Twenty-eight seconds later—ding!
“Where’s your mommy, sweetheart?” Beth Ann whispered as Bernie fought against the rubber nipple, her tiny head turning away in her frustration to find suction.
Raaah, raah. Gulp. Success.
Bernie sucked greedily and stared intently at Beth Ann, her infant, frog-like eyes, protruding and blurry. Beth Ann kissed her small pink forehead, still peeling, and ran a gentle finger across the fine dark fuzz that couldn’t conceal the pulsing soft spot.
Then Beth Ann saw Carrie’s carefully formed round letters on a thick, manila legal-sized envelope lying conspicuously on the kitchen table.
I’m going crazy! I’ve got to get out of here.
I’m going back to Christian. Bernie will be fine with you.
I owe you one.
Caroline
Careful not to jostle Bernie, Beth Ann sat on a kitchen chair stunned.
No. She hadn’t. Even with postpartum depression, Carrie wouldn’t— Carrie couldn’t—
With one hand, Beth Ann opened the envelope and stared in disbelief at the quarter-inch stack of crisp, new hundred dollar bills. Back to Christian. Bernie suckled away, none the wiser, her seven pounds heavy against Beth Ann’s arm.
Yes, she had.
Her half sister had abandoned her baby.
CHAPTER ONE
Two years later
IN HER TWO-PIECE, yellow ducky pj’s, Bernie scuttled past Beth Ann with a toddler’s gleeful scream. The plastic no-slip on her feet slapped against the hardwood floor as she sought her ultimate destination—the out-of-doors, where the fog, thick with late spring chill, socked in the tiny one-story Victorian bungalow so badly Beth Ann couldn’t see the large gnarly oak tree twenty yards from the back door. Smothering the California Central Valley in a silent blanket of thick wet mist, the low ground Tule fog was almost comforting, protecting their home in blessed anonymity—anonymity that would be gone in one short hour, when Christian Elliott was supposed to arrive.
“Bernie.” Beth Ann tried to make her voice sound stern, but Bernie’s infectious laughter caused her lips to twitch, as the toddler, on her tiptoes, successfully turned the knob on the back door only to be stopped by the locked screen. Beth Ann thought she could actually see the heat of the house along with the precious pennies needed to provide it being sucked out by the fog. However, in a scant two weeks, when the temperatures soared into the nineties, they’d be wishing for the chill the fog brought in.
Since Carrie’s death eighteen months ago, Beth Ann had talked with Carrie’s husband twice. Once at the funeral and once last week. She had only met him a single time before Carrie’s death, the day after she had flown down to San Diego nearly nine years ago with two purposes in mind—to meet the man Carrie had eloped with and to discuss their grandmother’s long-term care.
Surrounded by paperwork, barking terse orders into the phone, as his large hand swiftly signed documents, Christian Elliott gave her a rather obscure gray stare and a quick, surprised nod from his executive teak desk, before answering yet another phone line. Dressed in her comfy jeans and a San Jose Sharks T-shirt, Beth Ann felt like the dowdy country cousin in his opulent penthouse office, especially in relation to Carrie—called Caroline by everyone in her new life—who was carefully coiffed from her professional makeup to the precision cut of her raven dark hair. Her coordinated linen pant-suit merely acted as an elegant backdrop to her breathtaking, almost untouchable, beauty.
Rather than giving her new brother-in-law a hearty welcome to the family as she intended, Beth Ann was rendered speechless as she gawked at the spectacular floor-to-ceiling panoramic view of the San Diego harbor.
At lunch, Carrie seemed anxious for Beth Ann to be on her way, declaring halfway through Beth Ann’s pastrami sandwich at the corner deli that she absolutely could not miss her tennis lesson with Pierre. She promised they would get together later. After three days of touring San Diego by herself, Beth Ann took the hint and left.
At Carrie’s funeral, even though Christian had arranged for her, Grans and Bernie, who was just six months old at the time, a suite at his family’s five-star hotel as well as unlimited limousine service, he did not recognize Beth Ann until she introduced herself. Even then, with over five hundred mourners at the funeral patting him on the arm, it was easy for her and her small family to fade into the background. They didn’t blame him for his inattention. After all he had just lost his wife. She’d felt a tug of pity for the man, his too handsome face somber. He had everything the world could offer, but even that couldn’t shield him from the most tragic of losses.
Bernie squealed again, her intentions obvious, momentarily distracting Beth Ann from the oppressive thoughts of Christian’s terse phone call, where he more or less commanded her to be home because he would be in the area briefly on his way to Napa for an important business engagement. He needed to talk to her. Thank goodness, he didn’t plan on staying long. Bernie, her face pressed against the screen door, oblivious to the damp chill, contented herself with several loud flat-palmed pounds on the screen, laughing as her hand bounced back at her.
“Go garden,” Bernie declared with extraordinary enunciation and another big pat and squeal.
Beth Ann grimaced as a small rip in the side of the screen got larger. She quickly got up and closed the door, steering Bernie back into the kitchen.
“We can’t even see the garden. Maybe when the sun says hello, we’ll go. Besides it’s time for you to visit Mrs. Potty.”
“No!” Bernie protested automatically and then looked to Beth Ann as if her reaction would tell Bernie whether or not she, in her nearly two-year-old mind, really objected.
“Bernie.”
“No!” Bernie reinforced her position with a shout. “No want potty! No like Mrs. Potty.”
“You love Mrs. Potty,” Beth Ann reminded her gently. “Mrs. Potty is your friend. Remember every day you need to give Mrs. Potty your poop and pee.”
The phone rang.
With no warning and a playful growl, Beth Ann picked up the two-year-old, smothering Bernie’s fat cheeks and squirming neck rolls with kisses. Bernie screamed, giggled, but didn’t renew her objection as Beth Ann pulled down her pajama bottoms, stripped off the still clean diaper and plopped her on the potty before answering the phone on its fourth ring with a breathless, “Hello?”
Bernie made a move to get up, but Beth Ann gave her the evil eye and Bernie settled back down.
“Bethy.” A familiar, deep voice chuckled.
“Read me that,” Bernie commanded loudly, pointing like a queen to her pile of books next to the potty.
“Why don’t you read the book?” Beth Ann suggested. “You sit on the potty and read to Fluff while I talk to Pop-pop.” Beth Ann pushed Bernie’s favorite stuffed bear and a book into her outstretched arms.
“Fuffy!”
“Glenn.” Beth Ann breathed a sigh of relief as Bernie babbled behind her, instructing the ragged brown bear to listen carefully. “Am I glad to hear from you. You were supposed to be here by now.”
“Is he there yet?”
Beth Ann looked out the window, searching for an unfamiliar car, but the fog obliterated any view she could have of the driveway. “No. Not yet. Where are you?”
“Stuck on 101 by Morgan Hill. A big rig spilled something and they’re taking their sweet time cleaning it up.”
“Morgan Hill?” She tried not to sound disappointed. “It’ll take you at least an hour to get here.”
“At least,” Glenn agreed. “You going to be okay?”