Dark Legacy

by Jen Talty

  Annette shook her head. “Don’t assume anything, sugar.”

  “It was a closed, private adoption. If she wanted to find me, the agency would have contacted me, which hasn’t happened. I don’t want to insert myself into her life. I just want to know that she had a good one.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to meet her?”

  “I don’t even want to see pictures of her. I just want Jackson to find her and tell me she’s okay.”

  Annette tilted her chin. “If you’re going to take the time to find her, you should at least meet her. If she wants.” She held up her hand. “I’m not going to talk you out of your plans. Only you can make this decision. Either way, I’m right behind you, but I won’t ever stop speaking my mind.” She leaned forward. “Isn’t that why you keep me around?”

  Shannon smiled. “One of the many reasons.” Annette understood. Really understood, and that meant something. It wasn’t loyalty that kept this relationship alive; it was kindness. Compassion. And unconditional love. Something that had been missing from Shannon’s childhood.

  And Shannon knew she needed that more than anything.

  “Thank you,” Shannon said, glancing at her watch. Her pulse increased at the thought of having a drink with Jackson, but at the same time, his reaction still disturbed her, and she wanted a better explanation.

  She believed she deserved one.

  “You and I, we’ve been through a lot together.” Annette took her hand. “Ever since your father died, I’ve watched you grow into this beautiful, talented woman. You amaze me every day. But this part of your past prevents you from completely embracing your future. I want you to have everything. And I mean that.”

  “I know.” Shannon swallowed the emotional sob that threatened to escape.

  “Go home and talk with Jackson. Do this one final thing so you can have all the happiness you deserve.”

  Shannon knew Annette was right. Finding her daughter was the final link to her healing.

  Chapter Three

  Shannon sank into the plastic chair in front of the fire pit between her place and Jackson’s, where she could see the road and the lake—though she could do without that damned sailboat taunting her, reminding her of one of the biggest reasons why she’d opted not to keep her baby girl.

  The moon and the stars danced in the near-black sky, casting wonderful streaks of light in the matching dark lake below. The sail lines of the Tartan rattled against the tall mast. So many memories flooded her as the sound pricked her ears. Sailing hadn’t always been a horrible experience. At times, she’d be out there, feeling the cool wind on her face as the bow cut through the three-foot whitecaps, that it had been as exhilarating as free falling during a bungee jump at the local amusement park.

  Until her father and his crew forever changed her perception of sailing.

  She took in a deep breath and focused on the present and her future.

  Annette was right. She’d done everything in her power over the last nineteen years to make a better life and put the pains of her childhood behind her—except for one thing. And it was time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and mend her broken heart.

  An engine’s growl grew closer. She fought the desire not to look over her shoulder, but her heart won out.

  Not Jackson this time.

  She had to make Jackson understand and take her case. She couldn’t trust this to a complete stranger. It was the one thing from her past that still sat in the pit of her stomach like a boulder that couldn’t be moved.

  The roar of a diesel followed by headlights beaming through the trees sent her pulse racing. With a shaky hand, she lifted her glass of wine and gulped. Not once, but twice. She needed every ounce of courage she could muster.

  He parked his truck next to her two-door coupe. “Hey,” he said as he sauntered up the walkway between the two cottages. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You’ve been sending me mixed messages, so I wasn’t sure if you were going to show or not.” She pointed to a glass on the small plastic end table that matched her plastic Adirondack chair. “Help yourself. It’s a really nice Merlot.”

  “Don’t mind if I do, but I’m afraid I’ll break your plastic chairs,” he said as he effortlessly lifted one off the ground. “You really need to get rid of these things and get some real wooden ones like I have.” He pointed across the shared patio as he lowered himself, adjusting the chair in the grass as if it were about to crack and break at any second. Stretching out his long legs, he showed off his tan Timberland boots and his worn jeans. A button-down flannel hid his toned torso that she looked forward to seeing as summer took over spring.

  “Yeah, I know. I keep saying I will, but I never get around to it.”

  He looked out toward the lake, raised the glass to his lips, then lowered it just a tad and said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “Why is that?” Shannon studied his strong profile. She had to agree but wanted to hear his reasons.

  His facial expressions didn’t change much, which she suspected he was well aware of and had done on purpose. Before he’d become a PI, he’d been a police officer, though he rarely talked about it. All she knew was that he’d been mortally wounded, somehow recovered, received a medal, and retired.

  “For the way I behaved this morning.” He turned. The light from the fire reflected in his dark eyes. “I want to talk with you about why I said no. But first, I want to give you a report on your friend.”

  “All right.” She shifted in her chair, trying not to appear too nervous. But given how he gave her a reassuring smile, she knew she hadn’t been successful.

  “Miss Montgomery’s boss said she took a few days off work.”

  “How did you know where she worked? I didn’t tell you that.” Shannon bit down on her tongue. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you have your ways.”

  He chuckled. “I generally don’t tell people about cases I’m working on, but someone had already hired me to find Belinda.”

  “Find? By whom?” Her voice screeched, cutting through the night like a hissing raccoon.

  “My business, in a way, is similar to yours. Client confidentiality. But I’m going to break it because I think we need to work together on this one.” He shifted, taking off his cowboy hat and setting it on the chair next to him.

  “What exactly does that mean?” She fiddled with her necklace, her heart fluttering like a hummingbird hovering over a bird feeder.

  “I’m at a loss with this one, and I need you to help me find her.” He ran a hand through his hair. “As a private investigator, I would have come knocking on your door tomorrow morning anyway.”

  Shannon swallowed. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said. “I shouldn’t have even asked you to look for her.”

  “We can pretend that you didn’t. Now, please. Find a way to give me something. She didn’t go home last Thursday, and the last people to see her were a few tellers at her place of business. We are at a dead end. Her roommate is filing a missing person’s report, so we hope we get something on that, but I’m not putting my money on it.”

  “That’s not good.” Shannon chugged the rest of her wine before pouring another glass. “I’m going to assume that my name will get brought into this somehow, and I’ll be getting a visit from the police.” She folded her feet under her butt and then turned her head to catch his stare. “You mentioned that her employer said she had taken some time off. So, why the missing person’s report?”

  “Because what I’ve found out doesn’t add up. Her boss said she went on a trip with her boyfriend. Her roommate said she and her boyfriend broke up.”

  “I see,” Shannon said.

  He tipped his glass. “That’s all you have to say on the subject? What about her roommate? Did they get along?”

  Shannon shook her head. “We need to stop this line of discussion. I won’t break doctor-patient confidentiality unless I’m handed a subpoena, and that isn’t going to happen on a missing person’s case unles
s foul play is suspected.”

  “That’s true. But I’ll be honest, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.” He held her gaze for a long moment and then leaned back in his chair.

  “If you have information that clearly shows she’s in danger, I might be able to help more, but if you can’t, then we’re stuck in a situation where I can’t comment on certain things.”

  “Will you let me know if the police come knocking on your door?” Jackson closed his eyes, remaining still.

  “I will call you if that happens.” She continued studying him, but he didn’t give up any of his tells. Nope. He remained still. Quiet. He barely moved, other than to drink his wine, and even then, he gave nothing away.

  He laughed. “You might consider being a little more subtle when you’re sizing someone up.”

  “When people walk into my office, they expect me to shrink them. They try to deflect and use body language they learned on television or in a book. It never works.”

  “We’re not in your office.” He shifted in his chair and looked her in the eye. “And you do this every time we talk.”

  “Hazard of the job.” She shrugged.

  “And what have you concluded?”

  “You’re an enigma.”

  His laugh cut through the thick air. “Perhaps I am. But I also frighten you,” he said.

  “What makes you say that?” She pinched the silver pendant between her fingers. He’d nailed that one, but she wondered if he knew why he utterly terrified her.

  “You’re playing with your necklace. You do that when you’re uncomfortable, and you seem to always do that around me.”

  She dropped her hand into her lap. “It’s not you I’m afraid of. But I will admit, I was scared to tell you about my daughter. Only a couple of people know. It’s not something I talk about.”

  “I understand. And again, I’m sorry about the way I reacted.”

  She squirmed, sitting on her hand to keep from fiddling with her necklace. “Sorry enough that you’ll take my case?”

  “I have a personal reason for not wanting to take it,” he said. His right eye twitched, and for the first time since she’d known him, his voice rose an octave.

  “What’s that?”

  “I was adopted,” he said, reaching out his hand and placing it on her arm. “Meeting my birth mother ended badly.”

  “I had no idea you were adopted.” She shrugged his hand away, feeling patronized.

  He cocked his head. “Do you want to hear why I don’t want to take your case?”

  Shannon nodded.

  “Her motives weren’t in my best interests and only served herself. She didn’t care about me or my feelings. And she didn’t care about my parents or my sisters. It affected my entire family. That’s why I generally recommend a friend in these types of cases.”

  “I don’t want to work with a friend of yours. I want you to take the case.” She bit down on her tongue. “And I’m not your mother.”

  “I’ll consider it, depending on why you want to find to find her.”

  “So, if my answer meets your requirement, then you’ll do it. Otherwise, I get pawned off?” Fuck it. She reached for her pendant, fingering it once again. It didn’t lower her heart rate, but it did stop her from wanting to tell Jackson she’d made a mistake and march into her house.

  “You can look at it that way if you want. But the truth is, I want to help you. I just need to know why it’s so important to you.”

  As long as she didn’t get into the details of what’d happened, that should be an easy enough question to answer. Only her mind searched for the words, and none formed.

  She cleared her throat. “I was sixteen and scared shitless. In a bad situation all around.”

  “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. And I don’t mean to belittle your situation, but lots of young girls find themselves pregnant and unsure of what to do. Sadly, it’s not uncommon.”

  There was nothing typical about what had happened to her, but she wouldn’t go down that path. Not today.

  Not ever.

  Not with Jackson.

  “And that doesn’t tell me anything about why you want to find her.”

  “I just want to know she had a good life. That by me giving her up, I gave her a better life. Once I know that, I will step away and continue to let her live it. Hell, I don’t even want to meet her. I just need to know.”

  Jackson tossed back the rest of his wine before folding his arms across his chest. “How is knowing who she is going to make you take a step back and leave her alone?”

  “Wow. That’s really unfair. I’ve spent almost nineteen years knowing that I couldn’t be a good mother, and all I want—”

  “You think you can be a mother now?” he asked behind a tight jaw as he jumped from the plastic chair, sending it tumbling into the grass. “I don’t understand women like you. You give up a child. Just walk away. And that’s fine. I get it, and God, I value that decision. It was the best thing my birth mother ever did for me. But then you think it’s perfectly okay to go poking around in that child’s life, expecting them to be all warm, welcoming, and grateful to see you without thinking about what that might do to the child or the families they grew up in?”

  If she were in the confines of her office, she wouldn’t be shocked by the venom-laced words, and she’d be able to process his emotions from the caring yet objective perspective of a therapist.

  But she’d put her heart on the line, and he’d squeezed the blood out of it like he knew what her life had been like.

  “If I wanted to be beaten up emotionally for giving up a child, I would be having this conversation with my own mother. I don’t want to find her to make a mommy connection or anything. And, frankly, I resent you making rash judgments about me.” She took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth, counting to four. “What happened between you and your birth mother that left you so angry and resentful?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Like hell, it doesn’t. You’re drawing conclusions about me, my decisions, and what I want before ever letting me tell you my reason why—all based on your own personal experience.”

  “You just told me your reasons.”

  “Not really.” This was getting deeper than she wanted.

  “All right.” He smoothed his hair before picking up the chair. “Why don’t you tell me why you need to find her?”

  “Okay. But not until you take a seat.”

  He nodded.

  “And I want you to tell me what happened with your birth mother.”

  He arched a brow.

  “You’re refusing services because of what happened to you. If I’m going to plead my case, and you still refuse, I feel you at least owe me the rationale behind it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She poured another hefty glass of wine. “All I want is to know that I did the right thing. That she has a better life than I could have ever given her,” she said.

  “And what if she didn’t have a good life?” he asked. “Have you thought about that?”

  Shannon sucked in a quick breath. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I have. And if something bad happened, I will have to live with that.”

  “Can you?”

  “Jesus. Just give me the name of your friend. I’ll have them find her.”

  He reached out and encircled his fingers around her wrist. “You gave her up for a reason. You own that reason. But once you made that decision, you gave up getting to own the outcome.”

  “I understand that.” She slid her arm out from under his grip. “But I need to know.”

  “Do you? Or do you, deep down, want to meet your daughter?”

  “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing anything about a person you gave birth to. I need to know she exists. That those cries I heard when she was born were real.”

  Jackson had moved his chair so it faced hers, and it made it very difficult not to look at him. “What does
that mean?”

  She blinked. “I don’t know how to make it any clearer. I need to know what happened to her.”

  “I know I sound like a broken record, but what if what I find out isn’t good?”

  Tears formed in her eyes. “Anything is better than not knowing she exists. Will you help me or not?”

  “You don’t want any contact with her?”

  Shannon shook her head. “I understand how disruptive that could be, even if my intentions are good. That’s why I don’t want to meet her. But to know she’s out there… Somewhere. It would ease my aching heart.”

  He touched the side of her cheek. Gently, he took his forefinger and brushed part of her hair behind her ear. “I know what it’s like to want to know of someone’s existence. It’s natural and normal. But the outcome isn’t always what we expect.”

  “I can’t let it go,” she admitted.

  “I’ll find her,” he whispered, tracing her jawline. His chocolate orbs were as dark as the evening sky, and they seemed to reach into her soul. They were kind and gentle eyes. Caring. The palm of his hand cupped her cheek, and he drew her face toward him. He kissed her forehead and then wrapped both of his hands around her and held her close.

  Every muscle in her body loosened, and she leaned in to this strong man and cried. Really cried. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so emotional.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said, still running one hand up and down her back while the other cradled her head. “My sisters and I have always known we were adopted, but each of us always wondered at some point in our life why we had been given away. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel tossed aside and unloved by my birth parents. My adoptive mom, my real mother, told me that having a child was a selfish act. That she wanted a child so badly, she would have done anything. But that giving one away had to be the most selfless act, and she couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for my birth mother to trust her son to another family.”

  Shannon wiped her tears from her cheeks and pushed away from his comforting embrace. “Did you seek out your birth mother?”

  He shook his head. “She sought me out. She was a con artist and never really wanted to get to know me, but I learned that the hard way.”