had once talked to her about the ripple effect—how every action is like a rock thrown into the pond of our lives. The first ripple causes a second, then a third. They multiply and spread, yet they’re all connected at the source. And there’s no stopping any of them.
Her mom and Jacques Martin had thrown a rock into the water one night, and twenty-eight years later, the ripples just kept coming.
She poured herself a glass of wine. Grabbing her laptop, her handheld GPS and the phone book from the apartment, she headed out to the terrace to kick off the official search for the stranger who gave her life.
CHAPTER SIX
“HI, TARA!”
Dylan sprinted across the terrace, a baseball glove clutched to his chest and a delighted grin on his face. When he came to an abrupt stop beside the table she was working on, Tara saw the ball nestled in the glove.
“Hi, Dylan. Have you been playing ball?”
“Not yet. My dad’s not home.”
An uneasiness gripped Tara’s insides. “Do you stay home alone?”
Dylan shook his head. “Monique stays with me.”
Ah, there’s a Monique. Why she was surprised—maybe even a tad disappointed—by the news that her sexy neighbor had a woman in his life? He hadn’t mentioned anyone that morning, but she should’ve figured a guy like him would be attached...on some level.
Right then, a petite young woman—maybe even a teenager—stepped onto the terrace. Her glossy black hair was pulled into a high ponytail and she had a cell phone to her ear.
“That’s her.” Dylan waved.
The woman spotted him and gave an answering wave, then went back inside.
“She talks on the phone a lot to Philippe. They’re going to get married soon.”
Tara scolded herself for the little flutter that news caused. “So Monique is your babysitter?”
“Yeah.” His attention made an abrupt swerve to the small GPS device she held. “Whatcha doing?”
“Well.” Getting into personal details wouldn’t be prudent, but the child’s curiosity was natural. “I may have some family in Paris. So, I’m looking up names in the phone book, then I’m using the laptop to map where that address is, and then I’m putting the address in my GPS to get directions in case I decide to visit...um, that location.”
“Cool! Can I see?”
She handed over the small device and watched the child’s unabashed wonder as he examined it thoroughly. The kids at the summer camp where she’d been a counselor had the same reaction, and that memory gave her an idea. “Have you ever been geocaching?”
Dylan shook his head. “What’s that?”
“Here. I’ll show you.” She logged into the geocaching website she was a member of and typed Paris into the search box. A list, several pages long, appeared instantly. She pointed to a few of the items. “Each of these gives a description and the location of something that’s been cached—that means hidden—here in Paris. But the location is given in latitude and longitude.” When Dylan’s bottom lip protruded in thought, she reminded herself he was only six. Precocious, but still only six. “Those are just numbers like addresses. Anyway, you put those numbers into the GPS, and it leads you to the thing that’s hidden.”
“Like a real treasure?” The child’s jade eyes glowed with excitement.
“It’s sort of a treasure—a small one, though. Usually, it’s a little box with various items inside, and a notepad and pen. You get to choose an item to keep, and you leave behind one of your own. Once you sign and date the notepad to prove you were there, you hide it back where you found it.”
“I want to do that! I want to go geochashtering!”
“Geocaching,” she corrected. “And maybe we’ll go sometime if it’s okay with your dad.”
“Can we go tonight? Right now?”
Tara chuckled at the child’s enthusiasm. “No. We have to wait for your dad to say it’s okay. Plus, he’d probably need to go with us, too, since I don’t know my way around very well.”
“He has to work late tonight, but he said he’d be home in time to play some pitch-and-catch, so maybe we can go when he gets home.” The boy’s exuberance had taken over his mouth, which was moving a mile a minute.
Tara held up her hand to slow him down. “Tonight’s probably not a good night, Dylan. Your dad will be tired after working late, and y’all will have to eat.”
“What’s y’all mean?”
“You all. All of you, or in your case, both of you. But what I’m saying is, we can’t go tonight, but we’ll definitely try to go sometime while I’m here...if it’s okay with your dad. Deal?”
“Deal.” The glum look only stalled his face for a few seconds. “You want to play some catch?” He held up his ball and glove.
It was plain that she wasn’t going to get much more done tonight. Besides, she’d been at her research for over two hours and was ready to stand up and move. “Sure. Do you have a glove I can use?”
“You can use Dad’s.” Dylan laid his gear on the chair and headed back to his flat in a run while Tara gathered her material and deposited it on the coffee table in her living room.
By the time she got back outside, the child had returned. He handed her a ball and a worn glove. “Will it hurt your hand to throw?”
What a sweetie—showing concern for her hand. Tara picked up the ball with her two fingers and thumb and wiggled it in front of his nose. “It will give me a mean curveball, I think.”
His face relaxed in a grin, and he backed away a few feet and took his stance.
The man’s glove swallowed her left hand. “Ready? Here it comes,” she warned Dylan, and tossed the ball lightly.
He caught it easily and tossed it back. “You need to wind up.” It was clear by his tone that he’d meant what he said to be an admonishment—he was not to be thought of as some wimpy, little kid.
Tara blew the dust off her high school softball career and wound up like a pro for the second pitch. She didn’t let loose a fastball, but still threw one hard enough to bring a gleeful laugh from her opponent when he found the ball once again lodged in his glove. Dylan wound up and threw it back with surprising force for a kid his age.
“You’ve got a good arm, buddy.”
His eyes gleamed with pleasure. “My dad says I’ve got his arm. He used to play in the minors.”
Tara tucked away that interesting tidbit for conversation with Garrett later. “Well, no wonder you’re good. It’s in your genes.”
Dylan’s mouth drooped at the corners, and he pointed to his cotton shorts.
