Another crack of the bat sent a ball soaring over Connors head. He raced back, but the ball fell toward the centerfielder, who made a solid diving catch. Connor whooped and ran toward his friend, high-fiving the third out of the inning.
Eric stood and clapped, watched his boy run to the dugout, sparing a quick grin for his father. Staggered, Eric sat down, wondering how it could be so damn easy. Wondering how ten years could stand between them, but with a simple smile, all theyd lost faded to the background, replaced by the promise of what lay ahead.
He wanted that future, damn it.
He saw her then, Leigh, walking toward him. She no longer wore the simple sundress, but khaki shorts and a red scoop-neck T-shirt, her hair in a sporty ponytail like so many of the other mothers. Her gaze was riveted on Eric. You came.
I promised him I would.
He heard the sharp intake of breath, watched her glance toward the dugout.
Hes good, Eric said.
Her smile was sudden and blinding, and it damn near stopped his heart. Hes the best.
That, Eric thought, they could agree on.
How much did I miss?
He bit back words that didnt need to be said. Only two innings.
She started to turn away then, in search of another seat, but Eric reached for her hand. Hell want to see us together.
Apprehension lit Leighs eyes, a pain he didnt want to see. Isnt that a farce?
He tugged her down beside him, ignoring the aroma of apples that came with her, an aroma that still clung to the sheets of his bed. Some farces are worth the price.
The image of father and son, side by side and laughing, stayed with Leigh through the quiet hours of the night, accompanying her to the office the following morning. The remaining innings of the baseball game had passed quickly, with Connor making spectacular play after spectacular play. Shed watched him run and dive for balls, spin and throw, swing the bat, and after each, hed turned and beamed a smile at them. His parents. Seated side by side, thigh to thigh.
It had been like one of those fractured dreams, the kind that brought waves of pleasure and shards of pain.
Afterward hed run up to them grinning, a baseball hat hiding his scraggly hair and grass stains at the knees of his pants, and suggested pizza. One look into his hopeful smile, and Leigh knew there was no way she could deny his request.
Father and son shared more than blood. Shed sat across from the two of them, barely able to quit staring at the twin sets of piercing blue eyes, the twin dimples, the twin smiles. They both loved sausage and mushroom pizza, root beer and Jimmy Buffet.
For a few hours theyd almost been like a family.
Some farces are worth the price.
Others broke hearts.
Shed known the risk, the gamble, from the moment Eric had walked into her office that unbearably hot morning a week before. Shed known, but with three simple words spoken in that deep, achingly familiar voice, shed thrown every shred of caution out the fifty-seventh floor window.
I need you.
She was still sitting there, staring at the coffee long since cold, when the intercom buzzed ten minutes later.
There are two gentlemen here to see you, Julia announced. Glenn Moore and Seth Mitchell.
Leighs heart hitched painfully, then started to pound a frenetic rhythm. Shed put the wheels in motion, hoping for just this outcome. But now that the moment of truth lay at hand, apprehension bled through.
One moment. One decision. One mistake.
Please, she thought, rising to go greet her visitors. Please dont let this be another mistake.
Forty-five minutes later, she sucked in a sharp breath and pressed the buzzer to the outer door of Erics brownstone. Her pulse raced crazily as the seconds ticked by.
And then Eric opened the door.
He paced the length of his elegant hotel room, dreading the phone call he had to return. He didnt know how his superior had learned the damning information, how news hed tried to squelch had screamed across the country with damning speed.
Close, damn it. He was so close. Just three more deposits into his bank account and hed be set for life.
He should just leave. He should get on the next plane to nowhere and lose himself in a faraway land, among a throng of nameless, faceless people.
But there was no escaping those after Jake Ingram. Their reach was far and deadly. They would never give up, never quit looking for Bloomfields secrets, secrets they believed Ingram could and would lead them to. He knew that. His only option was to correct his mistake.
Shes become a liability we cant afford, came the hard, condemning voice seconds later. She knows too much.
She cant prove his innocence, he protested. Yes, he knew about the meeting shed had at her office, the shocking discovery shed made, but that didnt mean she would uncover the full truth. One puzzle piece did not a picture make. The cards are stacked too high against him. The evidence is ironclad and compelling.
Joness laptop has vanished from the lab in Quantico. Did you know that?
A brutal sliver of cold cut straight through him. Thats impossible.
Ive already had to take corrective measures there. A pause, then a hard sound of displeasure. Do I need to intervene in Chicago, too?
No. Absolutely not. Hed seen what intervention entailed. Hed attended the funeral. I have the situation under control.
Stop her, his superior barked. Stop her before she stops you.
The line went dead, but the threat reverberated through the spacious, elegantly decorated room. And for one of the few times in his life, unease quickened through him. Hed made a rare mistake. Hed underestimated the leggy brunette. Hed underestimated her tenacity, the strength of her bond to the man who stood accused.
The man who had to take the fall.
And for his mistake, there had to be a price. A consequence.
But he wouldnt be the one to pay.
Twelve
S he was the last person Eric expected to see. He wouldnt let himself think about what he wanted. The shorts and T-shirt of the day before were gone, as was the ponytail, replaced by a severely tailored pantsuit, this one black and sexy as hell, despite its conservative cut. She looked tired, her face pale, dark shadows smeared beneath her eyes.
The blast of compassion caught him by surprise, the sudden, blinding desire to crush her in his arms and never let her go. Leigh. The girl hed left behind, the woman shed become, the mother of his son.
And that made him angry all over again, not at her, but this time at himself.
Leigh.
She lifted her chin. Eric. Im glad youre here.
Just two days ago, her words would have lit through him. He would have drawn her to him and tasted her mouth, suggested they go upstairs. Now he just looked at her. He didnt trust himself to move, to speak.
Theres be
en a development, she said, and though her voice rang strong and true, a sheen of moisture glazed her eyes. And her hands, he noted raggedly, were trembling. Poised, graceful, refined Leighs hands were trembling. I have information you and your new attorney will be interested in. She rummaged around inside a large leather satchel slung over her shoulder, then handed him a shoebox.
Every instinct he had went on red alert. Whats this?
Letters, she answered simply, then swung the killing blow. From your birth mother to your birth father.
Eric just stared. First at Leigh, then at the box in his hands. What are you talking about?
Your new lawyer might be interested in them, she said in a curiously neutral voice. Youre not a Protean, Eric. Far from it. You were conceived the old-fashioned way. In love.
Confusion swirled fast, sucked deep. Questions hammered hard. My birth parents?
A warm smile curved her lips. Theres someone you need to meet. In one smooth move, she stepped aside and gestured down the steps of his brownstone to where a tall graying man with piercing eyes stood watching.
Recognition hit hard and fast, followed quickly by shards of denial.
But then the man moved toward him, and Eric found himself staggering down the steps. The man moved haltingly, each step appearing painful and cautious. He looked weathered, as if life had beaten him down as violently as a thunderstorm tearing through a field of wheat. His clothes were simple, faded blue jeans and a thin plaid shirt. But his facethe eyes and the mouth, the line of his jaw
It was like looking into a foggy mirror of time and space.
The older man glanced nervously behind Eric, toward Leigh, then stopped and stuck out his hand. Hello, son.
Eric just stared. Shock ground through him. Blood pounded hard. In the street beyond, cars ambled by, but he couldnt look away from the older man, couldnt stop the world from spinning. My father died ten years ago.
The older man lifted a shaking hand to Erics face. Sweet mercy, you have your mothers cheekbones.
The words sent Eric reeling. He staggered back from the man, his touch, his words. Who the hell are you? he demanded.
The man didnt follow, just gazed at Eric through tired blue eyes awash with awe. Seth, he said in a roughened voice. Seth Mitchell.
Your birth father, Leigh said from behind him.
Eric spun toward her, felt the questions burn through him. Birth father? All that control he prided himself on and relied on crumbled. My birth mother and father gave me up for adoption thirty-three years ago and never looked back.
Your mother died, the man said quietly. In a car accident. She was twenty years old.
The words slammed into Eric. Denial rushed through wounds hed worked damn hard to numb. Thats not true. Couldnt be. She brought me to an orphanage, said she couldnt deal with me anymore.
No, Seth said, motioning to the shoebox Eric had dropped somewhere along the way. Your mama would never have given you up. She loved you with every corner of her heart.
Eric glanced down at the box, the letters spilling out. Faded envelopes addressed to a man named Seth Mitchell, from a woman named Tammy Adams. Letters without stamps, never mailed.
Tears glistened in the mans blue, blue eyes, eyes so like Erics. So like Connors. I was in Vietnam, Seth said in a voice that could only be described as broken. Got drafted straight out of high school. Tammy didnt know she was pregnant when I left.
The mans words came at Eric through a long, foggy tunnel. Seth, he said his name was. Seth Mitchell. Erics own middle name. How long were you there?
Six years, Seth answered slowly, rubbing a hand absently over his shoulder. I would have left that hellhole sooner, but after Tammy died, there didnt seem much point.
Emotion careened through Eric, hard and fast and brutal. A child wasnt important enough to come home to?
A sound broke from Seths throat, so low and anguished it barely sounded human. I never knew about you, he rasped. Tammy never told me, except in those letters, which she never mailed. She said knowing would have made it harder on me, and she didnt want that. The tears did more than glint in his reddened eyes now, they spilled over. And then, after the accident, my cousin sent me an article from the newspaper, saying Tammy Adams and her two-year-old son had been killed when a truck blew a tire and jumped the guardrail.
His words trailed off, but not the grief carved into every line of his face.
Thats why he didnt come home, Leigh said, lifting a hand to Erics arm. He thought you were dead.
Nothing prepared Eric. Nothing could have. All these years hed lived with the cold knowledge that his parents had decided theyd rather live without him. That theyd taken him to an orphanage, then turned and walked away without looking back. Hed never looked for them, never attempted to find out who they were. Never wanted to.
Or, at least, hed never allowed himself to want to.
But now he stared at this tall, whipcord-lean middle-aged man named Seth Mitchell, a man who shared his eyes and his jaw line and his dimple, a man with sorrow etched in his face and love shining in his gaze, who claimed to be his father.
And God, how he wanted.
I dont understand, he said, turning to Leigh. Anything, anything to break the emotions swamping him, emotions he didnt come close to knowing how to handle.
Tears glistened in her eyes. I wanted to prove you werent a Protean, she said. I thought if I could prove you were conceived the old-fashioned way, not in a laboratory, then wed dismantle one prong of the prosecutions case.
His new attorney had said the same thing. You should have told me, he ground out. Prepared him. You should have told me what you were trying to do.
And get your hopes up? The warm breeze whipped at a few loose strands of hair, prompting her to slide them behind her ear. I didnt know what wed find, Eric, if anything. It could have been a wild goose chase.
Are youare you sure? he asked, and hated the way his voice broke on the question. Hated the way he wanted.
You have a birthmark on your lower back, Seth said in a quiet voice. Tammy told me about it in the letters. You have a cowlick at the back of your part, he continued. So do I.
So did Connor.
The stories match up, Leigh put in. My P.I. visited religious-affiliated orphanages in Iowa, looking for information about a two-year-old boy surrendered around 1970. In a small town outside Cedar Rapids he found a woman whose mother used to run an orphanage. The woman had been a child at the time, and shed played with the kids. She remembered a little boy with the bluest eyes in the world, a little boy whod been dropped off at the orphanage by a middle-aged woman who claimed the boys mother had died in a car accident, leaving no one to care for him. The woman ran off without completing the paperwork.
Dottie never approved of me, Seth bit out. She was a big part of the reason Tammy and I didnt get married before I left for Nam.
From there it was fairly simple, Leigh explained. Glenn, my P.I., searched newspapers for information about young women killed in car accidents that spring and quickly stumbled across Tammy Adams. Her auntyour great-auntstill lives in Pella, which is where you were born. She told Glenn that her niece Tammy and her young son, Eric Mitchell, had died in a tragic car accident, and that her sister, Dotti
e, had never been the same.
Eric swore softly.
If Id known, Seth put in, curling his hand around Erics forearm. If Id had any idea you were still out there, alive somewhere, I would moved heaven and earth to find you.
Slowly, Eric looked up and met Seths gaze. His own gaze, his fathers gaze. Well need a DNA test.
Already arranged, Leigh said in a brisk, efficient manner. You have an appointment this afternoon.
Read the letters, son, Seth added. Tammys aunt found them in her sisters attic after Dottie died and brought them to me. It was like having you and your mama back. She wrote down everything, what she felt when she found out she was pregnant, how badly she wanted to tell me, but why shed decided it was for the best if she didnt, when she first felt you kick, when she gave birth. Your first smile and laugh. Your first word.
What was it? Eric asked abruptly.
Seth laughed. It was a warm sound, solid and sustaining. Cookie.
Eric felt the smile start in his heart, slide to his mouth.
Dada was second, Seth added. Mama was third.
Dada, Eric repeated quietly. Incredulity wound deep. A week ago hed been a man living alone. Two days ago he discovered he had a son. And now, if Leigh and the deep hammering of his heart were right, he had a father. Dad.
Seth Mitchell smiled. Eric, he said in that tired, hoarse voice of his, then pulled him into his arms. Son.
He looks like you, Seth. I wish you were here with us now. I wish you could see your boy. I wish you could hold him. He brings unbelievable joy to my heart, even when he wakes up hungry at four in the morning. Those are some of the most special times, when Im sitting in the dark with your child at my breast, watching him suckle and knowing no matter how many miles separate us, no matter how much time stands between us, a part of you will always be with me.
Family Secrets: Books 5-8 Page 42
