The Secret Father (The Calvert Cousins 1)

by Anna Adams

Ceramic cow creamers and cookie jars and a collection of flower-strewn teapots littered the shelves and the window ledges with homey clutter. “Thanks for having us.” Olivia took care of manners first.

  “I’m glad you came.”

  Olivia was surprised anyone ever willingly left Beth’s house. “Did something else happen? That you have to tell us about?”

  “Your father called.”

  Olivia stopped smiling. She should have known he’d try someone else when she refused to pay attention. “I’m sorry. I guess this is why he’s king of the newshounds, but I should have picked up his messages. I’ll make sure he doesn’t—”

  “He didn’t bother me.” Beth included Zach in her gaze. “Admiral Gould called him.”

  Olivia turned to Zach. His skin had paled. Something in his past remained to torture him, whether he admitted the pain or not.

  “Can I use your phone, Mom?”

  “Sure.”

  Both women waited, Olivia feeling as if she should leave the room. Zach jabbed a number into the phone, and after a moment, said, “I’ll call you later, when I’m at home.” He waited long enough to hear an answer. “Nothing’s changed. Same story.” He glanced at Olivia, his eyes troubled, yet somehow warm. “I explained, and I’ll tell her. No, don’t worry.” And he hung up.

  Olivia crossed the linoleum floor, laying her hand on his forearm before she considered whether she should. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. He just wanted to know if I planned to talk to the journalists.” He looked over her at his mom. “None of us is talking to them.” He turned back to Olivia, covering her hand with his. She liked his touch so much she nearly pulled away. “And he asked me to apologize to you. If he’d known about the baby, he would have told your father the truth.”

  She lifted her head, smiling though it hurt to. “Thanks.”

  “Speaking of your father…” Beth’s reluctance was obvious.

  Olivia held her breath. It was bound to be a set of instructions.

  “He said to tell you he fired the butler.”

  “Oh.” She slid her free hand inside her jacket pocket and closed her fingers around her cell phone, often her only physical tie to her dad. “What a relief.”

  Zach and Beth shared matching puzzled gazes.

  “He wasn’t lying,” Olivia said, “when he claimed the butler leaked the story. I hate being lied to.” And should she offer them any soap with that heaping helping of her family’s dirty laundry? Moving toward the living room, she avoided the compassion that smoothed Zach’s sharp features. “I’m dying to build a log house.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE DAY AFTER they made cookies at Beth’s house, Evan and Olivia shared breakfast in her room over a picture book about dinosaurs. A knock on the door interrupted them.

  “Hold on.” Olivia pushed her napkin into the book to mark their place. “That’s probably your dad.”

  “And Lily?” Evan’s hopeful little face wrung her heart.

  “I doubt it,” she said gently. “Her mom will probably want to spend time with her today.” Olivia climbed off the bed, tucking her pajama T-shirt over the top of her flannel pants. She’d never liked robes and her pj’s covered as much as sweats would, but she felt in need of a cover-up.

  She padded across the thick carpet, took a breath and opened the door. It was Zach. Olivia tried not to notice the way his dark leather belt accentuated a narrow waist lovingly surrounded by faded denim.

  Olivia’s mouth dried. “No uniform today?” she asked.

  He’d shown up yesterday dressed as the sheriff, because he’d had to work a shift after he’d taken Lucy home. The jeans made him look more raw, more dangerously like the man she remembered. She’d hardly ever seen him in uniform.

  He tugged at the loose knit of his long-sleeved olive T-shirt. “I asked my deputy to take over for a long weekend.”

  Olivia digested the news. She shouldn’t be so glad to see him. Evan, plagued by no qualms, yelped from the depths of the puffy comforter. “We get you the whole time, Dad? What’s a long weekend?”

  “Four days.” Olivia felt herself blushing, but she couldn’t help a weakness that seemed to be growing stronger. She liked being with Zach and Evan.

  “Four days?” Evan asked. He lifted his hand and counted. “One—three—four. No— One—two—th— One—two—three—four.”

  Zach grinned, and Olivia had to smile. “His math gets a little rusty when he’s excited.”

  Zach’s gaze clung to her as if something on her face kept him from looking away. She lifted her hands, feeling for a smudge. He caught her wrists, and the concentration in his gaze deepened until she forgot to breathe. At last he curved his fingers possessively around hers and pulled her hands down without saying anything.

  He turned to Evan, but Olivia felt dizzy. He’d touched her as if he had a right, and she’d forgotten to remind him he didn’t. She’d forgotten she shouldn’t feel the way she had in the past. Fighting for poise, she focused on his conversation with Evan.

  “I thought you might like to see the aquarium in Chattanooga,” Zach said. “They have this path that takes you through the whole Tennesseean ecosystem.”

  “Huh?”

  Olivia worked her hardest to conceal a grin, but Zach just cupped the back of Evan’s head, and hugged him. “You walk down a path that makes you feel like you’re outside. The trees and the flowers change as if you were following the Tennessee River from the mountains all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Is that fun?”

  “Too much fun,” Zach said.

  “Oh, yeah!”

  “Evan, careful of the tray.” Olivia dashed across the room, imagining Calvert gossip about Kendall crumbs in the bed. “Maybe we should have eaten at the table.”

  “We’re picnicking,” Evan told his dad. “You want some toast? Mom ate the muffin, and the crescents are all in here.” He puffed out his belly and pounded with true, masculine pride.

  “I’ll have a piece of toast if you have any to spare,” Zach said. “What kind of jelly do you have left?”

  “Just this yucky orange stuff.” Evan lifted the small jar of marmalade vigilantly as if it might bite him.

  Zach helped himself, laughter in his eyes, and Olivia decided against helping her son pronounce “croissant.” That could wait.

  Zach’s plans pushed every other thought out of her head. Did he expect to take Evan to Chattanooga by himself? “What time do you think you’ll have Evan back here?”

  Zach looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” He wiped marmalade off the corner of his mouth pressing one thumb to his lip in a precise, curiously male gesture that left her aching to help him with the smear of preserves.

  Breathing grew difficult again. She was going to have to tell Brian he’d been wrong in his article that claimed women didn’t respond to visual stimuli.

  “Olivia?”

  Her inappropriate response to him had to be as obvious as hell. “I thought you might want Evan to yourself.”

  “I thought you might both be ready for a break from the Calvert horde.”

  She might have been before she’d discovered she could want him simply because of the way he wiped marmalade off his mouth. “It’s a long drive, isn’t it?”

  A chill came into his gaze. He moved so that Evan couldn’t see his face. “You don’t have to join us.”

  On any other man, that look would mean rejection, but she already had plenty of experience reading Zach wrong. The time might be right to cultivate a new approach.

  Maybe he was offended because she’d sounded reluctant. She was only reluctant because she kept seeing the Zach she’d loved in him. But forget about self-preservation. She should go with them because he was still too new to Evan to send them on their own.

  “Come on, Mom.” Evan decided for her. “Ya gotta see the fishies.”

  She glanced from her pleading son to Zach, who’d become decidedly noncommittal. “I’m a sucker for turtles.”
Who cared for caution? Besides, her son had invited her. “And I read in a brochure on Eliza’s desk that there are seahorses, too.”

  Cheering again, Evan took another bounce on the bed, while Zach smiled as if he was glad to have her along. “Good,” he said.

  Olivia felt inappropriately happy. She was along for the maternal part of this ride. Nothing more.

  “If you’re finished with breakfast, Evan, put your book away. We’d better change clothes.”

  He leaped for the open door to his room, and Olivia started toward her bathroom, but Zach cut her off.

  His scent, spice and grown male, washed their past over her in a series of high-speed memories—simple moments when they’d gazed at each other across clasped hands, heated hours when his lingering touch had made her believe he was claiming her for all time. Carefree times, like the day they’d carved their initials in his Halloween pumpkin and somehow both survived, fingers intact.

  “Why are you smiling?” Zach’s soft tone made her feel warm.

  She backed away from him, opening her closet to search for clothes. “Just thinking.” He wouldn’t want the details. However he’d felt then, his concern was for Evan now.

  He came after her. Taking her hand, he turned her to face him. “I would have invited you if Evan hadn’t.”

  What did he mean? She tried to read the emotion in his eyes, but she didn’t trust herself. She didn’t even have the nerve to ask.

  The explanation hit her with painful force. He was trying to be friends. He didn’t want another messy relationship like the one he had with Helene. He liked her well enough. She could tell that much, but she’d be crazy to assume he felt anything more than gratitude to her for asking him to be part of Evan’s life.

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I’ll be a minute.”

  Composing herself, Olivia put on jeans and a sweater. After she brushed her teeth, she leaned into Evan’s room. Cross-legged on the floor, he and Zach seemed to be engrossed in deep conversation.

  For a shocking moment she wanted to know what they were talking about. Seeing her son so willing to attach himself to his father became more difficult as her feelings for Zach tried to resurface. She wiped perspiration born of shame from her upper lip.

  “Ready?” She strove for a bland tone.

  Neither of them noticed anything amiss as they sprang to their feet and went into the hall. She must be a better actress than she thought. She locked both rooms and then clattered down the stairs several steps behind Zach and Evan. Eliza looked up from doing paperwork at the reception desk.

  “Off to play?” she asked.

  “In Chatta—” Evan consulted his father. “Where, Dad?”

  “Chattanooga.” Zach reached for one of the brochures on Eliza’s desk and handed it to Evan. “To the aquarium. The pictures will show you what it’s like, son.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it, Evan. So many things to see. I wish I could close up and go with you.”

  “You can,” Evan said politely.

  “Gotta work.” His great-aunt leaned over her desk. “But thanks for the invite.”

  “How about Grandma Beth, Dad?”

  “I think Grandma Greta locked her up for the day.”

  Evan was clearly appalled. “Not in your jail?”

  “No, at Grandma Beth’s house. They’re planning that party I told you about, the anniversary party.”

  “Oh. Then she’ll let Grandma Beth out sometime. Maybe we should go see them.” He grabbed his dad’s hand. “And make sure my grandma’s okay.”

  “You don’t have to worry about her. She’d call us if she needed help.” With his free hand, Zach held one of the front doors, and Olivia and Evan passed in front of him. Knowing Evan’s propensity for darting into trouble, Olivia grabbed his shoulder.

  Her protective grasp made him forget his grandmother’s plight. “Mom.” He tugged, escaping her, and then skipped down the sidewalk toward Zach’s car.

  “Evan, don’t run into the street.”

  He looked back at Zach as if to say “See what I have to put up with?”

  Zach laughed, and Olivia was tempted, but just then a rumbling like a fleet of battle tanks rose from the direction of the square. Slowly, a massive mobile home nosed into their street.

  Gleaming silver-and-metallic-blue, as large as a blimp, it must have room to sleep a Cub Scout troop. Antennas of all shapes and sizes bristled on its roof.

  “Oh, no.” Olivia suffered a genuine and profound sinking feeling. She’d bet her last word processor her father was driving the overgrown toy.

  “Man,” Zach said.

  “Dad,” Olivia corrected him.

  “Grampa? When’d he get that, Mom?”

  “He probably ordered it the second we left home.” She glanced back at the B&B, hoping Zach’s aunt Eliza wouldn’t see her dad’s showpiece. Zach’s family would surely despise hers before long. “What next?”

  “You have to admit it’s big,” Zach said.

  “Everything about my father is big except his sense of tact. I can’t believe he’d follow us.”

  “Can I have one of those, Mom? When I’m old enough to drive? I’d look really cool.”

  “You can probably have that one. Grampa will get tired of it by then,” Olivia said with reckless ill humor.

  As the mobile home drew close enough to reveal the driver, she recognized her father. Naturally, he couldn’t trust Jock or Ian to drive his brand-new leviathan. He couldn’t fit the thing in the street’s angled parking, but Ian opened the door and dropped loose-limbed through it. Jock followed him, limping a bit on landing. Olivia shook her head as the two bodyguards directed her father into about eight parking spaces.

  “Can’t you ticket him for that?” she asked Zach.

  He didn’t even glance her way. “I don’t think so. Don’t you already have enough family trouble?”

  “Mom.” Evan danced in front of her. “Does this mean we don’t get to go see the fishies?”

  “Maybe not today,” she said. “We have to figure out where Grampa can stay.”

  “We have a park, just to the west of town.” Zach started toward the huge vehicle. “Give him a break, Olivia. He’s worried about you.”

  She stumbled over perfectly smooth pavement, feeling as if he’d patted her on the head and suggested she get over it. “I could use a backup. He’s interfering, and your family’s going to think we’re nuts.”

  “They’ll know you care about each other. Why did you come with Evan? You want to make sure your child is with good people. Your father’s no different.”

  “I’m twenty-seven years old, Zach.”

  He turned back, looking her up and down. He started with amusement in his gaze, but slowly, languor clouded his eyes as he acknowledged each curve, each nerve that quivered in the wake of his glance.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, in a huskier tone. “I forgot. You are all grown up.”

  An independent, self-supporting, completely-not-in-need-of-a-man-to-make-her-whole woman should have been offended. Instead, Olivia stood stock-still, trying not to tremble.

  JAMES COULDN’T SEEM to understand why Zach couldn’t allow him to appropriate several parking spots. Zach tried to explain, with an eye on Evan, who’d forgotten both his parents and the trip to Chattanooga because he had so much room to search for fun at Grampa’s new place.

  “You can make an exception for me, Zach. You’re in charge of this town.” Completely without shame for the trouble he’d caused Olivia and Evan so far, James Kendall tried to flatter his way into getting the favors he expected as his due.

  “You know, our mayor thinks he actually runs Bardill’s Ridge,” Zach said. “And you can’t park here because it’s illegal.”

  “Tomorrow starts the weekend. You won’t need all these extra spaces for business people.” Kendall’s sidelong glance toward the square suggested there would never be enough professionals in Bardill’s Ridge to use up the available parking.

  �
��People park here while they shop on the weekends, and the people who stay at the B&B use these spaces, too.”

  “The Dogwood.” James looked pleased with himself. “Owned by one Eliza Calvert, whom I assume is some relation to you. I already know Bardill’s Ridge like the back of my hand. I’ve made it my business in the past few days.”

  His business? Zach hated the possibility of offending Olivia, but he had to back James Kendall down on the dictator wattage. Evan’s voice, whooping with joy over a video game inside, made him hesitate. Evan idolized his grandfather.

  “Dad, you and everyone else with a TV or a newspaper knows this town now.” Olivia spoke in a low tone, punctuated by Evan’s descriptions of a TV and computers and a bowl of his favorite candy bars. “Why are you here?”

  “You’re my daughter. I didn’t want you to think I told anyone to talk to the press. I took what you said to heart and I tried to call the whole thing off.”

  James flashed Zach a look, as if he was suggesting the sheriff-turned-traffic-cop should offer his family privacy. Besides a tendency not to take orders well, Zach found he couldn’t leave Olivia to face her father alone. She felt James had betrayed her, and Zach was too aware of letting her down himself to walk away.

  “Sir,” he said, “you may not have instructed your employee to talk to the press, but your presence here means the journalists will stay.”

  “Your presence in my daughter’s life brought them here in the first place. If you’d done the right thing, and by that I mean keeping your hands off her, none of us would be facing this problem.”

  Zach couldn’t argue. He couldn’t remember Olivia at twenty-one, but he’d probably had no business getting involved with any woman until he’d finished his training. He was more responsible than that. Why hadn’t he talked to anyone else about her? His silence had forced Olivia into a solitary pregnancy and five years of single motherhood. “You may be right.”

  “Dad.” Impatience splintered Olivia’s tone. “Stop trying to throw the blame on Zach. You’re going to make this worse because no one will find a hotter story while you’re lurking.”

  The two Kendalls squared off. They were well-suited for a family battle. James turned her away from Zach. “I don’t want you to go through this by yourself. I know you hate it when I try to help you, but Evan has been my responsibility all these years as well, and you’ll always be my daughter.”