woman came out. Eric let the door close, spoke to the young woman briefly, then they hugged. She thought her throat might close. “Oh,” she said quietly. Eric walked away. The woman crossed the street to the diner and Laine saw that she was just a girl, really. “God, she’s so young. What’s going...? He is much too old for her!”
Gina laughed softly. “They’re not dating, Laine. He’s her father.”
Laine’s head snapped back into forward position and looked at Gina in shock. “But...”
The girl came in and walked right behind the counter. “Hi, Mom. Eric gave me an Amazon gift card.” Then she looked at Laine. “Hi,” she said, and Laine could see the resemblance—red hair, green eyes, but that smile belonged to someone else. Gina.
“Ashley, this is Laine. Laine, meet my daughter, Ashley.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ashley said. “I’ll go change and be right out to relieve you.”
Laine was speechless. She didn’t even know what question to form first and she felt the color drain from her face. Great game face, Laine, she chided herself.
“High-school romance,” Gina said. “Eric didn’t know about Ashley until about a year ago. I was very young and raised Ashley alone, with my mother’s help. The deli is my mother’s business—Ashley works there part-time, whenever Mom needs her help. And she’s here a few afternoons and evenings a week.”
“He didn’t mention...”
“I guess you can’t know everything about each other after one date,” Gina said with a shrug.
“Having a daughter would seem real high on the list,” Laine said. And then she felt the color come back to her face with a vengeance and she thought, What the hell? I’m an experienced undercover investigator! I don’t go pale, don’t flush, don’t allow personal emotions to dominate my behavior or responses. But she said, “You and Eric?”
“Getting along better than I expected we would. I located him and met with him to get some medical history from his side of the family, a purely practical thing. It was Ashley’s decision to meet him and at first it made me very nervous, very paranoid, but it’s worked out well for both of them, I think. He’s changed a lot in seventeen years. But then, so have I.”
But for Laine, there was a red flag. Having children, having a child, being a parent—even a recent or part-time parent—would seem to be one of the most obvious things to mention, maybe right after what you did for a living. How had they spent almost four hours together without that subject coming up? Concealment? Because hiding information was one of the first signs something was wrong.
Is that so, Agent Carrington? she chided herself. But wait, wasn’t her situation a matter of public safety? National security? Almost?
But she said to Gina, “It seems to have worked out, then.”
“Don’t let this get under your skin, Laine. I’m a very happy woman. Mac seems to respect Eric. And Mac isn’t easy. I’m sure when you bring this up to Eric, he’ll give you the whole story. He’s a very nice guy. Now.”
“He wasn’t then?”
“I don’t know, that’s a tough one. He was nice to me, but he was such a typical nineteen-year-old—shiftless, irresponsible, egocentric. And I was a completely typical teenage girl—love was more important than common sense. It’s a terrible trap—but I do believe we’ve outgrown those tendencies. Look, we all have baggage. Don’t we?”
“Sure,” she said. However, Laine believed she could keep the heaviest of her baggage to herself for a long time. And it wasn’t all about her work with the FBI. “But you know what? The best way to take care of this is to take care of this.” She stood up. “What do I owe you for the cocoa?”
“On the house. Don’t draw blood. I forgave him a long time ago and I think he’s forgiven me for keeping Ashley to myself.”
“I won’t hurt him,” she said with a weak smile. Then she got out of the diner before she thought about it any further.
She jogged down the block, hood up and covering her head, and went straight for the station. There were a couple of cars at the pumps being taken care of by a teenager. Inside the garage, she could see someone under the hood of a car. He had long legs she recognized, although now he was wearing a coverall of some kind.
“Eric?”
He peeked out. First he smiled, then he frowned in concern. “Laine, you’re all wet....”
She stepped toward him. “I just met Ashley in the diner. You didn’t mention her.”
He grabbed a rag and wiped his hands. “I meant to, but we were talking about other things.” He grinned at her. “Obviously I can’t keep her a secret. The hair, the eyes—she’s either a clone or mine. Isn’t she beautiful?”
Laine nodded but felt numb.
“She’s beautiful inside, too. Just an awesome kid. Gina and her mother really worked their magic raising her.”
“It makes me wonder, though, what other important things you might be waiting to tell me. Because I like the really major stuff up front. I don’t want to get involved and then find out there are issues like having a family that wasn’t even mentioned.”
Eric frowned as if in thought. He was quiet for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and spoke. “There’s no privacy for talking here, Laine. Go home, get dried off. I’ll wash my hands and come over. I’ll tell you the circumstances, you’ll ask me anything on your mind. We’ll get it all on the table. Before tonight.”
“Before tonight?” she asked, already disappointed.
“I don’t want you to waste your time. I like you. I want you to like me. But I’m not perfect by a stretch. So let’s do it.” He lifted one of those copper brows. “How’s that sound?”
It sounded like bad news was coming. But it had to be done.
“Don’t make me wait too long,” she said. Then she turned and jogged out of the garage and down the hill to her house.
* * *
Laine threw on a warm, dry sweat suit and put her chicken on to stew with a halved onion and the end of the celery stalks in the water. It was one o’clock. She put the ingredients for the Parmesan breadsticks on the counter—that would be her next project. She was determined to make her chicken and dumplings whether her encore date happened or not.
And then there was a knock at the door.
She opened it and there he stood in that blue jacket and pants. She took a breath. “I don’t mean to be like this—so suspicious of everything. Certainly a beautiful, sweet girl like Ashley is nothing to be—”
He came inside, took her elbow in a firm grip and said, “Come on, Laine. Let’s talk.” He directed her to the sofa. They sat there, facing each other. “Ashley’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. She’s letting me help her look at colleges. I shouldn’t even have that privilege—not only am I not educated, but Gina and Mac have been her parents, not me. I didn’t know about Ashley. Well, I wondered...”
