The Secret Father (The Calvert Cousins 1)

by Anna Adams

  He surveyed the hardwood trees nestled among pines on the ridge across the wide road. Yellow and orange seemed to weight the leaves, dropping them to the ground. Cold was coming. Even the tardiest tourists would soon abandon their leaf peeping.

  He breathed in a lungful of air absorbing the scent of several Bardill’s Ridge fireplaces pressed into early service. It was a smell he remembered from his own childhood—one that represented the continuity he craved. He’d come home six years ago, feeling as if he’d failed, instead of completing his duty in the Navy, as if he hardly deserved to live.

  The pattern of life among his family and overly interested neighbors had helped him begin to believe in himself. Why not believe in Evan, too? A boy could love this town. It was Evan’s heritage as much as Lily’s or any other Calvert’s, and Olivia seemed eager to help their child feel at home here.

  Even Helene had been semiapproachable today. “Your mom’s in a good mood,” he said to Lily. She’d hardly harassed him at all for being late.

  “She was talking to someone on the phone when you got here. She was mad before that.”

  “Oh.” He hadn’t meant to fish information out of his little girl. He turned Evan and Lily toward the slightly peeling front door. “You all stay close to me inside, okay?” Some of Henderson’s wares might be dangerous to a boy who usually shopped in department stores.

  “What kind of seeds are we buying?” Evan asked.

  “Feed,” Lily said with a touch of importance, because she knew better than her brother. “For the deer and the squirrels and the possums and the—what else, Daddy?”

  “Rabbits, I guess, and some chipmunks.” He arched an eyebrow at Evan. “The occasional skunk.”

  “’Cassional?” Evan asked.

  “He means skunks come round once in a while.” Lily made a less than delicate gagging sound. “I hate ’em. They’d be cute, but they stink so bad.”

  “I’ve seen them in movies. I want to see a real one.” Evan pulled on Zach’s hand, itching to charge the stairs. “Let’s hurry.”

  “They aren’t inside.” She tugged back. “Daddy, can I show Evan the whistles?”

  Mike and Tammy stocked carved wooden train whistles and animal calls near the counter. Zach’s uncle Ethan, a cabinetmaker, had made many of them. “Let me ask Mike if he’ll keep an eye on you while I load the feed.”

  “Cool.” Evan stopped struggling.

  Inside, shelves ran floor to ceiling, where a line of old-fashioned fans wafted the pungent smells of seeds and animal feed. Evan stopped for a moment, obviously not a big fan of the strong odors. Lily patted his arm.

  “Stinks almost as bad as a skunk,” she said in a voice full of sympathy. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Everything’s weird down here,” Evan said. “We went to this place to get Dad’s mail and it was dark.”

  Zach was pulling the lollipop out of his pocket as Lily whipped her head around to interrogate him.

  “Did Mrs. Banks give you suckers?”

  “I saved mine.” Evan pulled his out of his pants pocket, too. The stick was all bent, and he blew lint off it. “Dad said we could eat them after we feed the deer.”

  “Is it cold enough to feed the deers yet, Daddy?”

  They usually waited until after the first frost. “We might be a little early, but Evan’s never fed animals outside of a zoo before.”

  “We throw the food down, but the deers hide till we go inside,” Lily said. “But I’ll show ya.”

  Zach handed the lollipop to his daughter and walked past the kids to the counter. “Mike.”

  Mike Henderson turned from doing a crossword puzzle on the other side of the cash register. He pushed his pencil behind his ear. “Hey.” He leaned over the counter to smile at the two upturned faces. “Hello again, Evan. How are you today, Miss Lily?”

  “Hi,” the children chorused.

  “I’m fine, Mr. Henderson, but I need to show Evan your whistles,” Lily said.

  Evan bristled. “I know about whistles.”

  “Not like these ones.”

  Those two were going to duke it out in a power struggle before long. “Mike, do you mind if they hang around here while I—” Zach stopped, noticing the silence in the tin-roofed, wooden-floored building.

  He glanced to the end of the counter where a couple of old codgers lounged in jeans and flannel shirts with fat tobacco wads tucked inside their bottom lips. The Larsen brothers had stopped settling the world’s affairs to gape at his growing family. Sometimes living in a small town worked against you.

  “Go ahead,” Mike volunteered. “We’ll be fine up here.” He leaned back on the squeaking, red vinyl stool his own father had perched on day after day. “Tammy, bring out those apple fritters for Evan and Lily.”

  Zach glanced down the other side of the counter. No one in the store seemed to be interested in planting or feeding all of a sudden. Neighbors he’d known all his life stared at him as if he’d grown a spare head. Or brought home a spare child.

  “Mike, don’t let anyone…”

  “You don’t have to say it. They couldn’t be safer.”

  “Okay.”

  At least he knew all the staring faces. None of the reporters had planted himself in the local feed store. Zach hoisted a sack of deer pellets to his shoulder and hurried out to his car. He loaded the rest faster than he’d ever run this errand in the past.

  He paused only to make sure none of his friends stopped to have a word with Evan. They were well-meaning, but he didn’t want anyone questioning his five-year-old. Maybe he should have given Mrs. Banks more facts to post along the Bardill’s Ridge grapevine.

  He’d finished loading the car as Evan came out of the store with Lily on his tail. “Dad!” Evan’s voice slurred around the edges of a wooden turkey call.

  And Lily was blowing a train whistle behind him.

  “Don’t run with those in your mouth.” He slammed the trunk lid and then reached to pluck both the call and the whistle from between their lips.

  Evan let his call go. Lily held on to her whistle. “Dad, I sound just like a train.”

  “I wanna call turkeys.” Evan clearly craved a pet of any species. “Can I have it?” he begged as the wind pushed light blond hair away from his forehead.

  “Not if you’re going to run with it.” But God, he wanted to give his son a present. And Lily played another train tune, dampening the whistle until even Mike wouldn’t take it back. Helene would kill him. “Lily, the same goes for you.”

  “We’ll only run when we’re holding them in our hands,” Evan promised. His earnest look reminded Zach of James Kendall telling Olivia he had only her best interests at heart.

  “Do you know how to use the call?” he asked.

  “Mr. Henderson showed me how.” Snatching it back, he popped it between his teeth and gobbled, his eyes flinging sparks of pride.

  Zach flinched at the volume. The boy had skill. “You learn quick.”

  “You’ll scare the deer,” Lily said.

  “No, I won’t. Deer aren’t scared of turkeys. They’re both animals.” He tried to gobble again, but something on Zach’s face made him grin. “Don’t make me laugh, Dad.” Zach nodded, but a slightly hysterical note entered Evan’s next gobble. “Can I have it?”

  He might not have a Kendall-type budget, but he could afford the cost of a wooden turkey call. Maybe he should find out how Olivia would feel about Evan calling turkeys in her condo. The heck with common sense. He gave in and encircled them both with his arms as they climbed the steps. “Come with me so I can pay.”

  Evan and Lily heaved the screen door wide, running inside, and Zach turned his head, catching the door just before it would have slapped him in the face. But he noticed a man he didn’t know, leaning against the stanchion at the end of Henderson’s porch.

  Zach stopped. A stranger, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt. Could be a tourist. More likely a reporter—if he judged by the man’s interest in his fam
ily. Zach started toward him, and the guy jumped off the high porch.

  Zach gripped the rail and leaned over the edge of the wooden structure, but the stranger had already disappeared. He waited, scanning the road in both directions, and then the ridge above him. No flash from a camera lens. No sound of voices, even whispering. Sound carried well in the valley beneath Bardill’s Ridge.

  If the guy was a reporter, maybe he’d gotten the message. It didn’t seem likely. He’d be wise to hurry out to the B&B for Olivia and then run Evan and Lily up to his house—hopefully out of camera range.

  Feeling jumpy, he crossed the porch, listening to the echo of his own footsteps. His instincts weren’t always reliable since the accident. Something in those empty years sometimes pressed him to take action against a threat that didn’t exist.

  “Dad,” Evan bellowed, as close as Zach had ever seen him to being a perfectly normal kid.

  Forget about the reporters. Focus on the children. Zach pushed inside the store. Evan and Lily dragged him back to Mr. Henderson’s pocked aluminum counter.

  Lily slapped her small hands on the surface. “Dad has to give you some dollars, Mr. Henderson. My brother wants that turkey thing, and I need this whistle.”

  “You taking the boy hunting, Zach?”

  “No,” he said, before Evan could get excited about the idea.

  Evan had his own ideas about wildlife. “I won’t kill no turkeys,” he said. “You don’t kill turkeys, do you, Mr. Henderson?”

  “Not a chance.” The older man smoothed his overall bib over a portly belly. “I say we ban guns in this county and save all the turkey and deer and skunks as long as folks like you and your sister and dad buy your feed from me.”

  Evan and Lily giggled. Zach bent to examine the porch through the gleaming windows while Mike rang up his bill. No one came up, but he couldn’t see the road. “What do I owe you, Mike?”

  The other man pointed at the total on his cash register. “You’ve got the wind up, Zach.”

  “I’m probably wrong.” He’d rather not scare the kids, but he didn’t want their faces all over the evening news or the late paper. He fished his wallet from his back pocket and counted out the dollars Lily had talked about. Tapping his wallet on the counter, he waited while Mike figured his change and Evan gobbled and Lily whistled.

  Mike’s other patrons couldn’t even pretend to be interested in their own business now. All interest turned to the smallest customers.

  Zach herded the children toward the screen door, but stepped in front of them at the last minute. Halfway across the porch with Evan and Lily in his wake like ducklings, he stopped. A sea of faces and cameras waited below. Rage blew through his head at the bastards who kept chasing down his children. He counted without thinking. Their numbers made them more of a small pond than a sea, but who the hell wanted to stalk babies for a living?

  Zach walked the children back to the store’s doors, out of camera range and took his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. He dialed Olivia’s number and she answered on the first ring.

  “Reporters.” He moved Lily out of the way as Mike opened the door behind her.

  “Where?” Olivia needed no explanation.

  “At the feed store. I won’t come back for you. They’d just follow us. Do you remember the way to my mom’s house?”

  “I think so.”

  Conversation rising behind Mike’s screen drew his gaze. The inquisitive Bardill’s Ridge farmers were spilling onto the porch.

  “Dad?” Lily sounded scared.

  “You’re fine.” He hugged her tight.

  Evan also looped his arm around his sister’s shoulder. “I can handle it. Don’t worry. We’ll just do what Dad tells us.”

  Even pissed as all get-out, Zach fought a lump in his throat, grateful and appalled at the same time for Evan’s maturity, his instant inclination to protect his sister. He held on to both children, but spoke to Olivia. “Ask Aunt Eliza the way to Mom’s house to make sure, and ask her if you can borrow her car. Meet us at Mom’s, and then I’ll take you all home to my place. They won’t find us out there if I can get out of their sight before we leave town behind.” He knew a couple of back roads.

  “Don’t drive crazy with Lily and Evan.”

  “Olivia,” he said. As if she had to caution him. “I’m going to call Sherm as soon as I get in the car. He may be able to run interference.”

  The men from the store had also begun to ease around him and the children.

  “Sherm?” Olivia said.

  “One of my deputies. Get going.”

  As he hung up, he slid in front of Evan and Lily, while his neighbors began their slow, threatening march down the steps as if to confront the reporters who refused to back off. The advantages of small-town, family feeling. This was why he’d come home. People looked after each other.

  “Mike,” Zach said, grateful but fearing he might have to arrest his own rescuers if he didn’t stop them. “I’m calling Sherm.”

  “If you think we can’t handle it.” Mike planted himself in front of the guy Zach had first seen on the porch. “I think we can.”

  He’d like to handle a few of them himself. His arm and leg muscles jumped in anticipation. “Stop and think about the situation. Let’s not ask for any more trouble.” He sure didn’t want to expose Lily and Evan to a riot. “I’m going to drive the children away, and these jokers will all disperse.” He lifted his voice on the last word, offering it as a suggestion.

  “We won’t touch them unless they try to barge after you, and no judge in these hills is going to take these boys’ part against us.”

  He had a point. Zach wasted no more time. “Thanks.” He lifted both children. “Let’s move.”

  Evan tucked his face into Zach’s shoulder. Lily saw and followed suit. “You’re well-trained, Evan.” Zach’s temper fired up again because his son had been forced to learn how to avoid the media.

  “Grampa says to keep my face private,” Evan said, his voice muffled.

  Camera shutters clicked, and Lily whimpered. Zach held her even tighter and thanked God he’d left his car doors unlocked. He checked the back for stray reporters before he put the children inside. Lily climbed into her booster seat, shaking her hair in front of her face.

  “I’ll buckle it, sister,” Evan said.

  “Make sure it’s tight,” Zach said, “and then put on your seat belt.”

  The townsfolk had managed to contain the reporters and Zach started the car. Gravel sprayed as he peeled out of the lot. Not one reporter escaped the crowd of his neighbors.

  “Lily, you all right?”

  “Yeah, Daddy.” But she sounded dazed, and tears dampened her green eyes.

  Evan patted her shoulder with a little too much force, as Zach reached back and tugged on the protective shield on her booster seat. “Thanks for fixing that, Evan. We’ll be at Grandma Beth’s soon,” he said.

  “And you can play with Spike,” Evan told his sister. “And maybe we’ll build another log house with my mom.”

  Now that the danger had passed, he could almost hate his son’s maturity. Evan had a long time to be all grown up. He shouldn’t have had to start before he was five.

  “I thought we’d all go home and scatter food for the animals,” Zach said.

  Evan nudged Lily again. “See? We’re going to have fun. You don’t have to cry.”

  “Not crying,” she said. She lifted her whistle and blew a weak blast. Evan answered with a turkey gobble that sounded like a bird with asthma.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” Zach said. Helene was going to kill him when she heard about this. For once he might deserve it. He should have been more vigilant—should have picked up the feed himself and then picked up the children.

  Evan and Lily made stronger efforts on their purchases and eased his guilt a little, but Zach didn’t feel better until he turned the last curve through the shrubbery at his mom’s house.

  She flew out of the house, worry all over he
r body. After he parked, she jumped into the back seat and hauled Lily and Evan into a big hug.

  “My poor grandbabies. Come inside. Spike and I made you some hot chocolate. You need to warm up.”

  “It was scary,” Lily said, still spooked, “but look.” And she whistled so loud Zach and his mom reeled out of the car.

  He’d have to remember to caution her about busting eardrums later. He unlatched her booster seat and his mom helped her out. Zach opened Evan’s door.

  “Thanks, buddy,” he said, leaning in. “You took good care of your sister.”

  Evan pulled his call from his mouth as he clambered out, his gaze mystified as if he didn’t understand the big deal. “I love her, Dad.”

  Zach’s eyes burned. His mouth trembled as if he were the young girl. For a second, he saw Salva, passing around pictures of her newborn daughter in a class they’d both attended about a year after she’d left the Academy. Zach dropped to his knees in the gravel and hugged his boy tight. “I love you, Evan.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE AUTUMN SUN WAS straight up in the sky as Olivia eased Eliza’s old but obviously beloved car around Beth’s overgrown shrubbery. As desperate as she was to see her son, he was with his father, and she wasn’t about to scratch a vehicle that belonged to one of Evan’s new aunts.

  She peered greedily up the driveway at the house. Zach was kneeling in the gravel, hugging Evan. Fear jetted through Olivia’s body.

  Had something happened to her son? Had she been crazy to trust a man who took bank robbers apart with his bare hands, whose ex-wife claimed he didn’t know how to commit? What if he couldn’t even commit to taking care of their son properly? Helene’s fears about Lily certainly hadn’t matched Zach’s explanation of her concerns.

  Olivia hit the gas. As rocks spewed behind her, Zach rose, shoving Evan behind him, and his mom straightened on the other side of the car. Olivia slammed on the brakes, stopping at the top of the hill. She threw the door open and ran to her son, taking quick inventory of Beth and Lily, who stared at her openmouthed.

  Olivia tried to sound calm to keep from scaring Lily. “Are you all right, Evan?”