Читать книгу: «The Seal's Secret Child»

ONE

Josie Bishop took a deep breath, knelt to the carpet in her son’s bedroom and groped around underneath his bed. She was searching for discarded socks and underwear, but instead she found an old orange peel, sticky candy, half-eaten sandwiches and all manner of other unpleasant items that lurk in the depths of a six-year-old boy’s bedroom.

Her fingers came to rest on something soft, squishy and furry. She yanked her hand out.

“Archie!” she yelled out. “What are you keeping under your bed?”

The noise woke up Sherbet, Archie’s blue parakeet, sitting on a perch in his cage next to the bed.

“Pretty boy. Pretty boy,” the budgie squawked, making a bowing motion with his head.

Josie jumped. Sherbet always had a habit of scaring her when she was off guard.

“Be quiet, Sherbet,” she muttered, steeling herself to retrieve the furry object beneath the bed. Pulling out her hand slowly, she found herself staring at a moldy peach, collapsed like a popped balloon. It seemed to sum up how Josie felt: deflated, empty and way past her sell-by date.

The bird chirruped.

“What do you want, Sherbet?” she asked, looking for some scrap paper on which to place the soggy fruit.

The budgie picked up his empty food bowl in his beak and banged it against the bars.

“You want food?” Josie asked, gingerly holding the peach in one hand and reaching for the birdseed with another. “I’m sorry I’m grumpy, but I’m jittery.” She poked some seeds through the bars. “And I must also be crazy, because I’m talking to a bird.”

Josie nervously peered through the window to see a uniformed officer standing guard outside her home in Sedgwick, Kansas. He had been there for the past five days, ever since a series of threatening phone calls culminated in someone trying to run her off the road on her way home from work. It had been a terrifying experience.

As an attorney working for the Sedgwick County Public Defender Office, Josie had been assigned a child abduction case. It was her job to defend the man accused of abducting a young girl from the sidewalk outside her home. The accused man, Norman Francis, was an odd and reclusive character who always wore a large overcoat even on the sunniest days. Norman claimed that the three-year-old girl came into his neighboring home uninvited, and he proclaimed his innocence. But his protestations were to no avail, and he was subsequently charged with kidnapping. Yet Josie believed his pleas of innocence and had gladly agreed to represent him in court. The community of Sedgwick had already acted as judge and jury, condemning Norman without a trial, and Josie intended to let the truth be told.

However, someone in the vicinity was determined to make her pay for defending a man like Norman, a man who some believed was a potential child abuser. After it became apparent that her life was in danger, the police agreed to post an officer outside on the driveway for a few hours a day to act as a deterrent. Whoever wanted to terrorize her was not going to win.

Despite the fear that had been instilled in Josie, she wouldn’t let it destroy her life. After narrowly escaping her attacker’s car, she had sat down around the kitchen table with Archie and her father, Tim, to discuss how they would cope. Her dad had lived with her ever since the death of her mother five years ago, and he had been a constant source of support. Being a single mom was hard, and Josie often worked long hours. Her dad stepped in frequently, doing the school runs, making dinner, being a surrogate dad for Archie. She had no idea where her son’s real father was. He had vanished many years ago, apparently determined never to be found, despite an extensive search.

Spying a crumpled piece of paper on the windowsill, Josie picked it up and placed it on Archie’s desk, intending to wrap the dripping peach and throw it in the trash. It was a sheet from the printer in her son’s room. He was a budding engineer and often used a kids’ software package to print his crazy designs. But this paper was a printed email conversation, covered in doodles of birds and mice. She furrowed her brow, unaware that Archie had set up his own email address. He knew that this sort of online activity wasn’t allowed. As she looked closer, she jumped with shock. The name of the person her son had been conversing with caused her to gasp and drop the fruit to the floor. The peach exploded on the carpet, showering her ankles with a spray of juice, but she didn’t care. She simply looked at the paper, too stunned to move.

“Archie,” she yelled. “Come here, please.”

She held the printed paper with shaking hands, confronted with the name Edward Harding. Josie blinked hard. Edward Harding was the name of her ex-fiancé. Edward Harding was the name of her son’s father, a man who had never known of Archie’s existence. Could Archie have possibly found his father? Could a six-year-old have managed to complete a job that several private detectives had failed to do?

Archie appeared in the doorway, his blond, unruly curls and freckled face making him appear impish and mischievous. When he saw the paper in his mother’s hand, his cheeks flushed, and he looked at the floor guiltily.

“I’m not mad,” Josie said gently, leading her son to sit on the bed. “But will you explain this to me?”

She cast her eyes over the email, trying to make out the words behind the doodles. She saw, mom, danger, bad man, help us. Archie was asking for assistance from a man who might very well be a complete stranger.

“I saw him on a news channel,” Archie said in a small voice. “And I called the news station. They gave me his email address.”

“Who did you see, sweetie?” Josie asked. “A man you thought was your dad?”

“It was my dad,” he replied, imploring her to believe him. “Some bad guys were arrested in Missouri last week, and my dad helped catch them.” He pointed to the television in the corner of his room. “A reporter asked him all about it and put it on TV. The man’s name was Edward Harding. That’s my dad’s name, right?”

“Oh, honey,” Josie said, sitting on the bed next to her boy and placing an arm around his slim shoulders. “There are probably lots of men named Edward Harding. I know you want to meet your dad, and I’ve tried really hard to find him, but we have to accept that he’s gone.”

Archie looked up into her face, his bright blue eyes glittering with the hope of a child. “But this guy had one leg, Mom.”

She drew a sharp breath. Archie’s father was a former navy SEAL who had lost his lower leg after being injured on a mission in Afghanistan seven years previously. Archie knew this. She had told him as much about his father as he had wanted to know. Which was a lot.

“I know it was him, Mom,” Archie continued. “He looked like me.” He pointed to a spot on his ear where the cartilage was flattened and smooth. “He even has the same ears.”

Josie found her head reeling. “Why didn’t you come and talk to me about it?” she asked, attempting to control the unease in her voice. “You should have told me.”

Archie looked down at his hands cupped in his lap. “I don’t know if you like my dad now,” he said quietly. “You never talk about him anymore. I thought you would keep me from seeing him.”

“Archie,” she said, wrapping her arms around his torso. “Of course I want you to see your dad. I’ve tried to find him. I really have.” She pulled back and wiped tears from beneath her eyes. “It’s complicated. It’s hard for you to understand. You should never get in touch with a stranger unless you ask me first, okay?”

Archie jumped off the bed and stood with his fists clenched. “But he’s not a stranger, Mom. He’s my dad.” Archie pointed to the email still clutched between Josie’s fingers. “He wrote back to me and he was nice. He says he remembers you. I told him you were scared because of the bad man, and he says he can come help us.” He pulled himself up to his full height, like a proud soldier. “I know he was in a special army. He can make you safe.”

Josie listened to her son with a mixture of terror, bewilderment and disbelief. Was this Edward Harding truly the man she had loved and lost? Could this be the man who had vanished from her life overnight because he couldn’t accept his disability? Or was someone cruelly playing a trick on her beautiful little boy, exploiting his desperate desire to meet his father?

“Sweetheart,” she said, kneeling to the floor and clasping Archie by the shoulders. “When did you get in touch with this man?”

“Yesterday.”

“And did you tell him where we live?”

Archie nodded solemnly. “He’s coming to see us.”

Josie’s heart skipped. “When?”

When Archie refused to speak, Josie pushed a little harder. “This is really important, Archie,” she said. “I need to know when he’s coming here to Sedgwick.”

But before her son could answer, a loud crash sounded through the room. A brick came through the window and hit the wall, smashing a mirror and then bouncing onto the carpet. Around the brick was a white piece of paper secured with a rubber band. Josie reacted instantly, yanking Archie to the ground, away from the glass, before covering his small body with her own. She could see bold black words written on the paper: DROP THE CASE OR PAY THE PRICE. In the next moment, the police officer who had been stationed out front came bounding into the room.

“Go to the back of the house,” he ordered. “And stay away from the windows. Let me deal with this.”

Josie scrambled to her feet and lifted her son into her arms. He curled his legs around her waist and she carried him into the kitchen, almost colliding with her dad, Tim, in the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked, his eyes wide and fearful. “What happened?”

“Somebody threw a brick through Archie’s window,” she replied, holding her hand over her son’s head, not wanting to imagine how close he came to serious injury. The person who wanted to terrorize her had no intention of stopping. “Oh, Dad, why does this have to happen to us?”

Her father steered her into the kitchen and pulled down the blinds, shielding them from view to anybody outside.

“The police will do their job, Josie. Don’t worry.” Yet her father was utterly failing to hide the anxiety in his voice. “It’s just somebody trying to scare you. That’s all.”

Josie hugged Archie even tighter. She felt his breath quicken on her neck.

“It’s okay, Granddad,” Archie said, keeping a tight hold on his mother. “My dad is coming to help us today. He promised.”

Tim’s eyebrows shot up high, and he looked sharply at Josie. “What did he just say?”

Josie squeezed her eyes tightly shut. If what her son said was true, then she would shortly be seeing a man who had vanished from her life seven years ago, someone who had no idea she was ever pregnant with his child. After losing his leg, Edward had broken off their engagement via letter and disappeared, severing contact with his friends and family. She had understood why he had done it, but she had never forgiven him. After searching fruitlessly to find him and inform him of the birth of his son, she had eventually given up.

Her stomach was a swirl of dread. How on earth was she going to face the difficult task of allowing him into her life again? She had turned her back on the past and forged a future without him.

“Dad,” she said shakily, “you’d better sit down. I have something to tell you.”

* * *

Blade Harding entered the small town of Sedgwick with a knot the size and weight of a sledgehammer somewhere in his gut. He had been on the road for the last twenty-four hours, driving from his home in North Carolina, only stopping to nap in the truck before setting off again. As each mile clocked on the dash, his heartbeat turned up a notch.

Since losing the lower portion of his left leg to a shrapnel wound seven years ago, Blade had battled a range of destructive and negative feelings before finally reaching acceptance. Now he was fully integrated back into society, running a successful business and enjoying life again. He was also training for the Invictus Games, where he would compete against other wounded, injured or disabled veterans. He was proud of himself once more, something he never thought would happen. He had even embraced his new life by introducing himself to new people as Blade instead of Edward. It was a nickname that his buddies had given him due to the prosthetic blade he used for running, and it had stuck.

He glanced at the GPS screen on his dash, checking that he was correctly headed for the Kansas address his son had given him. Knowing he was close by triggered an emotion so intense that he had to pull to the side of the road and compose himself. Could he really have a son? When he had first read the childlike email purporting to be from a six-year-old boy, he had dismissed it as the prank of somebody who worked in the auto body shop he owned. The first line of the email was too unbelievable to be true: My name is Archie and I think yoo ar my dad. But after reading more of the poorly spelled words, he found himself astonished and stunned to learn that the boy’s mother was Josie Bishop. Only a very small, select group of people knew about Josie. And none of those people would prank him like that.

He had gone over and over events in his mind. Had Josie been pregnant when he’d left for Afghanistan? It was possible. He hadn’t been a Christian at the time, and neither was she. They hadn’t fully considered the consequences of their actions. But why wouldn’t she have told him?

He started out on the road again. He was now just one block away. The knot in his belly tightened. Archie had told him that Josie was in danger and needed help. Somebody was threatening to hurt her. Would she accept help from him? Would she see him? Was the child even his? The questions flying through his head were relentless. But the one thing he most hoped was waiting for him in Kansas was respect and understanding. Since he had become disabled, so many people treated Blade differently, as if he were a weaker man. He was desperate for Josie not to feel this way about him. He wanted her to see him as a complete man.

He pulled into a wide, tree-lined street, instantly spotting a house with a police car outside. The house was single-story, large and well kept, with white shuttered windows and a silver SUV parked in the driveway. His heart lurched to see a police presence and a window boarded up with wood. Given that Archie had already talked of the danger his mother was facing, he knew this must be Josie’s home. He rolled the truck to a stop along the curb. But he had no time to steady his nerves, because a police officer walked over to the truck and requested that he roll down the window.

“Can I ask what your business here is?” the officer asked.

“I’m visiting,” he replied. “Is everything okay?” He looked at the boarded window. “Has anyone in the house been hurt?”

“We’ve had some trouble here this evening, but all the occupants are just fine. However, all visitors must be approved by the home owner before exiting their vehicles. Can I take your name, please?”

“It’s okay, Officer.” A female voice cut through the air, loud and clear with the soft lilt of a Kansas native. He knew instantly that it was Josie. “I’ve been expecting him.”

The officer tipped his hat and stepped aside, allowing Blade to catch sight of Josie for the first time in seven years. She had barely changed, and his breath caught in his throat. Her hair was as red as he remembered, cascading over her shoulders in waves of lava. The intense color was the perfect frame for her china-white skin and striking green eyes. She stood with her arms crossed, wearing a black pencil skirt and a white tailored blouse, looking every inch the beautiful, professional woman. And he was struck temporarily dumb.

“Hello, Edward,” she called. “Are you going to come inside?”

He swallowed hard. He was a wreck. He slipped out of the driver’s seat and began walking up the path, all the while feeling her gaze on him. She was impossible to read.

“Everybody calls me Blade these days,” he said when he reached her. “Edward is who I used to be.”

“Well, whatever you call yourself now, we have a lot to discuss,” she said flatly as he reached the door. Her defensive posture clearly let him know that any physical contact would be unwelcome.

He looked at the police officer standing on the front lawn. “I didn’t realize your situation was so serious,” he said. “What happened?”

She ushered him inside and closed the door. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is introducing you to your son.”

Blade put a hand over his belly, which had exploded with butterflies. “So it’s true? The child is mine?”

Josie’s arms remained crossed. “His name is Archie,” she said. “And, yes, he’s yours. He’s with my dad in the kitchen. I wanted to explain things to you before you met him.”

Blade walked into the living room, feeling the need to sit in one of the large wicker chairs. He rubbed two hands over his face, now stubbly since he hadn’t been able to shave for the past twenty-four hours.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, looking at her imploringly. “Seven years have passed, and I had no idea my son was walking this earth without his father.”

She let her hands drop to her sides, and he noticed that she was digging her nails into her palms. “When you came back from your mission in Afghanistan, I was already ten weeks pregnant, but I didn’t want to tell you the news while you were undergoing intensive medical treatment to try to save your leg.” Her eyes flitted to his left pants leg, under which was a carbon fiber prosthetic limb encased in flesh-colored plastic. “So I waited.”

Blade stood up. “I had a right to know. You should have told me immediately.”

“That’s not fair!” she shouted before dropping her voice again. “I had no idea you were about to run out on me. After you had the leg amputated, I thought you’d recover, we’d get married and our family would be complete. But you had other ideas, didn’t you?” Her eyes were blazing now. “You just vanished and nobody knew where you were, not even your friends. I had no choice but to move back home to Sedgwick and raise Archie with the help of my parents.”

Blade sat heavily in the chair. Her criticism of him was justified. He had behaved in a cowardly way, but he had a good reason for leaving like he did. Or so he’d thought at the time.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “When I lost my leg, I was devastated.” He looked up at her. “I assumed I couldn’t be a good, strong husband for you. I knew I’d be medically discharged from the SEALs, and I had no idea how I’d earn a living. I didn’t want to rely on VA disability compensation to provide for my family. I felt useless, and I thought you’d be better off without me, so I decided to disappear.”

She sat on the chair opposite him. “You left me a note,” she said in a whisper. “That’s all. If you’d broken off our engagement in person, I could have explained I was pregnant, but you didn’t give me the chance.”

“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say, but it was hopelessly inadequate. “I thought it was for the best at the time.”

She regarded him with steely eyes. “You broke off contact with everybody in your life. Why did you do that?”

Blade hated thinking about this part of his life. It was a dark time. He had no strong family connections, so cutting himself off from distant relatives was easy, but abandoning Josie and his friends shamed him.

“I was grieving,” he said. “I didn’t want to be reminded of my old life, when I was strong and able-bodied. I just shut down.” He held his hands up. “I know it was selfish, but it was the only thing I could do.”

Josie put her head in her hands, letting her hair envelop her fingers. “I tried to stay in touch with your old SEAL buddies so that I would know when you resurfaced, but over the years, I lost contact.”

“I’m guessing you never told any of them you were pregnant,” he said. “Otherwise they would’ve let me know.”

Josie twined her fingers together. “I didn’t want you to hear the news from a third party. I assumed I’d find a way to contact you, but before I knew it, I was all out of leads.” She raised her head and locked eyes with him. “I would never intentionally keep your son from you. I prayed so hard for an answer.”

He smiled weakly at her. It looked like she shared his Christian faith now. It was comforting. “After I left Virginia, I went down to Florida and lived there for four years, working for a motor mechanic business. I was just bumming around with no direction and no hope. I wanted to drop off the radar. But then I met an athlete who competes in the Invictus Games, and he turned my life around. I started training with him, and I learned to be proud of myself again. I got back in touch with my SEAL buddies through the military support unit, and I moved back to my hometown in North Carolina.” He felt himself welling up. “But this is all irrelevant now.” He looked at the doorway that he assumed led into the kitchen. “What I really want to do is meet my son.”

Josie stood up, wiping her moist palms on her skirt. “Archie says he saw you on the news and contacted you through the station. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Blade replied. “Do you remember my old buddy Tyler?”

She nodded.

“I helped him catch the leader of a meth gang in Missouri recently. He’s a sheriff there. It’s a long story, but a national news station came to interview me about it. When I got back to North Carolina, there was an email waiting for me from Archie. He’d recognized my name and gotten my email address from the news station.” He smiled. “He’s a smart kid.”

“Yes, he is,” Josie said. “But why didn’t you contact me when he sent you the email? Surely that would have been the best option. And then I could’ve been better prepared for this moment.”

“I tried,” Blade replied. “But your number isn’t listed, and Archie wouldn’t tell me what it was. He thought you might try to stop me from coming. He said you were in trouble and needed somebody to protect you. I just had to get here right away, so I hopped in my truck and drove through the night.” Every moment that passed was another moment without his son. “Please, Josie, can I meet Archie now? I’m dying here.”

“Of course,” she said, extending her hand toward him. “Can I help you out of the chair?”

He briefly hung his head and sighed. So his most important question had now been answered. Josie did see him as a weaker man. And he was bitterly disappointed.

“No, thanks,” he said, standing with ease. “I’m good.”

She walked briskly to the doorway and closed her fingers around the handle. “Are you ready?”

Blade’s heart began to hammer. Would he ever be ready for this moment? “Absolutely.”

With that, Josie opened the door. “Archie, your dad is here to see you.”

* * *

Josie’s emotions ran rampant as she watched Blade kneel to the floor and hug his son for the first time. She saw a tear fall down Blade’s stubbly face, and she fought hard to suppress tears of her own. The instant love that her ex-fiancé felt for his son was clear to see, and his embrace was fierce yet gentle. It made her think of a father bear cradling a cub. But at the same time, Blade’s presence here caused her chest to ache with regret and pain. Could she ever forgive this man for abandoning her when she needed him most?

Archie, meanwhile, took this profound moment in stride.

“Hi, Dad,” he said, as if it were an everyday occurrence to hug his father. “I knew you would come.”

Blade pulled back. “Thank you for finding me, Archie.”

Archie smiled broadly, his freckled face a picture of innocence. “Which one of your legs was chopped off?” He glanced between the right and left. “They both look the same.”

Blade laughed heartily, throwing back his head the way he always used to. His mop of curly hair was as unruly as ever, just like his son’s, and his rugged face had gotten even more handsome over the years. His strong and chiseled jawline was hidden by beard growth, but his Roman nose was still his most prominent feature, the high bridge settled between his piercing blue eyes.

“I’ll show you if you like,” Blade replied, pulling up the left leg of his jeans. He knocked on the pink plastic beneath, making a hard clunking sound.

“Wow!” Archie said with genuine admiration. “Just like a superhero.”

Blade winked. “I keep my cape in the truck.”

Josie saw her father hanging back nervously. She coughed. “Edward... I mean, Blade, you remember my dad, right?”

“Sure I do,” Blade replied, holding his hand out to shake Tim’s. “It’s good to see you again, Tim.” He glanced around. “So where’s Martha?”

Tim looked at his feet.

“Mom died five years ago,” Josie said, saving her father the difficulty of answering. “Cancer.”

A look of pain swept over Blade’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”