The Unknown Daughter. Anna DeStefano
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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