Lost and Found (17 page)

Ed rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
“You do belong there.”

The sentiment was true and from his
heart. He wasn’t thinking marriage and the longevity of their
relationship, but it was there, tucked in the back of his mind.
He’d seen how his family took to her.

Sure, they were kind to strangers, and
they took care of each other. That was a fact. But there had been
something about her that had drawn them all to her. A comfort none
of them had ever had with anyone he brought home.

That was probably why Christian was
drawn to her, too. She was comfortable to be around. She was
familiar.

They enjoyed their dinner and then sat
at the bar and had a drink. Or to be more specific, Ed had a drink
and Darcy had water.

“
I’ve seen you drink a
beer. But not tonight?” he asked.

“
I need to keep my head
screwed on tight, as my father would say.”

He thought maybe he’d need a few more
to keep his from reeling about taking her upstairs.

Ed looked at his watch, and it was
inching toward eleven o’clock. “I suppose we should finish our
drinks and turn in. We have an insurance meeting in the morning at
seven-thirty.”

Darcy cleared her throat and set down
her glass. “That’s mighty early.”

“
Oh, that’s just the first
meeting.” He smiled.

“
Sounds like a delightful
day.”

The band was still playing, and the
song had slowed. “What do you say we take this night out with a
spin on the dance floor?”

“
I think that sounds
perfect.”

Ed took her hand and led her to the
small dance floor. The room was empty except for a few couples in
booths sharing drinks and a few business men talking business. But
as he took her in his arms, the rest of the world faded
away.

He stood a head taller than she did,
and she was so small in his arms. But this woman wasn’t fragile.
She was strong, both in body and mind. Whatever it took, he was
going to keep her in his grasp for the rest of his life.

Darcy draped her arms around his neck
and pressed her body close to his.

“
You haven’t taken any of
your other assistants on business trips and then danced with them
all night, have you?”

“
Just once.” He saw the
flash of disappointment in her eyes. “I’m kidding. I swear. I’m
kidding.”

“
Are you sure we can work
together and be…us?”

Ed stopped moving and just held her
there. “Let’s try. Please.”

Darcy nodded. “The last relationship I
was in was during my first year in college. I thought it was love,
and I was so sadly mistaken. I’m not very good at trusting
people.”

He knew that about her just by the
things she’d said about her own family. It wasn’t that she didn’t
love them, but she was a little gun shy when it came to accepting
things.

“
Darcy, I’m not going to
hurt you. My last three relationships weren’t love either. I
thought they were, but when I’m with you, I know I had no idea what
I was thinking then.”

She pushed away. “Are you saying you
love me?”

Well, he hadn’t said it in those
words, but that was very much what he’d just said.

“
If I said it to you, would
you believe me?”

She quickly shook her head. “No. You
can’t think you love me already. So no.”

“
Then I won’t say
it.”

She nodded nervously. “Thank you. I
think I should get to bed.”

“
I’ll walk you
up.”

“
No. I don’t trust this
right now. I don’t trust me. I’ll meet you in the lobby at seven in
the morning.”

“
Okay.”

She turned to leave.

“
Darcy.” She turned back to
him. “Sleep well.”

When the elevator doors began to close
and she was headed to her room, alone, she knew things were
slipping away from her.

She already knew she was in love with
Ed Keller. Oh, who was she kidding? She was in love with the entire
Keller family.

But she was living a huge lie. She
hadn’t meant to, but she was.

She’d come to Tennessee to find her
birth parents. Her intention was to work her way into Benson,
Benson, and Hart and do what she needed to do to find the people
who gave her life.

It had been an honest coincidence to
have fallen into the job. How much better could a plan work than to
fall right into the arms of the man who could get her all the
information she needed?

It had been a completely dishonest
move to sit with Candy and look into the records. It had even been
more wrong to have put in her own mind the thought that Zach and
Mary Ellen had an affair.

Worse was, she’d believed it until
Candy showed her that Mary Ellen didn’t have her baby until Darcy
was nine months old.

She stepped off the elevator and
walked to her room. It had been wrong to dishonor her mother’s
memory by searching for her birth mother.

Could guilt literally eat you up and
kill you?

Darcy slipped the key card into the
door and let herself into the room. She quickly changed out of her
dress and pulled her hair back.

She turned on the TV and sat there
mindlessly listening to the show that came on.

The thought crossed her mind. Ed
Keller was in love with her.

She let out a breath. How crazy was
that? This man—this powerful man—was in love with her. And if she
was being honest with herself, which she decided she finally would
be, she loved him.

She had to come clean. She had to tell
him what she’d come to Tennessee for. If he decided she was
deceitful and full of lies, he could send her packing. She could go
back to Nashville and pack up her things. She could be back in
Kentucky by the end of the week, and it would be as though nothing
had transpired.

If she felt the way she thought she
did about Ed Keller, she owed him that. The charade was
over.

Ed had just turned off the light when
the pounding started on his door. He jumped out of bed, in only his
boxers, and flung himself at the door.

There stood Darcy, in her pajamas with
her hair pulled back. Her face was pale, and her teeth chattered as
if she were freezing.

“
Are you okay?” He pulled
her in. “What on earth is wrong?”

“
I have to come clean. I
have to tell you what I’ve done.”

Ed led her to the couch and sat her
down. He went to the mini fridge and pulled out a bottle of water
and twisted off the top before handing it to her.

“
Calm down.”

She took a sip as he sat down next to
her.

Darcy sucked in a ragged breath and
turned to look at him. “I didn’t mean to run into you at Starbucks
and spill my drink. I didn’t know who you were. I
swear.”

Ed nodded. “I know that.”

“
Working in the firm wasn’t
in my plan for months. I’m not kidding. I thought I’d get there,
but not like this.”

“
Things happen. It’s okay.”
He had no idea what she was going on about, but she was shaking.
“Darcy, what is this all about? I gave you the job because you were
qualified.”

She shook her head and took another
sip of the water.

“
I hired a private
investigator to help me find my birth parents.”

“
And they found
them?”

She bit down on her lip. “I couldn’t
afford much. But he was able to tell me that it would lead me to
Benson, Benson, and Hart.”

Ed narrowed his brows. “Who would be
there?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But,” she
dropped her shoulders and let out a breath, “I met someone who dug
through some of the old files for me.”

He stood and paced, not even caring
that he was in his underwear. “Someone in my company helped you
search for your birth parents?”

Darcy nodded.

He ran his fingers through his hair.
“Who?”

“
I’m not going to tell you
that. It wasn’t their fault. I convinced them to look. Please don’t
get mad.”

“
So all of this—us—this is
just a sham to you to find your birth parents?”

“
No.” Darcy stood. “That’s
what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t mean to involve you at
all.”

“
But it wouldn’t have
mattered if I hadn’t fallen in love with you?”

She opened her mouth and then closed
it again.

Ed rubbed the tension from his neck.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“
No,” she said softly and
looked at the ground. “I thought I knew, but I was wrong. I didn’t
find anything.”

He nodded and then rested his hands on
his hips, unsure what to do with them since he wasn’t dressed. “Why
are you telling me this? Why now?”

“
Because I couldn’t deceive
you anymore. It was what drove me to Tennessee. And even when you
left to come here, I thought I could get Curtis to help me find out
about my birth mother from the hospital. But now it all seems
wrong.”

“
Oh, you think?”

“
Ed,” she moved to him, but
stopped short of reaching him. “That’s why I’m here. I can’t be in
love with you and have lied to you.”

“
Now you’re saying you’re
in love with me.”

“
I knew that I was in love
with you. It’s not that I didn’t trust you.” She looked down at the
ground. “I didn’t trust me.”

He took the bottle of water from her
and took a sip. His throat had suddenly gone very dry.

“
Why would someone tell you
that the path to your birth parents ended with BBH?”

“
I don’t know. That’s all
he told me. For all I know, he might have taken my money and found
the company in some directory somewhere. But I can’t go any further
in this relationship without you knowing the truth. Until the
moment you told me who you were, I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t
seek you out to deceive you. I was only trying to find out who I
was.”

Ed set the bottle down on the coffee
table and turned to her. He took her hands in his and looked her in
the eye.

“
You don’t have to find
those people to validate who you are. Maybe your mother and father
had a reason for not telling you who gave you to them. Did you ever
think they were protecting you from something?”

Her lip began to tremble.
“No.”

“
Well, maybe you should
trust them. It doesn’t look like they made any mistakes with you,
so why go searching? Why bother?”

Tears were forming in her eyes and
threatening to fall. She tried to bat them away, but there were too
many and they began to fall.

“
Please tell me you don’t
hate me. Please tell me you forgive me.” She sniffed back her
tears. “I’ll leave. I’ll go forever if that’s what you want. But I
needed you to know the truth, and now you do.”

Ed kept his grip on her hands. He was
furious that she’d go behind his back and search the company files.
Even if he understood it, he didn’t accept that. But everyone made
mistakes.

What would he think if he were in her
shoes? If he found out Madeline and Carlos Keller were not his
parents, how would he feel?

He knew exactly how he’d
feel—betrayed, just as Darcy felt.

“
I’m very upset about
this,” he said. “I wish you’d just been honest with me. I would
have helped you.”

“
I’m sorry.”

Ed lifted his hand to her cheek and
brushed away her tears with his thumb. “I’m going to say this, and
then you can decide how you want to deal with it.”

Darcy’s eyes grew wide, but she
nodded.

“
I love you.”

She choked back a sob.
“Still?”

“
I think
forever.”

Darcy moved in closer and wrapped her
arms around him. “Please don’t change your mind.”

“
Why would I?”

“
I don’t know. I’m
scared.”

Ed rested his cheek against the top of
her head and pulled her close. “Don’t be scared. I want this too
much. I don’t want to lose you.”

Darcy shifted and looked up at him.
“You can trust me. I want you to know that you can. That’s why I
had to come up here—now. You had to know.”

Darcy watched his eyes as he processed
it all. He’d said he loved her, and she was going to run with that.
Her father wasn’t a man that said it easily or often, but when he
did, he meant it. She had to assume that when Ed Keller said it, he
meant it.

She’d been so wrapped up in telling
him what she’d done that she hadn’t realized just how
insufficiently dressed they both were. Her bare arms pressed
against his back and her face had been flush against his chest,
where she could hear his heart beat in her ear.