"A what?" There had to be some mistake. This man had to be looking for a different Francine Langdon, or whatever name she went by now.
"Your sister left an infant girl on my client's doorstep. I've been hired to locate Francine now that paternity has been established."
Paternity? Allison was on her feet and throwing things back into her bags. Tomorrow's meeting with the other mobile clinic team leaders for a plan of action for the next round of doctors willing to brave the Amazon jungle was about to become the shortest session in MHI history. Sooner, rather than later, she would be on a plane heading stateside to… she froze mid toss, "Where exactly did my sister leave my niece?"
***
Stunned didn't begin to describe the feelings coursing through Ethan's veins like an IV push. He'd faced irate superiors, belligerent recruits, crazed insurgents, and death, but nothing left him as paralyzed as the thought of fatherhood. "You're sure?"
DJ and his father nodded in synchronized unity.
Of course they did. They'd already told him about the DNA tests. Even if his DNA hadn't been tested, why would any woman who might have slept with one of his brothers go all the way to California to deliver a baby just to bring her back to Texas and pass her off as Ethan's? He looked at the birth certificate in his hand. Francine Langdon. Why didn't that ring a bell? Yeah he liked women, and yes, like most men on leave he enjoyed their company, but it wasn't like he was banging a harem at every opportunity.
No strings, no commitments was SOP. Military pilots made lousy husbands. Most women knew that. At least the ones he'd been with. But damn it, even so he'd always been a gentleman. Always knew the lady's name, what she liked, and always made sure they parted ways on a good note feeling a hell of a lot better than when they'd met.
"Francine," he repeated softly.
The brow over DJ's left eye arched high on his forehead and Ethan knew he'd been busted.
"There was a letter with the birth certificate," DJ said equally softly.
Their father turned his head to look at DJ, a momentary glint of surprise in his eyes.
DJ hefted one shoulder at his dad and then turned to Ethan. "She signed it Fancy."
Fancy. He'd known all along that couldn't be her real name, but she'd never told him anything more. It had been a very long weekend after an extensive and grueling training assignment. All he'd wanted was a few beers, a couple of games of pool, and chance to think of nothing at all, especially the reason for all the training.
She'd come off a break-up with a guy she'd not so affectionately dubbed the King of Asses. One time too many she'd almost done jail time because of the loser's drug habit and she'd finally smartened up and walked away. He'd been under the impression that going it alone had been hard on her. He remembered the night well.
A strawberry blonde with dazzling blue eyes and a southern California tan. Fancy looked a bit too happy when she'd first walked into the bar, as though this hadn't been her first stop, but she could walk a straight line and had a friend at her side. An hour later the friend was nowhere to be found and a squid who'd drunk his own weight in Tequila had his hands all over her. Ten minutes later Ethan was almost out the door when he did a last look over his shoulder. Sure enough, octopus hands was getting more friendly, but this time the blonde strained to pull away.
Ethan wasn't about to stop a legal-age woman from having a good time if that's what she wanted, but there were rules that every decent man followed, even those who had been in the sandbox for a hell of too long a time. No means no, and yes on the heels of too much booze didn't count.
It didn't take more than a few additional seconds to realize, whatever this lady might have said before, she'd had a change of heart now. In a few long strides, he'd crossed the floor and drew to a stop beside the blonde. She was even prettier up close and definitely had crossed the ethical limit for consent. "Sorry I'm late," he said with his best smile.
Eyes wide open, the blonde looked over her shoulder, a flash of fear streaking in her gaze. The buffoon shackling her arms in his beefy grip merely growled.
"You ready for a ride home?" Ethan asked, ignoring the daggers aimed at him by the guy who could see his chance at getting lucky slipping away.
"I, uh." She blinked and looked at him again. Her gaze shot over to the other guy, then quickly turning back to Ethan, she nodded.
Carefully, he eased his hand around her forearm. "Let's go."
Immediately her gaze dropped to his hand and at the same moment, the tension in her body eased. Maybe it was the fact that he'd barely touched her rather than manhandled her like a horny gorilla, or maybe it was just an instinctual thing recognizing he meant her no harm. Either way, she smiled up at him. “Let's."
None too happy about the change in plans, the idiot squid lunged at Ethan and it hadn't taken more than a couple of swings to lay the drunk out cold. A couple of Benjamin Franklins on the bar for the inconvenience and they'd escaped to the parking lot before an all-out Marines vs. Navy brawl exploded.
"You still with us?" his father asked.
Ethan nodded. He felt numb, and not from the painkillers. "I'll get leave."
"The doctor said you could be here another week."
"Doesn't matter."
"Oh yes it does," his father said. "You're not going to do anyone any good if you don't heal right."
"I've got medical orders. I’m supposed to return to Pendleton. Follow-up treatment then therapy."
"When are you due back on base?" DJ asked.
Ethan shook his head. "Soon. I'll talk to my CO. I've got leave coming. No reason I can't do my waiting for therapy time from home." Home. He wiggled his toes and realized he wasn't so worried about his ankle anymore. He had something way more important to figure out.
Chapter Two
The week from hell might just be coming to an end. A good end. At least that's what Allison prayed for. Getting any more information from one Luke Brooklyn Chapman over the phone had been impossible. He did, however, take the time to reassure her that her niece could not be in better care. She wasn't all too sure how good a judge of that he was, but a few minutes on Google told her the former Navy SEAL probably understood human nature better than she did. The only other thing he'd agreed on was to speak to his client and get back to Allison. However long it took for him to call back, it wouldn't be soon enough.
Not that she could do anything with the information even if the man had turned the call around right away. Despite her best intentions, walking out on the MHI didn't prove to be easy. Changes, challenges, a society that functions at the pace of an aged tortoise, and one very sick surgeon kept Allison in country an entire week more than she'd wanted. Then considering there was no such thing as a direct flight from the Amazon jungle to San Francisco, making her way home took days. With only one flight a day out of the small isolated town, like it or not, it took Allison two days and two flights just to get to the capital. Too late for the morning flight out of the country meant a third day until she'd take off for Miami. Storms all along the Eastern Seaboard conspired against her, stranding the aircraft intended to transport her to Dallas at its point of origin. With a bazillion travelers all rearranging their flight plans, days four and five passed before luck turned her way in Dallas when she got the last seat on the last flight to San Francisco.
Finally home, almost two weeks after the world-altering phone call and dead on her feet, playing telephone tag with Brooklyn and her new lawyer had been another thorn in her side. Unwilling to sit and do nothing, she'd unpacked, tossed in a load of wash, and first thing in the morning she'd packed up again and driven down to San Diego. The last place she'd known her sister to be. Or at least for her, the last people she was aware of who even knew her sister and likely her only chance to get at the truth.
Now, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic doing fifty-five miles an hour, her phone rang and the security company's name appeared in front of her. Finally.
"Any news on my sister?" No point in wasting
time on polite how-do-you-dos.
"Wherever she is, she doesn't want to be found. Traditional means of tracking aren't working. She doesn't use credit cards."
Hard to have credit cards without credit.
"No cellphone accounts and hasn't filed a tax return in over five years," he continued.
Honestly, Allison was a bit surprised her sister had ever filed a tax return. "What about my niece?"
"I have an investigator in your area still, I'd prefer any exchange of information be in person."
Well, at least the guy was careful. Not that doctors working overseas were clamoring to impersonate her and steal a child, but still. On the other hand, nothing in that statement revealed if he intended to tell her where to find Francine's little girl. "I'm not home. I'm in San Diego."
"Really?" She could hear the surprise in his voice.
"Really." For no apparent reason the traffic cleared in front of her and she stepped on the gas. The exit to her sister's last known place of residence was only a few miles down the highway. "I don't want to put this off any longer."
"Agreed."
"Really?"
The man on the other end of the line laughed. "Don't sound so surprised."
It was a nice laugh and for the first time she felt like maybe she wasn't in this fight alone. "Sorry."
"I'll text you the number of my guy near LA, maybe he can drive down and meet with you. When you're at a stopping point, give him a call. He'll want to see some ID, but he'll tell you everything you want to know."
"Thank you." A few more hours at most and she'd know where her niece was, and if her luck was changing, maybe she'd even have a lead on her sister.
"I meant what I said the last time we spoke. Brittany really is in excellent hands. You don't need to worry."
Don't worry? He might as well have told her not to breathe. Not until she could bring Fancy's daughter back to San Francisco would Allison even begin to relax. Drawing the call to an end, she pulled off the exit and followed the GPS to the last known address she had for her sister. By the time she'd found a parking spot she'd also spoken with Brooklyn's investigator. Turns out he was in San Diego on some other business and could meet her in thirty minutes. Instead of heading up the stairs to knock on the door, she opted to wait for him at the park across the street. Strategically placed as though put there specifically to give her a direct view of the building, an empty bench called to her.
Working all day in portable tents in hot and humid temperatures with bugs and sounds suitable for a cheap horror flick only to pack up and move down river and do it all over again was exhausting. Yet not once in her seven months did she feel as bone weary as she did from hurrying only to sit here and wait.
At first she kept her gaze on the building across the way and the occasional person moving along the sidewalk. The odds of her sister being one of them were infinitesimal. That was if Allison even recognized her sister. More years had passed living without Francine than living with her. The thought sent chills down Allison's spine and had the hairs on her arms standing on edge.
Rubbing away the chill, she felt a heavy weight drop in her lap. Looking down, Allison saw she was the recipient of a very wet and well-chewed baseball. The deliveryman? A rather shaggy four-footed pup with a lolling tongue sticking out from what looked like a happy grin.
Picking the sodden ball up with two fingers, she scratched his ears with the other hand. "I'm guessing you want to play fetch?"
The dog woofed and lifted a paw. "Okay, you win the cute award for the day." She gave him another scratch and looked around for his owner. Several yards away a man sat on another bench glancing in her general direction. "Is that your person?"
The dog nudged her hand.
"Okay. I get it. Throw now, talk later." Ignoring the slobber, she raised her arm and whirled the ball as far as she could.
The furry mutt took off at a full gallop, and, ball in mouth, trotted to the man at the other bench. The man laughed and rubbed his hand down the animal's back. "I guess that's your person." She watched another moment as the man tossed the ball with way more force than she had, before returning her attention to her phone.
The clock was ticking slowly. Or maybe waiting on an investigator to answer all your burning questions was the same as watching a pot of water not boil. Perhaps if she watched the man and his dog playing catch… Even at this distance he was easy on the eyes. And had a good arm. She wished she could hear his laugh. And wasn't that just ridiculous. In a few hours she'd be back on the road home and the guy and his dog would be long gone. Probably home to a wife and kids.
And what difference did that make? She wasn't in the market for a new man, especially not one hanging out in a park in the middle of the afternoon. No, what she needed was to find out what kind of crazy mess Francine had gotten into now.
***
Ethan would kill for a recliner. He'd tried stretching his bad leg out on the bench. It had worked for a short while. He'd used a wheelchair all week at Pendleton to haul himself all over the base filling out papers and securing leave. Only now, his first day approved for crutches, and it wasn't the hand the doctor was so concerned with that gave him trouble, it was his leg that throbbed and his foot had once again swollen to abnormal proportions. Nothing short of an upended cloud would ease the pain.
With hours to kill until his flight to Texas, waiting here in hopes of seeing Fancy was probably not the smartest thing he'd ever done, but hanging around the base or the airport wouldn't accomplish anything either. He was actually a little surprised he so easily remembered the way to the last place he'd seen her.
It certainly had been one hell of a few days. Not until he was pulling out of the bar parking lot with a very tipsy passenger did he realize the blonde beauty had nowhere to go. At first he'd thought she was simply too drunk to remember but too soon he realized her memory wasn't the problem. Two hours and several cups of coffee later he'd heard the entire story of the jackass she'd lived with, listened to her leave a multitude of messages with friends in search of a place to crash. Finally, he concluded the only way either of them would get any sleep tonight was if she came home with him. It wouldn't be the first time he'd given up a comfortable bed and crashed on a sofa, and most likely wouldn't be the last.
He'd awoken the next morning to the smell of bacon sizzling and coffee brewing. Not a bad reward for sleeping on the too short couch. By the end of the day most of her friends had responded with one reason or other why she couldn't crash at their place. Ethan had a feeling most weren't very good friends at all, and he'd done his best to distract her disappointment with a whirlwind day of So-Cal tourism. The day of fun and frolic had continued into the night—and his bed. The next day one friend had extended Fancy a lifeline, but somehow she'd spent another two nights with him before he'd brought her here.
A furry mutt that looked like an awkward mix between several breeds ranging from husky to shepherd to something with silky fur sat at his side and nudged his hand.
"Where did you come from, fella?"
The dog dropped a slobbery ball in his open palm and reflexively Ethan tossed it into the open field. At least playing with the mutt would make the time pass a little faster waiting for Fancy's friend to show up. Except instead of bringing the ball back to him, the friendly canine trotted off to greener pastures. So intent on the apartment across the street and the wheels churning in his own mind, Ethan hadn't even noticed when the woman and her dog had arrived.
A car door slammed and Ethan shot his attention across the street to the little red car. A big hulking guy, the driver clearly wasn't Fancy's friend.
A weight fell into his lap and the same dog sat back on his haunches. Instead of a baseball, Ethan stared at a white bag from a burger joint. "Sharing your lunch?"
"I'm afraid that would be mine." A breathless voice called to him. The dog's owner came trotting up beside him. "Unless you like avocado bacon turkey burgers."
"Thank you, but I'm more of a ste
ak and potatoes man." Forgetting about his injured leg, he instinctively went to stand and groaned at the pain shooting from toe to hip.
"Oh, please. Don't get up." The woman's gaze danced from his foot to the crutches at his side and back to his foot. The cursory glance turned more serious. "You really should have that leg elevated above your heart."
"Yes. Nurse?"
"Doctor."
Ethan winced. "Ouch."
"Seriously, you need to at least lean it up on the bench here."
"No. I mean my aunt would have my hide for making such a stupid presumption. My sister the lawyer would be in line behind her."
The lady had a very pretty smile and a sweeter laugh. "Apology accepted. But you really—"
"Should get the leg elevated. Yes. I'm just killing time until I have to catch a plane tonight. When I get home that same aunt is going to make damn—excuse me—darn sure that I follow doctor's orders to the letter."
"I like your aunt. So will your doctor. But if you're going to be flying with that leg you should make sure to hydrate well and it won't hurt to take some aspirin or ibuprofen now and again before catching the flight. Thrombosis is a risk for anyone when flying, worse for someone in your condition."
"Yes, ma'am." Ethan nodded. His doctor had told him exactly the same thing. Before he could say another word he spied the man from the red car standing several yards away, scanning the park.
The pretty brunette followed his gaze and spotted the man. "Oh, I think that's who I'm waiting for." She grabbed the white bag. "Take care of that leg."
Ethan nodded again and watched her back as she hurried toward the man, the dog trotting at her heels. "Lucky guy."
Another door slammed, and once again Ethan turned his attention to the street. A gangly teen exited the car, and siphoned the air from Ethan's lungs. It wasn't like he'd really expected this rudimentary stake-out to be profitable, and yet, disappointment coursed through him. Which begged a new question—what the hell would he do if the next person to step out of a car actually was Fancy?
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