Page 54 of Encircled in Darkness
Hugging her deeply, I answered. “No sweetheart. I promised you there wouldn’t be any problems and there won’t be. It’s all being handled. This is about something else.”
She sat back and wiped the stray tears from her cheek. The sun was rising, the inky black sky growing grey in the distance. She bit her bottom lip and fidgeted with her hands.
“Do you know if your mother ever used an alias?”
She looked confused and nodded her head. “Yeah. She had at least two or three different names she used to swindle men for money. Why would you ask that?”
My heart raced in my chest as I asked. “Do you remember any of them?”
“James, what’s going on? Why would you care about my mother?”
“I don’t give a shit about her, but I need to know if you remember. Please, baby. It’s important,”
She looked up at the sky before bringing her gaze back to mine. “Everly Jenkins, Ava Johnson, and Bridget something. Those are the ones I remember. Now will you tell me what’s going on.”
“Sweetheart, I found your father.”
Amaya
I jumped from his lap, the blanket falling from my legs as I backed away from him. My back hit the railing and my hands trembled. James stood and his eyes filled with worry as he stepped up to me. Ducking my head, I felt the tears building as he lifted my gaze to his.
“Sweetheart talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know how to feel about it. He wanted nothing to do with me and now, all of a sudden, he reappears. How did you find him? Who...” I shook my head and let the question die on my lips.
I had gone my entire life not knowing who my father was, taking a strike to the face every time I asked my mother. The dream from last night whispered in the back of my mind as I looked up at James through watery eyes. He caressed my cheek and kissed me gently. Taking me by the hand, he guided me to the couch next to the tall table and encouraged me to sit.
“I’m going to tell you a few things about a client that normally I wouldn’t divulge. In this case, its pertinent.” I nodded at him, took a sip of coffee before blowing out a breath, and turned my gaze toward the lake. “Three years ago, a client came to me looking for a woman from his past. I normally don’t work on missing persons, but this man needed the utmost privacy, so I took the case. She had told him almost twenty years ago that they had a child together. Then she disappeared. Ten years later he found her and she denied him, saying the kid wasn’t his. He told me he saw his daughter... once, and he knew at first glance she was his.”
Looking at him, he was watching my reaction as he continued.
“I dug through everything I could find and couldn’t find the woman or a daughter. It was like she didn’t exist and for years, I tried to locate this mysterious child.”
“What does this have to do with me, James?” Sadness, anger, confusion, and numbness swirled through me.
Clearing his throat, he took my hands into his and explained. “After your accident yesterday, I sent someone to gather your stuff and to have the car towed back to Pierce Bluff. He took a DNA sample from the steering wheel; in case we could use it to locate who took you.”
James reached up and gently touched the knot on my forehead. The soreness from the stitches was present and I had been too afraid to look in a mirror to see how bad I looked. Leaning into his touch, he caressed my cheek and smiled.
“The sample came back and immediately matched to the man in my system. The same man who’s been looking everywhere for his lost child. Amaya, that’s you.”
My bottom lip trembled, and the tears built in my eyes as I stared at him in disbelief. “Who is he? Who’s been looking for me?”
James kissed my lips gently and stood from the couch. Offering me his hand, he walked me to the railing and wrapped his arm around me. Bringing his lips to my neck, he kissed me softly and whispered. “Your father is Preston Pierce. That’s his house across the lake.”
My eyes snapped to Pierce Lake, and from the height of James’ apartment, I could see the large, sprawling log cabin mansion on the other side of the lake. I jerked my head to him, my eyes wide in disbelief.
Shaking my head, I stammered, “There has to be a mistake. There’s no way he’s my father. It has to be a mistake.”
I’ve been looking for you.
“There’s no mistake, darlin’. I’ve been looking for Everly Jenkins for almost three years. I’ve been looking for you.”
“How... when...” I looked across the lake, the first rays of sunshine casting their warm glow on the cabin. “Does he know you found me?” I whispered.
“I just found out when I went downstairs. He hasn’t been informed yet and I want you to decide what you want to do. If you don’t want me to let him know, I’ll drop him as a client. I’ll bury everything relating you to him and he never has to know. If you decide you want to meet him, to get to know him, I’ll be right by your side the entire way.”
Turning me to him, he placed his strong hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “Preston Pierce is a good man. He never married and he had no other children besides you. He’s spent his life looking for you, and he’s blamed himself since he saw you for not taking you away from that shitty trailer in the Flats.”
