Her Soldier's Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He’d be seeing it on television later, and she didn’t want him to be caught off guard.

  “Are you okay?” was the first thing he asked her.

  “I’m fine. Really, I think I did okay. Everyone including Natasha says I made a great recovery...”

  She didn’t sound okay. She was excited. But a bit...off, too.

  “Was anyone else affected?” He had his cop hat on. It was the best way to keep himself in line.

  “No.”

  “That’s two weeks of competitions, and twice that your kitchen has been tampered with.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “What are they doing about it?”

  “Natasha had the security guard take the bottle before cameras rolled again to see if they can get any prints. They turned it over to police. They’re going to check what’s in the bottle just to be sure it’s nothing serious or harmful, but I’m sure it’s vinegar. And if it is and they don’t get any identifiable prints from it, they aren’t going to open an investigation. She doesn’t want the negative publicity for the show and it’s not like any of this is dangerous, or putting lives at risk. Still, she seems really determined to get to the bottom of it. It’s cheating and whoever it is will be disqualified. She’s calling in an extra security detail.”

  He didn’t disagree with the assessment. Or the action taken. He still didn’t like it.

  “Do you think I should pull out of the competition?”

  Here was his chance. If he told her she was in danger, would she come home for good? “I do not think you should pull out of the competition.” He needed to focus on finding out who was trying to hurt her chances in the competition. “The only threat has been to your chances of winning. Not to you personally.”

  Before she left to get on the shuttle back to the hotel, he asked her more about her fellow contestants. And that night, instead of sitting alone in his room to watch the show, he watched it from his precinct in Charleston with a computer on his lap, doing official database searches during commercial breaks.

  He was back home when Eliza called to tell him that she was in her room for the night. By then he knew everything police could know about every one of the seven contestants who’d shared the stage with his wife that day.

  “Jason Wright has two priors,” he told her as soon as he’d picked up. “One for possession and one for assault. He got off light on the possession. It was a first offense. And charges were eventually dropped on the assault case. He made restitution, though. One thousand dollars.”

  The twenty-eight-year-old had the kitchen right next to Eliza. Pierce liked him best for having done this.

  “The twins aren’t in any criminal database. I did find, though, that they were put in the foster system when they were twelve.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not a clue. The only other person who came up, believe it or not, is Grace Hargraves.”

  “Grace?” Eliza’s shock made it all the way home from California.

  “Her daughter took out a harassment order on her forty years ago.”

  “Her daughter? I didn’t know she had a daughter. Does it say what happened?”

  “The complaint read that Grace had written to the daughter at home, asking for contact. There were some other things, times she’d tried to see her or left a note on her car, over a series of a couple of years, but that was the basis of it.”

  “You can get a harassment order for that?”

  “Depends on the circumstances, but generally, the served party appears and gives her side, and the judge then decides if the order was warranted.”

  “But you can’t see that part?”

  “Grace didn’t ever appear in court. She just let it ride.”

  “I’m guessing she couldn’t bear to face her daughter in a court of law. What mother would put her child through taking her own parent to court over something like that? No matter who was right or wrong, and what was to be gained. It sounds like Grace just wanted to see her daughter. But if the woman didn’t want to be seen so badly that she’d file against her own mother, then no matter whether there was an order or not, Grace wasn’t going to get to see her. Who knows? Maybe Grace was harassing her. Parents need to see their kids, you know?”

  They were back to the kid thing. It kept coming back to the kid thing. It wasn’t going to go away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PIERCE WAS TRYING to figure out how to deal with “the kid thing,” which was starting to form what felt like a canyon between them, when Eliza said, “Natasha instated a new set of stage rules.”

  Pierce wondered if she’d changed the subject on purpose.

  “None of us are allowed in our kitchens until five minutes before the show starts. And she’s limited the number of staff who have access to them. She’s also going to check each one of them over herself, inspect all of our ingredients, right before call,” she continued.

  Natasha Stevens’s decisions seemed to be sound. He wasn’t worried about Eliza’s safety on the set, or as part of Family Secrets.

  He still wished life wasn’t unfolding this way.

  “It’s odd how you were singled out,” he said, thinking aloud, consciously allowing himself to be distracted from the bigger problem between them. If the sabotage had happened that day only, he’d understand. Eliza had been the previous week’s winner. She was the standout.

  But what about the week before? With the mushrooms?

  “It’s not like you own a famous restaurant, or a culinary school,” he continued. “How would anyone have known that you were the one to beat before you’d ever competed?”

  “You think maybe one of the contestants could have come to Rose Harbor? Or knows someone who has? Someone who’s tasted my cooking?”

  A far-fetched possibility—but one he’d pursue. “I was thinking more that last week was an accident. A mistake. And that this week was the only sabotage. Because you won last week.”

  “If that’s the case, then Grace’s kitchen will be in danger next week.” Eliza sounded more like herself as they talked things through. Calmly. Cerebrally. On the same team. And he started to relax.

  He and Eliza were a team.

  And Eliza’s mishap had been neither physically dangerous nor personal. “With the new measures in place, I doubt there’ll be any kitchen in danger next week,” he said. He’d done well. Handled the sabotage situation. And acknowledged that he and Eliza were going to have to face the fact that she was suddenly interested in children.

  He’d done both and come through on the other side calmly and rationally when his first instinct had been to jump on a plane and get to Eliza before any further harm could befall her. And pretend that the whole kid thing was just going to fade away. Be brushed under a rug and never seen again.

  “You should have seen Grace today after the show, Pierce. She was so excited and did this little jig. She would have fallen, too, but that kid Daniel who went and got our mushrooms, he was right there, stepped in and managed to catch her in time. He took her into a two-step like the whole thing had been planned, and she laughed out loud...”

  That was his Eliza. Taking as much pleasure for others as she did for herself. Willing to listen to her all night if she wanted to sit up and chat with him, Pierce lay in the dark and wondered how he’d ever gotten to be so lucky.

  Thankful that Eliza had married him. That he had moments like these.

  Determined to store every last second so that if and when the time came that it was over, he’d always have the memories.

  It was memories of Eliza, of the sweet love she’d shown him that last night they were together, that had kept him alive in the Middle East. And had kept him sane all of the years since.

&
nbsp; Knowing that those same memories would see him through the rest of his days gave him the confidence to believe that if she’d be better off without him, he really would let her go.

  Her voice growing soft with fatigue, she’d started talking about the morning. The time the shuttle would be picking her up. Her flight.

  And then it was time to say good-night. He didn’t want to. But they both needed to rest. He had guests to see to on her behalf in the morning. Dishes to do after Margie served breakfast. Eliza’s assistant had insisted on cleaning the rooms, but he’d managed to get her to agree that he’d do all of the vacuuming...

  “Night, Pierce. I love you.”

  “Night. And Eliza? Congratulations again on your first runner-up award today.”

  She’d barely mentioned the near-win when she’d called him earlier.

  So Eliza.

  Always thinking of herself last.

  * * *

  THE PHONE CALL!

  Eliza had no idea why she woke from a sound sleep Monday night beside her husband with those words clearly in her mind. Couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming. Even if she’d been dreaming.

  But as she lay there, willing her heart rate to slow and her body to relax, her mind raced. So much had been going on...so many things grabbing her focus. Her worry. Her heart.

  She’d forgotten all about the phone call that had come in on Rose Harbor’s line on Friday. She’d been with Mrs. Carpenter when Pierce’s call had come in. He’d been concerned that she was all right.

  She’d been all over herself hoping that she didn’t give him any cause to figure out that she was keeping a huge secret. Just until she could figure out how to tell him in such a way that wouldn’t obliterate him. Their marriage. And any chance they had of ever being a family.

  A family?

  In the dark of the night, the question refused to be unanswered. Was she really hoping that someday she and Pierce and their son would be a family?

  That the boy she’d given away would be a part of them? Even if from a distance?

  She couldn’t be. Couldn’t be so stupid as to pin her happiness on something so nebulous. On something so completely out of her control.

  The phone call. She’d been so busy dealing with everything else, she’d let the phone call slide into the ether.

  Then, last night, they hadn’t made it back from the airport until after social hour. She’d been tired. So had he. He’d been so happy to see her—and she him—she’d closed her mind to anything but an evening together, just the two of them.

  The phone call.

  Shivering, Eliza couldn’t push it away anymore. Her son had been given seventeen-year-old contact information for her. She and her grandmother hadn’t lived at Rose Harbor yet then. But Grandma had worked there. There could have been some mention of the place.

  The adoption agency was closer to Anaheim than Palm Desert. But the distance was almost the same from Charleston to Shelby Island. Area codes covered distances—maybe halfway between?

  What if?

  Oh, God.

  What if that call had been their son?

  Pierce hadn’t said any more about the call. Or mentioned any others. Other than making certain that she was all right, he hadn’t seemed concerned about it at all.

  But she was, all of a sudden. And scared, too.

  What if?

  She couldn’t let Pierce find out that way.

  Would the boy call back? Had he given up?

  Had it even been him at all?

  If only she could contact him. Talk to him. If only she knew what he wanted, if he needed anything. If only she could know what she was opening Pierce up to.

  If-onlys and what-ifs weren’t going to help her.

  With her stomach knotted to the point of pain, she lay there and willed daylight to arrive. To infiltrate the confusion and fear. Eventually her mind moved to cooking. First to Grace and her little victory dance. The memory brought a smile. Her mental journey moved from there to the upcoming week. Finally landing on the recipe she’d submitted for the vegetable main dish competition. It wasn’t a category that had appeared on any of the previous shows she’d seen. Still, she’d been making vegan dishes for a long time to satisfy her diverse clientele. She also had a child judge to please—and for most children, vegetables were the hardest sell.

  Thinking about the frying batter she’d perfected over the years, and the onions and green beans and cauliflower and broccoli kids had consumed like they were french fries, she hoped her basket of fried vegetables would please the judges. With the sauces she served to complement them, they were filling enough for a main dish.

  Too filling for anything but, many guests had told her over the years.

  And the secret to her recipe? Other than the type of ale and the sea salt, the secret was the ice cube. She dropped it into the batter just before rolling her vegetables in it. The cold kept the batter crisp when it cooked.

  And that was something she’d discovered all by herself.

  Pierce groaned.

  Eliza was back to the present in a flash. The peaceful lethargy into which she’d fallen vanished as if it had never been.

  She waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Pierce’s breathing was normal. His body appeared relaxed.

  She had to quit worrying.

  And get her life in order before it exploded on her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ON TUESDAY OF the week after the second sabotage, everything changed again. Eliza was in the middle of checking in a young couple who were brand new to the inn. To South Carolina beaches. They’d been together for a couple of years, and that week, there at Rose Harbor, the man planned to propose to his girlfriend. He’d called ahead to make the arrangements with Eliza. She was delivering a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies to their room on Thursday night while they were eating at one of the popular restaurants down by the beach. One of the cookies would have a diamond ring in it.

  She didn’t even have the ring in her possession yet when her cell rang. She glanced at the screen, as she always did with a husband in law enforcement—as she supposed most police spouses did when their partners were at work—more to reassure themselves than because they expected anything to be wrong.

  The incoming call had a Charleston exchange.

  “Just a minute. I have to take this,” she said, motioning for Margie to finish the check-in. She’d get the ring later.

  Moving toward the back of the house, she pushed the button on her phone to answer the call. “Hello?”

  Their bank’s main branch was in Charleston. Her dentist’s office was, as well. There was no reason for her to be alarmed. And yet...

  “Mrs. Westin? This is Captain Montoya...” Pierce’s boss.

  Eliza slid down to the floor.

  And prayed.

  * * *

  THE EVENING NEWS made Pierce out to be a hero. Sitting in the hospital emergency room in Charleston, Eliza overheard Tracy, a female officer who’d ridden with Pierce on several occasions, telling another officer that “Westin had a death wish.”

  While out driving, her husband had seen a group of teenagers beating up a younger boy in an alley. He’d immediately radioed for backup but hadn’t waited for a response before heading right into the fray.

  From what little she’d been told, his presence hadn’t immediately stopped the fight, but he’d used his body to shield the boy from any more blows. And all four teenagers were in custody.

  By all accounts, he’d saved the boy’s life.

  No one knew, or weren’t sharing, what the fight was about. Or even if it was gang-related, though there were suppositions that it was. Pierce worked a tough beat.

  At his request.


  But that didn’t mean that he had a death wish. Did it?

  He was still alive.

  Even if he had the wish, he hadn’t gotten it.

  But she knew he didn’t. And other people shouldn’t be saying he did.

  Waiting was the hardest part. Waiting for Pierce to come home and claim her. Waiting for their baby to be born. Waiting for test results when they’d thought her mother had had a heart attack, but it had turned out to be indigestion.

  Pierce was alive. In with the medical team.

  He’d been conscious, and bloody, when they’d brought him in.

  She was waiting to hear the extent of his injuries.

  “He’s going to be fine.” Jamison, an officer who was a year or two younger than Pierce and was closest to him of anyone in the department, sat down beside her. Eliza had met him on several occasions. He took her hand, and she let him hold it.

  One by one they were all arriving. Beat cops. Detectives. As they finished their shifts. Or before they started them. The men in blue took care of their own.

  And the family of their own, too. She’d already talked to the head of the officers’ spouses’ group. Would have all the support she needed.

  What she needed now was to take Pierce and go home to Shelby Island. Family Secrets, adoption agencies, possibilities all faded into nothing if Pierce wasn’t there with her.

  All of her fear from the night before came back in an inferno that threatened to consume her.

  “Do you think Pierce has a death wish?” she asked Jamison.

  He couldn’t die. He didn’t even know yet that he’d fathered a child. A boy.

  A son.

  If he had a death wish, would knowing about the boy save him? Or push him over the edge?

  “I don’t know about that,” the officer said. “But I’m guessing if he did, he’d be gone already.”

  The words settled her. In the moment.

  And she waited.

  * * *

  AS SOON AS Pierce heard that Eliza was in the waiting room, he knew he was going to be fine. Made no sense. She’d be there if he was on his deathbed, too. But knowing she was there...he didn’t feel like death.