A Child Changes Everything Read online

  He gave her the address of Carolyn’s nursing home and the hotel where he was staying.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve made arrangements with the hospital,” she said. It might mean asking for more time off, but whatever it took, she’d be on the road the day after tomorrow. “Mason, one last thing—”

  “You’d like to know if you have any other family. I can’t answer that, but if it’ll help, I’ll go with you when you visit her.”

  Had he discovered something in Melbourne that he didn’t want to tell her over the phone? He’d warned her that she might not like what she found out, hadn’t he? She held the phone even tighter.

  Could she face this on her own? When her father had died she’d had her mother, and when her mother had become ill and then passed away, she’d had her mother’s caregiver and her friends. But now she felt very much alone and unequipped to deal with everything.

  Mason was the only person she knew in Florida. Having him with her would make it easier.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d go with me,” she said, taking a deep breath.

  “You got it. I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, his reassuring voice comforting her.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Lisa stood beside Mason outside the Palmetto Bayside Nursing Home, her hands clammy as she tried to quell her anxiety. She’d driven most of the night to get from North Carolina to Florida. During the long hours, she’d been consumed by one idea—what if her mother hadn’t contacted her in all these years because she didn’t want to see her?

  But how could she not want to see her daughter? Lisa didn’t say the words out loud. Mason already felt sorry for her; it had been in his eyes, which was more than enough reason not to confide in him. “How do I tell her who I am?”

  “Lisa, you just got into town thirty minutes ago. Why don’t we come back a little later after you’ve had a chance to relax and think about how you want to handle this?” Mason’s gentle tone was in stark contrast to his assessing gaze.

  She’d thought of nothing else in the final hours before she turned off I-95. “No, it has to be now.” Before I lose my nerve.

  A frown formed on Mason’s face. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll wait outside the room while you go in. If you need me, come to the door.”

  “Thank you.” She was aware of the tremor in her voice as she spoke.

  “You’ll be okay,” he said encouragingly, placing his hand on the small of her back as they walked to the main entrance together.

  After they checked in at the reception desk, the aide assigned to her mother led them down the corridor to Carolyn Lewis’s room. The hallway was narrow and cluttered with wheelchairs and walkers. The paint on the walls was chipped and marked, and a faint scent of baby powder and stale urine hung in the air.

  At the door, the aide entered and Mason stepped back, allowing Lisa to follow. “I’ll be right here,” he whispered.

  Apprehension rushed through her. She turned her face up to his. “Wish me luck.”

  He winked at her. “Good luck.”

  Clasping her purse with both hands, she walked in. At first, she wasn’t sure which of the two people was her mother. One woman sat in a wheelchair by the window, while the other lay on her bed, muttering to herself as she read the paper. Lisa hesitated.

  “Mrs. Lewis, you’ve got a visitor,” the aide said, moving toward the woman in the wheelchair.

  Lisa inched forward, her heart thudding. The woman shifted in her chair, pain skidding across her face at the movement. Her gaze was direct as she looked up at Lisa. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lisa.”

  “No… It can’t be. Lisa, is that really you?” Carolyn extended her hands, her long, bony fingers quivering. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

  Lisa’s mouth was suddenly dry. “You’re not. I’m Lisa, your daughter.”

  Joy lit her mother’s expression, her face trans formed by a smile as Carolyn Lewis’s eyes roved slowly over Lisa. “You look so much like your father,” she murmured.

  Relieved that her mother recognized her, Lisa slid into the chair beside her. “I look like my dad,” she whispered. Happiness brought a smile to her face as she took her mother’s hand. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Moving closer, she kissed her mother’s cheek.

  “Yes, there’s so much of your father in you. He had high cheekbones, too—very aristocratic. You have his blue eyes and blond hair.”

  Gently she touched Lisa’s hair. “Oh, my darling daughter, I’ve wanted to meet you for so long. You have no idea what it’s like to live in hope that one day you’ll see your little girl again,” she said, a smile trembling on her lips.

  Words abandoned Lisa as she met her mother’s eager gaze.

  Carolyn appeared much older than Lisa had envisioned. With her gray-streaked hair pulled up in a bun and her face devoid of any makeup, she looked aged, worn-out. As much as she hated herself for doing it, Lisa couldn’t help comparing Carolyn with her immaculately groomed adoptive mother, who had never missed a hair or manicure appointment.

  Yet as she sat there, studying this woman who held her past, the words slipped out. “Why didn’t you come for me? Why did you leave me alone all these years? I needed you—”

  Carolyn softly stroked Lisa’s cheek, her eyes alight with love and caring. “I couldn’t. I promised your parents I wouldn’t try to contact you if they’d provide a good life for you.”

  “But why did you give me up? Surely you had family to turn to after my dad died.”

  “I had no brothers or sisters, and my parents were gone. My sister-in-law, your aunt Helen—God rest her soul—did what she could to help me.”

  Her mother pulled Lisa’s hands into her lap. “Let me explain. I was four months pregnant when we had the accident. Your father died after a week in the hospital, and I nearly lost you from the trauma. Then I spent months trying to regain the use of my legs.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lisa said, squeezing her mother’s fingers.

  “They were expensive months, and not only that, I suffered permanent physical damage. I couldn’t pay the hospital bills or put bread on the table. Even with insurance there were still extra medical bills to pay, plus funeral expenses, and we had very little in savings. I would’ve found a way to keep you if I’d been able to work, but it wasn’t possible.”

  Overcome with a sense of regret, Lisa glanced away, her eyes coming to rest on several photographs that stood on the windowsill behind her mother. “Do I have…family?”

  “You have an older sister, Anne Marie.” Her mother reached for a framed photo on the window ledge and passed it to Lisa. Smiling at the camera was a tall woman with short brown hair and glasses, wearing a yellow tank top and shorts.

  A sister. I have a sister. Delight tugged at her as she picked up the photo, searching for clues about her sister. “What’s she like? Where does she live? What kind of music does she listen to? Does she play sports? I’m hopeless at anything but tennis,” she admitted, eager to learn everything she could about her sister.

  “Anne Marie played basketball in high school.”

  Lisa held the picture in unsteady hands, fighting back hurt that her mother had somehow managed to keep in touch with Anne Marie and not her. “What happened to Anne Marie? Where did she live after the accident?”

  “Anne Marie was five when your father died. I was afraid that if I approached an agency, they’d take her from me because I couldn’t care for her, and I’d never see her again. I couldn’t lose both my children—” She choked on the words.

  “If your aunt Helen hadn’t taken Anne Marie, I don’t know what I would’ve done. As it turned out, I got word that a lawyer in Tampa who knew Mrs. Clarke had found a home for you. The lawyer told me that your parents couldn’t have children and they wanted to adopt a baby girl. With no money coming in except social security—which didn’t even cover the cost of my medical bills—I had to believe you’d be better off with a couple with the money to give you what yo
u needed. I wouldn’t have let you go with them if I’d had any choice.”

  “Why couldn’t Aunt Helen raise me?” Lisa asked, unwilling to think that giving her up had been that simple.

  “She was divorced with very little income, and she had two toddlers of her own. Besides, if you had the chance to have every advantage in life, at least I could give you that opportunity,” her mother said, voice shaking. “I wanted you to have what I’d never be able to provide for you. The doctors told me my legs would never be right again, which meant I couldn’t earn a living. Anne Marie was about to start kindergarten when Grant died. I was afraid she would be traumatized by being taken away from her mother, her home. You were just a baby, you wouldn’t remember any other life but the one you had with the Clarkes. If I could have kept you both, I would have. But look around you, what kind of life would you have had here with me?”

  “Did you ever try to contact me, to see if I was doing okay? You didn’t just let me go, did you? How could you do that?” Lisa asked, holding her loneliness at bay. “I wanted you. I needed to know who you were, who I was.”

  Tears pooled in Carolyn’s eyes as her voice sputtered. “I… It—it was a long time ago, and I made a promise to your parents. For the most part, I kept that promise so I wouldn’t cause trouble for you.”

  Lisa bit back a sharp retort. What good would it do to take out her anger on this woman who was convinced she’d done the right thing? “I wish—”

  “Look here,” Carolyn said, her face suddenly suffused with excitement. “I have something to show you.” She turned her wheelchair to the window and picked up a black-and-while photo in a silver frame. “Do you remember this?”

  Lisa took the photo, staring at it in disbelief. It was a picture of her standing with a girl she had met that unforgettable day in front of Smiley’s hot-dog stand. “We were vacationing in Myrtle Beach. I was eight. My mother didn’t want me near the water. She was afraid I’d drown. But Dad let me go, and I met this girl on the beach. We played together most of the afternoon.”

  She smiled at the memory. “I was so pleased that someone older was willing to play with me and treated me like a big kid. We had a great time in the water. I’ll always remember that day. Her name was Mary. How did you get this?”

  Her mother touched the picture lovingly. “Despite my promise not to see you after you were adopted, I got a friend of mine to check the telephone listings for every Clarke in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Just before your eighth birthday, I located your parents and called them. Your mother was very upset. She reminded me that I’d agreed not to see you or be involved in your life, and if I called again, she’d have her husband, a district attorney, take action to protect you from me.”

  “My mother said that?” Lisa asked, shocked to learn Alice Clarke could do something so cruel.

  “In the conversation she let it slip that they were taking you to Myrtle Beach for your birthday. My situation hadn’t changed, I still couldn’t care for you. But I had to know that you were being well treated, that you were happy. I was frantic to see you. I didn’t dare make the trip because I wasn’t well, but mostly because I couldn’t trust myself not to talk to you and break my agreement with your parents.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  She sat back in her wheelchair, her gaze locked on Lisa’s face, her eyes bright. “Helen agreed to go and make sure you were okay. A reporter friend of hers had found a photo of your father in the Durham newspaper. I still have the clipping. Helen and I saved every spare penny so she could make the trip with Anne Marie and her kids. She intended to watch for your father and get a quick snapshot of you. You can imagine her pleasure when you and Anne Marie struck up a friendship. She took this picture for me so I could see what a beautiful child you were.”

  “And all that time my sister and my cousins were there and I had no idea,” Lisa said, her heart opening to the love in her mother’s eyes. Her mother had never given up on her; she’d been there in secret, loving her and needing to make sure she was all right.

  “This photo of you playing with Anne Marie—we called her Mary when she was little—has been a constant source of comfort to me.”

  “For weeks after that trip to Myrtle Beach, I begged my parents to let me invite Mary to come for a visit. But somehow it never happened… Could my parents have known who Anne Marie was?”

  “Helen didn’t think so, which was a huge relief to both of us. If they’d recognized her somehow, I’m sure I would have heard from their lawyer about breaking my promise. Anyway, none of it matters now. You’re here and my prayers have been answered.”

  “My sister and I spent a day at the beach together, and neither of us knew who the other one was?”

  Carolyn nodded, a sweet smile on her face. “Helen didn’t tell Anne Marie who she was playing with…yet it was so like your sister to be kind to younger children.”

  “My aunt Helen was aware of who I was and said nothing?”

  “I’ve always wondered how Helen managed to keep my secret from Anne Marie.”

  “Anne Marie doesn’t know about me?”

  “No, I never told her. When I was pregnant, we had talked with Anne Marie about her new sibling, but she didn’t really understand. So when I decided to give you up, I thought it best for the Clarkes to take you straight from the nursery and I would explain if she asked or when she was older. But with her life in such upheaval, she didn’t ask, and as time went on it just got more difficult to bring up the subject.”

  “What about after the trip to Florida? Why not say something then?”

  A look of regret crossed Carolyn’s face as she whispered, “I thought about it, but if she’d realized who you were, she might have gone to your parents later on and…caused problems for you.”

  She and Anne Marie had both been robbed of so many experiences. How she wished she could have known her sister all these years. Not having the opportunity to share her childhood with her made Lisa even more determined to make up for lost time. She had a sister whom she’d loved with all her young heart that sun-filled day on the beach. “I really liked her. She was so accepting, so much fun. To think I played for hours with my sister… Where is she? I want to meet her.”

  Pulling her hands from Lisa’s, Carolyn drew back, pain and heartache in the lines of her face. She swallowed, her hands working nervously in her lap. “Anne Marie was arrested two days ago. She’s in jail.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  TAPPING THE WALL impatiently, Mason waited for Lisa to come out of her mother’s room. The old need to protect her welled up in him, making him restless. He was very conscious of the fact that they were no longer involved, yet seeing Lisa’s anxiety over meeting her mother had bothered him more than he’d expected.

  As he stood there, he wondered how they’d ever ended up together. Before he’d met her, he’d boasted to his buddies that there wasn’t a woman alive who could hold him, which was the truth—until the day he stood across the gurney from Lisa, the emergency room nurse caring for his mother, who’d broken her arm.

  For the first time, he’d found himself speechless with a woman. And he hadn’t the faintest clue why, except that her eyes seemed to look directly into his soul.

  But all of that was ancient history now.

  Still, as he continued to wait, he had mixed feelings about how easily he’d been drawn back into her life.

  He and Lisa had had little contact in the years since their breakup. He’d met Sara on a blind date and started a relationship in which he’d confused caring with love. When Sara had told him that she was pregnant, he’d married her, but they’d both realized quickly it was a mistake. The marriage had ended a short time later by mutual agreement. A year ago he’d made another impetuous decision, leaving the police force and joining what had turned out to be a financially beleaguered private investigation firm. The company was solely under his name now, and he was starting to get it back on its feet—but only just.

  While Li
sa was living her life to a precise formula, he’d been making rash and ultimately misguided decisions. Not that his son was a mistake in any sense of the word. His love for Peter was the reason he’d been rethinking his own life, even before tackling this case. His love for Peter had opened his eyes to the dangers of being a police officer, and his hours didn’t provide the kind of flexibility he needed to be the kind of father he wanted to be. Although he was passionate about his job, being there for Peter was more important.

  The day Sara had told him about the talent agent coming to her concert he had been shocked and unprepared for the rush of emotion, especially the fear that he might lose his son. How would he ever manage without Peter? How would Peter adjust to leaving his family—grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins?

  He couldn’t see himself in L.A., and he didn’t feel it was a place to raise Peter. But if he didn’t move near Sara, his time with Peter would be made up of short visits and lots of travel. Sara and he had joint custody, which worked well for both of them and provided Peter with as much stability as possible. He couldn’t imagine being without Peter, the everyday contact, the love that overwhelmed him whenever his son smiled.

  He wanted to be an involved father, and that meant living close to his son.

  Should he consider going to L.A.? It wasn’t his idea of paradise, but did he have a choice?

  His parents would be devastated. Peter spent many happy hours visiting his grandparents and playing with his cousins.

  Thinking about his son reminded him of Lisa and what she was going through. Considering how important today was for Lisa, he’d told her his being here was for old times’ sake, and that was part of it.

  Only seeing her in Tank’s office and again today, he felt the old attraction drawing him into her life, reminding him how good their love had been. No other woman had made him want to be near her every moment the way Lisa had. Lisa’s welcoming arms made everything seem right.