The Secret Agent's Surprises (Harlequin American Romance) (12 page)

Pete stared at the chimenea. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think anymore.

“So she up and left,” Josiah said.

“I showed her the photo, and she took off like a shot. She was ready to leave, had already made up
her mind about that, due to the women here and how they made her feel. But then I suppose I capped off the moment by trying too hard to fix it. Keep her here.” Pete hung his head, rolled his neck, tried to release some tension. It wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.

Josiah sighed. “Pete, my tough guy, superspy, secret-agent son, I hope you can take what I’m about to say.”

Pete stared at his father. “Bring it on.”

Josiah shook his head, patted his son on the shoulder. “My guess is you don’t see that girl again.”

The words cut deep, but Pete didn’t answer. There was a faint ringing in the hollow of his heart that warned that his father was probably right.

“If it makes you feel any better, and it probably won’t at this moment,” Josiah said, “I’ve decided to transfer your million dollars into your account tomorrow. You’ll need it for the little ones, and while you haven’t been here a year, I’m real proud of what you’ve accomplished. You’ve brought the spirit of family into this house.”

Pete reached over and patted his father once on the back. “Thanks, Pop. I appreciate your belief in me.” It felt good after all the years of separation to have Pop’s faith. Pete leaned back in his chair, staring moodily at the fire, thinking about Priscilla, his temporary fiancée who was more temporary than fiancée.

It had been a week since she’d left Union Junction and Priscilla still felt somewhat lost. Everything in her life seemed to have shifted.

She walked into her closed tea shop and flipped on a light. The tables and chairs needed dusting. Her answering machine was full of messages, but she didn’t want to listen to them right now. Knowing that people were still interested in teas and the services she provided should have made her feel better.

A knock on the door made her look up. Cricket’s anxious face peered through the glass. Priscilla smiled and went to let her friend in. “You’re a welcome sight.”

Cricket blew in on a swirl of brisk wind. “Wow! It’s nippy out there! Hey, I knocked at the house first, then figured you were in here.”

“Let’s see if the teakettle still works, shall we?” Priscilla said. “Maybe there’re some frozen cookies I can defrost.”

“Don’t trouble yourself for me,” Cricket said, hugging her friend. “I just wanted to check on you.”

Priscilla locked the door behind Cricket. “I’m glad you did. Lay your coat over a chair and let’s chase the ghosts out of the kitchen.”

They found cookies and heated water for tea, then seated themselves at a table in the dining room where the lights wouldn’t be obvious to any passersby. Priscilla didn’t want anyone to think the shop was reopening.

“How have you been?” Cricket asked, and Priscilla shook her head.

“Life is mysterious,” she said. “Let me tell you about the babies first.”

“Please do!” Cricket grinned. “Are they perfection?”

“More than perfection,” Priscilla told her. “Seashells for toes, buttons for noses. You can’t imagine anything more darling. Even when they cry, even when they burp, they are so…so amazing.”

Cricket stared at her. “You’re in love with them!” she exclaimed, delighted.

“I know.” Priscilla laughed. “You can’t hold them and not fall deeply.”

“What about their father?” Cricket asked. “Do you fall as deeply when you hold him?”

Priscilla didn’t know how much she was ready to tell. “Can I talk to you as my deacon?”

Cricket looked at her. “Of course. Deacon and friend.”

Priscilla took a long time to consider her words. She cupped her suddenly cold hands around her teacup, tried to steel herself to share her secret. “I had a baby when I was seventeen.”

Cricket didn’t appear shocked. She just listened. So Priscilla moved on. “I gave him up for adoption.”

Her friend leaned over to hug her. “I am so sorry for everything you’ve been through,” she said.

Tears seeped from Priscilla’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t want to wail like a baby, but that was how she felt, as if a good, shuddering cry would release all the pain she’d been repressing. “I held myself back from Pete because of that. I felt so guilty about my own child that I couldn’t think about being a mother to another. I agreed to be his pretend fiancée so he would look better to the adoption people—they’d prefer a traditional family. But all the time I knew I would never marry him, could never be the mother to those orphans.”

Cricket patted her hand and leaned back in her chair. “Priscilla, you are such a strong woman.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m in love with a man I can’t marry because I have no intention of being a mother to his children.”

“So you left,” Cricket said, and Priscilla nodded.

“I had to. At first I told myself I was leaving because of the women who were there. Remember the matchmaking-party attendees?”

Cricket nodded. “Well, we never met them, but I remember not being invited to the party until Suzy called us.”

“Yes, sneaky of her.” Priscilla wiped away her tears and gathered her composure. “I told myself I was jealous of them, that they made me feel less a part of the family. But I’ve had a week to think about it, and I believe I was only using them as an excuse to separate myself from Pete.”

“We do those things,” Cricket said.

“So I’d already ordered the taxi,” Priscilla continued, “and then Pete pulled out this photograph of my son. My whole world fell right through the floor.”

Cricket’s eyes widened. “I bet. I don’t even want to think of where my world would have dropped.”

Priscilla’s eyes darkened as she remembered. “He’s the most beautiful boy,” she said, her voice distant. “I can tell he’s an amazing child. Sensitive, caring, kind. And I’ll never get to know those things about him.”

“Oh, dear,” Cricket said. “Priscilla, don’t torture yourself, honey.”

“I try not to. But I’ve held it in the back of my mind for so long that confronting it is tearing me apart.”

“What did Pete say?”

“I can’t remember. I just left. I know he meant to help, but…”

“And yet, aren’t you glad you know?”

Priscilla hesitated, then nodded. “I am glad to
know that my son is all right. That he has a good family. That he’s happy.”

Cricket sipped her tea, tested a frozen cookie to see if it had thawed enough. “Sometimes in life we’re given a second chance.”

Priscilla was too afraid to let hope slip into her heart, though Cricket’s words were like oxygen to her.

“What I mean is, you did nothing wrong. In fact, you did the right thing by allowing your son to find a home where he would be loved.” Cricket let those words sink in for a moment. “For as long as we’ve been friends, I’ve known you to be an honest, kind, hardworking woman. I’ve been proud to call you a friend. I believe God gives us second chances, and those babies are yours to love.”

Priscilla looked at Cricket, barely daring to hope. “Do you think so?”

Cricket nodded. “Of course. Why would you not be a wonderful mother?”

Priscilla hoped she would be, wanted to be.

“Did you feel that you didn’t deserve another child?”

“I…Yes,” Priscilla murmured. “I was certain I would never marry a man who wanted children as badly as Pete Morgan did.”

“Well,” Cricket said, “he’s already got the children, honey. I’d say all you have to do now is take the ready-made family and believe that you were meant for them as much as they were meant for you.”

Priscilla sat frozen, thinking, praying, hoping.

“You said you love Pete, right?” Cricket asked.

Priscilla nodded slowly. “I think I did from the moment he first teased us. Remember when he burst into the house at the ranch in January? I thought he was the most dashing, devil-may-care man I’d ever seen.”

Cricket smiled. “I remember. He packs a powerful punch. Lucky for you I’ve got an unrequited thing for his brother, or the matchmaking bunch aren’t all you’d have to worry about.”

Priscilla smiled. “Loving Pete happened so quickly.”

“Then don’t let him get away,” Cricket told her. “It’s not every day a woman finds a man with a heart of gold and four little angels to love.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Priscilla said, but Cricket smiled.

“I do,” she said. “You’re going to have to meet him on his terms.”

W
HEN
P
RISCILLA
returned to the ranch, she found Mrs. Corkindale and the matchmaking bunch in residence. It took courage, but she walked in the front door like she was part of the family.

Pete greeted her with a hug. “Awfully glad to see you.”

She smiled at him gratefully, then went to kiss Josiah’s cheek.

“Good to see you, gal,” he said gruffly, and Mrs. Corkindale smiled.

The four babies lay in a large playpen, silent for once. Their eyes blinked and their fingers flexed into small fists occasionally, but for the moment, they were peaceful. “They look like they’re settling in well,” Priscilla observed.

“I have the sense that leaving the hospital helped,” Pete said. “Here there’s relative calm.”

She nodded, glad when he took her hand and pulled her outside. “Can you watch the babies for a minute?” he called over his shoulder to the women.

“I see you’re not lonely,” Priscilla said, “and I’m glad of that.”

“Have you forgiven me?” Pete asked, and Priscilla looked at him.

“I think so,” she told him honestly. “I know you were just trying to help me.”

“I swear I was,” Pete said. “But I also recognize it wasn’t my place to do that. I’ve got my own family tree to locate if I want to hunt someone up.”

She took a deep breath. “On that subject, I want you to take me to see him.”

Pete blinked. “See him?”

“My son.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But just once I’d like to see him with my own eyes. I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t want to upset his world. But just once, I’ve got to see him.” She swallowed. “I need to know.”

Pete held Priscilla in his arms. “I’ve opened up a
Pandora’s box for you. If I could take that back, I would.”

She shook her head. “Believe it or not, you may have done me a huge favor.”

“I was only doing it for me,” Pete said. “I wanted you to be free of the past so I could have you all to myself.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” she admitted, “but I know I won’t give you up without a fight.”

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Pete said, jerking his head back toward the house where the matchmaking bunch was. “They’re not interested in me as much as they are Pop’s money, I think. Nice girls, but I’m not quite the catch Pop paints me.”

“You’re probably not,” Priscilla said, teasing. “But I meant I would fight with
myself
to not give you up.”

“Ah,” Pete said, “I hope you win. There’s a great prize for the woman who wins me. It’s called the Four Babies plus Bachelor Bonanza.”

Priscilla raised a brow. “Don’t forget the crusty father-in-law, who by the way, seems to have a frequent female caller.”

“I think he and Mrs. Corkindale get on well,” Pete said. “When do you want to leave to see your son?”

Now,
she wanted to say.
Five minutes ago. Ten years ago.
But she just looked at Pete, and he nodded.

“Okay. We’ll leave in the morning. You realize, doing this will probably change you forever. How can it not? This is coming from a guy who understands something about shifting family dynamics.”

Priscilla felt like her breath was being held by an invisible hand. Being changed forever was part of life. She wasn’t afraid of that. What she was afraid of was never seeing her son—and that was what had always haunted her.

Priscilla stood outside the pretty house where Pete had driven her, shaded by an oak tree that hung over the street. Pete believed that the school bus would arrive around this time, and if Priscilla’s son didn’t take the bus, surely his carpool or his mother would arrive with him. This was Priscilla’s best chance at getting a glimpse of her son.

She felt a bit like a stalker, but since she had no intention of speaking to him or making herself obvious, she cut herself some slack. She knew she would never come back here. It wouldn’t be fair to herself or to her son. It was now or never. Pete understood this and had parked the truck a short distance away; he was nearby but still gave her space.

Suddenly a school bus pulled up, just as Pete had hoped, and a little boy got off, then turned to help his two younger sisters off. He waved to his friends as the bus pulled away. Priscilla’s heart jumped into her throat. Her son took a soccer ball from his backpack,
kicking it from one foot to the other. His sisters tossed down their packs, ready to play, so he gently kicked the ball their way.

A woman came out on the porch, and they all ran to hug her. Priscilla expected jealousy to tear into her, but what she felt, instead, was deep, humbling gratitude as she watched the ritual. After each child was hugged, they went back to playing. The woman called, “It’s cold out here! Don’t you want to come in for cookies and cocoa?”

“In just a minute, Mom!” the boy called. “The girls need to practice their kicking.”

The girls looked to be only six or seven years old, Priscilla estimated. She was proud that her son deemed himself his sisters’ coach.

Suddenly one of the girls misfired her kick and the ball rolled into the street. Priscilla’s heart lurched; she forced herself to stand still. This was likely not the first time this had happened; the boy would know what he was permitted to do when his ball rolled into traffic.

“Stay right there, you two! Okay? Stay right there. I’ll be right back.” Her son carefully checked both ways—setting a good example for his sisters—then headed across the street to retrieve the ball. It would have rolled right to Priscilla had she been standing in the street, instead of on the sidewalk.

“Hi,” the boy said, surprising her. He’d come to stand beside her to wait for the street to clear again.

“Hello,” Priscilla said, drinking in his face and the
smell of him. He had her blue eyes and the slope of her nose, and he smelled like a warm little boy who played a lot at recess and was probably good in gym class. “Nice kicking.”

He smiled. “Thanks. I’m trying to teach my sisters.”

“Good job.”

He still waited for a break in the traffic. “I like soccer, but I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up. Or a math teacher.”

“Both of those sound wonderful,” she said, her heart twisting. “Good luck. You’ll be awesome at either.”

He looked her full in the face, and at that moment Priscilla saw that she had made the right decision all those years ago. Her son was happy, he was carefree, he was loved. And he would grow up to be whatever he dreamed of being.

“Bye,” he said as the street cleared.

“Bye,” she said, watching him run back across the street and toss the ball to his waiting sisters. “Goodbye, my son,” she said softly, and then turned to walk toward Pete’s open arms.