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Reunion
“Attention, passengers,” the pilot’s voice echoed throughout the jet cabin, “this flight to Miami will terminate at Palm Beach International due to a security breach at our scheduled airport. All passengers will be rescheduled to other flights once flights are allowed to land and depart from Miami.”
The jet landed smoothly and Crystal Eaton and her baby daughter, Merry, made it into the terminal to find people standing around staring at the electronic boards. All flights to Miami were delayed indefinitely.
“Oh no,” she whispered under her breath. That meant she didn’t know when she would get home. Sitting and balancing Merry on her lap, she retrieved her cell phone. “Mother, I’m at the Palm Beach Airport. All flights going into Miami are delayed.”
“I know, darling. I just heard the news report.”
“I’m going to rent a car and drive down. I’ll call you again when I get into the city.”
“How’s Merry?”
Crystal smiled for the first time in hours. “She’s a real trouper. She hasn’t cried or fussed the whole time.”
“Drive carefully, Crystal. Please don’t make me worry about you and my grandbaby, too.”
“I will.” It wasn’t until she walked in the direction for car rentals that her mother’s plea resonated with her. She professed to worry about her daughter and granddaughter but also about her ex-husband, who’d been admitted to the hospital with chest pains. Several arteries had been found clogged, necessitating immediate heart surgery.
There were long lines at the rental car counters and Crystal set the car seat on the floor. She wanted to put Merry down but decided against it. Her daughter had just taken her first steps several days ago and she didn’t trust her not to fall and hurt herself on the marble floor.
The line moved slowly and Crystal wondered if taking a taxi would be a better choice.
She’d just moved out of the line when she went completely still. Walking into the terminal was the man she’d never expected to see again. She turned around, but it was too late.
He’d recognized her.
Closing her eyes, she whispered a silent prayer that he wouldn’t make a scene. A shiver snaked its way up her back as his moist breath swept over the nape of her neck.
“You’re a liar!” His accusation lashed at her like the stinging bite of a whip.
Crystal turned slowly to face the man who still had the power to make her heart beat a little too fast for her to breathe normally.
She watched Joseph as he stared at her little girl. Even if Crysal hadn’t changed, he had. His face was leaner, his cropped hair grayer, and she detected new tiny lines around his large, deep-set, intense eyes. It was as if there was no more boyishness left in Joseph Cole-Wilson.
“I didn’t lie to you,” she countered.
Grasping her upper arm, Joseph steered her away from the crowd to a spot where they couldn’t be overheard. “I asked you to let me know if you were pregnant, and you said you weren’t.”
When she tried extricating her arm, he tightened his grip. “I’m not going to stand here and debate with you. I have to get to Miami. My father had a heart attack and—”
“I’ll take you to Miami,” he volunteered, cutting her off.
Crystal shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. I’m taking a taxi.”
Joseph pushed his face within inches of hers. “Please don’t fight with me, Crystal. As soon as I call someone I’ll take you.” Reaching for his cell phone, he punched in a number. “Diego, I need Henri to come to the airport to pick up Zach. His flight is due in at any moment. I’m going to call and tell him. Thanks.” He tapped another number. “Hey, bro. I’m not going to be able to pick you up, but I have someone coming from ColeDiz who’ll meet you. I have a family emergency, but I’ll be in touch.”
Even though Crystal only heard one side of Joseph’s conversation, she knew it was futile to argue with him. He’d said that he had a family emergency. Well, he was wrong. Raleigh was her and Merry’s family, not his. He might have fathered her daughter, but legally he had no claim to her.
Joseph extended his arms. “I’ll carry her.” Crystal reluctantly let him take Merry.
The little girl reached out and patted Joseph’s clean-shaven jaw. “Dada,” she crooned, laughing and exhibiting a mouth filled with tiny white teeth as Joseph buried his face in her black curly hair.
“Yes, princess. I am Daddy.”
Crystal closed her eyes. Merry had a vocabulary of about twenty words, and Dada had been the first one; Crystal hadn’t exposed her daughter to many men, yet Merry hadn’t called any of them Dada.
Crystal followed Joseph out of the terminal to the parking lot, strangely relieved that she didn’t have to go through the ordeal alone.
Joseph set the car seat on the second row of seats in the Range Rover, then placed Merry in it and secured the harness while Crystal got in beside her. She was exhausted. Not physically but emotionally. She stared at the back of Joseph’s head when he got in behind the wheel and maneuvered out of the parking lot.
* * *
Joseph slipped on a pair of sunglasses as he followed the signs for the airport exit. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he noticed Crystal had closed her eyes. “What’s her name?”
“Meredith, but I call her Merry.”
“How old is she?”
“She turned one October tenth.”
He smiled. “An October baby like her mother.”
Although he wanted and needed answers, Joseph decided to wait. Crystal’s father’s health crisis was a lot more pressing than uncovering why she had decided to conceal the fact that he’d fathered a child. Fate had intervened, bringing them together, and he had no intention of letting Crystal walk out of his life again.
Destiny
Crystal Eaton took a quick glance at the navigation screen on the Ford Escape. She was thirty-three miles from Charleston, South Carolina, less than half an hour from her destination, and if she hadn’t had to drive down to Miami earlier that morning, she would’ve arrived much sooner. As she unclenched her teeth, the lines of tension bracketing her mouth vanished.
Her mother had called crying hysterically as soon as Crystal had maneuvered out of the parking garage at her Fort Lauderdale condo. She hadn’t been able to understand a word her mother was saying, and in a panic she’d driven south instead of north.
It wasn’t the first time in her life Crystal wished she hadn’t been an only child. If Jasmine Eaton hadn’t been able to reach her, then she would have been forced to contact her son and/or other daughter whenever she had an emotional meltdown.
If it had been a medical emergency, Crystal would have postponed her plan to meet with the owner of several luxury hotels, but she then discovered the cause of her mother’s latest hissy fit. Jasmine’s current boyfriend had refused to take her with him on a business trip to Las Vegas, leading Jasmine to accuse him of cheating on her.
Biting her tongue and instead of telling Jasmine she was too old for adolescent histrionics, Crystal smiled, issuing her usual mantra, “Mother, this, too, shall pass.”
This was followed by another crying jag until Crystal reminded her mother