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The Unknown Daughter
Anna DeStefano


Beware of what you look for…Carrinne Wilmington vowed she'd never return to the Georgia hometown she fled as a pregnant teen. But now she has no choice. Carrinne's life depends on finding her father, a man she never knew…and the key to the transplant she needs. So she decides to sneak back into town and get out with the clue to her father's identity–with no one the wiser.Unfortunately, she comes face-to-face with the last person she wants to see–Sheriff Eric Rivers, the former bad-boy-gone-respectable and father of their teenage daughter. When Carrinne's life is threatened by someone determined to stop her search, Carrinne must learn to trust Eric. Not so easy when he's already disappointed her once.









“Sheriff’s department!”


At his shout, the figure scrambled to the ground, rolling and preparing to run.

Eric stepped closer and pinned the suspect with the flashlight beam.

Then the summer night, the achingly familiar sights and sounds pressing in around him and a vision from his past seized him in a moment of déjà vu that rooted him to the spot. Carrinne Wilmington, seventeen years older but somehow exactly the same, dressed from head to toe in burglar black, stared at him, her face a mask of fear and shock.

Eric instinctively adjusted the flashlight’s glare out of her eyes.

“Eric?” Carrinne squinted. “What are you doing here?”








Dear Reader,

I’ve been asked repeatedly where I find the ideas for my stories. And as many writers have said before me, it’s not so much that I find my stories and characters, as they find me.

My young family has changed a great deal over the past decade, as my husband and I established our careers and my son raced through preschool and kindergarten. Looking back, it’s important to remember the heartache and struggles we’ve endured. The mistakes and the false starts that showed us what was truly important, and what was best left behind. The decisions that helped us grow into the happy family we are today.

Decisions are powerful things. That’s the theme woven into The Unknown Daughter. It’s through our most difficult choices that we discover who we are and what we believe. I find the process of making life-changing decisions fascinating. Sometimes you succeed. Sometimes you fail. But facing the next challenge, when everything within is screaming at you to run the other way, is the very essence of living.

I wish for you the courage and the determination you need to grow into all that you dream you’ll be. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on Carrinne and Eric’s story. Visit me at my author Web site, www.annawrites.com, and register for one of my contests.

Sincerely,

Anna DeStefano




The Unknown Daughter

Anna DeStefano





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To my father, Walton, whose passing taught me to cherish all of life, both the ups and the downs.

To my mother, Jane, and her love for the written word, who never doubted that my name would one day share space with the countless others on her bookshelves.

To my son, Jimmy, who is a daily reminder of the perfection of God’s miracles.

To my husband, Andrew, who has always wanted for me every dream I could possibly dream.

And to my critique partners, Tanya, Rachelle, Dorene, Anna A. and Missy and the countless friends I’ve made along my writing journey.

All that’s true in this story, all that comes from my heart wouldn’t have been possible without the blessing of your love.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE




CHAPTER ONE


CARRINNE WILMINGTON glared through the windshield of her rented Dodge at the stately south Georgia mansion that had been her family’s home for as long as they’d kept records in these parts. Ancient oak trees flanked the house, their tops dancing in the balmy July breeze. The moon skimmed a cloud-churned sky, creating midnight shadows that shifted in the changing light.

She fought the urge to peel away from the curb, to keep driving until she reached the airstrip just outside of Oakwood and caught the next flight back to New York. Turning off the ignition, she glanced down at herself, then dropped her head to the steering wheel.

She was a B-movie cliché.

Her city clothes, black on black on black, had seemed a logical choice when she’d left the roadside motel on the outskirts of town. She was sneaking back in the dead of night, for heaven’s sake. She needed invisibility, anonymity.

With a groan, she sat back. What she needed was to have her head examined. Who cared what she was wearing, when she was about to walk back into the world that had nearly destroyed her?

Her eyes traveled to the dormer windows her grandfather slept behind. Controlling yet distant, Oliver Wilmington had been the only family she’d ever known after her mother had died giving her life, and he’d let her down when she’d needed him the most. Now, seventeen years later, he couldn’t know she was back. No one could. If she was lucky and found what she’d come for, she’d be out of here and back in New York by tomorrow afternoon.

Get on with it, Carrinne.

She pushed open the door and slid out, gritting her teeth against the sick taste of fear.

“Get in, find Mom’s diary, then get out,” she whispered, creeping through the dimness toward the gray brick house. The diary had to be in the attic, inside the trunk that held her mother’s things. “Forget about everything else.”

But the past shimmered in every shadow as she skirted landscaped shrubs and flowerbeds that were exactly where they had always been. She turned the corner toward the back terrace and stumbled to a halt at the base of an enormous cypress tree, her childhood refuge where she’d read fairy tales and dreamed girlish dreams.

Her old friend welcomed her home, its phantomlike branches rustling in the night. She turned her back on the memories, on the dreams she’d finally wised up and stopped dreaming years ago.

The solarium’s angles came into view. The sight of its glass-and-wooden frame kicked the butterflies in her stomach into a frenzied tap dance. Nostalgia she hadn’t expected tugged her lips into a smile even as she panted for breath, winded by the short walk from the car. She struggled against the light-headed, ear-ringing haze, bending at the waist, hands on her knees.

Not now. She straightened and waited for her vision to clear, her lungs to work. This isn’t happening, not now that I’m this close.

Her equilibrium returning, she took in the sight of the one place in her grandfather’s ordered world that had truly belonged to her. Inside the solarium’s sanctuary, she’d nurtured tiny buds and seedlings, watching them burst to life year after year. Oliver had called her obsession folly, but the plants had needed her when no one else had. And the solarium had meant freedom in ways her grandfather had never imagined.

She approached the corner windows, willing strength into her legs. Ivy cascaded like a waterfall from a nearby oak, obscuring all but a few inches of the long, opaque panes of glass. She reached for the screwdriver in her back pocket, but a whisper from the past stopped her. The stone was still there, directly beneath the last window, mostly buried now. She knelt and pulled until the rock shifted and she could feel beneath. When her fingers closed around cold steel, her heart nearly beat its way out of her chest.

Pulling the encrusted screwdriver free, she wiped until streaks of metal gleamed in the pale moonlight. How many nights had she done this, popping the loose latch she’d discovered on the last window and sneaking into a cold, silent house long after curfew? Only, back then she hadn’t been alone. Back then there’d been one last kiss to keep her warm until she could escape and once more find heaven in the arms of the boy she’d thought she’d love forever. Her hand clenched around the tool. An overpowering urge to hurl it into the window brought her to her senses.

Standing, she shoved aside the ivy, using the screwdriver to jimmy the latch free. She pushed against the vertical window, strained when it refused to swing inward. The frame stubbornly resisted, then wrenched open with a wood-splitting moan. Staring at the shattered hinge, Carrinne held her breath and waited. Night sounds continued their hypnotic refrain, unperturbed by the commotion.

No alarm sounded, though she hadn’t really expected one. Her grandfather abhorred newfangled conveniences, no matter how practical. Changing with the times was a sign of weakness. For once, Oliver’s uncompromising certainty that his way was always best would work in her favor.

She pocketed the old screwdriver and slipped through the narrow opening. Back into the one place on earth she’d sworn never to set foot in again.



“WHAT AM I doing here?” Sheriff Eric Rivers cut the headlights and turned into Governor’s Square.

“My question exactly,” his younger brother, Tony, muttered from the passenger’s seat of the squad car. “You could have let me take this one on my own.”

“No way are you going solo on a burglary, kid.” Eric parked in front of the Wilmington mansion and scanned the grounds for signs of trouble. All he saw was the house he’d managed to avoid for the last seventeen years.

“Unit Fifteen, at 2201 Governor’s Square,” Tony barked their location through the hands-free radio attached to his uniform near the shoulder—standard equipment Eric had insisted everyone on patrol start carrying. “Give us five to have a look around.”

“Roger, Fifteen,” Marge replied from dispatch.

Eric walked around the car and waited at the curb for Tony, shaking his head at his brother’s scowl. Tony shoved his nightstick into his belt and adjusted his sidearm with a jerk.

“You’ve been steaming since we left the station. Let it go.” Eric rolled the tension from his shoulders and headed up the driveway. It was almost comical, watching his usually easygoing brother chafe at carving out his own place in Oakwood’s small-town sheriff’s department.

“You treated me like your kid brother in front of the entire station.”

“I was the only one in the station when this call came in, remember? That’s why you’re stuck with me.”

“But this is the third call out here from that security company.” Tony fell in step beside him. “You know as well as I do it’s old man Wilmington’s new silent alarm acting up. You coulda let me take it alone.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Eric paused at the top of the drive, motioning Tony to a stop. Something wasn’t right.

He scanned the front of the house, trying to pin down what had his instincts on edge. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything looked fine. Oliver Wilmington, Oakwood’s richest and most influential citizen, had been in the hospital for weeks. None of his staff lived in residence anymore. The house was silent and still, just as it should be. But there was something…

Maybe it was the past tripping all over the present making him nervous as hell. Maybe it was the steamy, night-kissed air rustling the leaves overhead. Maybe he was just stir-crazy and it had been too long since he’d been out on a call.

He rolled his shoulders again and switched on his flashlight.

“Besides—” Tony followed him up the marble steps, shining his own flashlight into the enormous windows fronting the porch. “You’re the sheriff now. You never go out on calls anymore.”

“I do if backup is needed.”

“I don’t need backup.”

Eric turned from peering through the front door’s rectangular glass insets. “Any rookie straight out of the academy needs backup.”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that ten years ago you were the one paddling my ass for skipping school?”

“No.” Eric chuckled and headed back down the steps. Tony had been six when their father died. It had been Eric’s job to keep him in line ever since. “This has nothing to do with your ass.”

At the same time, they both glimpsed the midsize sedan parked halfway down the block. Not that parking at the curb was so out of the ordinary on downtown streets. But the Wilmington place took up an entire block of the square, and the nondescript car was a little too conveniently out of the home’s sight line.

“Run the plates,” Eric said. “When you’re done, meet me around back.”

He didn’t wait to see if Tony followed orders. He didn’t have to. His brother was a good cop, even if he was too green for his own good.

Heading around the right side of the house, he shined the flashlight on the ground, the shrubs, the shadows on either side of the path. Damn if everything didn’t look exactly as it had years ago.

The flashlight’s beam picked up a set of footprints in the soft earth beneath the ancient cypress tree. He stopped. It was Carrinne’s tree. Their tree. A rattle from behind the house shook the memories from his head.

Moving again, only this time keeping to the shadows, he shined the flashlight at each window, looking for signs of forced entry. He unsnapped the clip that held his gun in its holster and reached for the radio at his shoulder.

“Get over here, Tony,” he whispered. “We’ve got company.”

Rounding the back corner of the house, Eric advanced slowly, soundlessly, listening through the darkness. From the direction of the solarium came a crash, followed by another. Sprinting, his hand hovering above his holster, he reached the structure in time to see a blurred figure squeezing out of an all-too-familiar window.

“Freeze!” he barked. “Sheriff’s department.”

The figure scrambled to the ground, rolling and preparing to run.

“Freeze!” He stepped closer and pinned the suspect with the flashlight beam.

Then the summer night, the achingly familiar sights and sounds pressing in around him, and a vision from his past seized him in a moment of déjà vu that rooted him to the spot. Carrinne Wilmington, seventeen years older, but somehow exactly the same, dressed from head to toe in burglar black, stared back at him, her face a mask of fear and shock.

He instinctively adjusted the flashlight’s glare out of her eyes.

“Eric?” She squinted. “What are you doing here?”

Her soft voice had lost some of its southern accent. Still, it swept over his skin like his favorite T-shirt fresh from the dryer. Warm and smooth.

A blink and a deep breath later, she was off. By the time he recovered enough to sprint after her, she’d raced around the side of the house.

He cleared the corner to see Tony grab Carrinne as she flew by. His brother held her arms to her side, subduing her struggles with textbook ease. Carrinne thanked him for his efforts by squealing and fighting even harder to get away.

“Take it easy.” Eric raced up to the pair. “She’s—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Carrinne went limp and slid to the ground.



“CARRINNE?” came the voice again. “Carrinne. Wake up, darlin’.”

A hand patted Carrinne’s cheek. Pushed the cap from her head. Moaning, she fought to open her eyes. Where was she? Where was Maggie?

“Who’s Maggie?” asked the masculine voice that had called her darlin’.

A voice from her past.

Reality crashed over her in a dizzying wave. After searching the attic as long as she’d dared and finding no sign of her mother’s trunk, afraid of waking Oliver if she kept digging, she’d been struggling back out of the solarium window when…

Jerking to full consciousness, she blinked until her vision cleared. She was lying on a carpet of soggy Bermuda grass, and leaning over her was the one man she wanted to see less than her grandfather.

“What…what are you doing here, Eric?” She struggled to sit, flinching when his hand moved to steady her.

With a raised eyebrow, he stepped away. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She stood on rubbery legs.

“What are you doing here after all these years?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She inched another few feet away, a nervous cough slipping out before she could stop it. “I’m visiting my grandfather.”

“Through the solarium window?”

“It’s late,” she mumbled, then winced at the feeble excuse. There were so many reasons why this conversation shouldn’t be happening. Her gaze fixed on his badge. “You’re in uniform.”

“It comes with the job.”

“You’re a cop?”

“He’s the new sheriff,” a third voice said.

Her attention jumped to the officer who’d stopped her. Something about the younger man made her take a closer look.

T. Rivers, his badge read.

“Tony?” She wrapped her arms around herself, stifling the reflex to give him a hug. Eric’s kid brother had been six the last time she’d seen him. “Heavens, you’ve grown.”

Then Tony’s words registered. She swung back to Eric. The rebellious teenage boy she’d known was now a severe, responsible-looking man.

“You’re the sheriff?”

His level stare made her squirm. “Why were you breaking into the solarium, Carrinne?”

To find what I need to protect our daughter.

She bit her lip, bit back the truth she’d never planned to be close enough to tell him or anyone else in this town. Not after he’d dumped her, telling her she’d been nothing more than a mindless distraction. Not after her grandfather had ordered her to have an abortion or get the hell out of his house. A wave of curls fell into her eyes. She pushed them back and reached deep for the nerve she needed to pull this off.

“I wasn’t supposed to arrive until the morning,” she lied. “And I didn’t want to wake Oliver in the middle of the night. All the doors were locked, so I figured I’d give the solarium a try.”

“But, Ms. Wilmington—” Tony started to say.

“If your grandfather’s expecting you, why was the silent alarm on?” Eric’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure he knows you’re coming?”

“Of course.” She brushed the dirt from her arms and gave bravado her best shot. “Why don’t I just find a motel for the night and come back in the morning?”

“Better yet—” Eric turned toward the front of the house “—why don’t we ring the bell and straighten this all out now?”

“No!” She grabbed his arm, then instantly let go. Her fingers tingled from the strong, solid feel of him. “I mean… Can’t we wait until morning? Oliver’s getting older. He needs his rest.”

Eric let out a harsh breath, biting back a curse. He had no idea what Carrinne was up to, but he knew “guilty as hell” when he heard it.

“Your grandfather’s in the hospital,” he said, watching her closely. “He had a stroke six weeks ago.”

“Oh…I…I haven’t spoken with him in over a month.” Her face grew paler, even as she squared her shoulders. “We made tentative plans for my visit, and I’ve been too busy to call him since.”

“It’s odd that his lawyer didn’t contact you about the stroke.”

“I’ve been away on business.”

“You don’t have an answering machine?”

“I told you, I’ve been busy. I haven’t had time to check my—”

“Lying’s only making this worse.” They’d be out here all night at this rate. “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on, or do I have to take you in?”

“Take me in?” The alarmed expression on her face was the real deal. Not like the casual innocence she’d done such a lousy job of faking a few minutes before.

“Give me one good reason why you were breaking in, and maybe we can end this here.”

“I wasn’t breaking in. I grew up in this house.”

“A technicality that might keep you out of jail. But if you want to avoid coming with me to the station, you’ll have to do better than that. Just trust me, okay?”

A battle raged in her green eyes. Then they hardened with a determination that was a chilly reflection of the man who’d raised her.

“The only person I’m talking to is Oliver,” she said.

Running a hand through his hair, Eric sighed and turned to Tony. “Radio in. Have Wilmington’s lawyer meet us at the station.”

When he glanced back, Carrinne was staring at the cypress tree he hadn’t realized they’d stopped beneath. Blond and petite, a heart-shaped face he could cup in the palms of his hands. Painfully familiar in so many ways, she was a complete stranger to him.

And why shouldn’t she be? He’d cut her out of his life after his father’s death. Then she’d left town without saying another word to him. Seventeen years of nothing lay between them.

He’d tried and failed over the years to forget their time together. How he’d thrown away what he never should have let himself want in the first place. But the look of betrayal on her face that last night had made a regular appearance in his dreams, never letting him completely forget.

She clearly didn’t want him anywhere near her now. Unfortunately, for both of them, she didn’t have a choice. His instincts told him Carrinne Wilmington had more trouble on her hands than she knew what to do with.



NO PROBLEM, Carrinne told herself as she rode to the sheriff’s department in the back of Eric’s squad car. No sweat. She’d tackle the lawyer first, then her grandfather. She was a pro at talking her way out of tough situations. She’d built her small New York accounting firm from the ground up. Whatever it took to get the job done, that’s what she did.

Getting what she needed without Oliver’s help was no longer an option. She’d come up empty-handed at the house, and she needed more time in the attic to look for her mother’s things. But would her grandfather be willing to help? That was a question she hadn’t let herself worry about until now, because she was afraid she already knew the answer.

At the age of ten, she’d found the stash of diaries in her mother’s closet and had read cover-to-cover each precious link to the woman she’d never known. There’d been a diary for every year after her mother turned seven, except the last. Angelica Wilmington’s sixteenth year. The year she’d become pregnant with Carrinne.

Finding the missing book had become Carrinne’s obsession. But each time she’d hunted for it, Oliver had demanded she stop digging up the past. She’d told him about her nanny Matilda’s stories. About how her mother had kept her diary with her always, up until the day she died delivering Carrinne. But he’d refused to listen. Discussing his daughter or anything about their lives before Carrinne’s birth was an unpardonable sin in the Wilmington house.

Finally, he’d ordered all her mother’s things packed into an enormous trunk and sent to the attic. He’d decreed her mother’s memory off-limits, and by God that’s the way things were going to be. And, because she’d longed for her grandfather’s approval back then, even more than she’d wanted to read her mother’s final hopes and dreams for her unborn baby, Carrinne had forced herself to stop looking. Eventually, she’d forgotten about that last diary all together.

Until now, when finding it had become a matter of life and death.

She cleared her throat against a cough, not quite succeeding in stopping it.

“You okay?” Eric asked from behind the wheel as he parked.

Her gaze collided with concerned brown eyes reflecting back from the rearview mirror, eyes the exact same shade of chocolate as their daughter’s. When he glanced over his shoulder, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from staring. Seventeen years hadn’t made the least bit of difference. Seventy years wouldn’t.

His thick brown hair, now sprinkled with slivers of distinguished gray, made a woman want to tame it with her fingers. The angles and planes of his face were just as strong as she remembered, arranged as if by a force of nature into cheekbones and lips that looked as though they were carved from granite. At least until he smiled. Eric’s smile had melted straight through her heart the first time she’d coaxed it out of him. He didn’t appear to smile any more now than he had when they were kids.

“Carrinne?” he prompted.

She cleared her throat and her mind at the same time. “I’m fine.”

He shot her a look of disbelief.

“Are we just going to sit here?” She unfastened her seat belt and stared out the window at the thoroughly captivating view of the almost-empty parking lot. Her door couldn’t be opened from the inside, or she’d already be out of the car.

“Fifteen,” a woman’s voice said over the radio. “The Wilmington lawyer’s here.”

“We just pulled up. I’ll meet with him in room one.” Eric took the keys out of the ignition.

He planned to meet with Oliver’s lawyer alone? Was Clifford Brimsley still working for her grandfather? “But—”

“Tony.” Eric’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Show Ms. Wilmington to my office.”

“But, I want to—”

Ignoring her, Eric stepped out of the car and strode away. Despite the mantle of responsibility he wore with such ease now, Oakwood’s sheriff still sauntered like a rebellious James Dean. Too cool and confident to hurry, no matter who was looking. Exactly the way Maggie swaggered when it was important that everyone around her knew just how much she didn’t care what they thought.

“Ms. Wilmington?” Tony had opened her door and was watching her watch Eric.

Unfolding her legs and pushing herself off the seat, she stumbled.

“Careful.” Tony caught her with both hands as her knees buckled. “Maybe you should sit back down.”

“No. I’m fine.”

She had to be.

She straightened and gave him a reassuring smile she didn’t feel.

“Maybe I could find you some juice or something.” Tony hovered at her side as they walked, opening the door to the sprawling, single-story building so she could enter in front of him. “I’ll check the vending machine.”

“Thanks,” she replied, barely hearing a word. Looking for any sign of Eric, she let Tony lead her past the officer at the front desk and into the partitioned squad room.

Was Brimsley still the Wilmington family lawyer? Would he know about her reasons for leaving Oakwood seventeen years ago? Her stomach churned at the thought of what he could be telling Eric at that very moment.

The sound of typing tapped faintly from somewhere to her left. They passed a row of desks deserted for the night. When they’d reached another hallway, Tony ushered her to the right. At the same time, Eric’s voice rumbled from one of the closed rooms behind them. She turned toward the sound, jumping at Tony’s firm grasp on her elbow.

“The sheriff’s office is this way.” His expression left no room for discussion.

She did the math quickly. Tony was twenty-three now. A very mature twenty-three, and on his way to being as formidable as his big brother. They reached the end of the hall, and he released her arm beside a door with a sign that read simply, Sheriff.

“If you’ll promise to wait here, I’ll try to find you something to eat,” he offered.

Her stomach growled in encouragement. Skipping meals had become a bad habit since she’d flown out of New York.

“I’ll stay put.” She stepped into the office and sank into a chair opposite the cluttered mess that passed as Eric’s desk. She caught Tony’s dubious expression. “Really. I don’t have the energy to stray.”

Nodding, he turned to leave.

“Tony?”

He raised one eyebrow in a gesture so much like his brother, something inside her began to hurt.

“Thanks,” she said through the lump in her throat.

“You bet.” He winked and shut the door, leaving her alone.

In spite of the disaster the last hour had made of her plans, she smiled.

Life was just too weird. The kid who’d spat bubble gum into her hair the last time she’d baby-sat for him was all grown up now, and off to find her something to eat so she wouldn’t pass out. Meanwhile her grandfather’s attorney and her high-school-flame-turned sheriff were down the hall somewhere, chatting about her rookie crack at breaking and entering. It had been quite a night.

Her cell phone chirped. She fumbled it from her jeans pocket and recognized her daughter’s number on the display. She finally managed to flip it open.

“Maggie?”

“Mom!” Maggie sighed with relief. “Where have you been?”

Carrinne was out of the chair in an instant, glancing toward the still-closed door. “I need to call you back later, sweetheart.”

“You were supposed to call hours ago,” her daughter replied with the kind of I’m-the-mother-now attitude only a sixteen-year-old could pull off.

“This isn’t a good time. I’ll call you in the morning.” Carrinne walked to the farthest corner of the office. Chills shook her from the inside out, persisting despite the cloying humidity the station’s central air-conditioning couldn’t keep up with. She hugged her free arm across her chest, furious with her body’s betrayal.

“Mom, I…I went to the clinic today for the blood tests.”

“What?” Ringing filled Carrinne’s ears. She’d left Maggie in her best friend’s care, with specific instructions that her daughter was not to go anywhere near the hospital. “Put Kim on the phone.”

“It’s one-thirty in the morning, Mom. She’s asleep.”

“I don’t care. Put her on the phone.”

“She doesn’t know I went. I forged your signature on the consent form.” Emotion shook her daughter’s voice. Her beautiful, brave daughter. The only light in Carrinne’s life. “I had to go. I have to know.”

“No, you don’t.” She tried her best to sound understanding, not scared out of her mind. “Because it doesn’t matter. I’m not letting you have the procedure, regardless.”

“But if I’m a match—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m sixteen. It should be my choice to make. If we’re lucky enough that I can help you, I want to do it.”

Lucky. That’s what the doctors kept saying. Carrinne was very lucky.

They’d congratulated themselves on catching her rare form of liver disease early. She was at such an early stage, her symptoms were almost nonexistent. Her prognosis was a full recovery once she received a transplant, and they had a year, maybe two, to locate a donor. She was so lucky, it was possible the surgeons might be able to harvest half of her sixteen-year-old daughter’s healthy liver, if the tests showed Maggie was a match. The living donor procedure was delicate and brutally invasive, but luckily it was considered safe.

What mother, faced with the choice of risking her child’s health in order to save her own, wouldn’t feel lucky?

“No,” was all Carrinne could manage. She’d been the cause of her own mother’s death. Nothing on this earth could persuade her to risk her daughter’s life, too.

“They’re putting a rush on the tests,” Maggie pressed. “Because it’s Friday, they said we won’t hear anything until early next week. We may know something Monday—”

“No, Maggie. I told you. There have to be other options. I’m trying to find one right now.”

God, please let me find my mother’s last diary. There had to be something in it to lead her to the father her mother had never named. Please let him be a match and be willing to be a donor.

“Mom, I want to help.”

“I know you do, baby.” The hurt in Maggie’s voice sliced into Carrinne’s heart. “You do help me. By caring. By worrying when you should be in bed getting some rest. But you’ve got to let me go, so I can do what I have to here. It looks like I’ll need to stay a few more days. I’ll call tomorrow when I know something more. I promise.”

“You need to rest, too. You need help with whatever you’re doing there.” Maggie’s reply was watery, with a tinge of exasperation.

Carrinne hadn’t shared many details about this trip, and her daughter never liked being in the dark. Carrinne had told her they still had family in Oakwood, family she’d avoided like the plague for years. Beyond that, she’d only said she was tracking down a possible donor.

“I’m diving into bed,” she reassured Maggie. “Just as soon as I can. Tell Kim I’ll call tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

“Okay,” was her daughter’s less-than-enthusiastic reply.

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too.”

Carrinne stared at the phone long after the connection went dead. Then she flipped it closed and shoved it back into her pocket, hating that she wasn’t any closer to the answers she needed. She paced across the room and back, trying to focus past the panicked feeling that time was running out.

She couldn’t just wait here, doing nothing, wondering what Eric and that attorney were talking about. What if Eric found out about Maggie? What would she tell him?

Heading toward the back wall once more, she paused before the eight-by-ten plaque hanging behind the desk. Her vision blurred as she confronted yet another piece of the past she remembered as if it was yesterday.

Sheriff, 1965–1985, simple gold letters proclaimed beneath a picture of Gerald Rivers, Eric’s father. Killed in the line of duty, protecting his fellow officers.

She’d been at Eric’s house that awful night the call had come in. It had been just a few short weeks after his high school graduation. She’d rushed with him to the hospital, even though his father had already been declared dead on arrival. It was the one and only time she’d ever seen Eric cry. And after that night, everything between them had changed.

The sound of the door opening dragged her away from the memory. She wiped at her eyes, preparing to thank Tony again for finding her something to eat. Only, when she turned, it was Eric standing in the doorway.

“You’ve been lying to me from the start, haven’t you?” He pinned her with a look that made her instinctive denial shrivel in her throat.




CHAPTER TWO


ERIC’S GAZE skipped from Carrinne’s guilty expression to his father’s plaque behind her. It must be inconceivable to her that he’d turned out exactly the way his by-the-book father had wanted.

Responsible. Stable. Dependable.

Some days, Eric barely believed it himself.

Leaning against the door frame, he crossed his arms and marveled at the almost two decades that had passed since he’d last been alone with this woman.

“Eric, I…I can explain.” She brushed at her eyes. She’d been crying, and he’d bet a week’s salary that didn’t happen often.

“We already tried that, remember?” The impulse to reassure her almost got the best of him. Glancing once more at his father’s picture, he moved into the room. “It’s probably a good time for you to start doing some serious listening instead.”

He inched closer, and she skirted around the side of the desk. He stared as she inched a few more steps away.

“What’s the matter with you? You’re acting like I’m going to attack you or something.”

Her chin shot up. “Just say whatever it is you have to say. I’d like to settle things and get out of here.”

“Well, you see, that’s the problem.” He removed his sidearm and locked it in the top drawer of his desk. Settling into his beaten-up leather chair, he motioned for her to take a seat. She didn’t budge. “I’m afraid it won’t be that easy.”

She hugged her arms close, like someone who’d forgotten her jacket on a windy day. “Was it Brimsley you were talking to? What did he tell you?”

“What should he have told me?” The chair’s wooden frame creaked as he leaned back and stared.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. The shape of that mouth had him remembering things that would only make his job more difficult.

Focus, Rivers. You’re the only thing standing between her and a night in jail.

“You’ll have to talk eventually,” he continued. “Brimsley’s out for blood. He doesn’t know anything about you contacting Oliver for a visit, and he wants you booked for the break-in.”

“Oh.” Carrinne’s hands slipped to her side, her pinched expression relaxing. “Is that all?”

Eric blinked at her reaction. “I’ve tried to talk him out of pressing charges, but he won’t agree to anything until he’s met with you himself.”

She stumbled toward the guest chair and slid into it.

“What’s going on, Carrinne?”

The controlled way she straightened was a decent attempt at nonchalance. A knock jerked their attention to the open door.

Tony stepped in, juggling a can of juice and a handful of snacks.

“What?” Eric barked.

“I offered to get Ms. Wilmington something to eat. She still wasn’t feeling well when we got out of the car.”

Eric waited for Tony to lay his bounty on the table. “Go see if Wilmington’s lawyer needs anything,” he said. He’d left Clifford Brimsley cooling his heels down the hall.

Tony hovered at Carrinne’s shoulder, glancing between Eric and their suspect, who had already pounced on a packet of crackers as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

Putting all his impatience into a glare, Eric waited until Tony looked back his way.

“Um, right.” Tony backpedaled out of the room. “I’ll go check on Brimsley.”

The door shut, leaving them alone. Carrinne struggled to open the juice, her fingers shaking.

Resigned, Eric took the can, popped it, and returned it to the desk with a thump. “Let me know when you’re done with your picnic.”

Carrinne gave him a narrow look as she took a long sip. She polished off the last of the crackers in silence, color creeping into her cheeks with each bite. When she sat back and folded her hands in her lap, confidence swam in her expressive eyes. “What now?”

Any other time, any other place, any other woman, and he might enjoy puzzling out why she was challenging him at every turn. The possibilities were downright intriguing. Only with this woman, he’d be messing with dynamite.

The Carrinne of his youth had tunneled her way into his teenage heart, getting close enough for it to hurt like hell when he’d walked away. And he’d deserved the pain. He’d learned from an early age not to trust, but somehow he’d convinced himself he deserved to keep the soft-hearted angel Carrinne had been back then. He’d let himself believe she was a little piece of good in the world, created just for him.

But the tough package sitting across from him now was no longer the sheltered girl who’d begged him to show her how to live. Puzzling out anything about this woman would be an open invitation for disaster.

“Ready to face the music?” he asked both himself and Carrinne as he stood. “Brimsley’s waiting.”



“SO, YOU SEE? I meant no harm. I just wanted my mother’s diary.” Carrinne smiled at the scowling lawyer sitting on the other side of the interview room, forcing herself to ignore Eric hovering somewhere behind her.

Her game face firmly in place, she was playing the role of unconcerned innocent. The diary story was a convincing enough reason for what she’d done. She’d have to tell her grandfather more, but she could only deal with one unpleasant reality at a time.

“And breaking in was your solution to getting my client to cooperate with your needs?” Clifford Brimsley was just as creepy and unapproachable as ever.

His hair was cut short in the same style, complete now with a receding hairline. And as far as she could tell, he’d worn the exact same mortician-drab suit since the first day he’d started working for Oliver almost thirty years ago.

“Your client’s never stooped to cooperating with anyone, counselor.” She clenched her hands in her lap. She’d negotiated fees with uptown Manhattan businessmen who, one and all, thought choosing a small, private firm meant bargain-basement rates. She could handle one past-his-prime country attorney. “Let’s just say I preempted the inevitable argument and tried to save everyone a lot of time.”

“Let’s just say you were breaking and entering and trespassing, and move on to discussing whether or not you should be charged with a misdemeanor or a felony.”

“Now, Cliff,” Eric spoke up for the first time since leading her into the room. While she scrambled to think of a way to finesse felony into something less disturbing, he stepped away from his post at the door and relaxed into the vinyl chair beside hers. “There was minimal property damage. You’d be lucky to make a misdemeanor stick. Do you really think Oliver would want to waste his time and money taking this to court?”

“She knowingly and willingly broke the law, defacing Mr. Wilmington’s property in the process,” Brimsley argued.

“She was avoiding contact with an old man who we all know makes Frank Capra’s Mr. Potter look like Captain Kangaroo. At worst, she made a stupid choice.”

“Stupid!” A part of Carrinne knew she should let Eric handle this. Just not the part that itched to tell him exactly where he could shove his colorful observations.

“It’s a safe bet,” Eric continued as if she’d never spoken, “that any jury from Oakwood would be full of people who’ve been burned at one time or another by old man Wilmington. Either them or someone in their family. The only reason the town still does business with him is because he has more money and influence than God. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to put his granddaughter in jail for breaking a windowsill so she could avoid confronting the old goat. This is a family matter between Carrinne and her grandfather.”

“I—” she began.

“My job is to protect my client’s best interests in this situation,” Brimsley said over her. “Don’t think just because she’s Mr. Wilmington’s granddaughter, or because you two had some kind of teenage fling, that you can talk me into dropping the charges.”

“I—” she tried again.

“Your client’s interests would be better served in this situation,” Eric cut in, “if we settled everything here tonight, instead of dragging things out.”

“I am not a situation,” Carrinne bit out. “And I’m right here, in case either of you is interested.”

Two stunned pairs of eyes swung in her direction.

“Ms. Wilmington.” Brimsley’s gaze shifted to Eric then back to her. “These are very serious charges. Before I’ll consider dropping them, I’ll need some assurances on my client’s behalf.”

“Such as?” She gave Eric a look to keep him quiet, which induced a bemused smile.

“Such as you paying to repair the damage to the solarium window. And you’ll have to agree to meet with your grandfather in the morning as soon as he’s able. He’ll be beside himself when he hears about this. Plus, I’ll need to know what you were really doing at the house.” He pointed an accusing finger. “I don’t believe for a second you’re back after all this time for some silly old journal.”

“Nothing about my mother or anything that belonged to her is silly, Mr. Brimsley. I’ll thank you to remember that.”

Dead silence choked the momentum out of whatever the man had been about to say next.

So much for her people skills.

“Spit it out, Cliff.” Eric’s voice sliced through the silence, efficient and calm in an unfair way. “You said you were willing to drop the charges. What else is it going to take to get us out of here? It’s after two in the morning, and we’ve all had a long night.”

“Well…I…” Brimsley made a production out of straightening his tie. “I’d settle for an explanation of why she wants this diary.”

“I’m looking for my father, all right?” Carrinne kept her voice level as she fed them one more detail she’d hoped to keep to herself. They’d know by morning anyway, once she’d met with Oliver. In a town as small as Oakwood, privacy had gone out the window with the arrival of the first telephone. “I came back to find my father, and I’m looking for my mother’s final diary, hoping there will be some clue to point me in the right direction.”

“Why the hell are you looking for your old man after all these years?” Eric’s stunned question gave Carrinne a jolt of satisfaction. She’d finally ruffled his composure. But when she turned, she found his control replaced with something worse—concern. Disbelief and concern.

“Because I need to find him. And the sooner I do—” horrified by the uneven break in her voice, she cleared her throat “—the sooner I can put this town and every memory I have of it behind me once and for all.”

“Cliff?” Eric continued to study Carrinne. His face was a mask of calm again, except for a muscle twitching along his jaw.

“Will she meet with her grandfather in the morning?” Brimsley asked.

“Yes.” Carrinne gave the lawyer her full attention. Looking at Eric made breathing hurt. He was every reason she’d never trust her heart to any man again.

“Then I have no problem with dropping the charges,” Brimsley said. “For now.”



“CAN I GET YOU anything, Ms. Wilmington?” Tony asked from the door of the interview room.

Carrinne was resting her head on her crossed arms. Pushing away from the table, she tried to stretch the kinks out of her neck. Eric had left with a disgruntled but marginally more cooperative Brimsley over half an hour ago.

“You used to call me Carrinne, Tony.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, realizing too late that she was smearing what was left of the mascara she’d applied almost twenty hours before. She wiped away the residue on her hands, then rubbed at what she knew must have collected beneath her eyes. “Is Ms. Wilmington your way of pointing out how much older I am now?”

“Oh, no, ma’am.” His laugh was pure good-ol’-boy charm. “I was just being polite.”

She stood, massaging muscles in her lower back that were threatening never to straighten again. “Well, I guess Ms. and ma’am just aren’t my style anymore.”

“No, ma’am.” Tony gave her body and her form-fitting city clothes an appreciative once-over. “I don’t suppose they are.”

“Am I intruding?” Eric appeared behind his brother.

“Just trying to make myself useful while you finished working over that crotchety old lawyer,” Tony replied with unabashed innocence.

“You’ve been useful enough for one night.” Eric jerked his head in the direction of the squad room. “Don’t you have some call reports to file?”

“Right.” Tony smiled, raising that eyebrow again. “It was nice to run into you, Carrinne. Enjoy your visit to Oakwood, and try to stay out of trouble.”

He’d disappeared around the corner before Eric spoke. “So, it’s Carrinne now?”

“That’s my name.” She ignored the urge to sink back into the uncomfortable chair. Lord, she was tired. “I don’t have much use for Southern formality these days.”

“I guess in a place like New York, manners might make you an easy target.”

“I’ve learned to take care of myself—” She stopped short. “How did you know I live in New York?”

“We ran the plates on your rental car. The leasing company faxed a copy of your agreement. It says you’re a corporate accountant. Must have been hard to get away from a high-pressure job like that.”

“I’ve set aside a few days of vacation.” Tiny hairs stood on end up and down her arms. A man in Eric’s position could get his hands on whatever information he wanted. “If the charges are dropped, I’d like to go.”

Eric’s respect for how far Carrinne had come grew as he watched her swallow her fear and stare him down. He liked this gutsy new version of the girl he’d known.

“You know—” he intentionally closed the distance between them “—you’d be rid of me a lot quicker if you just came right out and owned up to the truth, whatever it is. What are you doing back in Oakwood?”

She held her ground, her features a blank canvas of New York confidence. “I told you why I’m back.”

“You want to find your father.”

“Yes.”

“After all these years.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s important to me.”

“Why would you care? You’ve clearly managed to build a good life for yourself.” He studied her outfit with the same thoroughness he’d seen Tony enjoy. Her jeans were no doubt from some high-end New York boutique. And he’d felt the softness of silk when his hands had brushed her top as he’d revived her at the Wilmington place. “Digging up old wounds after all this time, I’d think that would be the last thing you’d want. I know there’s nothing short of a bullet that would get me to hunt down my lousy excuse for a mother.”

And just that easily, a part of the past he never thought of anymore slipped into the present.

The topic of his mother had been off-limits for him from the moment she’d abandoned his family a year after Tony was born. Off-limits, that was, until he’d met Carrinne, and she’d seen straight through the rebellious hatred that had ruled his life back then.

He’d told himself he didn’t need family or friends. That he wanted nothing more to do with anyone saying that they loved him. Love meant pain and loss, and he was determined to live without it. By the time Carrinne came into the picture, he’d done a good enough job of being a hard-ass that most everyone in Oakwood, except his father, had written him off. But Carrinne’s sweetness had wormed through his anger, straight to the pain he was fighting to forget. She hadn’t been afraid of the darkness driving him to hurt himself and everyone who cared about him.

An orphan raised by a cold-hearted old man, she’d survived her own version of rejection and emotional abandonment. And she’d been determined that Eric would, too. She hadn’t left him alone until he’d opened up about his mother and shared what he’d never discussed before or since, not even with his brother. He’d begun to trust that the future could be different than the past, that not everyone who loved him was going to leave him.

Then his dad had died, abandoning Eric all over again. And the shaky belief in love that Carrinne had helped him build hadn’t stood a chance. Eighteen, alone, and saddled with the responsibility of raising Tony, the last thing he’d been able to handle was Carrinne’s unshakable hope that tomorrow would be better. He’d needed to be angry until he’d burned out the rage and no longer felt any of the pain.

So he’d pushed her away. And when she’d left, she’d taken her sweetness and his last taste of love with her.

Eric blinked back to the present. Carrinne’s puzzled expression shimmered into focus. He made himself step away.

Carrinne’s eyes, pools of green that still haunted his dreams, softened with the very empathy he’d run from. “It’s easier for me not to hate my father the way you do your mom. I never knew him.”

“Lucky you.” His lips wouldn’t smile, so he gave up trying. “But I still don’t buy it.”

“What?”

“The break-in. I backed you up with Lurch.” He caught her smirk at his use of the nickname they’d shared for Brimsley. “But his suspicions were dead on. Maybe if you’d called first and the old man had refused to cooperate, it might make more sense.”

She crossed her arms. “Are you having a good time?”

“Trying to get you to come clean?”

“Playing detective because there’s nothing better to do in this backwater town than butt in where you don’t belong.”

“I want to help.”

“I stopped needing anyone’s help forever ago.”

“Well, unless you’re itching to end up in jail, I suggest you find a more legal means of going after whatever you’re really looking for.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I figured that one out on my own.”

Eric bit back his next retort and ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. “You can go. But don’t do anything I can’t get you out of, Carrinne. I’d hate to have you arrested, but I’ll do what I have to do.”

“Haven’t you always?” Her eyes were suddenly moist. She pushed past him to leave.

Stricken by the hint of weakness beneath all that grit, he grabbed her arm. “Wait. I’m just trying to be a friend.”

“Let me go.” She yanked away, her hand rubbing where he’d touched her. “You’re not my friend, and I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you.”

“If this is about how I ended things when we were teenagers—”

“This is about me being dead on my feet and needing some sleep,” she said calmly. Sparks still smoldered in her eyes. “You were very helpful with Brimsley. Thank you. And I’ll sort things out with Oliver in the morning. I can handle the rest on my own.”

Eric scrubbed his hand across his face. The idea that she might still carry scars from their breakup made him feel like the class-A jerk he’d been to her. He had no idea if he could help her with whatever she was up to, but he was sure as hell going to try. She was in trouble, and it would take a lot more than a handful of uncomfortable memories to turn him away. He had to make sure she was okay.

Besides, she’d pegged his life right on the nose. It wasn’t like he had much else but paperwork and small-town bureaucracy pressing for his attention these days.

“I’ll have Tony meet you out front,” he finally said. “He’ll drive you back to your car.”

“Thanks.” She turned with a sigh and headed toward the front of the building.

Tomorrow, he promised himself as he went to search for Tony. Tomorrow was soon enough to help the last person in Oakwood who wanted his help.



“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I can’t go in?” Carrinne asked the elderly woman dressed in starched pink cotton.

It was early Saturday afternoon. She’d meant to get to the hospital hours ago. But after collapsing into bed around four that morning, thoughts of Eric and Maggie had kept her tossing and turning for hours. Once she’d nodded off, she’d slept like the dead until after eleven.

Nurse Able, according to her name badge, stepped around the nurses’ station and attempted to lead Carrinne into the visitors’ lounge. “I’m sorry, Ms. Wilmington, but we only allow one visitor at a time. If you’ll just wait over here.”

“But I’m his granddaughter.” Carrinne evaded the nurse’s grasp.

“Oh, I know who you are, dear.” The nurse clasped her hands in front of her and smiled. “I’m sure you don’t remember, but I used to change your diapers every Sunday when I worked in the church nursery. You’re just as beautiful now as you were then.”

Carrinne fought to keep her eyes from rolling heavenward. Hadn’t anyone else moved away from this place in the last seventeen years?

First, the clerk at the motel had been one of the varsity football players all the cheerleaders had fawned over back in high school. Then the volunteer at the welcome desk downstairs had turned out to be the lunch-room lady who’d sneaked Carrinne extra pudding in elementary school. Now Nurse Able.

“When can I see my grandfather?” She tried to smile, she really did.

“Oh, call me Glinda. It sure has been a long—”

“It’s really important that I see him as soon as possible.” Carrinne let her voice roughen, shamelessly harnessing the emotion swimming ever closer to the surface of what used to be her composure. “It’s been so long, I don’t want to waste another moment.”

“Of course you don’t,” Glinda replied. She took Carrinne’s hand. “Tragedy brings us together in the most difficult way.”

“It would really mean a lot if you could get me in to see him now.”

“I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.” She squeezed Carrinne’s fingers. “Let me go see what’s keeping Mr. Brimsley.”

“Brimsley?”

“Why, yes. He usually stops by on his lunch break. He has your grandfather’s power of attorney, you know. Sometimes they meet for hours, going over all kinds of paperwork and whatnot. I can’t tell you how many times the doctors have warned your grandfather to slow down, but he says he wants to stay up-to-date—”

“You said you could check on what was keeping Mr. Brimsley?” Every minute that man was with her grandfather was a minute too long.

“Of course, dear. Let me see what I can do.”

Carrinne watched her go, clenching her fists and trying not to stomp with impatience as she stared down the brightly lit hallway. The reality of her surroundings seeped through her frustration. The antiseptic smell. The beige and green tiles on the floor. The hum of hushed voices and whirring medical equipment. This could just as easily be a hallway at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, her home away from home for the last few months.

Her need for Oliver’s assistance was the only thing short of a medical emergency that could have coaxed her into yet another hospital. And running into Eric had red-lined the necessity to get what she’d come for and get the heck out of Oakwood. She needed her grandfather’s help now. Whatever it took.

Glinda returned, her affronted scowl dampening what Carrinne had assumed was chronic perkiness. “That man! He—”

“I’ll take it from here, nurse.” Brimsley appeared behind Glinda, his stern frown directed at Carrinne.

“You let me know if you need anything,” Glinda said to Carrinne as she marched to her station. Her eyes shot daggers at Brimsley the entire way.

“You do have a way with people, don’t you?” Carrinne’s skin crawled as the lawyer sized her up. He could still make her feel like the six-year-old he’d once caught doodling all over some important business contracts he’d laid out for Oliver.

“I want to know what you’re going to say to him.” Brimsley pointed a finger for emphasis. “Your grandfather’s a very sick man, and he doesn’t need you unsettling things even more.”

“Unsettling things? This meeting was your idea.”

“Because I want whatever you’ve got to say out of the way with the least amount of stress to Oliver. The first thing he heard when he woke this morning was that you were back in town. He was in a frenzy when I got here, demanding that I track you down and bring you over. Though why he cares after all these years, I can’t imagine.”

Oh, but she could. It was too much to ask that her grandfather would dismiss her out of hand as Brimsley had. A cold, disinterested Oliver Wilmington would have been so much easier to handle. But true to form, as soon as he’d heard she was in town, he’d expected her to present herself upon demand.

And here she was.

“What I have to say won’t take long.” She reined in the urge to run and moved to pass Brimsley. “So if you don’t mind—”

He grabbed her arm. “Why are you back?”

Yanking away, she looked him up and down. “Maybe I’m here to remind myself why I fled this insufferable place and everything connected to it. Maybe I needed a good dose of Southern bad manners to remind me how good I have it up north.”

A giggle to her right caught Carrinne’s attention. Glinda smothered another laugh as she straightened the files scattered across the station counter. With a wink to Carrinne, the nurse answered the phone that never seemed to stop ringing.

Carrinne turned on her heels and headed down the hall, mentally pulling herself together. Her steps slowed as she neared her grandfather’s room. She’d left Oliver Wilmington’s warped brand of control and manipulation behind years ago. Since then, she’d proven that she had the nerve and the brains to succeed when he’d been so sure she would fail without him. She was successful and sophisticated, where she’d once been painfully timid and shy. She’d earned the right to face him with confidence.

Instead, she felt only dread.

She needed Oliver’s help. And that gave him far more leverage than good sense told her was wise.



“I WANT TO SEE my great-grandchild,” Carrinne’s grandfather repeated from his hospital bed.

In the five minutes since she’d stepped into his room, Oliver Wilmington had refused to talk about anything else. His imperious tone was everything she remembered, though time and illness had done their dirty work on his diminished frame. He struggled for every breath.

“And I’ve already told you,” she repeated. “That’s not possible.”

“I’m an old man. I’m paralyzed down one side, and my heart’s giving out. I’m dying.” He pushed himself up and yanked at the sheet, as impatient with his infirmities as he’d always been with anything he couldn’t bend to his will. “I think I’m entitled to meet my only great-grandchild before I go.”

“Well, I’m thirty-three, and I’m dying.” She threw her purse into the guest chair, watching her revelation sink in as she played the only ace up her sleeve. Oliver lapsed into silence for the first time since she’d gotten there. “Does that mean I win?”




CHAPTER THREE


“WHAT ARE YOU talking about?” No longer fussing with the sheet, Oliver grew unnaturally still.

“Primary sclerosing cholangitis.” A chill raced down Carrinne’s spine as she said the full diagnosis out loud. “It’s chronic, and it’s degenerative. And if I don’t find a liver donor in the next year or two, it’ll most likely be fatal. They’ve put me on the national transplant registry, but my rare blood factors make the chance of finding a match outside of the immediate family minuscule. I’m hoping my father will agree to be a living donor.”

“Is that what this is all about?”

Carrinne stared at her shoes. This was about so many things, things she had no intention of discussing.

“Carrinne Louise, look at me.”

When she did, her heart lurched with the same appalling spasm of emotion that had struck when she’d first walked into the room. Medical equipment surrounded his bed, beeping and whirring, creating a symphony of life support.

She’d thought hatred was all she’d feel when she saw Oliver Wilmington again. Yet what consumed her now was sadness and regret. He’d lost his wife to cancer when he was far too young. They’d both lost her mother. They’d been all the family either of them had left, yet the only way he’d been able to deal with her had been to control every aspect of her life. And she’d needed so much more.

“It’s not just your illness that’s brought you home after all these years, is it?” he asked. His eyes narrowed. “If you wanted to find your father, why not hire a detective?”

“Hiring a detective is my next step,” she explained. “But someone wandering around Oakwood asking a lot of questions might have made you suspicious. I came for the diary myself, hoping I could get in and out without you ever knowing I was here. I hadn’t planned on being even a blip on this insufferable town’s radar.”

“Oakwood is your home, Carrinne. This town and the people you’ve cut out of your life, they’re a part of you.”

“This place was never a home for me.” She gripped the bedrail. “You made sure of that. I’m back because I have no other choice. The question is, can you put someone else’s needs before your own for just once in your life? Tell me what you know about my mother’s last diary. Tell me who you think my father might be.”

With a look of grudging respect, Oliver pushed himself higher on the pillows. “It seems we’re at an impasse. We both want something very badly, something we can’t get without the other one’s help. I want to meet my great-grandchild, and you want to meet your father.”

“Do you know who my father is?”

“No.” He looked away. “I never could get your mother to tell me, and once she was gone… It just didn’t seem to matter.”

“It mattered to me. It always mattered to me. And you wouldn’t lift a finger to help me look for him. You forbade me from even trying, and now it may be too late. Mother’s diary is probably the only shot I’ve got.”

“Yes, Angelica’s diary.” He cleared his throat. “Brimsley mentioned that’s what you were looking for at the house. I told you when you were a child—I don’t know anything about her diary. She was sixteen years old when you were born. That seems a little old to be keeping a diary, I don’t care what your nanny said. What makes you so sure you can find it now, or that your father is even mentioned in it?”

“I’m not sure. But if there’s even the slightest chance it exists, I have to look.”

“I’d like to help.” A shocking warmth laced his statement. Compassion wasn’t the right word for the expression on his face, but there was something close to yearning there. Something she’d never seen before. Then his gaze hardened. “Provided…”

“Provided what?”

“I want to see my great-grandchild.”

She dropped her hands from the rail and stepped away to make sure she wasn’t close enough to wring his neck. “You don’t know how to do anything but control people, do you? You make them bend until they break, and you don’t even bat an eye. Not as long as you get what you want.”

“One man’s manipulation is another man’s just cause,” Oliver said in a pained whisper. Then he cleared his throat again. “I’m not asking you for anything that dire. Your child is a Wilmington. As your grandfather, I have a right to know him.”

Of course he’d assume his grandchild was a boy. The male heir to the great Wilmington legacy, no doubt. What did it say that a man of his power and influence hadn’t cared enough to bother finding out the gender of his only great-grandchild?

“This is the child you wanted destroyed,” she reminded him.

“That was a mistake.” A grimace of shame flashed across his face. “I’ve always regretted how I overreacted. After losing your mother the way I did, I was afraid something might happen to you, too…”

“If that’s your way of reminding me that it’s my fault my mother’s dead, don’t bother. You made it perfectly clear when I was a child how much you blamed me.”

“That’s not true. I never blamed—”

“Save it.” She held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter now.”

After a moment, he nodded. “You’re right. That’s all in the past. I made my share of mistakes, but haven’t I paid enough of a price? The child’s almost grown, and I’ve never seen him. Would it be so terrible, granting me this one request?”

It would be a disaster.

Maggie couldn’t come to Oakwood, not as long as Eric was here. Maggie thought her father was dead. Carrinne had charmed her with stories about how much he’d cared for them both, how he would have loved watching his daughter grow up. Maggie kept Carrinne’s only picture of Eric with her everywhere she went. She was the perfect female reflection of her father.

Carrinne had never dreamed they might one day meet.

“So, what will it be?” Oliver smiled. He was clearly enjoying his status as the only person Carrinne could turn to in town. “I’ll make sure you have unlimited use of the house, that you have anything you need as you search for your father. Whatever I can do. All I ask is this one small thing in return.”

“I’ll consider bringing her back—”

“Her? It’s a girl?”

“I’ll consider bringing her back.” She studied the parking deck below his window, making him wait. “But only after I find my father. Totally contingent on your cooperation while I’m here, as well as your silence.”

“My silence?” Her grandfather’s confusion lasted less than a second. “Ah. You mean about why you ran away.”

“Tell me you haven’t told anyone.”

“Why would I? It was a family matter.”

“You mean I was an embarrassment, and you were thankful no one had to know.”

“I mean I won’t have more of our family problems become fodder for small-town gossip. No one knows you were pregnant.”

“Good.” She took her first deep breath since seeing Eric last night. “I want to keep it that way.”

“I assume you’re worried about our illustrious Sheriff Rivers. It would prove inconvenient for him to find out about his child after all these years, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business. Everyone in Oakwood knew you were going with that young man. Skipping class together, sneaking out all hours of the night. To this day, I’ll never understand why you felt it necessary to pick the one person in town I thought was least suitable for you.”

“Not everything is about you.” She reached for her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Do I have your word or not?”

“I get to see my great-granddaughter?”

“Help me with what I need, and I’ll find a way to make it happen.” Just how she’d make it happen while keeping Eric and Maggie apart, she had no idea. But that was a worry that could wait. There were so many others in line before it.

“Then you have my full support. Whatever I can do to help. Although, I don’t know anything more about your mother’s diaries than you do.” There was that look of almost longing again, the hint that there was something more he wanted to say. Then he gave a wry chuckle. “I’d offer you my liver, but I don’t suppose a wasted old body like mine would be much use to you.”

“No.” She swallowed the but thank you that almost slipped out. “The donor needs to be healthy, and preferably under the age of sixty.”

“What about your daughter? Could she be a donor?”

“Not an alternative.” She made herself walk slowly toward the door, when what she really wanted was to bolt from her grandfather’s penetrating gaze.

“Carrinne?”

“What?” She didn’t turn back.

“I’ll alert Robert that you’ll be moving back home.”

Robert had been the Wilmington butler since before she was born. The man must be almost as old as Oliver.

“My home is in New York. And I’m staying at a motel while I’m here. Tell Robert I’ll be by first thing in the morning. I need to get back into the attic.”

“When will I see you again?” he asked, his voice gravelly. She looked over her shoulder, and the reality of the lonely, fragile old man in the hospital bed slid past her defenses once more.

“I’ll be in touch,” she finally managed to say.

“It’s good to see you.” His mouth curved upward, but smiling still didn’t sit well on his face. “You’re so beautiful, just like your mother.”

“I’ll be in touch,” she repeated. She jerked the door open and stepped into the silent hallway, horrified by the emotion stinging her eyes.

Striding away, grateful that Brimsley was nowhere in sight, she ignored the buzzing that filled her ears. It shouldn’t matter that her grandfather thought she was beautiful now. Why should she care? But damn it, unbelievably, something inside her did.

As a child, she’d done anything and everything to earn Oliver’s approval, to grab just one crumb of praise to go along with his never-ending stream of rules and regulations. But whatever capacity the man had had to love had died along with first his wife and then Carrinne’s mother. All that had remained for Carrinne was a rigid shell of a man and the hollow pretense of a happy family.

She hadn’t been allowed to wear makeup, because he wasn’t raising one of those girls. No pants, either, because she was a young lady. No skirts shorter than a certain length. No dating, no dances. And the list went on. But regardless of how hard she tried, no matter how many hoops she jumped through, he hadn’t doled out the first smidgen of love. Instead, she became a disappointment, a constant reminder of all he’d lost with her mother. Until finally, she’d stopped trying and had gone to look for someone else to love her. The worst possible person, in her grandfather’s opinion.

She wiped at her eyes, furious at the unwanted emotion controlling her. First Eric, now Oliver. People didn’t push her buttons like this. Not anymore.

She rode the elevator to the second level of the hospital’s parking garage, forcing her mind to clear. By the time she’d reached her rental car, deep breathing and determination had returned some measure of control. Starting the engine and cranking the barely adequate air conditioner, she secured her seat belt and headed for the nearest exit. She should be planning her next move, but forming a coherent thought was light years beyond her at the moment.

She left the parking garage, driving down the steep hill to Crabapple Street. The light at the bottom turned yellow, and the urge to run it nagged her. She applied the brakes with a growl, the thought of bottoming out on the uneven pavement below and damaging the car—the thought of spending one more minute at the hospital while she waited for a tow—overruling her impulse.

As she slowed, a large shadow in the rearview mirror drew her attention away from the road. The vehicle behind her seemed to be accelerating. She checked the light, now red, and rolled to a stop. Then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the driver behind her had followed suit.

The other vehicle’s front bumper slammed into her car a split second before her scream rent the air. The car and her body pitched forward. Her seat belt caught, but not soon enough. The side of her head snapped against the steering wheel. Through the fuzziness that followed and the painful echo of bells ringing, some disengaged part of her brain had the capacity to curse her small-town rental. It was clearly so old it predated the standard issue of airbags.

Feeling as though she was moving in slow motion, she roused herself and stomped on the brake pedal for all she was worth. Tires squealed against asphalt. The smell of burnt rubber would have choked her if she’d been able to breathe. The engine of the vehicle behind her revved even louder, and with another jolt, she was hurtled into oncoming traffic. What was this nut’s problem?

Anger seared through Carrinne’s panic. Maggie’s face flashed before her eyes. No way was it going to end like this, with some hick turning her into roadkill when she finally had a legitimate shot at getting her second chance.

Remembering the emergency brake at the last minute, she pulled the lever at her elbow, wincing as the car spun sideways. She watched in horror at the sight of a red pickup barreling down Crabapple, headed straight toward the intersection and her passenger door. She braced for impact, lifting her arms to protect her face.

The roar of metal shredding metal drowned out her cry. Then everything blessedly faded to black.



ERIC CHECKED the wall clock again. Ten minutes after three.

He pushed back from his desk and the stack of paperwork he’d been mulling over since noon. Reaching for his coffee mug, he found it empty and growled. He’d already filled the thing twice. When was the jarring brew going to clear his head?

Normally he’d be anywhere but the office on a Saturday afternoon. Since winning his bid for sheriff a little over a year ago, he’d fought tooth and nail to keep his weekends free. His appearance this morning had been so rare, you’d have thought from the looks on the faces of the officers he’d passed that they’d seen a ghost.

Maybe they had. This was exactly where his father had spent every single Saturday. And Eric had sworn he’d do it differently. That he’d have a life outside this place.

He shouldn’t have come in.

Where he should be was home in bed, since focusing on anything for longer than five minutes was impossible. But his attempts to sleep after finally leaving Carrinne in Tony’s capable hands last night had met with one dead end after another. First by his neighbor’s dog, which had barked all night. Then a telemarketer had called just after nine, offering him the opportunity of a lifetime to buy into a fabulous Gulf Shore timeshare. And each time he’d drifted off, his thoughts had returned to Carrinne and all the reasons he should leave her alone as she’d asked—regardless of his need to help. So he’d thrown on jeans and a T-shirt and headed in.

Staring with disgust at the overdue reports his chief deputy, Angie Carter, had been after him for days to complete, he shoved himself out of his chair and headed for the coffee machine in the break room.

A few more years of this, he reminded himself. Just a few more years. He’d make sure Tony was settled, that he could handle himself on the force, then Eric was out of this town. Just like he’d always wanted to be. He’d stuck it out, had been there for his little brother every day of the last seventeen years. He’d used his dad’s contacts in the department to secure training and a spot on the force, and he’d done his best to become a good cop. And maybe, just maybe, he’d done right by Tony along the way.

He’d even run for the position of sheriff so he could keep a closer eye on his kid brother. Plus the salary increase was putting a sizable dent in what was left of their mortgage. But nothing could erase his need to feel a motorcycle between his legs again. The need to put a few hundred miles between himself and everything this town could never be for him. He just wasn’t cut out for small-town community and friendships. He was better off alone.

“Worked it all out of your system?” Tony asked, catching up to Eric at the break room. He was dressed in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt—one of Eric’s favorite T-shirts, as a matter of fact.

“You’re not on ’til five.” Eric poured his brother a cup of coffee after refilling his own.

“You’re not on at all.” Tony looked into the mug Eric held out and pulled a face. He shook his head to pass.

“Didn’t you know living in this place was one of the perks of being the top dog?” Eric sipped a burning mouthful of, hands-down, the worst coffee ever brewed in the town of Oakwood.

“Angie caught me on my way to the batting cages. Said you were holed up in your office, pretending to get your paperwork done. It’s so out of character, you’ve got her worried you’re going postal or something.”

Eric trudged out of the break room. “This town is so small, it’s a wonder I can take a piss without someone phoning you about it.”

“I told her you were just cranky ’cause you have the hots for an old girlfriend who’s giving you the cold shoulder.”

Eric turned back, swallowing his curse. Anyone in the station could pass them in the hall, so he nixed the instinct to vent his sleepless night right then and there. He headed for his office, motioning for Tony to follow. Once inside, Eric slammed the door and rounded on his brother. “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

Tony held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I just call them like I see them. You were in rare form last night. One minute you were a jealous hound dog because a woman you haven’t seen since high school was smiling at me, the next you were hunting me down to drive the very lovely but elusive Ms. Wilmington back to her car.”

“If you said one word about Carrinne and me to Angie, the ass-whipping I gave you when you kept skipping school in sixth grade will seem like a tickle. Carrinne’s got enough trouble without having to deal with rumors flying all over town about—”

“Relax.” Tony sat in a guest chair, his grin now ear-to-ear. “I didn’t say a thing. I wouldn’t do that to Carrinne. Now you, on the other hand…”

“You can still be a brat, you know that?” Resisting the urge to paddle his kid brother, just to see if he still could, Eric settled in his own chair. Coffee spilled over the edge of his mug and burned his hand. “Damn.”

“You should get some sleep.”

“I tried that.” He sipped coffee from his thumb. “Cuddles had different ideas.”

Tony chuckled. “I’m glad that rat lives next to your bedroom window and not mine. Who knew a miniature poodle could make so much noise?”

“Clearly, Mrs. Davis chose the pick of the litter.”

They sat silently while Eric contemplated throwing his weight around at the pound and having Cuddles picked up for disturbing the peace.

“So.” Tony slouched deeper into the chair Eric was pretty sure predated their father’s term as sheriff. “Are you having her tailed?”

“Mrs. Davis?”

A stare was Tony’s only response.

“No, I’m not having Carrinne Wilmington tailed. Why would I?” Eric pushed the coffee aside and tried to focus on the report in front of him. “Brimsley’s agreed not to press charges, so there’s no reason for the department to be involved.”

“Unless, of course, you didn’t buy her story and wanted to help out an old friend before she got herself into even more trouble.”

“Carrinne and I haven’t been friends for a long time.” And that hurt more than it should. “Not since I told her to get out of my life and she obliged.”

“If memory serves, she’s the only female you ever stuck with for longer than two months at a clip. That’s got to count for something.”

Eric dropped the report to the desk. “I offered to help last night. She declined. She’s determined to handle whatever she’s come back to do on her own.”

“And that’s okay with you?”

No, it definitely wasn’t okay.

When had his brother grown up and become so good at reading people? It used to be that the only things Tony paid any attention to were motorcycles and pretty girls. Time was, that was all Eric had cared about, too.

“Hey, Eric?” Angie said over the intercom. “Didn’t you take the call out to the Wilmington place last night?”

“Yeah,” was his monotone reply. He glowered at his brother. Didn’t anyone have anything better to talk about?

“Thought you might like to know. Dispatch got a call. Your break-in suspect just did a three-sixty into oncoming traffic in front of the hospital.”




CHAPTER FOUR


“WILL SHE BE all right?”

“…mild concussion.”

“Why isn’t she waking up?”

“…running some blood tests…under observation until her condition improves…should be coming out of it by now…”

The voices kept pulling at Carrinne, disturbing the peaceful numbness she had no desire to come back from. One of the voices, the deeper one, sounded so familiar. It floated in and out of the disjointed dream playing in her mind.

It had been so long since she’d let herself dream…

The man’s voice belonged to a rugged teenager who had melting brown eyes and could drive a motorcycle like an avenging angel. She was sitting behind him as he raced his Harley down a country highway. Her arms wrapped around his muscled body, she leaned close and let the wind and the rush of danger take her. She was sixteen again, and with him she was wanted and safe. Closing her eyes and resting her cheek against his leather-covered back, she whispered words of love into the wind, knowing he’d never want to hear them, but yearning to say them anyway. He needed her, when no one had ever needed her. And though he didn’t know it yet, he’d given her the most precious gift of all.

They were going to love each other always.

“Carrinne?” He called to her from somewhere that wasn’t the dream. “Carrinne, it’s time to wake up. Can you hear me, darlin’? Wake up for me.”

He wanted her to wake up. And what he wanted became what she wanted, too, just as it had when she was sixteen. Swimming up from her dream, she looked back one last time, down that endless country road. But he was already driving away, the motorcycle just a speck on the horizon.

A sickening throb behind her eyes kept her from running after him. Grounded more firmly in the present with each passing second, she realized she hadn’t really been dreaming at all. Instead, she’d been remembering her first taste of how cruel dreams could be when they crashed head-first into reality.

Pain hit her full-out, yanking her away from the memory of the last ride she and Eric had taken on his motorcycle. The ride on which she’d planned to tell him she was pregnant. But before she could, he’d destroyed everything. He couldn’t deal with having a kid like her in his life anymore, he’d said. He wanted her to stay away from him. Then he’d driven away, taking everything that she’d cared about with him. Everything except Maggie.

Through her closed eyelids, an overhead light shot daggers into her skull. She tried to shade her eyes with her hand.

“Open your eyes, Carrinne.” The voice really did belong to Eric. A very grown-up Eric. “Doctor, I think she’s coming to.”

“What’s going on?” She struggled to make sense of the confusing signals her brain couldn’t seem to process.

A hand pressed her down as she tried to sit up. “You’ve been in an accident. Hold still until the doctor can take another look.”

Blinking, groaning as nausea rolled in her stomach, she’d barely managed to focus on Eric before a man in a white coat appeared.

“I’m Dr. Burns.” He shined a blast of light into each of her eyes. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Carrinne.” She winced. “Carrinne Wilmington.”

“And the day?”

“It’s…um…it’s July…thirteenth or fourteenth.”

“Uh-huh.” He checked her pulse while he studied the display on the machine attached to the pressure cuff on her arm. “Good. Now can you tell me what you remember from this morning?”

Her gaze strayed to Eric. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans rather than his sheriff’s uniform. What had happened? What on earth was he doing here?

His reassuring smile was as unexpected as the touch of his hand, the slight squeeze he gave her fingers.

“Um,” she stuttered, her mind still too full of the past to focus on the doctor’s questions. “This morning…”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Eric prompted. He soothed the inside of her palm with his thumb, something he’d done when they were teenagers.

“I…” Pulling her hand away was nearly impossible, but she managed it. She focused on the doctor. “I was visiting my grandfather… Then I rode the elevator down to the parking deck.”

“And after that?” the doctor asked.

“Nothing…I…I don’t know what happened next.” Concentrating made the throbbing in her head worse. “I was driving out of the deck, and… Someone said something about an accident?”

“At the light turning onto Crabapple.” Eric’s expression darkened. “You ran it and pulled in front of a pickup truck.”

“I…” She rubbed her temple. “I remember a red truck… But that’s not right… There was a van, or a bigger truck behind me…” Why couldn’t she remember? “Was anyone hurt?”

The doctor jotted notes onto a chart. “I hear your car and the truck that hit you are both a mess, but the other driver was unharmed, and you seem to have suffered only a mild concussion—”

“What do you mean a bigger truck?” Eric asked over the doctor. When she only stared, her thoughts still a jumble of mixed images, he took her hand again. “You said there was a van or a bigger truck involved in the accident.”

“I don’t know… I don’t remember…”

“Short-term memory loss is very common with a concussed brain,” the doctor offered.

“It’s just that I know there’s something more.” She hated the way she was clinging to Eric’s hand, but her fingers had a mind of their own and had no interest in letting go. “I wouldn’t have run that light. I know how busy Crabapple is this time of day. And there was—”

She coughed, her breath catching on a light-headed feeling she knew all too well.

“There was a van behind me, or a dark truck—” Another series of coughs worked to clear her lungs as her mind filled with the image of a large vehicle barreling up behind her rental car. “I think someone hit me from behind when I stopped at the light.”

“This other vehicle—” Both of Eric’s hands held hers now. His grip was firm. “What exactly did it look like?”

She tried to answer, if only to ease the awful expression on Eric’s face. But the tightness in her chest had other ideas. Another coughing fit stripped her breath away.

“Excuse me, Sheriff.” The doctor stepped between them to listen to her chest through his stethoscope. Eric dropped her hands and moved away.

“Tell me, Ms. Wilmington,” the doctor said. “Have you been fighting off a flu bug or some other kind of infection?”

“No. Why?” Having a good idea why, she glanced at Eric. His scowl deepened as the doctor started probing the lymph nodes behind her ears.

“Because you’re running a midgrade fever, and your pulse and blood pressure are unusually low,” the doctor replied. “Your lungs are clear, but that cough’s concerning me. Your body’s under some kind of stress that may or may not be connected with the accident.”

She raised a hand to the ache at her temple, fingering the bandage she found there. The nightmare she’d stumbled into last night kept getting worse and worse. “Can I have a word with you alone, Doctor?”

Dr. Burns hesitated for only a second before turning to face a looming Eric.

“Will you excuse us, Sheriff?” He nodded toward the partially closed curtain that separated Carrinne’s alcove from the rest of the ER floor.

“I need more information about the accident,” Eric countered. “If another car was involved—”

“I understand, Sheriff. But that can wait.”

“Not if—”

“The longer we stand here—” the doctor’s hands found the pockets of his lab coat “—the longer it’ll be before we both find the answers we need.”

“Eric, please,” she added. No way could he be here for the conversation she knew was coming.

Eric pinned the doctor with an unblinking, bad-boy stare. To Dr. Burns’s credit, he didn’t budge. With a worried look at Carrinne, Eric turned and left.

Closing the curtain, Dr. Burns returned to the bed. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” She continued to toy with the edge of the bandage, the list of disasters playing havoc with her plans growing by second. “I’m only visiting Oakwood. No one but my grandfather knows about my condition, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“It’s important that I know what we’re dealing with, if I’m going to help you.”

Glancing at the curtain, she sighed. “I was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis about six months ago. That may be what’s causing some of the symptoms you mentioned.”

“I see.” After a slight pause and a professional nod, he scribbled even more notes onto the chart. “Have you had a liver biopsy?”

“A few months ago. I’m in the very early stages, so my symptoms have been mild so far. The doctors wouldn’t have diagnosed it this early if it weren’t for the battery of blood tests they ran at my yearly physical. I’d felt run-down for a few months. At first, they thought it was just stress.”

“Okay. We’ll do some additional lab work to test your enzyme levels. I’ll need your doctor’s name and number so we can compare them to his baseline.” Dr. Burns looked up from the chart. “Have there been any recurring symptoms?”

“The fever you mentioned, and I tire more easily than I used to. The cough only happens every now and then, when I can’t catch my breath.”

“Any weight loss?”

“A little, but I’m working with a nutritionist to design a better diet. I’ve skipped several meals lately, so I’m not exactly where I should be.”

“You must be aware that with your condition, your system absorbs fat less efficiently. Your abnormally low blood pressure and heart rate are symptoms that your body’s not getting the energy it needs. Even though you’re in the early stages of the disease, your stamina will deteriorate without regular meals and rest. The fever’s probably a sign of infection, and the more run-down your body is, the less able it will be to fight off illness.”

“I understand. It’s just been a difficult few days.”

“I’m going to prescribe some antibiotics for the infection.” More notes on the chart. “Are you taking vitamins?”

“Yes. Every morning.”

“Good. Leave the nurse a list. Maybe there’s something more we can suggest to help.” He set the chart aside. Crossing his arms across his chest, he gave her the kind of look doctors always give you when they’re about to say something they know you don’t want to hear. “I’m recommending several days of bed rest until we have the infection cleared up.”

“Here?”

“No. We’ll release you as soon as you’re cleared for the concussion. But I want you doing as little as possible once you’re home. You need to rebuild your strength before things go from bad to worse.”

“But I’m only in town for a few days, and there’s something critical I need to be doing.”

“Then I’d suggest you find someone who can help you with whatever it is. Keep going at the pace you are, and you’ll wind up right back here.”

Carrinne knew he was right. If she pushed her body, she’d only get sicker. But she couldn’t stop looking for her father. Even with Oliver’s help, she might never find the diary, and then her search would only become harder. And the only other person in town she knew well enough to ask for help was—




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