No, she wasn’t called. The contestant was Grandma Grace with her porcini-and-beef stroganoff. The fiery-haired hostess talked some more. About judging standards, giving the credentials of that week’s judges, including the ten-year-old girl who was the daughter of a local restaurant owner. One of the Family Secret trademarks, Pierce had learned, was that every single competition included one juvenile judge. The show was based on secret family recipes. Natasha’s take, as she explained before she announced the first runner-up, was that if the kids didn’t like it, it wasn’t a family recipe.
The trick was to have recipes that stood out enough to impress food critics and children alike.
Hand to his chin, Pierce watched as Luigi Procopio, owner of the Idaho Culinary Institute, won first runner-up for his cheese-stuffed, syrup-braised pork chops. He listened as the man blubbered about his surprise, and had to admit that the middle-aged chef seemed genuine in his shock.
Had to wonder, too, how Procopio had come to own an institute dedicated to cooking if his own abilities took him by such surprise. Wondered if the man’s students knew he had such little faith in his abilities.
At least Pierce did what he knew he was good at...
He’d have gone on wondering about anything he could if his gaze hadn’t been glued on the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman standing between two of her fellow contestants in the line left of those who hadn’t yet been called. In the line of those who were hoping their name would be the next one.
The tension in Eliza’s shoulders might not have been noticeable to most of the show’s viewers, but Pierce saw it. The lines around her lips as they tightened when Natasha said that the time had come to announce the winner for week one of the current contest on Family Secrets.
Eliza’s parents were watching. Pierce had called them himself to remind them. She’d be hurt if they watched it after it aired.
The call had been brief. But cordial.
Natasha talked about the show’s four main competitions. About the final round that would take place during the fifth week, assuming one contestant didn’t win all four main competitions. She talked about the national distribution of one recipe from the overall winner—whether it was in frozen form, or some other packaged rendition.
Afraid Eliza might turn blue right there on the stage, Pierce sat up. It wasn’t the first time he’d drawn on his wife’s tension, taken it upon himself.
But it was the first time he’d done so after the fact.
Pausing at the microphone, Natasha glanced over the line of hopeful-looking contestants under the bright lights above the stage. And then she held up a card. Opened it.
Knowing his expression was grim, Pierce waited while the host looked at the card and said...
“Eliza Westin.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
PIERCE WAS WAITING for Eliza as she came into the portion of the terminal open to the public. Instead of standing back against the wall as usual, he left his position to meet her right in front of everyone, picking her up off her feet as he hugged her.
She didn’t see the roses he’d brought with him until he put her down, barely able to see them then through the tears in her eyes.
She’d celebrated a little bit the night before. With the twins from New Orleans. Only a couple of years older than her, they were fascinating. As was their relationship with each other—best friends from the womb.
Their independence and the joy that seemed to bubble out of them.
And she’d come home with a bigger weight on her shoulders than she’d taken with her when she’d left.
Pierce had been properly excited for her when she’d called him to tell him she’d won. And again when he’d called her after he’d watched her win. While he had her on the line he’d headed into the entertainment room with an inn full of guests and Margie, and they’d all congratulated her.
He’d been in a good mood when she’d called him that morning to let him know she was at her gate. And still, her spirits had plummeted as the plane had descended into Charleston.
Which made no sense at all.
She’d give up the win, the show, even being a chef, if it meant losing Pierce again. She knew that hands down.
So why wasn’t she as happy about her win at home as she’d been when she’d still been in California?
Eliza had no answers and, over the next week, wouldn’t let herself dwell on anything but the inn, their guests and Pierce. She prepared her special cobbler, made with maple syrup, apple juice and cherries, among other things, for Pierce one night—a trial one for the dessert competition in California on Saturday.
And she thought constantly about ways she might broach the subject of their son with Pierce. She couldn’t not do so. The boy had made an inquiry. Chances were he’d merely been curious. But there was also a chance that he needed them.
Regardless, Eliza couldn’t pass up the chance to be in the presence of her son. To look him in the eye. To know what he looked like. To see the young man he’d grown up to be...
Every morning she told herself she’d talk to Pierce that night. Every evening she had the distinct impression she should put off doing so. Pierce wasn’t having nightmares or exhibiting any other signs that he was struggling any more than usual with PTSD issues. If anything, he seemed more social with the guests. But he also seemed...distant.
He kissed her good-night, but other than her first night home, he hadn’t pulled her body to his all week. He’d rolled over and gone to sleep.
Or pretended to do so.
And he hadn’t called as often during the day, either.
“What’s wrong?” she finally asked him Thursday evening as they sat at their little table in the private eat-in kitchen they rarely used. Because she was in the big kitchen during the day, she generally prepared and plated their meals there, to carry them into the dining room in their quarters.
That night she’d made breakfast for dinner since they’d missed breakfast the past Sunday due to her absence. And would be missing the next four, too. Unless she happened to win all four competitions. Then there would be no need for a fifth, champion round. She would just be it.
She wasn’t going to think about that, though. Not then, at any rate. “You’ve been different this week,” she said to Pierce when he answered her question with silence.
He looked at her. Straight in the eye. An acknowledgment that she was right. And continued to eat his omelet, his fork in one hand, a piece of sweet toast in the other.
“You’re making me nervous,” she said. He’d asked her always to be honest with him. Doing so now seemed more important than ever.
He chewed. Watched her. Then shook his head and, putting down his toast, took a hold of her hand as he said, “I love you, Eliza. I always have your back. You never, ever need to be nervous around me.” He was looking her right in the eye.
And just like that, her worry dissipated. Her heart opened. And filled, like it always did when she let Pierce inside. Like it always had. Since she was barely into her teens.
* * *
PIERCE KNEW WHAT he had to do. He’d been getting himself ready all week. Preparing for the internal battle that he was determined to win. He wouldn’t let his own need weigh Eliza down. He was not going to be the spouse her father had projected he’d be all those years ago—the one who held her back.
He’d known going into the marriage that there would most likely come a time when Eliza would be happier without him than with him. He’d hoped not. He’d have prayed not if he’d thought anyone would have heard him.
Putting down his fork, he sat back. She would leave again the next morning. His time was up.
“I’ve been thinking about what you wanted to talk about last week,” he said. A slow start. He had to keep this to the point. “Kids,” he said to that end.
S
he raised one eyebrow, and the hope that spread across her face was another nail in the coffin he’d been lying in for years.
“You’re thirty-three,” he said next. And hated the second stumble. She knew how old they both were. Though the thirty-five years hanging on him left him feeling like an old man. “You have a right to children, Eliza,” he said. Finally. On track. “And in some ways, this is even more important—they have a right to you.”
The rest of his food sat untouched. No longer hungry, he pushed the plate away.
Her eyes widened. She wasn’t eating, either.
“I’m not going to stand in your way.”
She smiled. Then, cocking her head in the way she did when she was trying to understand something, she said, “Wait a minute.”
He waited.
“Are you telling me that, at some point in the future, you’d maybe be open to considering adopting a child?”
“Absolutely not.” He spoke before thinking. His response would have been the same if he had thought, just more gentle.
The light in her eyes died out. “Are you telling me you’re leaving me?”
“Absolutely not.” Another gut response. And he wasn’t. “I’m not going to leave you, Liza. You have to know that by now.”
“Then what...”
“I just want you to know that if...or when...you’re ready to move on, I won’t stand in your way.” His throat tightened in a sensation he didn’t recognize. And couldn’t abide.
By God, was he going to...
No. He was fine. Any tears Pierce might have had, or shed, had long since gone into dry rot.
“You’re giving me permission to leave you,” she said.
He nodded.
Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been Eliza stabbing a piece of omelet with her fork and putting it, as delicately as ever, in her mouth.
She chewed. Swallowed. Took a bite of toast.
“You haven’t finished your dinner,” she said, pointing at his plate with her extended pinky finger.
So...she was...calm. Completely. Because she’d been thinking along the same lines? Was already aware that she needed to move on?
Because of that ultimate dream of hers to achieve national recognition as a professional, award-winning chef.
Coupled with the fact that he hadn’t even been able to handle a mention of children without having a flippin’ nightmare.
To say he wasn’t hungry would sound truculent. Childish. So Pierce pulled his plate back in front of him and ate.
* * *
ELIZA DIDN’T KNOW whether to smile or cry. So she ate.
She and Pierce were quite a pair. Mucked up and so in love, too. That he’d offer to stand by while she walked away from him was not a shock to her.
Of course he would. Pierce would no more hold her back than he’d stick a gun to her head.
He also didn’t want her staying with him out of guilt. Or duty. She knew that, too.
What she didn’t know was how to give them both what they wanted.
What they needed.
She knew one thing, though. “I am not going to walk away,” she told him as she finished the last bite of food and set her fork down in the middle of the empty plate. “There is nothing this life could offer me that would be worth losing you over.”
“Eliza, I won’t have you...”
Shaking her head, she put a finger to his lips. “You didn’t live inside me for those years without you, Pierce. You don’t know how half-alive I felt. But I remember every day. Every time something good happened and I’d think about how much better it would have been if you were there to share it. And when bad things happened and I’d wish for your arms around me. Every time I saw a couple. Or went on a date and couldn’t find a way around you. All of them, Pierce. They taught me all I ever need to know where you’re concerned. I told you when I was fifteen that you were the love of my life. I was a kid, Pierce. One who maybe shouldn’t have been able to know something like that, but I did. And I do.”
The words were driven from her. Pure truth.
A truth that was at odds with the circumstances their lives had dealt them. Circumstances that were looming, escalating, moving in. There was a chasm between what he could handle and what she had to handle. She couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t fall into it. She just knew that she wouldn’t be the one to walk away.
He gave her a slow nod, never breaking eye contact, as she leaned over to kiss him.
CHAPTER NINE
ON FRIDAY EVENING, Pierce was sitting at the antique leather-topped desk Eliza’s grandmother had set up in the foyer of the inn to use for check-ins. They had one more guest due and Margie was busy in the kitchen, putting food on silver trays for social hour.
Picking up a brochure from the Plexiglas holder gracing one corner of the desk, he read about things to do in Charleston.
And thought about his wife with hours to kill in California. She’d taken the earlier flight again that week because she’d reached her destination so late the week before.
He hadn’t asked her what she was going to do to fill the extra time. She’d tell him if she wanted him to know.
The bar in the parlor was already set, wine open—one red, one white—bottled water on ice, homemade sweet tea in the pitcher. Unsweetened tea and coffee packets were stocked by the single-serving coffeemaker.
Four rooms were filled that night. All six on Saturday. There’d be much to do. And there he sat. Waiting to deliver a key. They had three new check-ins that day. Two were already upstairs. One was late.
The inn’s phone’s ringing startled him. He didn’t usually man the desk. Or take reservations. All thoughts of getting it right fled when he recognized that area code on the caller display. California.
He grabbed the receiver so quickly he fumbled it. “Hello?”
Eliza was in trouble. If not, she’d have been calling his cell.
“Rose Harbor,” he said, using the proper salutation when there was no response to his urgent greeting.
His words were followed by a very distinct click. Someone had been on the line. And then hung up.
Why?
* * *
ELIZA DROVE TO Anaheim again that Friday afternoon. Instead of waiting outside to watch the comings and goings, she parked, walked inside immediately and asked to see Mrs. Carpenter.
She was told to have a seat in the empty waiting room but didn’t have to wait long. Mrs. Carpenter came to get her herself. Showed her back to the same office they’d been in two weeks before.
“It’s good to see you.” The woman’s soft tones were as Eliza had remembered. And something that had been doing somersaults inside her for more than a week calmed.
Eliza nodded. Wondering if the woman would feel the same after she heard what Eliza had come to tell her.
“Has he been here?” were the first words that actually came out of her mouth. And she was appalled.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“He has, hasn’t he?”
“I can’t tell you that.” The woman’s bland but kind expression didn’t change. Neither did her posture. There wasn’t even a twitch at the side of her mouth.
Eliza needed to know.
But finding out was not why she’d come.
“My husband is his father.”
That wasn’t why she’d come, either.
Mrs. Carpenter, as professionally turned out as she’d been the first time they’d met, in a blue suit instead of gray this time, folded hands with manicured and polished nails on top of her desk.
What a mess her life had become.
“He suffers from PTSD,” she said next.
The counselor’s perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together. “He doesn’t know he
has a son, does he?”
Eliza’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head.
* * *
THE FIRST THING Pierce did, after hitting the automatic callback key only to have the number ring incessantly without going to voice mail, was boot up the computer Eliza used for check-ins and connect to the internet. Within seconds he was staring at a reverse phone lookup site. He typed the number he’d read on caller ID. And tapped his fingers while he waited.
He read the results that popped up, his heart pounding.
The call had come from a landline in Palm Desert. A private landline.
That’s when he did what he should have done to begin with. He dialed Eliza’s cell.
She picked up on the second ring.
“Pierce? Is everything okay?” They’d just talked a couple of hours before. And had planned to speak again when she was in her room for the night.
“That’s what I want to know,” he said, barking a little more harshly than he might otherwise have done. “We just got a call on the Rose Harbor line from Palm Desert. We got disconnected and they didn’t call back. I thought it was the hospital. Where are you? Are you okay?”
What kind of cop was he? Babbling and exploding with questions, rather than calmly waiting for his wife to reassure him.
But...
He could let her walk away. He couldn’t bear it if she was taken from him...
Knowing that it was no less than he deserved.
“I’m fine, Pierce!” she said, a note to her voice he didn’t recognize. Or rather, the one he recognized from her time in Palm Desert. Being there, being a part of something so much bigger than Shelby Island, was doing something for her.
Something he couldn’t do.
“I told you I was renting a car again...”
She had.
“So you’re just out exploring?”
“Yep.”
Sounded like whatever she was seeing made her happy. And whatever it was, she wasn’t sharing it with him.
“I won’t keep you, then. I just needed to know you’re okay.”
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