The investigator had taken plenty of photos, so Sam recognized Eliza

They shared unusual black eyes. Other than that, he must look like the birth father of whom he’d found no trace. Averting his face from the fifty-six-year-old woman he’d driven six hundred miles to see, he tossed around conversation starters.

“Just wondering why you gave me away when I was hours old.” Or “Thought you might have changed your mind about having a son.” Neither would do.

No one knew his feelings about his adoption. His parents would have been upset, and he’d been a little ashamed that his own mother had given him away. As an adult, he’d lost any concern for his past in his focus on his family.

His children remained his first concern, but now that he saw Eliza Calvert dancing up the walkway in her husband’s arms, Sam longed to know someone else who shared the blood that ran in his veins.

If Eliza accepted them, his daughters would never be alone again.

Another woman climbed out of the car. Taller than Eliza, she was slender but curvy. She must be Molly Calvert.

Sam opened the car door with trepidation. Eliza had adopted Molly when she was fifteen. Would she resent him and the girls if Eliza accepted them?

Dear Reader,

Molly Calvert has one priority: family.

Her first family—her birth family—abandoned her, but then the Calverts took her in. It’s from them that she learned about love and family. And it’s to them that she feels she owes everything. And that sense of debt is what makes her different from her Calvert “cousins.”

When Sam Lockwood comes to town, he’s the last man Molly should fall for. A widower with two daughters, he’s searched for his birth mother so that his children will always have family. But his birth mother is Eliza Calvert, the same woman who adopted Molly and delivered her from danger into a safe life.

Eliza envisions them all together, one big happy family. Molly can’t see Sam the way her mother does. He’s a devoted father, a compassionate man and the lover who makes her believe in a husband and children of her own. Yet accepting him might destroy her mother’s dream.

Thanks for joining me in Bardill’s Ridge. If you enjoyed Molly’s story, you might want to visit her cousins—Zach in The Secret Father and Sophie in The Bride Ran Away. Let me know what you think of THE CALVERT COUSINS at anna@annaadams.com.

All the best,

Anna

The Prodigal Cousin
Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Laura Shin

Thank you for suggesting that the Calverts might make good cousins. But deepest thanks also for your patience, your creativity, your clarity when mine fails and—most of all—for making the books better.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS THE KIND OF DAY Molly Calvert loved best. One filled with family celebration. Her cousin Sophie’s new baby, Chloe, had been christened that morning. Around six the whole family had converged on the Bardill’s Ridge Country Club to celebrate.

Her cousin Zach’s young son, Evan, and daughter, Lily, raced among the knots of relatives catching up. Her grandparents were dancing their feet off. Her widowed Aunt Beth, Zach’s mom, seemed to welcome the romantic intentions of Zach’s father-in-law, James Kendall. Her own parents, who ran a bed-and-breakfast, had taken responsibility for supplying ample food and drink, which they’d been too busy arranging to eat.

But something was wrong with Molly. Instead of wrapping herself in the cloak of family affection, she felt as if she were hanging around on the edges of love.

Surrounded by everyone who mattered most to her, she peered from baby Chloe in Sophie’s arms to pregnant Olivia, Zach’s wife. A strange emptiness yawned inside her. She’d never have a child of her own. Her two cousins, who’d been more like brother and sister to her, had reached a stage in life that she couldn’t share.

An inner voice, refusing to be silenced, whispered that she wasn’t even a real Calvert. That she was adopted.

Loneliness prodded her as Sophie passed Chloe to her husband, Ian. Behind him, Zach and Olivia each caught one of their children for a hug. Evan and Lily wriggled away, far too excited to stand still for affection.

Molly watched as if from a far place. She loved her parents, enjoyed her job, couldn’t imagine living anywhere except on Bardill’s Ridge in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. But at twenty-five, she envied her cousins and hid a secret longing for a husband and family of her own—a husband who could love her despite the holes in her soul.

But what kind of man could love her after he heard the truth? She’d controlled her self-destructive impulses in the ten years since she’d survived a catastrophic miscarriage, but no amount of understanding could change the fact that she was damaged goods. Every man in this town knew her past. They didn’t come looking for her. She invited none of them into her life.

Loving her cousins, resenting her own envy, Molly eased through the throng in the wood-smoke-scented dining room. At the doorway, she braced her hand on one of the wide posts that ran from ceiling to floor and searched for her mother’s loving, lovable face. Her mom smiled back, and Molly felt a little better.

Since the age of eight, when Eliza and Patrick Calvert had accepted her as their foster child, she’d known no other mother. She owed her parents everything. They’d saved her life and then forgiven her for all the increasingly bad things she’d done. Owing them made her different.

None of her cousins were obliged to their parents for love. None of her cousins hungered for a child and someone—a lover or husband—to call her own.

“Have some wine for me.” Sophie, still nursing Chloe, pushed a glass into Molly’s hand.

Molly fastened a smile on her face. “Thanks. Chloe’s lovely in the dress.” Made of white lawn, lacy and yellowed with age, it had been Calvert christening attire even before their grandparents had been thought of.

“You’re falling behind,” Sophie teased. Molly thought she meant everyone else was putting away the commemorative vino. “You’d better have a baby of your own before one of our kids kicks a hole in the family gown.”

A swallow of wine and a harsh breath bit the back of Molly’s throat at the same time, choking her. Only her parents knew about her miscarriage and its resulting effects. Full of shame, she’d hidden the truth from the rest of the family and she’d made her mom and dad promise never to tell.

She glanced at Sophie, who waited with a sweet smile, wanting only to share her happiness. Molly harnessed her shaky resources and pretended nothing was wrong.

“Can you imagine Grandpa in the gown?” She nudged her cousin, pointing as Seth Calvert once again led his wife, Greta, onto the small dance floor.

Sophie grinned. “They were just waiting for someone to put Glenn Miller back on. And no, I can’t picture tall, white-haired Grandpa in that fragile gown—or his father before him.” She leaned closer. “You feel left out today?”

Molly blinked back disgraceful tears, wishing she were a better actress. “It shows?”

“Maybe I’m a little more sensitive since I almost gave up Ian to do motherhood my way.” Sophie rested her gaze on Molly’s latest cousin-by-marriage, a relationship as strong as blood in the Tennessee mountains. “The right guy will show up, Molly. Maybe you already know him.”

“I’m not looking for a guy.” Unconsciously, she raised her voice enough to draw curious attention from Aunt Beth.

Sophie touched her arm. “There’s no shame. You’ve finished college. You have a good job. You wouldn’t be a Calvert if your mind didn’t turn to multiplying.”

Fine for an OB-GYN to say, but Molly clenched her teeth, forcing herself to keep smiling. Just in time, Ian beckoned Sophie to consult on the state of their daughter’s diaper. Expelling a held breath, Molly set her glass on the nearest table and made for the doorway.

In the foyer, she negotiated a path through the after-work golfers who were sending impatient glances toward the Calverts hogging the dining room for their party. Molly answered the reluctant hellos the guys offered. Half of them had kids in her class.

As she fought a gust of wind to force open the door, she felt as if she were breaking through the delicate barriers of a bubble. She sucked crisp, early October air into her lungs.

“Molly? Honey, what’s wrong?”

She spun. “Mom?” Her mother faced her from the club’s doorway. “I thought I saw you in line to hold Chloe.”

“Until you ran for your life.” Eliza Calvert, a perfect lady in palest pink chiffon, floated across the redbrick porch. “You aren’t—” She stopped, ambivalent about broaching a subject they both considered put to bed. “It’s not a panic attack?”

Molly still had them, but she’d learned to control them until she could reach privacy. “Nope. It was hot in there.”

“Not that you’re twenty-five? The youngest of your generation—the last to remain unmarried?” Her mother reached for her hands. Molly couldn’t step back, didn’t know how to reject her mother in any way. “You don’t have to hurry for the sake of the family.”

Usually, Molly chose to appreciate the happiness life and her parents had given her. Ashamed of wanting more when she had so much, she tried to make light of her mom’s concern. “I’m not man-hunting. I’m fine—I just couldn’t breathe in the heat.” She shivered in the cool breeze, betrayed by her own body.

Her mother held her tighter. “I was twenty-nine when I married your father. You have so much time.”

Molly saw no point in arguing. Once her mom got the bit between her teeth, she didn’t stop for miles.

“You know lots of young men, and I wish you wouldn’t hold back because of…”

“I am reluctant with men because I can’t have children. I don’t know when to talk about it. But maybe I hold back because no one’s made me want to get that close.”

“You don’t give anyone a chance. You stop seeing them after two weeks, maximum.”

Because no man waited longer than two weeks for sex these days, but she wasn’t about to enlighten her mom.

Eliza turned toward the highly polished doors. “Why don’t we go home?” Her hair fanned around her head. “I’ll find your dad, and we’ll make dinner out of whatever’s in the fridge. None of the guests plan to be in tonight.” She tugged Molly’s braid. The familiar pressure remained the most poignant gesture of affection in Molly’s life. “You stay out here and breathe,” her mom said.

“Thanks, but I’ll say goodbye to everyone.” She hugged her mother. “Meet you back out here.”

As she ducked inside, Eliza dragged her dad off the dance floor. He’d indulged in liberal helpings of the wine Ian’s former-ambassador father had provided, so Molly asked for his keys at the car.

“You can drive,” her dad said, “but remember, a good chauffeur doesn’t peek into the back seat.” Feeling like a deer in headlights, Molly watched her parents get in the back, noisy with their joy in each other. She faced firmly forward in her seat. As she pulled away from the curb, her parents began a duet of their favorite song, “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

For the past eleven years, they’d also sung to her. After a long time with eyes only for each other, they’d seen Molly and made room to love her.

SAM LOCKWOOD HATED feeling like a stalker. He waited in the gathering dark outside the Dogwood, a Victorian bed-and-breakfast. His heart pounded like the percussion in a horror movie. The B and B belonged to his birth mother.

Not his real mother. Jane Lockwood had taken him home as a newborn, raised him and fed him and taught him to be a man. Eliza Calvert had given birth to him and then given him up for adoption.

Sixteen at the time, she’d probably seen no other alternative. Babies cost money. Children cost more. He understood the fiscal reasons, but he couldn’t deny the resentment he’d felt since his investigator had reported that she’d later adopted another child.

Forty years old and resentful. Nice start.

He glanced back at his own daughters. Nina, five, had finally fallen asleep in her booster seat, a peacefulness he hadn’t seen since the car accident that had taken her mom and his parents. Tamsin, fifteen, had kept her nose buried in a book for most of the nine-hour drive from Savannah.

Nine hours for him to cement a year-long decision. And, oddly, nine hours that had taught his girls to relax in a car again.

Tamsin’s book rested in her lap now, caught between her elbow and her chest. Mostly asleep, she twisted to put her arm around Nina, who burrowed into her.

Sam smiled. Tamsin had been a normal, occasionally sullen teenage girl sixteen months ago. She’d dressed in jeans and shirts that often made him nervous with their tightness and a tendency to expose skin, but he longed for that kind of scary clothing rather than the unrelieved black she wore now. A wardrobe that often matched her makeup.

Tamsin’s resentment made his appear amateurish. She seemed to take exception to the fact that he’d lived while her mother had died. Since he often shared the thought, he couldn’t blame her.

Sam’s throat tightened as an image of his wife, Fiona, invaded his thoughts. Delicate as she had been alive, her smile filled with love and understanding, the memory reminded him how long forever was going to last without her. Fiona would have known how to comfort their daughter. Tamsin had rejected his every effort, as well as the grief counseling that helped Nina.

He looked over the seat again, love for his girls swelling his chest. He’d promise to keep them safe always, but he’d made that same promise to Fiona and then he’d lost her, anyway. He couldn’t remember when he’d decided to become a doctor, but cardiology had been his only path after Fiona had told him about her incurable heart disease. He’d met and loved her at the age of ten, but he’d based his career on decisions that might help him save his wife.

Fate had snatched her out of his and their daughter’s lives despite his plans. Now he had to make sure his girls would have someone else if fate came back to his door.

Sam turned on the dome light and checked his watch. Seven-thirty. Half an hour had passed since he’d opened the Dogwood’s front door but received no answer to his greeting.

He pressed the back of his head against the seat rest, resisting guilt about the mess he might be making of the Calverts’ lives. As his grief for Fiona and his parents had begun to ebb, he’d realized his daughters would be alone if something happened to him.

Fiona had grown up in an orphanage, unwanted by adoptive parents because of her disease. His first conversation with her had been about her life in the orphanage. Convinced his adoptive parents had barely saved him in time from a similar institution, he’d felt empathy for Fiona, which had resulted in several fistfights with his best boyhood friends and her lifelong love.

He refused to think of their girls feeling as alone as she had. He owed Fiona security for Nina and Tamsin, so he prayed his birth mother had suffered a few second thoughts. Especially after Tamsin had found the investigator’s paperwork and shown her first spark of interest in sixteen months.

Lights flashed in his rearview mirror and a car parked in the gravel lot beside the house. Sam gripped the steering wheel. A man and woman, laughing, spilled out of the other car’s back seat.

His investigator had taken plenty of photos and he recognized Eliza. Her salt-and-pepper hair lessened the resemblance, but they shared unusual black eyes. Other than that, he must look like the birth father of whom he’d found no trace. Averting his face from the fifty-six-year-old woman he’d driven six hundred miles to see, he tossed around conversation starters.

“Just wondering why you gave me away when I was hours old.” Or “Thought you might have changed your mind about having a son.” Both approaches involved whining on his part and hurting her. Neither would do.

No one except Fiona had ever known his feelings about being adopted. His parents would have been upset, and he’d been a little ashamed that his own mother had given him away. As an adult, he’d lost any concern for his past in his focus on making sure Fiona survived for their daughters—and for him.

Tamsin and Nina remained his first concern, but now that he saw Eliza Calvert dancing up the pansy-bordered walkway in her husband’s protective arms, Sam longed to know someone else on the face of the earth who shared the blood that ran in his and his children’s veins.

If Eliza accepted them, his daughters would never be alone again.

Another woman climbed out of the car. Taller than Eliza, she was slender but curvy. Her thick, dark red braid slid over her shoulder as she shut the door. She glanced at his car and lifted her hand in a brief wave. With a glance at Eliza and the man disappearing inside, she started toward Sam. Her silky dress outlined her body with each step she took.

She must be Molly Calvert.

Sam opened the car door and stood with trepidation. Eliza had adopted Molly when she was fifteen. Sam’s investigator had picked up rumors of juvenile misconduct, nonspecific because the court had sealed her records and the townspeople avoided talking about her.

Her own parents had abandoned Molly. Again, he knew only the bare bones. Would she resent him and the girls if her mother accepted them?

“The door was open.” Her voice flowed, as smooth as her dress. “You didn’t have to wait out here.”

“We haven’t checked in.” He shut his door and opened the back. Tamsin blinked, stretching a little, smiling before she remembered where she was—who he was.

“We’re here.” He squeezed her hand, still draped around Nina’s shoulder. She drew back, rejecting tenderness—as if she couldn’t bear to be comforted since Fiona’s death. “Wake up, sweetie,” he said anyway.

“Dad.” She instantly donned her armor.

He kissed her little sister’s forehead. “Nina, girl, time to wake up.”

Nina kicked at his hand in her sleep as he took her out of the booster seat and straightened to face Molly.

“We didn’t make a reservation. Do you have two rooms?”

She nodded, smiling at the sleepy girls. “We have something with bunk beds if your daughters prefer—or two adjoining rooms, one with a dressing room that’s been converted to hold a child’s bed.”

Her friendly reception heightened his guilt. He hadn’t considered Molly’s feelings.

“We’ll take the second combination.” He elbowed the car door shut as Nina peered into the growing darkness. “Nina can take the dressing room attached to mine.”

“Daddy, where are we?”

“Bardill’s Ridge, Tennessee.” Love of home deepened Molly’s voice. “Let me get your bags.”

“No, I’ll come back.”

“I’ll get them, Dad.” Tamsin surprised him, but maybe she hoped to avoid the possible debacle inside.

“I’ll help.” Molly grinned at Nina. “Your little girl may want her pajamas in a hurry.”

“Who are you?” Nina demanded.

“Molly Calvert.” She offered a hand on which a couple of rings glittered in the streetlights.

Nina giggled, because people rarely shook hands with her. “Do you have food?”

“All kinds.” Molly’s mouth trembled with an infectious urge to laugh. “What do you like?”

“Ice cream.”

Sam chuckled, pulling his daughter closer. “Good try, but no go. This is Nina, Molly.” He backed around the trunk and dropped his hand on his older girl’s shoulder. “This is Tamsin. I’m Sam Lockwood. We’d all love a sandwich.”

“Peanut butter and strawberry,” Nina said.

“Or whatever you have.” Sam had worried about Nina and Tamsin for so long he hadn’t noticed Nina’s manners slipping. She might be a little spoiled.

“How about you, Tamsin?”

The teenager smiled, her manners in better shape. “Whatever you have.”

“Me, too. Whatever.” Nina kicked against his side. “Lemme walk, Daddy.”

He let her down and then opened the trunk and reached for the large canvas rolling bag that held most of his and Nina’s clothes. Tamsin grabbed her own suitcase. Molly took Nina’s backpack full of stuffed animals and the smaller suitcase that held the rest of the child’s stuff.

“Thanks,” he said. A quick search for his younger child revealed her tugging at the B and B’s heavy front door. “Nina!”

“She’s fine. I’m sure my mom saw you, and she’ll catch her.” Molly slid the backpack over her shoulder. Cool air wrapped her skirt around Nina’s suitcase, exposing her slender calf. Sam forced his gaze back to her face. “We came from a family christening,” she added.

Eliza and her husband had clearly celebrated. “We can find our own dinner if you’ll point us at the kitchen.”

“Seriously, we were just about to loot the fridge and we always share meals.” With a friendly smile, Molly waited for Tamsin to move along the sidewalk in front of her. “We want our guests to feel like family.”

It was the perfect opening. Much as he hated spying, Sam needed to see Eliza Calvert with his girls. To see if she’d be as open as Molly. If Eliza was uncomfortable, he and Nina could drag Tamsin through the Smoky Mountains for a few days and then head home.

They caught up with his youngest, still doing battle with the door.

“I—can’t—open it.”

Sam reached over her head with a rueful glance at Molly, who smothered her laughter in a cough. Over her shoulder, Tamsin looked revolted. Sam cleared his throat and held the door for all of them.

Inside, Patrick Calvert waited behind a dark pine registration desk. Molly started toward the stairs with Nina’s things.

“Dad, they want rooms three and four. I’ll take these up.”

“Thanks, honey.” With a smile at Tamsin, Patrick spun a ledger toward Sam. “Glad to have you. If you’ll sign in? Have you eaten?”

“That big girl said she had food,” Nina said.

Laughing, Patrick leaned way over the desk to see her. “Driving makes you hungry, Miss—” he glanced at Sam’s signature “—Lockwood?”

“Daddy hates to stop,” she said. Tamsin actually laughed, which made Sam’s public humiliation more than worthwhile.

“I packed snacks,” he said in self-defense.

Patrick’s bark of laughter nearly burst his eardrum. “A kindred spirit. That’s what I always say, too. You wouldn’t know it to look at my daughter, but she’s an eating machine.”

“Dad.” The startled protest burst from Molly.

Sam grinned at Tamsin, who promptly dropped her gaze. He glanced at Patrick. “Need anything else?”

After a swift perusal, Patrick shook his head. “Be sure to come back down. My wife is putting dinner together.”

Sam nodded, uneasy again, because Eliza’s husband, welcoming now, might come to view him as the enemy. Sam didn’t enjoy invading Patrick’s home under false pretenses.

With Nina clinging to his free hand and Tamsin back on her side of the great generational divide, he carried his bag upstairs behind Molly. At the top, she took a right, her footsteps whispering on a thick burgundy rug. Soft lighting increased warm tones in the paneled hall. Had this place belonged to the Calvert family since it was built? Sam couldn’t imagine that kind of continuity.

Molly opened the third door. She set Nina’s bags on a chest in front of a surprisingly plain four-poster, and his younger daughter bolted across the room. Sam had expected frills and lace. Instead, the early American primitive paintings and a fire laid on the hearth offered hospitality.

“Daddy, come look!” Nina swung on a door frame, summoning him to her room. Tamsin leaned over her shoulder and forgot to move when Sam joined them.

Frills abounded in here, from the lace-trimmed duvet on the child-size sleigh bed to the skirt on a miniature dressing table. “It’s like a playhouse,” he said. “Only no spaces between the walls.” Nina’s stuffed animals would be at home at the tiny table set for high tea.

“Wow,” Tamsin finally said. Sam suspected the word had escaped her.

Molly’s smile reached all the way to her hazel eyes. “I like it, too. I wish we’d had it when I was a little girl.”

“How will I talk Nina into going home?” Sam asked.

The little girl grabbed her backpack, snatching a tattered blue elephant and a threadbare green lizard from its zippered opening. She seated them on the small white chairs, chattering about tea.

“Tamsin, come.” Nina patted the one open setting.

Tamsin glanced at Molly, adolescent reluctance all over her face. Sam fought a fond smile. She showed inordinate patience with her little sister, but what teenager wanted to take tea with a green lizard in front of a stranger?

“Would you like to see your room?” Molly asked her.

“No—after tea,” Nina said.

“I’ll come back, Nina.” Tamsin turned toward their hostess.

Molly edged around Sam, trailing a whiff of spice and woman that disturbed him. She crossed his room to open another door. “Here you go.”

Tamsin hauled her bag behind her. At the door, she glanced from her assigned quarters to Molly, and her bright smile made Sam glad he’d dragged her here.

“It’s great,” Tamsin said.

He was dying to see it, but she didn’t invite him in, and experience had taught him to wait for her to make the first move.

Molly clasped her hands as if to say “My work here is done,” and backed out, pausing at Sam’s hallway door.

“Dinner will be waiting. I’m sure Mom will find something fun for Nina.” She already knew Tamsin wouldn’t want to be classified with her sister. “When you come out of your rooms, turn left and go past the stairs. Mom and Dad use that end of the house, and the hall ends in a door to the kitchen stairs.”

Hearing her call his birth mother “Mom” shocked Sam. He nodded, trying to look as if he felt nothing, but her gaze narrowed as she caught his response, anyway. After a moment, she continued through the door.

She left it open, so he had to close it, but he couldn’t help watching her stroll toward the family side of the house. Her slender back and the gentle sway of her hips drew his gaze, inappropriate as that was. For God’s sake, she couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Nina had entered his room again. “You look sad.”

“Sad?” He shut the door and scooped her into his arms. “Why would I be sad when you and Tamsin and I are going hiking tomorrow, and you’ve got this great room to sleep in tonight?”

She planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “I like this place. It’s cool.”

Astounding him, tears stuck in his throat. Nothing had been cool for her since she’d lost her mom. In fact, he didn’t believe his baby had ever used that word before. “Where did you learn ‘cool,’ Nina?”

“Tamsin says lots of stuff is cool. Daddy—” she pointed her toes toward the floor “—lemme down. Judy wants tea with Lizzie and Norm.”

Out of her pack came Judy, a doll with short blond hair that stood on end and bright blue eyes nearly kissed off her painted face. Fiona had named Judy before Nina could even turn over.

“Settle Judy and the gang and then wash your hands and face, and we’ll go downstairs.”

He couldn’t say if it was the long drive or his daughters’ excitement at their temporary rooms, but like Tamsin and Nina, he was suddenly interested in his surroundings.

Until he remembered he had to find a way to tell Eliza Calvert who he was.

MAYBE AN HOUR AGO she’d assured Sophie she wasn’t looking for a man, but Molly was an honest woman and she couldn’t restrain herself from listening for the least little sound from above. Inappropriate. A man who loved his daughters the way Sam Lockwood clearly worshipped Nina and the reluctant Tamsin, probably also loved his absent wife.

Sam’s reasons for traveling alone with his daughters made her curious, but she didn’t sense a divorce. Molly had dealt with plenty of children in the past four years. Usually, the extroverts like Nina, who believed even the adults around her were waiting for her conversation, came from a loving home. Tamsin was too quiet, but under all that Goth makeup, she was a young woman enduring the torture of her teenage years.

“They’re nice girls?” her mom asked.

Molly looked up from the beans she’d been staring at instead of snapping. “Nina’s chatty.” She broke a couple of beans at once. “She loves the room. Tamsin, the older girl, seems…”

The more Molly thought about it, the more she realized Tamsin seemed unusually quiet. She wore the unnerving yet familiar air of the walking wounded.

“I knew Nina’d like the dressing room.” Molly’s dad came in from the pantry behind the kitchen, brandishing several freshly cleaned trout. “Think they’ll enjoy these?”

“You’re going all out.” Tamsin was none of her business. Molly tried to put the girl out of her mind—or relegate her to the position she should occupy, that of a guest. “I thought we were doing leftovers.”

Her dad grinned. “I liked the way Nina called you the ‘big girl.’ And her sister looks as if she could use a treat.”

“The father sounded tired even from here,” Eliza said. “We might as well start their visit with a special dinner.”

“You’re staying, Molly?” her dad asked. “I cleaned one for you.”

Molly pried her gaze away from her mother’s face. She hadn’t imagined Sam Lockwood’s fatigue if her mother had sensed it, too, but Molly’s interest in the little family felt inappropriate. She’d resisted rash acts for ten years. No need to ruin her record and let herself feel involved because something about Tamsin spoke to her past. “I have stuff to do for a science project at school tomorrow.”

“You have to eat,” her mother said. “Stay.”

Upstairs, the door squeaked and Sam’s voice floated down. “Hold my hand, Nina. Don’t run. Hold on to the rail.”

“He’s overprotective.” Eliza looked upward. “Those stairs are perfectly safe.”

“Sh.” Patrick clearly felt the Lockwood family deserved privacy.

Her mom returned to the stove. Molly snapped the last of the beans and carried them to the sink as Nina’s sneakers slapped across the black-and-white-tile floor.

“We’re back,” she said.

Molly searched their faces for some hint about Tamsin’s restlessness and pain. Sam looked away, but not before she caught the trace of an old injury in his eyes. Something was wrong.

“I tried to bring Judy, but Daddy said she needed a bath before she sat at a strange guy’s table.”

“Stranger,” Sam said. His discomfited silence stretched. “That sounds pretty bad, too.”

“Not at all.” Molly’s mom took over. “I’m Eliza Calvert. Welcome to our home.”

Sam remained too quiet for too long. Molly turned to find her mother holding out her hand, while their guest stared at her with blank black eyes that reminded Molly of Eliza when she was annoyed and trying to hide it. At last he took her hand.

“Mrs. Calvert.” He quickly let go, still staring at her.

Molly turned completely to face him. His distracted glance barely brushed her face, but then he started as if he realized his response wasn’t entirely normal.

“Thanks for the great rooms.” He reached for his older daughter, who avoided his hand, stepping off the stairs in front of him. “This is Tamsin. I’m Sam Lockwood. The little one’s Nina.”

She marched across the room to peer into the sink. “I don’t like beans.”

“Nina.”

“But I’ll eat ’em.” Her forced enthusiasm drew laughter from everyone except Sam and Tamsin.

“I stir-fry them,” Eliza told her. “You’ll love them. They taste sweet.”

“I liked my mom’s.”

Sam offered an apologetic grimace. Tamsin turned to inspect the tile backsplash over the dark granite counter. With a troubled expression, Sam dropped his hand on Nina’s head. “My wife…passed away…sixteen months ago.”

Molly forgot about not getting involved. His control made his grief more palpable, and the loss of her mother explained Tamsin’s pain. Molly’s parents closed ranks with her, offering silent, united support.

Sam rounded up his girls, clearly unable to handle one more nuance of sympathy. “Why don’t we go outside and clean your snack stuff out of the car before we eat?”

Nina skipped ahead of him. Again, Tamsin evaded comfort. Sam glanced over his shoulder at Eliza.

Molly’s heart thudded. He stared at her mom as if he knew her. His inexplicable concentration seemed to include her dad and Molly, too.

She barely waited for the door to close. “Have you met him before, Mom?”

Her dad looked surprised. “How would your mom know Sam Lockwood?”

“Actually, he seems familiar, and I can tell he thinks I do, too.” Eliza took the beans. “I’m trying to think where I might have met him.”

“You couldn’t have,” Patrick said. “He’s driven a long way today and he’s tired. The little girl’s a sweetie, but she keeps him hopping, and he’s obviously concerned about the older one. You two are reading more into that.”

“Maybe,” Eliza said.

Molly couldn’t agree. Her parents were such innocents. Sam had definitely looked at her mother as if he knew her. Later, Molly eyed him as they all sat down to dinner.

Sam checked Nina’s trout for bones before he started his own meal. Suddenly, he looked up, his knife in midair. “I thought you mentioned sandwiches, Molly. I hope you haven’t gone to all this trouble for us.”

“I caught these earlier today.” Molly’s dad chewed with enjoyment. “We planned to have them for breakfast.”

Sam set his fork on the table. Tamsin did likewise. “Will you have enough?” he asked.

“We can supplement with bacon and eggs.” Eliza flicked Molly a glance. “What my daughter calls a breakfast platter.”

“A breakfast platter?” Sam trained his dark eyes on Molly.

Heat climbed her throat. Annoyed, she answered without thinking. “I spent a lot of time in diners before—” This stranger had no need to know about her homeless days at the age of eight. “Before,” she finished.

He nodded, compassion softening his eyes. Molly placed her own utensils on the table as a chill fingered her spine. He knew about her. He wouldn’t feel sorry for a woman who’d just happened to eat in a few diners.

This man didn’t deserve their trust. “Mom,” she said, “I’m too tired to drive home tonight. I’ll stay here.”

CHAPTER TWO

THAT NIGHT NINA WAS SO exhausted, she slumped against the bathroom cabinet as Sam washed her hands and face and then helped her brush her teeth. She was asleep before he tucked her and Judy into the little bed. He turned off the light and closed her door except for a thin wedge of space. Bad dreams woke her most nights, and he wanted to make sure he heard if she called.

It was still early. Barely nine o’clock, according to the art deco clock on the mantel. Glancing at Tamsin’s closed door, he crossed to his open window and looked out on the verdant garden Eliza and Molly had discussed during dinner. According to her proud daughter, Eliza had a green thumb. Apparently, she could nurture anything except a son.

He shook his head, ashamed of being unfair. There was more to her story than his investigator had uncovered. Sam had the facts, but Eliza’s motivation remained a mystery. Not that it mattered anymore. Finding out why she’d given him up had once been a priority, but now he just needed her to be a loving grandmother to his daughters.

Movement near a lamp below drew his gaze. It was Molly, sitting on a stone wall. As if she felt him staring, she glanced up. He nearly backed out of sight, but he was tired of hiding. Tomorrow, when the B and B was quiet, he’d tell Eliza the truth. She could decide what came next, but he looked forward to being honest.

Not that his act had succeeded. Molly’s silences had grown more speculative as trout and vegetables progressed to fruit and cheese for the adults and Tamsin, and a dish of homemade chocolate ice cream for Nina. More streetwise than her parents, Molly had recognized his interest in Eliza—and in her.

She’d decided to stay here tonight because of him, and he didn’t blame her. He’d gone to dramatic lengths to find protection for his family.

Sam turned his back on her and the compelling view of moon and darkness over the courthouse square, and knocked on Tamsin’s door.

“Yeah?”

Close enough to “Come in.” With her knees up beneath the fluffy comforter, she was reading. Her face devoid of makeup, her dark hair in a ponytail, she looked so much like his little girl that she filled an ache in his heart.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Tired.” She set down her book and reached for the nightstand lamp.

“Wait. I’m serious.” He’d almost said “concerned.” That would have been a mistake. “You didn’t say much at dinner.”

“Who can get in a word with Nina babbling?” A soft tone betrayed love for her sister, despite her harsh question.

“I know you’re unsure about being here.”

“Because you’re about to spring us on a woman who didn’t want you?”

He refused to back down. He should have come alone, but since the accident, he’d feared losing his girls every time they left his sight. Besides, once Tamsin had snooped through his papers, she’d known the worst.

“Honey, I have no other family. If something happened to me—” He broke off, and Tamsin swallowed hard. They’d both learned death arrived in an unsuspecting second. “If something happened to me, you and Nina would be put in state care. If Eliza regrets a decision she made at sixteen, you’ll gain more family than either of us could imagine.”

“We have friends in Savannah, Dad.”

Wrong. He’d cultivated colleagues. Fiona had made friends. He’d been so intent on perfecting procedures to keep a sick heart alive, he’d managed to forget that humans needed less tangible sustenance, too.

“I don’t know anyone well enough to trust them with your future.”

She twisted her sweet young face into a scowl of contempt. “But you figure we’ll be able to trust strangers who suddenly find out we exist?”

“I trust blood,” he said, unable to explain that his adoptive mother had loved him but had held back, still longing for a child of her own. He’d only known such ties with Tamsin and Nina, and nothing short of death could ever part him from them. “You’re predisposed to love the people who share your blood.”

“No, you are. Other adopted kids get along just fine without launching a sneak attack on the people who didn’t want them.”

“You’re talking out of pride, which I can’t afford. I need to give you and Nina someone else to depend on.”

“These people treat strangers like family. They deserve better.”

“I’m not too proud of myself right now, but nothing changes our situation.” His smile hurt. “If Eliza doesn’t want us, we’ll go home, and I’ll pray we stumble across friends who’d make good substitute parents.”

“Only you would look at it that way. We might as well take out personal ads.”

“What do you know about personal ads?” He kissed her head. Stubbornly, she slid away. She wanted her mom. No one else would do.

“I’m no kid, you know.”

Since her mother’s death she’d tried to separate herself, as if she could lose him or Nina with less grief if she stopped caring about them. Sam figured that if he kept proving he’d love her no matter what, she’d eventually realize that loving was still safe. He started toward his room, and she turned off the light before he reached their adjoining door.

“’Night, Tamsin. I love you.”

“Uh-huh.”

He left her door open about an inch, too, and she didn’t shut it.

The next morning he woke the girls in time for a late breakfast. Tamsin claimed she wasn’t hungry. To her disgust, he checked her for a temperature, but let her go back to sleep.

After a quick bath, he wrestled Nina’s long blond hair into a sad-looking braid. Fortunately, she was still too young to care that his surgeon’s hands were useless for styling hair. Unless she was too grown-up at five to hurt his feelings. He kissed her cheek.

“Hungry?”

She nodded, head-butting him, and he stood, eyes watering as he rubbed his nose.

“Tamsin, we’ll bring ya something.” Nina tore out of the room and down the hall ahead of him. He caught her before she reached the stairs.

“The dining room, today,” he said. “We have to be invited to use the kitchen.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

At the bottom, they found Eliza carrying a heavy tray from the kitchen. Sam took it.

“Thanks.” She inspected them, clearly looking for his older daughter. “Where’s Tamsin?”

“She chose sleep over breakfast.”

“Molly was the same at her age. Trout or the breakfast platter for you two?” She beamed at Nina. “We have plenty.”

“Two slices of bacon and a scrambled egg for Nina,” Sam said, “and I’d like the trout again.”

“Great.” She pointed at a couple just inside the room. A baby lay in a stroller next to the blond woman. “The tray goes to them. Sophie, Ian, this is Sam Lockwood and his daughter Nina.”

The man stood, reaching for the tray as he nodded a greeting. Sophie shook Sam’s hand and then patted Nina’s shoulder.

“Good morning,” she said. “Aunt Eliza mentioned you’d checked in yesterday evening. First time in the Smokies?”

“Yeah, so we’re going for a long walk if my sister wakes up.” Nina had a future as a society page columnist. “Can I look at your baby?”

“Sure. Her name is Chloe.” Sophie pulled back the blankets so Nina could examine the infant.

“What brings you here?” Ian asked. “We’re out of the way.”

“A brochure.” A lie this late seemed pointless, but Eliza might need the cover if she sent them home. “One of my patients had it, and I thought my daughters might enjoy the mountains.”

“You’re a doctor?” Ian glanced at Sophie, who was completely absorbed in Nina and the pink-swathed baby. “So is my wife. An OB-GYN.”

“I’m a cardiologist,” Sam said.

Sophie looked up with interest. “You wouldn’t be looking for a change of pace?”

He smiled blandly, not understanding.

“She’s always thinking of work.” Ian grimaced. “Sophie and a few other physicians from the surrounding area are opening a clinic in town and they’re still scouting for staff.”

His wife looked regretful. “I don’t suppose we’d have the facilities you’re used to.”

Sam didn’t suppose Tamsin would survive even talk of a permanent move. She’d made him promise not to think of it, and Nina, coming in on the tail end of that battle, had chimed in, though she’d really had no clue what they were arguing about. “I’m settled in Savannah.”

“I love Savannah.” Eliza stopped herself before she said more, but Sam pressed his advantage.

“You’ve been there often?”

Her blush was as good as a confession. “I grew up there, but when I graduated from college in Knoxville, I answered an ad for a teacher’s position here. In fact, I used to teach kindergarten and first grade in our little school, just like Molly. Then I met Patrick, and he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Sam tried to laugh with the others, but her lighthearted recovery hurt a little. He hadn’t tempted her to keep him. His children might not tempt her to want them, either.

“What’s the big girl doing out there?” Nina pointed at Molly, who was out in the garden with her back to the window, leaning over a tall, gray tank.

“Blowing up balloons.” Eliza smoothed Nina’s braid with her palm, unconsciously trying to tidy it. “She needs them for school today.”

Nina latched on to Sam’s hand. “I want to go to school, Daddy.” She turned to Sophie. “I can write my name, and I can make numbers up to ten.”

Sam let her swing from his arms. “She’s been badgering me to let her go to ‘big kid’ school for the past year. You can’t go today, Nina. We’re hiking, remember?”

“I wanna do balloons with the big girl!”

Heading off her tantrum, Sam smiled an apology at Sophie, Ian and Eliza, and guided his suddenly weeping daughter toward a back table. As he settled her in a chair, Eliza appeared at his elbow, offering a small square whiteboard and a couple of markers.

“I thought she might like these.”

“Thanks.” He took them, searching her gaze. A thoughtful woman planned ahead for young customers—a kind woman gave them markers that could destroy her furniture. He handed the board and markers to Nina. “Thank Mrs. Calvert.”

“Thank you,” Nina said through a haze of tears. She grabbed her napkin and wiped her nose, and Sam stared, appalled. Fiona had instilled a deeper respect for linen in her daughters.

Eliza misunderstood his dismay. “Don’t worry. I’ll get her a clean one. And then bacon and eggs. Do you like cheese with your eggs, Nina?”

Up and down went her head. A wisp of hair fell out of her braid and poked her eye. Sam hooked it away with his little finger. With a fortifying smile at both of them, Eliza hugged Nina and hurried back to the kitchen.

“No more crying, Nina, okay?” He sat across from her, and she nodded, sniffing back the last of her tears.

“But I wanna go to school. I like balloons.”

“You don’t have to go to school to play with balloons. We’ll find one in town.”

“The big girl has better ones.”

“Her name is Miss Calvert.”

“I thought that was her mommy’s name.”

He gave up. “Just try calling her Miss Calvert when you see her.”

As they waited for their breakfast, Nina taught him to write her name and then speedily learned how to write his. Every so often, he followed his daughter’s glance to the garden, where Molly was stuffing filled balloons into large white plastic bags.

Strands of dark red curls slipped over Molly’s shoulder, lifting with the same breeze that wrapped her long, feminine skirt around her legs. Sam returned his attention to his child.

Eliza brought their breakfast about the time Sophie went out to the garden and distracted Molly from the balloons. Ian took their baby out to join them, and Nina finally lost interest enough to eat. At least until Sophie and Ian left and Molly returned to her work.

“Can I go out, Daddy?”

“I’ll come with you.” She might try to climb into one of the bags. Holding her hand, he led her through the garden door.

Outside, Molly looked up, flustered, her skin pink from battling the slippery balloons.

He liked her happy smile for Nina. He couldn’t look away from the faint sheen of moisture on her cheekbones and throat. Sixteen months alone, and his mother’s daughter had to be the one woman who reminded him he was a man.

“Hi, Nina.” Finally, Molly looked at Sam, who wished he could backpedal to the house. “Children can’t resist these things.” She tied a knot in a bright yellow one. “The machine broke two balloons ago, and I still have to blow up a few more.”

“I’ll help.”

“I’ll manage.” She peered through the window at his full plate. He hadn’t finished a meal since the day he’d become a single parent. “Eat,” Molly said. “If Nina blows one of these up, she can keep it.”

Nina clapped her hands. “Daddy?”

He stared, speechless with guilt. If Molly looked after Nina, he’d be free to explain everything to Eliza. The plan might stink for Molly, but it helped him.

“She’s fine.” Molly’s too-neutral tone betrayed her wish that he leave. He didn’t have time to diagnose her motives. She’d offered him a better opportunity to talk to Eliza than he could have hoped for. No one else ever had to know anything if Eliza rejected him.

“Thanks.” He knelt beside Nina on the damp grass. “Don’t get in Miss Calvert’s way, and if she leaves, come back inside.” With a lick of his finger, he rubbed a smudge of cheese off his daughter’s nose while she wrestled for freedom.

“I’m all right, Daddy.”

He hoped she would be—that Eliza and her family would accept Nina and Tamsin even if they resented him. His own parents had loved him, but they hadn’t been good at the expansive, arms-wide affection the Calverts offered even to guests.

Standing, he brushed grass off his knees. “Thanks again, Molly.” Emotion unexpectedly deepened his voice, making her curious and him uncomfortable.

“Go ahead,” she said.

He found Eliza alone in the dining room, standing beside his plate. “You’re not hungry?”

“I am.” He couldn’t choke down even a swallow of coffee, but he sat, hoping to make her stay. She eased around the table to watch the woman and girl outside.

“Nina’s a lovely child. You’re obviously doing a good job with her.”

Neither of them mentioned Tamsin, his greater worry.

He filled up his coffee cup from the carafe on his table. “She’s latched on to Molly. She might be a nuisance.”

Eliza shook her head. “Molly’s wonderful with children.” How could she remain blind to his rising tension? “She’s a patient teacher, creative, eager to get involved. Her students feel how much she cares for them.” Eliza broke off with a nervous laugh. “I’m proud of her.”

“Naturally.” He left the table to stand beside her at the window. “You have no other children?”

“No.” Her lack of hesitation slashed like a knife.

A nice, clean wound. It would heal.

“I’m afraid I have to disagree with you, Mrs. Calvert.”

She didn’t answer. Her silence lasted so long Sam finally checked to see if she’d fainted. She was rooted at his side on the patterned rug of her cozy dining room.

He would remember this moment for the rest of his life—the smell of fried bacon and rich coffee, the tick of a grandfather clock that guarded the far corner, the slight tang of a fire that had burned to ashes the night before.

And Eliza Calvert, trapped in stillness like a photo of herself. His wound might take a little longer to heal than he’d estimated.

“Who are you?” She closed her eyes for the briefest moment. “Don’t answer. I know. Since last night, I’ve tried to remember who you remind me of, but now I know. I’ve wondered about you for so long—wondered if you’d show up, if you hated me, if you were happy.” She jerked her head toward the window, and he followed her gaze, watching Molly hand Nina a fat green balloon. “I wondered if you had children of your own.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He couldn’t tell from her delicate, frozen features what she felt. “I couldn’t locate my birth father.”

She took a deep breath. “Neither could I. He told me he wanted to help, that he wanted you even if he couldn’t marry me. He came along to my first doctor’s appointment—the day before he and his family left town in the middle of the night. He wanted to be a lawyer—kind of ironic when you consider I eventually married a judge. His mother wanted a good career for him and his father refused to let him pay for my sins. I guess they didn’t think I was the proper appendage for him…. But I shouldn’t tell you this.” She looked horrified. “You don’t want to know about—”

“I want the truth.” He pivoted toward the window, ashamed that his birth father had discarded her. Nina and Molly were drawing on the green balloon with a dark blue marker. “I came because of the girls.” He took a deep breath, hiding grief that still squeezed his heart. “When my wife and parents died, I realized Tamsin and Nina would have no one else if I…weren’t around.”

“So you want me to…”

She stopped, and Sam turned his head to look at her, tempted to take the trembling hand she’d raised to her mouth the way he would comfort a patient to whom he’d given bad news. But she wasn’t a patient.

He dropped his hands. He was a stranger. He couldn’t comfort her. She felt no attachment to him.

“I won’t ask for anything. I’m offering you the chance to know Nina and Tamsin.”

“And you.” Joy flashed in her eyes, giving him a second’s astounding relief. In the time it took him to feel disloyal to his adoptive parents, Eliza’s joy changed to panic. “Do the girls know?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Does it matter?” At her openmouthed groan, he relented. “Tamsin knows. She found the file.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.” She pressed her hand to her throat, staring over his shoulder. “Or my husband. Molly…”

He empathized, though sudden anger shook him. Even at his age he wanted Tamsin and Nina and him to matter most. But he was no child. Eliza’s concern for her present family meant she was a loving woman. She had the right to turn him away. She’d arranged for him to have a healthy, happy life. She’d done all a sixteen-year-old girl could do.

“Were you happy?” she asked.

Meeting her tumultuous gaze, he considered lying. He couldn’t. He’d lied enough to last a lifetime. “Happy, yes, but my parents had tried to have their own child for years. My mother told me once that she’d heard a lot of people had babies after they adopted. She expected to get pregnant as soon as they took me. Naturally, she was disappointed when she didn’t, but I think they were afraid to give everything to me. They wanted something left over for their real child.”

Eliza frowned. “Adoption is a strange fertility treatment.”

He wasn’t capable of saying anything else against his adoptive mother. “Being infertile wasn’t just a medical condition for her.” Her restraint had colored his father’s feelings for him. Sam couldn’t help wondering why they hadn’t been as grateful as most adoptive parents to have a baby.

He nodded toward the garden. “You must have wanted a child, too.”

“You know we adopted her?”

“I hired a detective.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

Not the wholehearted effort to help that he’d hoped for. If he was going to stay in touch with this family for the sake of his daughters, he had to know they could love Tamsin and Nina with a generosity his adoptive parents had never achieved.

Eliza’s mouth quivered, apprehension obviously chipping away at any joy. “I can’t explain about Molly until I talk to her.” She backed away from him. “And to my husband. I never told Patrick….”

With a muffled cry, she turned and left the room. Sam didn’t try to stop her. He just listened to her low heels thudding up the stairs.

As they faded, Tamsin appeared in the doorway.

“Well?” she said. “Are you happy now?”

“Where were you?”

“I bumped into her. I guess she wants us.”

He wasn’t so sure. “Are you angry?”

As she shook her head, tears filled her eyes, terrifying him. She’d cried for weeks after Fiona’s death, but her silence ever since had been harder to take. He steeled himself to tackle whatever Tamsin needed him to handle.

“Honey, we don’t have to stay.” He reached for her, and she didn’t fight for once. “If you want to leave, we’ll go.”

“I want my mom. I want my grandpa and grandma and my mom.”

She fell on him, and her sobs broke his heart. No fifteen-year-old girl should ever have to learn the true meaning of forever. His own loss lodged in his throat. No one should have to feel this way.

He stroked Tamsin’s head and held her, praying Nina wouldn’t walk in. Tamsin’s grief unsettled her sister almost more than their mother’s death. To Nina, Fiona’s absence was as confusing as it was painful, but her longing came in nightmares that worsened when she was afraid for her sister.

“Tamsin, I’ve been trying to make things better for you.”

“You think these people can take Mom’s place?”

“No one will ever replace your mom. Not for you and Nina. Not for me. I just wanted to give you family, but if you don’t want that, we’ll go. You and Nina matter most.”

“Then why did you drag us here?”

“If I’d realized you thought I was trying to replace your mother and grandparents, I wouldn’t have.”

“Daddy.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders the way she had when she was Nina’s age. “Sometimes I think I’m falling apart.”

Sometimes he feared he was, too. “You’re fine, Tamsin. You’ve had to face too much for a girl your age, and I’ve made you remember it again.”

IN HER ROOM, Eliza ran to the window on thick carpet that dragged at her feet. She bumped her head against a pane of wavy glass that distorted her view of Molly and Nina. Finally, another figure joined them. Sam.

He leaned down to speak to his daughter. His parents had taught him to be a good father. Forty years of living without her son filled Eliza’s eyes with hot tears of resentment toward that couple who hadn’t loved him the way they’d promised to.

She should have been the one to teach him everything. She should have changed his diapers and walked the floor with him when he was sick at night, and listened to his stories of school days and sports and whatever else boys shared with their mothers.

A sob threatened to escape. She’d never know those things—unless she found a way to include her son now. How many times had she daydreamed about contacting his adoptive parents, begging for news of him?

But she’d chained herself into a corner. Her parents had ousted her from their home when she’d asked for help with her pregnancy. She’d finished her GED while she was in a home for unwed mothers, waiting for Sam’s birth. From there, she’d worked her way through the University of Tennessee.

After she’d started teaching in Bardill’s Ridge, she’d met Patrick, an ambitious attorney on his way to being a judge, like his father. She’d believed he couldn’t love a woman like her, so she’d never told him about her past.

How could she tell Patrick the truth now? He valued his position, the respect people here held him in, the mornings he spent “jawing” with his friends about how to improve county government. She couldn’t admit she’d come here to pay penance in a needy school.

How could she explain to Molly, who’d worshipped her as though she were a saint?

Eliza pressed her fists to the chilled glass. She could not abandon her son—even grown—a second time.

She’d made the right decision for Sam. But what would her husband say when she told him she’d regretted letting someone else care for her baby? What she’d done had been right for Sam but wrong for her. She’d wanted him back every day since she’d placed him in a sweet-smelling nurse’s starchy-stiff arms.

She needed him far more than he needed her. She wanted to be his mother, to try to ease the pain that drove a young man to believe he needed backup in case his daughters lost him.

She had to tell Patrick first, and then Molly. Sam needed her, too, and she wasn’t capable of putting him out of her heart again.

For the first time since they’d opened the bed and breakfast, Eliza left dishes in the sink and snuck out the kitchen door.

She found her husband in his usual late-morning spot on the bench across the square from the courthouse. From there, he and Homer Tinsdale got a clear view of every miscreant—both the members of the legal profession and their clients—who set foot inside the building.

Patrick stood, alarmed the second he saw her. She’d never been good at hiding her emotions. He grabbed her by both arms, his fingers biting into her skin. “What’s wrong?”

She wanted to blurt “My son found me,” but she loved her husband and couldn’t bludgeon him with the truth in front of his friend.

CHAPTER THREE

ELIZA PUSHED ASIDE the orange-leafed branch of a maple.

“I need to talk to you.” She glanced at her husband’s friend, who’d also risen. “Alone, if you don’t mind, Homer.”

“Let’s get a coffee,” Patrick said.

He was still holding her too tightly, almost hurting her, but she said nothing. This might be the last time he would touch her. Grass whipped around their ankles like grasping fingers until they stepped onto the sidewalk. Dimly, she noted cars and people and the chirping of a few hardy birds that hadn’t fled with the approach of cool weather.

At the crosswalk she stepped in front of a slow-moving vehicle whose driver hit his horn and his brakes, shouting insults she couldn’t hear.

“Damn out-of-towner.” Patrick yanked her closer. “What’s wrong with you, Eliza?”

She memorized every beloved line on his face, the concern in his warm green eyes. “I’ll tell you when we sit.” Even God couldn’t begrudge her a few more moments of her husband’s love.

Patrick stared. “You’re worrying me. Are you ill?”

“No—nothing like that. I’m… Let me tell you inside.”

He waited for her to precede him through the doors of the Train Depot Café. Over the years, they’d divided the work at the B and B so that she did most of the morning shift and Patrick manned the evening desk. Patrick spent the cold mornings of winter at the café with Homer and sometimes with his father, Seth. Eliza often joined them for a late breakfast. The café’s owner waved at them now as a signal that she’d bring their usual orders.

“Just coffee,” Patrick said, and Becky Waters nodded.

Patrick pulled a vinyl-upholstered chair away from one of the Formica tables. Eliza sat, avoiding her husband’s gaze until Becky brought their coffee.

“Tell me,” Patrick said.

The truth trembled on the tip of her tongue, astounding her with the promise of unexpected relief. Sam had been a hard secret to keep for forty years. She looked at her husband, but his wary eyes made her hesitate. “You won’t like it.”

“After twenty-seven years of marriage, what are you afraid to tell me?”

“You’re an honest man, Patrick, a blunt man.” Another of his friends strolled past, clapping him on the shoulder and greeting Eliza. The second he saw her face, he cut his welcome short and sped to his own table. She leaned across the Formica, lowering her voice. If she didn’t get this out now, she’d never say it. “I haven’t been honest.”

As if Patrick sensed the dangerous secret she was about to disclose, he leaned back, adding several inches of distance between them. The morning grew cooler. Desperate to keep her old life even as she forced her way into a new one, Eliza peered around at the walls. She cataloged the familiar menus and feed store advertisements, calendars that featured Jesus praying in the garden and others with scantily clad women sprawled on tractors.

This town had become her home. She’d have to leave if Patrick couldn’t accept her and Sam. She took a deep breath. How could she doubt her husband? Gary Masters, Sam’s birth father, had abandoned her to deal with consequences alone, but Patrick had always stood at her side.

“I did something I’m not proud of. Before I met you, when I was sixteen, I gave birth to a child.” That wasn’t what she meant. She wasn’t ashamed of Sam—though she had been ashamed, the smart young girl who’d gotten in trouble with a boy who’d almost immediately left her.

Patrick’s mouth opened on a sigh that might have been a groan. Eliza couldn’t stop.

“A son,” she said, “whom I gave up for adoption. My parents refused to help me. I went to a home for unwed mothers, but it wasn’t like what your mother and Sophie do for the girls at the Mom’s Place. I can’t tell you how awful—”

“What are you saying?”

“You have to listen to me.” He’d heard, but a blank expression betrayed his shock. She tried again. “I have a son. I gave him up—”

“I can’t believe what you’re saying.”

“You have to.”

He wiped sweat off his upper lip. “That’s why you always slip Mom money.”

“You knew?” Her donations were supposed to have been her secret.

“Molly noticed. She thinks you do it because she was one of those girls. She gives her grandmother what she can as well.”

Eliza covered her face. “What will Molly think of me? What will this do to her? Me, falling off my pedestal.”

Patrick eyed her with the neutral expression he offered defendants in unwieldy court cases. “I was going to ask if you’d told her.”

“Not before I told you.” How could he think that?

“You’re so close I thought you might have…. What made you speak up after all this time? Certainly not an obligation to come clean.”

His unexpected taunt nearly strangled her. She left it hanging, poisonous in the air between them until she managed to gasp a short breath. “I wanted to tell you many times, but I’ve been afraid.”

“After lying to me all these years, you should fear the truth.” He sipped his coffee as they stopped being a couple and turned into two separate people.

“Sam is my son.” Best to tear the Band-Aid off in one quick motion. Screaming inside, she allowed herself no outward reaction to her husband’s hand falling limply from the table or to his eyes dulling in shock. “Nina and Tamsin are my granddaughters. Sam brought them because he was afraid they’d have no one else if something happened to him. I want to know them, Patrick.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Sam?”

“Sam is my son.”

“Sam at the Dogwood, with the two little girls?”

“Patrick, are you all right?” Had she caused him to have a stroke or something?

“I’m lost. You had a baby, and the baby grew up to be Sam?”

“I need him. He thinks he wants something from me, but I’m getting a second chance I can’t turn down.”

“Even if it costs you Molly and me?”

“Patrick, Tamsin knows—and she needs us. Sam and his girls could have all of us.”

“I’m sorry about Tamsin, but I don’t see us as one big happy family.” As he straightened, he looked like a stranger. Patrick had never been a man who could withhold love for the sake of revenge, but his anger felt like hatred.

Her world splintered. She closed her eyes for the briefest moment, but she had no time for fear. She’d been afraid and given up Sam. Look where that had brought them.

“I can’t stand to lose you, but I can’t turn my back on my son again,” she stated. “Think of Tamsin. She troubled you, too. She needs a family’s love.”

“My family’s? How can I accept them? How can I even accept that you’ve hidden Sam’s existence?”

“Try to understand. I’ve missed Sam every day of his life, but I could never tell anyone.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You admired me because I came up here to the middle of nowhere to teach. You thought I was someone better than I’ve ever felt. How could I tell you?”

Her fear brought life back to Patrick’s eyes, but not forgiveness.

“I won’t speak for Molly.” Standing abruptly, he threw money on the table. “But I can’t fall in with this little change you’re making in our lives. You’re not the woman I married.”

“Where are you going?”

“You have no right to ask.” His cold gaze pronounced her guilty. “You never trusted me.”

Patrick rushed to the door of the café, stumbling against a table edge, bumping a rack of property rental magazines. Her heart broke. She pressed both hands to her chest as if she could catch the pieces.

Cast off again.

It hadn’t happened in such a long time, she didn’t know what to do. Cry or run after Patrick? Go to her son?

She couldn’t do either. She had to talk to Molly. The world spun crazily. How could she face disillusionment in her daughter’s eyes?

THE BALLOONS LAY in pieces on the floor. Molly swept them up, spreading a cloud of dust that smelled of wet children and dirty shoes and musty books.

A big splash of green balloon reminded her of Nina. The children in her class had written the letters they knew on their balloons. Earlier that morning Nina had written her name, and Sam’s and Tamsin’s with only a little help. She’d added Molly’s name, remembering it well enough to write it again after Molly had spelled it for her only once.

Moments like that reminded Molly why she loved to teach. Children who were eager to learn made the mind-dulling business sessions and the fight for funding, even in such a small school, worthwhile.

Her thoughts returned to Sam’s girls. Nina’s curiosity charmed the daylights out of her, but Tamsin’s Goth clothing and makeup alarmed her. In Nina’s big sister, Molly sensed the quiet desperation that had once been her constant companion.

Molly often wondered if her colleagues worried about their students’ home lives, but she never asked. Asking would expose one of those traits she wasn’t sure every woman shared. Where “normal” people assumed their friends, their families, even the children they taught lived in safety, Molly prepared herself for…not the worst, but not the best, either.

Eliza and Patrick had taken her into foster care after Eliza discovered that the dirty-haired, unkempt girl who’d once inhabited a corner of her classroom was “living” in an empty house on the edge of town. Molly had been alone for seven months by the time Eliza realized her so-called parents had abandoned her to live their separate lives in Knoxville.

After several inconvenient visits from Child Protective Services, Bonnie, Molly’s birth mother, and Mitch, her father, had been more than willing to give up their daughter. Eliza had made Molly feel special when the girl had wanted to hide in humiliation.

Molly had assumed no one could love her. Patrick and Eliza Calvert’s home had been paradise—a most unreliable situation so far in Molly’s short life. She’d tested her foster parents with behavior that horrified her in retrospect. But they’d kept loving her.

After the miscarriage, Patrick and Eliza had adopted her. In return for their kindness—and as penance for her own unforgivable mistakes— Molly had finally learned to consider every possible consequence before she made a move.

“Molly?”

She straightened, immediately alarmed. Tears had marked her mother’s cheeks. “Mom.” Aware only of an urge to fix whatever was bothering her mom, she crossed the room, taking her hands. “You’re crying.”

Eliza touched a lace hanky to one eye, smearing mascara. “A little. May I come in?”

“Why would you ask?” She forced a smile, but the floor seemed to tilt. She hated anything that hurt her mother.

Eliza floated into the classroom. She was still wearing the soft green dress she’d worn at breakfast, but a grease stain formed a circle just above her belted waist. Molly frowned. Her mom believed in the Southern tradition of chiffon and pearls for outside the house. She never wore grease.

“What’s wrong?”

Eliza sniffed the air, showing a sweet profile that only became more lovable to Molly with each passing day. “No more chalk dust. I miss it.”

Molly pointed at the long, shiny surface that had taken the chalkboard’s place. “Whiteboard. Smell the markers?”

“Not the same,” she declared, avoiding the real subject she’d come to talk about. She was starting to shake.

Molly negotiated a path through the wooden desks and helped her to a chair. “I’ll get you some water. What have you been doing?”

“I hardly know. I’ve walked and thought, and now I need to talk. I don’t want water.” With a sudden return of strength, Eliza pushed her into the closest seat. “Let me tell you about myself.”

“What?” Adrenaline lifted Molly’s voice several decibels. Something bad was coming. She gripped her mom’s hands again, reminding herself not to crush the delicate bones. “You’re scaring me.”

“Your father’s furious.”

“Daddy?” She was eight years old again. In the way. Totally expendable. “What’s happened?” For some reason, she thought of Sophie’s mother. Aunt Nita’s affair had nearly destroyed Sophie and Uncle Ethan, but Molly’s mother would never have an affair. Not this mother, anyway. The one who’d cut all ties with her would have considered an affair small potatoes.

“It’s Sam,” her mom said. “And me—and something I did when I was a young girl.”

“Sam?” Molly’s mind went blank. “What does Sam have to do with you?

“I’ve kept the truth from you and your father.” She licked her dry lips. Molly wanted to get her that water, but she couldn’t make her feet move.

“What did you ever do that you’d have to hide?” Suddenly, Sam’s eyes, dark, watchful and worried looking, swam in Molly’s mind. He’d reminded her of her mom. That fast, Molly knew. She’d also been pregnant too young. If any woman on earth had lived a life that prepared her to accept her mother’s confession, Molly had.

But her image of Eliza left no room for such a mistake, and shock blunted her good intentions. “I can’t…I can’t believe you, of all people—”

“He’s my son.” Despair filled her mother’s voice instead of joy.

To Molly, Eliza had been the fairy godmother who’d spirited her out of life’s wreckage. Eliza Calvert had abandoned a child? Never.

A hint of distaste must have shown on Molly’s face, but she’d been an abandoned child herself. She couldn’t contain her feelings or stop herself from showing them.

Even as her mother pushed back from her, Molly found restraint. Whatever Eliza had done, Molly owed her for the only happiness she’d ever known. She had to let her mother explain.

Eliza’s cold hands felt devoid of life. Molly chafed them, dropping to her knees. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You looked as if you hated me.”

Molly swallowed tears. “I’m scared.” Who knew what came next?

“I didn’t want to give him up. He’s my child—just as you are. But I didn’t know how to give him a life. Please understand.”

“I do.” She couldn’t imagine being able to make the same decision, but this was her turn to give back a little of the support she counted on from her mom. “But why are you sad? I’d give anything to have a second chance with the child I lost.”

Hope entered her mother’s eyes as Molly fought the innate dread of what Sam’s prodigal homecoming meant for her. He was her mom’s real son, born of her body. Her natural child, as Molly never could be. And he’d brought her Tamsin and Nina. Molly would never give her parents grandchildren.

“Can you forgive me this easily?” With a quiver in her voice, Eliza sounded as frightened as Molly had ever been. “Or are you turning yourself into the family protector again?”

“Do you know what I owe you?” Molly continued rubbing her mom’s hands. “I carry my past like a lead weight. I’ll never have anything to forgive you for.”

Her mother’s astonishment surprised Molly. “I don’t want you to forgive me because of some imaginary debt,” Eliza said. “And I thought we didn’t worry about your past anymore.”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t talk about it because you want me to forget, but some of my decisions don’t seem forgivable.”

“Is that how you see me?”

She shook her head, loyalty adding emphasis to her denial. The somewhat terrifying news that Sam belonged to her mom didn’t make Eliza any less of a good and loving mother. “What happened?” Molly asked.

“I wish your father had waited for an explanation.” She pulled one hand free to cover her mouth. Over her fingers and her wedding ring, her eyes looked blacker than ever.

“Last night Sam’s eyes reminded me of yours.” Molly patted her mother’s other hand and let her go. “Don’t worry, Mom. Dad’s probably stunned.”

“I have to tell you—he walked out on me.”

The room began a slow whirl. It was the one possibility she couldn’t bear. “No.” She searched in frightening darkness for comforting words. “You know Dad. He has to deliberate, but he loves you. He’ll walk right back in, ready to listen.”

Tears glittered in her mother’s eyes, brighter than the burnished gold of her wedding band. “A woman who can hold such harmful grudges against herself shouldn’t be able to believe the best of someone else.”

“I haven’t lived with you and Dad for seventeen years without getting to know you.”

“You can’t say that about me now.”

“I am surprised.” She pictured Sam, tall and lean and dark. The widowed father of two children. No one’s idea of a brand-new son. “What does he want? Why did he come?” Then she remembered what he’d said about his wife and parents. “He’s worried about Tamsin and Nina,” she said. “He wants us to be their family.”

Her mother scooted the small chair back and stood. “How did you guess?”

Molly returned to gathering balloon detritus. “I’d feel the same.” She shuddered, thinking of Tamsin and Nina being alone as she had been until Eliza Calvert had discovered the truth about her. “Was he adopted at birth?”

“Yes. I agreed not to get in touch with his family and I never learned their names.” Her mother plucked a ragged blue strip of balloon off the floor and passed it to Molly with an absent smile. “Can you be his sister? I think he needs us, Molly. He needs our normality.”

His sister? The idea repelled her. “I’m twenty-five—too old for a brother.” She’d never think of Sam as a brother.

“I don’t see why.”

Then Eliza hadn’t taken a good look at Sam last night. Molly gnawed the inside of her lower lip. She hadn’t noticed Sam for his fraternal qualities, and she couldn’t look at him that way now. Not even for her mom. “I’ll do my part.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Her mother knelt to pull a tangle of balloon bits from under a group of four desks pushed together. “You want to hold back, but our new family won’t work unless you accept him and the girls.”

“I don’t even have to think about accepting them.” She’d welcome Jack the Ripper if her mother asked her to. “But one big happy family? Sam, as a brother, seems odd to me.”

Eliza curved her hands around Molly’s wrists. “I need you to try. You are his sister now.”

Desperation in her mother’s tone and fingers made Molly smile without responding to her demands. “What about Dad?”

“I don’t know.” Eliza sank onto one of the desks. “He said he doesn’t know me, and I got the feeling he might not want to.”

“After he understands, he’ll bend over backward.” Molly dropped the balloon bits into the garbage can. “He already learned to love me because of you. He knows how this works.”

“Are you crazy?” Eliza snorted, the only unladylike sound she’d ever made, and Molly couldn’t help laughing. Her mom took Molly’s shoulders in her hands. “No one learned to love you. Your father and I couldn’t love you more if we’d brought you home from the hospital the day you were born, as I wish I could have done with both my children.”

Staring into her mother’s eyes, Molly longed to believe, without doubt, just once in her life. Words were so easy to say. Bonnie, who’d abandoned her in every way a human being could abandon her child, had said words like that. But now, as then, words weren’t enough.

Molly’s inability to trust gave her sympathy for her adoptive father. A firm defender of justice, he might not know how to stop feeling betrayed.

But she hugged her mom. “Why don’t we ask the girls and Sam to come apple-picking this weekend?” Honestly, it was the last thing she wanted. Apple-picking at Gran’s was her favorite family gathering, and she was childishly unwilling to share.

Her dad and Zach always fired up the deep fryer for apple fritters. Her mom and Aunt Beth and Grandpa led the smaller children in a pagan march of gratitude among the fruit-laden trees. Best of all, everyone shouted gossip and news between the heavy branches and then ate potluck lunch until they slumped to the ground, overfull of good food and family feeling.

Three more pickers would lose themselves among the teeming Calverts. Sam and Tamsin and Nina couldn’t ask for a less stressful introduction to their new family.

Eliza’s grateful tears made Molly both proud and guilty. Her mom hugged her again—a quick squeeze that reminded Molly that Sam might have a place in her mother’s heart, but she owned a corner already.

“Thanks, honey. I knew I could count on you.”

Smiling hurt, but for her mom’s sake Molly had to welcome Sam into her territory.

“DAD, I think Mr. Calvert’s leaving.”

As Tamsin opened the door, Sam looked up, and the ball he and Nina had been tossing hit him in the knees. Nina collapsed in giggles.

“Why do you say that?”

“I was reading on a bench in the square, and I saw him pack his car and drive off.”

Sam stared at her. First, she hadn’t asked if she could leave the Dogwood. Second, she should have told him about Patrick before he’d driven away. Last, Sam had managed to ruin Eliza’s marriage, the last thing he’d meant to do. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He’s really gone?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen Eliza?”

“No. I was surprised she wasn’t with him.”

“Where’s Mr. Patrick going?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie. Tamsin, why didn’t you tell me when you saw him packing?”

“I’m not his keeper.” Tamsin looked blank.

Annoying, but she was right. Keeping up with Patrick Calvert after her own father had ruined the man’s life wasn’t her responsibility. “Will you look after Nina?”

“If I don’t have to drink fake tea with that lizard and Judy.”

“Ooh, tea.” Nina danced toward her sister. “Let’s play tea party. I’ll go get everyone.”

“Yeah,” Tamsin said, meaning the opposite. She scooped the ball off the ground and tossed it at her sister. “Let’s play with this.”

“Nina, play catch with Tamsin, or maybe try out the swings over in the side yard.” Sam withstood a wave of guilt. He couldn’t take back the truth now, but he hadn’t meant to hurt Eliza or her family. A vision of Molly flashed in his mind. His guilt doubled. “I won’t be gone long, Tamsin. I just want to find Eliza.”

“All right, but she may want to be alone.”

Naturally, his daughter considered him to be the most inept human being ever called upon to offer comfort. He’d done her little good over the past year and a half.

He punched a small, silver bell on the reception desk. No one came. He called Eliza’s name. Tapping the scarred, polished wood, he waited a minute or so.

Finally, he circled the desk and opened the door behind it. The dark hall was empty. He’d almost hoped Eliza would be hiding there, reluctant to talk.

“Eliza?” The hall emptied into the wide kitchen, which didn’t feel half as welcoming without his birth mother and his daughters there. And Molly, but he could hardly bear to think of what he’d done to her.

Molly might try to look hard, but she hadn’t been able to conceal her tenderness with Nina or her concern for Tamsin last night.

He turned toward the stairs. Somewhere up there lay his birth mother’s room, but he had no right to climb those stairs uninvited.

He’d caused the havoc in this home, and he should try to fix it if he could. Forcing himself up the stairs, he wondered what to say if he found Eliza.

He knocked on the first two doors. Silence met him.

At the third door, he knocked again and Eliza immediately opened it.

“He’s my son. I have nothing else to say, Pat—” She backed up, her eyes red from crying. She pushed her fingers beneath each eye and looked away. “Oh. I thought you were my husband.”

“He left you?”

“Wouldn’t you if you found out your wife had lied to you the whole time you’d known her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I never told him about you.”

He understood. Fiona had lied at first. She’d thought he wouldn’t want to date her if he knew about the condition that had prompted so many prospective parents to leave her at the orphanage. But he’d fallen in love with her.

He managed a hesitant smile. “I’d forgive her once she explained.”

Eliza turned, covering her eyes again. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem.”

“It is. I came hoping Tamsin and Nina might be part of a family, but if I’ve already ruined yours, I’ll leave.”

“You won’t.” Eliza turned. “Now that I know about you, you aren’t going anywhere and you aren’t taking my granddaughters.” He must have looked startled, because she laughed at his expression. “I don’t make the same mistake twice, Sam.”

“I have a conscience.”

“So do I.”

Her conscience made his decision harder. “I don’t want to stay because you feel you should make up for the past.” He straightened. “I had a good life.”

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