Reckless Hours: a Romantic Suspense novel (Heroes of Providence Book 3) (2 page)

Bill perched on the edge of her desk, pushing papers around as he always did. His gray tweed blazer gaped open, revealing a black turtleneck. She knew without a doubt that he had a pocket planner tucked in the inside pocket, and a red pen for marking papers. He’d had a banana for breakfast with a cup of black coffee, and for lunch, the tuna sandwich he always stashed away in the right-hand drawer of his desk, along with a Snickers bar and a can of no-name cola. Like always.

She’d needed that kind of predictability after she’d arrived in Winchester, Oregon. She’d tried to get through her grief in her little apartment in Vancouver, Washington, trying to make some sense of her parents’ deaths. But it had been no use. Instead of drowning in questions, she’d packed up her Volkswagen Bug and moved to the town her parents had lived in when she was a young child and gotten a job at the local college.

Everything seemed normal again until the contents of one seemingly innocent white envelope made the very foundation of her life crumble beneath her again.

Tammie closed her eyes as she gulped back tears. Then she unfolded the report and clamped her top teeth down on her trembling bottom lip. She kept at it until she felt the pain. The smell of glue from the envelope tickled her nose. With shaking hands she couldn’t control, she found the report for her sample and read the words that severed the last remaining thread to a life she had once owned.

The DNA results show less than one tenth of one percent chance that sample 0017 and 0022 are biologically related...
”

She read the words repeatedly, not wanting to believe them, letting her tears spill freely down her cold cheeks.
Less than one tenth of one percent.
After checking the second sample she’d used for her father, she choked on a sob, burying her face in her hands and allowing the papers to drift to her desk.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry, Tammie,” Bill said on a heavy sigh. “I’d give anything if it weren’t true. I made them check the samples to make sure they weren’t contaminated in any way. They weren’t.”

The people who had raised her weren’t her parents.
But of course they were her parents. They’d always be. But who were they? Who was she? They’d never said a word. Never told her she was anything other than their flesh and blood.

“They were all I had, and now I find out they weren’t even mine.”

How could that be? How could she have lived her entire life not knowing that the man and woman who raised her as their own were not her biological parents?

“Yes, they were, Tammie. In every way that counts, they were your parents.” Bill started to take her hand in his, but she pushed it away.

“I wasn’t supposed to even take this test. It was all for a stupid class project. My sample was only there to round out the results. If I hadn’t done this, I never would have known...”

“This doesn’t change anything.”

She glared at Bill. “Maybe not for you. Your life is exactly the same as it was when you woke up this morning, when you walked into my office ten minutes ago. I have no idea who I really am or where I came from. My whole life has been a lie.”

She snatched the last tissue out of the box on her desk and blew her nose. “How did this happen? How could my parents have kept something so vitally important from me my whole life? Why didn’t they tell me?”

“Maybe they didn’t know, Tammie.”

“What? You mean like being switched at birth?”

“It happens. Hospitals get busy, and some baby gets put in the wrong bassinet or the wristbands get switched. It happens.”

Tammie stared off into the far corner of her office. It always amazed her how life could turn upside down in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah, it happens. But don’t you
think
by now someone would have found out? I mean, I’ve had blood drawn tons of times during medical exams. Don’t you think someone would have questioned my blood type if it didn’t match my parents? Nothing got past my mother. She was so good at keeping records. Nothing like me.” She closed her eyes, then whispered, “Nothing like me.”

Sighing, she glanced down at the report. “This test doesn’t show blood type.”

“Maybe you have the same blood type as one of your parents. Lots of people share the same blood type.” He shrugged. “Okay, so you weren’t switched at birth. Maybe you
were
adopted.”

“If I was adopted, why didn’t they tell me? They never kept anything from me.”

“People do that. They were from a different generation. A different place. You knew they weren’t originally from Vancouver. Maybe they were waiting to tell you.”

She chuckled wryly. “My whole life?”

He shrugged.

Tammie stared at the envelope and sniffed. “They just didn’t want me to find out, Bill.”

“Don’t go there again, Tam. I beg you. It won’t bring your parents back.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Why don’t you believe me about this? I knew my parents. If I so much as had a hangnail, they took me to the doctor’s office. If they really
didn’t
know I wasn’t their biological daughter, they would have found out. I don’t think this was a mistake, Bill,” she said, trying to keep the pain out of her voice. “They knew. They just chose not to tell me. The question is,
why?"

The sting was so sharp, it was like losing them all over again. The one thing she’d learned since her parents’ deaths was that life couldn’t go on unless you picked yourself up and put your best foot forward. The first step was admitting the truth of what was in that file.

“Maybe they were afraid you would reject them. It doesn’t have to be something sinister.”

“I loved my parents. I would never reject them no matter what this file has to say.” She lifted the paper, then let it slide to the far side of her desk.

Bill came around to her side. “You can’t ask them about it now. Just let it go.”

Tammie swiped another tear and stared up at his pleading eyes. “You of all people know I can’t do that. They were the most open, honest people I knew. It doesn’t make sense that they would have kept this from me.”

She looked at Bill and, through tear-filled eyes, said the things she couldn’t put into words.

Bill sighed. “You’re not returning to the college next year, are you?”

Her bottom lip wobbled. “You know I’ve always suspected their deaths weren’t an accident. A diesel boat doesn’t explode when taking on fuel unless something ignites it. Even a faulty wire would have caused only a small fire, giving them plenty of time to get off the boat. I saw the explosion from the parking lot, Bill. The boat went up like an atomic bomb. Even the fire investigator said they should have had time to escape, and yet the boat was engulfed almost immediately.

“Things just don’t add up. They were acting so weird, insisting I go away with them before school was over. I would have been on that boat, too, if I hadn’t been so late getting there. I need to know the truth. But I honestly have no idea where to start.”

* * *

“You should start here.”

Dylan peered over the side of the flatbed truck. Mrs. Burdett stood at the side of the road, giving him instructions on how to retie the ropes that were supposed to keep her priceless antiques in place. This not being the first time he’d been given a lesson from the elderly woman, he’d actually thought of passing by her when he saw her truck pulled over to the side of the road.

But guilt crept up his spine, reminding
him
he was not only a cop, but a Marine, as well. Or at least he used to be. And at one time, he’d even been a Boy Scout. That still meant extending help to little old ladies in need, even when he was practically being forced out of town against his will.

“Nah, you need more support on this end.”

He wrapped the thin, almost clothesline-like rope around the solid sideboard snug up against the back of the truck. Even as he did it, he knew the rope was going to snap again.

“Who packed the truck for you, Mrs. Burdett?” he called down.

“Trudie,” she said, reminding him of her request that he call her by her first name. Tipping her frayed straw hat up so that she could meet his gaze, she harrumphed.

His look was apologetic. “Okay, Trudie.”

“Had to do it myself. That lazy good-for-nothing grandson of mine took off this morning after promising he’d help me load the truck. Probably down at Handies again with his lazy-boned girlfriend. Seems all they do these days is play pool and text on their cell phones, the two of them. I told him I had to get these pieces down to Jackson’s. They have to be photographed for the catalogs before the end of the day, or I’ll miss my spot during the auction. And I’ve held that spot going on thirty-three years now.”

“Well, I’d hate for you to lose your spot. But we’re going to need something a little stronger than what you have here to secure these pieces, or you’ll lose the entire truckload down Main Street before you even make it to Jackson’s.” Dylan jumped down from the truck and stood directly in front of the elderly woman. She was no more able to haul this furniture onto a truck by herself than a five-year-old. He had a feeling he wasn’t the first Boy Scout to have helped her out today.

“You shouldn’t be moving furniture anymore. You don’t want to break your hip again, do you?”

She straightened her spine. “Who’s been telling you such things? Betcha it’s that new waitress down at the diner. She’s from out of town and she can’t keep her mouth shut for breathing. There’s nothing wrong with my bones, son. I got my new hip two years ago, and I’m as good as I was the day I started the Auction Acres.”

Dylan winked. “Course you are. And just as pretty, too.” Her quick grin twisted into a forced frown, but Dylan knew she’d been flattered by the compliment, even as transparent as it was.

“Don’t you go sweet-talking
this
woman. If you were this slick with the young ones you’d be married off by now, not chasing down that brother of yours
.
”

Dylan winced at the mention of Cash, but he let it pass. He’d already grilled Trudie once about his brother, and it had been clear she didn’t have a clue who he was talking about. No one in this town did even though it was clear Cash had spent a good amount of time investigating something here. The one person he knew would recognize Cash was Serena Davco, a local woman who seemed as mysterious as the legend around the house she lived in. But she was the one person Dylan hadn’t been able to see.

“Next time, you might want to think of calling some professionals to help out, if Maynard is too busy,” he said, changing the subject “All it would have taken is one more pothole and you’d have lost the whole load in the middle of the road instead of just that chair.”

He pointed to the side of the road, where what was left of a wooden chair sat broken and splintered. “Doesn’t bode well for business.”

“No, it does not. I’ll be sure to tell Maynard that bit of news.” She harrumphed again, this time with a little additional steam. “Not that it’ll do an ounce of good for the half ounce of sense he has in his head these days.”

Trudie was still grumbling about her kin as she climbed into the truck, pulled out onto the road and sped off, the engine coughing black fumes that mixed with the kicked- up dirt. Laughing, Dylan strode back to his Jeep and swung the door open. Before he could climb in, a red subcompact car with rental plates rolled to a stop in front of him.

Dylan did a double take; he couldn’t believe his eyes. He glanced up at the big ol’ sky and smiled. Maybe he wouldn’t be leaving town just yet after all.

Heat seared his cheeks as the woman behind the wheel of the car rolled down her window. Reaching into his Jeep, he grabbed the picture he’d found in his brother’s apartment and stared at it for a brief moment. Then he glanced back at the woman just to make sure. He really didn’t need the extra look. He’d memorized the face in the picture over the two months since Cash had gone AWOL. This was the woman.
Serena Davco.
Since the photo had been taken, her hair had been cut in a straight style that fell around her cheeks, but the color was the same, as were the dark blue eyes.

The woman’s smile was pleasant as she cocked her head to one side. “Hi. I was hoping you could help me out. I’m looking for a hotel in town that might have some vacancies. Do you know of any? Every place I’ve tried is full.”

Anger surged through him but he held it back. Dylan tossed the picture onto the driver’s seat and strode into the middle of the road. He’d been knocking on Serena Davco’s door for weeks, and he’d had the housekeeper slam the door in his face each time. For weeks Serena been giving him the runaround and now she seemed content to play with him out in the middle of the road as if she didn’t even know who he was. There was no way he was letting her get away with not talking to him now.

“Well, it’s about time you showed your face, lady.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s about time you do. You’re the only one in this town who knows Cash Montgomery and I’m not letting you out of my sight until you tell me where the hell my brother is!”

# # #

• Chapter Two