get settled and I’ll follow. There’s another couple of sights I want to see.”
“We’ll come with you, Mr. Blunt.”
“No.” He glanced around and saw the relief on their faces. “I’ll take the Mercedes. See you back at the hotel.”
Stupid to have taken the low-slung sports car. He needed a four-by-four to get down the rough, dirt track. He could hear the undercarriage crunch and grind. If he wrecked the car, he was going to have to call them to rescue him, and he really didn’t want to explain he was just having a trip down a potholed memory lane.
He let the car shudder and bump slowly to a stop beside a closed five-bar gate. He remembered the enormous farmhouse straight ahead with its own cast-iron gates. Looked like they had been converted to electric openings now. Fourteen bedrooms in the house, if he remembered correctly. He looked at it fondly, thinking whoever had bought it had looked after it. The neatly manicured lawns spoke of care; the stone statues of money.
Stepping out of the car, he walked around the hood to lean his arms on the gate and stare into the distance. The gamekeeper’s cottage, with its three bedrooms and a little jetty extending out into the small lake, looked as though it had also fallen on good times. It had been empty before.
Curious to get a closer look, he opened the gate and walked through. The dirt track was dry in the heat of the summer sun, and dust kicked up as he walked.
Roses ran riot in deep pink and white over the outside of the cottage. Cute, typically English. The door stood open. Reluctant to intrude but just as reluctant to withdraw, he hesitated and peered into the kitchen to find it empty. His gaze scanned down to the all too familiar jetty.
And there she was. As though it were yesterday. He tilted his head to one side. It couldn’t be. Her vibrant red hair shimmered in the bright sunlight. Believing he was dreaming, he took a few steps closer, paused. She reclined, languid, her back against the end post of the jetty, legs outstretched, face turned up to the heavens, eyes closed. Convinced now he must be hallucinating, his attention wandered to the one item unfamiliar to his memory. A glass of white wine was placed by her side, her fingers curled around the stem.
His heart lurched as he narrowed his eyes and stared. He knew it was his imagination. She’d moved years ago, and in any case, she looked exactly the same; she’d never aged. Mystified, he walked toward her. As he stepped onto the jetty, it protested at his weight with a loud, shuddering groan.
Her eyes shot open, her head whipped around, shock streaked across her face, and her body jerked and floundered. With a shriek and a loud splash, the object of his imagination fell off the edge of the jetty and disappeared beneath the surface of the clear blue water.
“Shit.”
Pulse racing, legs pumping, he ran down to the end of the jetty, flung himself to his knees as her drenched, dark auburn hair bobbed to the surface. He grabbed it and hauled her up as she howled in pain.
“Let go, you flaming maniac.” Shocked at the sound of her familiar voice and the realization he wasn’t dreaming, he dropped her and watched, fascinated, as she sank under the water once more.
It was her.
The bitch.
Spluttering, she surfaced, cursing.
“You raving lunatic. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Red strands of hair plastered her pale, porcelain features. She sucked in her breath and launched herself up onto the jetty.
Heart stunned, he watched, frozen, as she struggled to haul herself up and over the side of the wooden planks. Eventually, she lay flopping like a seal, rasping air in through her lungs.
“I thought you moved.” It was the only thing he could think to say through the torrent of raging emotions, whirling between confused disbelief and burgeoning fury.
Breath rattled past the water in her throat.
“I did, you moron.”
She lay on her back in front of him, panting in fresh air, and looking like a goddamned teenager. Grinding his teeth at the unfairness of it all, his voice pushed its way past the stranglehold of his throat.
“I tried to find you.”
There was a long silence, just the sound of her labored breathing.
“You didn’t try very hard.”
“You sold your house and left. It was empty. I checked myself. There was no furniture. There was a ‘sold’ sign.” He couldn’t hold back the accusation as he felt the bitterness rise up, threatening to consume him.
She pushed her sodden, dark red hair out of her face and lay motionless with her eyes closed, her chest heaving.
“Mac. It was eleven years ago. What are you doing here now?” She sounded weary.
“You moved.” He couldn’t help the sullenness in his voice. She had catapulted him back to being a young man again.
“Yes. Yes, we moved. My mother died, we moved. We sold the big house, kept this one. I went to university.” She sat up abruptly, impatience and annoyance vibrating from her. Her huge green-gold eyes met his and whipped his breath away. He wondered if he clutched his chest and started to wheeze if she would do anything to help him. From the cold, distant look in her eyes, he couldn’t imagine her calling for an ambulance. She would more than likely shove him in the pond and leave him to drown.
“What did you want?” She lifted a sleek, wine-colored eyebrow and gazed back at him, cool and superior despite her dripping wet state.
How the hell she managed to make him feel awkward, he had no idea, but the woman had always been able to make him feel emotions he never had with others.
“I always wondered what had happened to you. I was curious.”
“So…what? You came all the way from America? Just to check on me? After eleven years?” It quite pleased him she at least remembered how long it had been.
He became distracted by the sight of her soaking wet yellow T-shirt. Transparent, it hugged her body, clung to her curves. He could see the outline of her bra and thought what a shame she was wearing one. She never used to.
He glanced down at her slender feet with pretty pink polish on her nails. A familiar warmth spread down his belly into his groin as he remembered kissing those toes. Distracted by the ever-widening puddle surrounding her, he allowed his gaze to track farther up. Her saturated white pedal pushers clung, see-through and obscenely well, to her legs, her thighs, her hips, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he could see her…
“Mac!”
Guiltily, his eyes shot up to hers. Held.
Fascinated, he remembered vividly the tiny
dark flecks and the darker hazel ring that surrounded the light green of her eyes. She stared at him. Her left eyebrow slowly lifted again, distant and haughty. He had no idea what to say to her. He’d never truly imagined seeing her again.
“You’ve not changed.” Stupid cliché and he wanted to kick himself. She didn’t look impressed, either, as she sighed, shook her head, pushed her sopping hair back from her face, and puffed out a disgusted breath.
“You have. You’re bigger.” He wasn’t sure if she meant it as a compliment or an insult, but as she scrambled to her feet, gathering her waist-length red hair in one hand, he waited. She twisted it, squeezed out a torrent of water, and made him smile. She looked irritated now, but at least it was better than cool disinterest.
“Honestly, Mac. I have no idea what possessed you to come here. It’s very nice to see you, but really, I’m sure you have a heroic act to perform. Makeup and wardrobe will be waiting.” She rolled her eyes in disgust and started to stride back up the jetty toward the house.
“Mum!” She froze.
Curious, Mac turned, squinting through the bright reflection of sunlight at the rowboat approaching across the water. Disappointed, he realized she probably did have a life; a husband, kids.
The boat was a distance away yet, but he could make out a couple of figures. A man and a boy. Surprised, he peered harder, certain the adult was Zoe’s father. Older, more round-shouldered than he remembered, with a shock of white hair reflecting the sunlight, but he was sure it was him.
“Mum!”
There was a kid in the boat with two dogs, and he yelled and waved frantically.
“Oh my God.” Mac heard her anxious whisper from behind him. His gaze never left the small boat. Curiosity had morphed, uncomfortably, into a horrible premonition as he stared across the pond at the strangely familiar stance of the kid in the boat. A tingling sensation crawled up his neck into his hairline.
His heart rate quickened; his breath came in short pants. He squinted as the rowboat approached. The kid’s face came into focus, so familiar. The features almost as recognizable as his own. No, perhaps more like his younger sister’s. In fact, the kid was the spitting image of his sister, Bill, at his age.
