“Are you going to let her go?”
“No.” The word came without thought, but once it was free, he didn’t try to take it back. “No. I feel like she’s the one for me. I’ve spent these years getting to know her, and then this past month since she’s been home…”
“So tell her.”
The simple sentence shocked him. He could only blink Anna’s way. “Tell her?”
“About us. About everything. You knew, Cameron, that someday there’d be a woman worth sharing it with.”
She sounded so sure. “You’ve never met her.”
“You’ve told me everything I need to know. Plus you’re different when you talk about her. She matters. A lot.”
She did. “You sure I should tell her? You’re the one with the most at stake.”
Anna shook her head. “You’re not losing this one because of me. You tell her. And if you want me here when you tell her, I’ll be here.”
Just that quickly, the weariness of loss lifted from him.
Anna had never talked like this before. She’d always been so full of fear, always watching over her shoulder. Always hiding.
“What if…” he started.
“What?”
“What if she doesn’t take it well?” Why was he still grasping at reasons to hold back? Jordan might be young but she was solid. Mature. Their story wouldn’t freak her out.
“Pray about it, Cameron. Ask God to guide you. But if you’re asking me, I’ve heard enough to know that there’s something special about this girl.”
There absolutely was.
Anna pushed away from the island. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah. You guys?”
“Just finished. Can you make sure Avery and Logan get their baths tonight?”
What a woman Anna was, carrying such a heavy load. And now she was freeing him to go after the woman he… well, loved. “We’ll be good here, Anna. Go take care of Sophie.”
She kissed him on the cheek as she passed by.
****
“Jordan.”
Cam’s voice behind her made her falter, her shoulder bumping the auditorium door as she left the church service Sunday morning. She turned.
He was a few people behind her, quickly making his way through them to her.
He hadn’t been at Sunday School that morning—which had surprised her, honestly. For almost as long as she’d known him, he’d been known as the guy who dated the new girl for a few weeks, then ended it. But he’d never not shown up the Sunday after a breakup. Where had he been today?
He stopped in front of her, closer than she expected. “Hey,” he said, his voice low and serious. “You got a minute?”
He thought whatever they had to talk about would only take a minute? Should she be insulted or relieved? “I guess.”
He reached for her arm, then caught himself and motioned to the side of the foyer.
Jordan followed him. “You missed Pastor announcing Dillan and Miska’s engagement.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t…” His words fell flat again, like he was struggling over each one. “I couldn’t get away when I wanted to.”
Okay. She had no idea what to say to that. To any of this.
“Can I apologize?” he said. “For how everything ended yesterday? I just started saying the stuff I normally do, and I wasn’t thinking about how it would come across to you. I’m sorry for that.”
An apology was nice, but what did it change? “Thank you.”
“I’ve thought about yesterday a lot.” He swallowed and looked down at his hands, scowled at them. “About the things I wanted to say to you but didn’t think I could. About things going on in my world, things nobody here knows about…”
Cam and his secrets. She and Miska had talked about him last night after he’d left, about how whatever was in his past had to be something big for him to still keep from addressing it. “Are you ever going to share it with anyone?”
He met her gaze, his hazel eyes deep and somber. “I’d like to tell you.”
His words stilled her.
“You asked about that picture on my fridge. And I told you I wanted to tell you someday. If you’re still interested in hearing it, I think the time has come.”
So quickly? How had someday become the next day? “Who is she?”
He lowered his voice. “She’s my sister.”
Why was that such a secret? “And the little girl?”
He cleared his throat. “My niece.”
“She has Down Syndrome?”
He nodded.
“Why the big secret? Are you ashamed of her?”
“No.” His response was quiet but filled with frustration. “Sophie’s the best—” He glanced around the foyer, then back at her. “Jordan, I want you to meet my sister. Can I pick you up tomorrow night? Bring you to my house to meet her?”
Why was he being so secretive about a sister and niece? What story could there be? “Of course.”
“Thank you.” His shoulders eased. A hint of a smile crossed his face for the first time. “I know you’re giving me another chance after last night, and I want you to know—”
She interrupted him with her hand. “We’re just talking, Cam.”
“I know, but I can’t imagine letting you go the way Matt did. Matt was a fool for not grabbing you up.”
Was she hearing him right? Who was this—a Cam look-a-like? “I don’t know what to say.”
“Just give me a chance.” His fingers tangled briefly with hers. “Tell your brothers to spare me. ’Cause I don’t think I can hide how I feel about you anymore.”
****
Dead ends. Every. Single. One.
He tossed his pen onto the bedspread and leaned back against the headboard. Outside his hotel window, Sunday marched into Monday. Even the nearby highway seemed to be quieting.
He was never going to figure this out if he didn’t sleep.
He closed the laptop and set it, his yellow notepad, and pen on the table by the window. Peterson, his client, said there was no way he’d identified the wrong guy. This Cameron Winters had a friend who’d been caught up in a love triangle gone wrong, a huge media story about the baseball player that had been all over the news a year ago. That’s where Peterson had seen Winters—on TV coverage, with his friend and the friend’s girlfriend heading into a courthouse to testify. It had taken some doing to ID this nameless friend who wasn’t a part of that media blitz, but Thomas had done it. And Peterson swore that Cameron Winters was Hannah Rice’s—or Hannah Winters’ or whatever she went by now—brother. Peterson had met him once, just before it had all started. And Peterson never forgot a face.
Hopefully Peterson was right.
In the bathroom, Thomas stared at his bleary eyes in the mirror. He had a few more places online where he could look for Hannah. And if that didn’t pan out…
He took out one contact, then another. He didn’t want to tip his hand yet, but if Hannah didn’t show up, he’d just have to find out what Winters’ neighbors knew.
And if they didn’t know anything…
Then maybe Hannah really had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Chapter Five
Cam had offered to pick Jordan up after he got off work Monday afternoon, but Jordan declined, not knowing exactly what the evening would hold. She’d meet his sister, yes, but everything else seemed so vague. So secretive, when she couldn’t imagine any terrible secrets a sister might hold. Right now being able to leave at any time was an option worth having.
Jordan parked in Cam’s driveway, next to his Altima, and he opened his front door as she stepped out of the car. “Hey, there,” she said, smiling up at him, pretending and hoping that everything was fine.
“Hey.” He met her at the bottom of his front steps. “Thanks for coming.”
It was tempting to reach out and touch him, but she kept her hands to herself. “No problem. I’m just curious to hear what this big secret is.”
His gaze was serious
. “I’m glad I finally get to tell someone.” He gestured toward the front door. “You ready to go in?”
She followed him, scanning the neighborhood with its signs of summer about to burst. Birds chirped in a neighbor’s tree, and warm sunlight cast shadows across front yards. A few cars parked on the street, and farther down the road a handful of kids on bikes chased each other.
Everything looked normal. Seemed normal. What she would hear might change all that.
Cam held the door for her. “After you.”
Inside, the sounds of someone working came from the kitchen.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
“No, actually. Is your sister making something?”
“Yeah. If it’s okay with you, we’ll get her kids eating in the kitchen and take our food in the dining room so we can talk.”
Whatever he needed.
Cam led her into the kitchen where a woman in her mid-thirties with medium brown hair the same color as Cam’s stirred something in a pot on the stove. She turned as they entered, her attention locking onto Jordan. Her smile wasn’t strong, but it wasn’t scared either. The woman dried her hands on a dish towel. “You must be Jordan. I’m Anna.”
Jordan took the hand Anna offered. “It’s nice to meet you, Anna.”
The woman’s features relaxed. “I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s great to finally meet you, after all this time.”
And yet she’d heard nothing about this sister, about any of his family, really.
“Need any help?” Cam asked Anna.
“Just call the kids, if you don’t mind.”
He headed for the sliding doors off the family room.
So there were more children than just Sophie. And, somewhere, there had to be a father. Maybe he was at their home? His and Anna’s? “Do you live nearby, Anna?”
She hesitated. “I’m actually living here with Cameron right now.”
Why did his sister live with him? Where was the father? Jordan pressed her lips together.
Anna must have read her curiosity. “Jordan, I promise there’s a reason for everything, and we’ll explain it all. I don’t think there’s anything Cameron wants to keep from you.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Me too.” Anna filled plates with salad and what looked like arroz con pollo from the pot on the stove.
The fragrant smell of the flavored chicken and rice woke Jordan’s taste buds.
“It’s been a very long time since he’s talked about a woman the way he talks about you.” Anna sent Jordan a grateful smile. “He’s been the best brother I could ever have, and it makes me happy to think that he’s found you.”
Either Cam was far more confident in their relationship than Jordan realized or Anna was spilling more than he’d be comfortable with. “Cam’s always been so quiet about his life, almost like he didn’t have one before a few years ago. I don’t know what to make of this.”
The sliding glass door in the family room beyond the kitchen cut the conversation short. Two elementary-aged kids, a boy and girl about ten and eight, ran in. Both seemed to have the same hair and coloring as Anna.
Cam followed and closed the door behind them.
Neither child was the girl from the picture.
Where was this Sophie?
The kids were almost to the kitchen island before either noticed Jordan. They both pulled up short and stared at her.
The boy, the older of the two, pushed a pair of glasses higher onto his nose. “Who’s this?”
Jordan fought a smile.
“Logan,” Anna said, her voice hinting her displeasure at his lack of manners. “This is Jordan, a friend of Uncle Cameron’s.”
Logan’s serious expression vanished, and a smile lit his features. “Hi,” he said with a small wave.
“I’m Avery,” his younger sister said. “Are you Uncle Cam’s girlfriend?”
Behind them, Cam narrowed his eyes a bit and sent Jordan a faint smile. “She’s a good friend. Don’t you two scare her off.”
Logan gaped over his shoulder at his uncle, his expression showing how funny he found it that his uncle might have a girlfriend. Any second now, the kid would probably break into that chant about the two of them in a tree.
Jordan couldn’t resist. “I need you two to tell me every good story you’ve got on him so I’ll know if I should stick around or not.”
Instead of the laughter and teasing she expected, both kids gave her serious expressions. “Uncle Cam’s the best,” Avery said. “And he needs someone to marry and take care of him. Just like you do, Mommy.”
Anna’s smile was sad. “Why don’t you two sit at the island and eat your dinner? We adults are going to eat in the dining room.”
Jordan swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d expected joking, teasing, something lighthearted. But the sadness and seriousness of Avery’s words… She was just a child. Why would she react like that?
What had this family gone through?
Cam’s fingertips nudged the small of Jordan’s back as Anna carried the main dish into the dining room on the other side of the kitchen wall.
Dinner started out normally enough. They made small talk while they ate, Anna asking questions about Jordan’s college experience, how her job search was going, about her family and growing up in the Chicago suburbs.
“What about you?” Jordan asked when her plate was almost empty. “Where did you guys grow up?”
Anna pushed back her plate and folded her arms on the table. “Kentucky. Our parents raised horses, raced them, did really well. Still do, we hear.”
She heard? Jordan glanced across the table at Cam.
His elbow rested on the table, a hand cupped over his mouth. He stared vacantly at the tabletop.
Evidently the story had begun.
Anna linked her hands together and studied them. “My husband was a Marine. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California when…” She circled her hand in the air. “When all of this began.
“I worked at a hair salon in the area and had some pretty wealthy civilian clients. One of them, Joelle Peterson, and I became good friends. Her husband was an infertility doctor, and ironically they’d been trying forever to have kids, but it just wasn’t working. I knew how badly she wanted a child, and I really thought she’d be a great mom. I was a fairly new Christian—”
“Which was not how we were raised,” Cam interrupted.
“Right. We weren’t, and Joelle and I would talk about God, about having kids, raising a family. Anyway, Avery was just a baby at the time. Joelle had been my client throughout the entire pregnancy, and she knew how easy pregnancy had been for me. One day she came in and started talking about how she and her husband were looking into surrogacy so they could have a child of their own. And as we talked, I just felt like I should do it for her. I should be her surrogate.”
A surrogate mother? Jordan clenched her fingers together on her lap. What a decision.
“So I volunteered. And come to find out, that’s exactly what she’d hoped I would do. I’d had two easy, no-complication pregnancies back to back. Two healthy babies. Easy labor and delivery. Plus being a surrogate would almost double our income for the year. And she was a friend I felt deserved to be a mom.” Anna met Jordan’s eyes. “Why wouldn’t I volunteer to help her have a baby?”
“Did you do it?”
“I did. I met her husband. They met my husband. We had long talks about it, about the procedures, the medication, the timing. Tony, my husband, needed some convincing, but the money finally did it.” She smiled. “We started the process.” Her smiled faded. “The first embryos didn’t take. Joelle was heartbroken of course. But we tried again, and lo and behold, it worked. I was pregnant with their baby.”
Cam shot her a smile. “Which was the craziest thing.”
Anna laughed. “It was. You visited me right after we found out the embryo took, and you were pretty weirded out by it.”
“Definitely. Even Mom and D
ad were. They thought you were insane to go through with it.”
“Yeah.” Sadness colored Anna’s single word.
And then colored Cam’s face.
So there was more to the story.
“I was four months pregnant when Tony—” Anna faced Jordan, set her shoulders, and firmed her lips. “Tony was killed in a training exercise. An accident.”
Oh, how awful. Jordan’s hand flew to her lips. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Anna swallowed. “It’s been over five years now, but…”
Jordan glanced at Cam. How awful to lose a husband. To be alone and responsible for children like that.
“I had to go on, though, you know? My parents, of course, came out for the funeral, and I started the process of moving on with my life. I decided to stay there in California because of the pregnancy. Then the Petersons wanted to do some testing on the baby, right about halfway through, just to make sure everything was okay. I didn’t think anything of it.” Anna paused.
Jordan almost couldn’t stand the suspense. “And?”
“Sophie had Down Syndrome.”
Sophie was the child? The Petersons’ child?
“They wanted to abort and try again.”
Oh no. “Obviously they changed their minds.”
Anna glanced at Cam, who sighed and pushed himself against his chair back.
He shook his head. “Jordan, they didn’t change their minds.”
All of a sudden so much fell into place. The secrecy, never talking about his family, never talking about the past. “What happened? Did you run?”
“Eventually. I fought it as long as I could. I was a firm believer—still am—that every life is a gift from God, that it’s his decision to decide when life ends. Not ours. But California law didn’t give me a voice because I wasn’t the actual mother. The law there says that before the child is born, the intended mother—Joelle—is the natural and legal parent. Same with her husband. I had no say.”
Cam cleared his throat. “The husband was really the one who wanted the abortion. He convinced his wife that they could do this again. They’d either pay Joelle more for another go at it or find another surrogate. He didn’t care. He wanted a child, yes, but he wanted a perfect child. He felt they both deserved a ‘perfect’ child.”
Taken: A Kept Novella Page 3
