Lost and Found (15 page)

Darcy looked around the room as Curtis
ran back up the stairs.

“
Well then, I guess I’ll
head down.”

She started toward the back door when
Madeline stopped her. “Christian might wake up in about an hour in
some pain. The medicine is in the cupboard behind the peanut
butter.” She pointed to the corner.

“
Okay.”

“
It’s a mother thing. If I
hide it then he can’t get to it if he’s feeling loopy.”

Very clever, she thought.

“
If I hear him, I’ll come
up.”

“
Thanks for taking care of
him—and Ed. I know that this trip isn’t going to be an easy one on
him, but he said he was glad he had you to take care of
everything.”

“
That’s my job.” She gave
everyone a wave and headed out the back door.

“
I’ll walk you down,”
Curtis said and followed her.

Darcy walked down the steps of the
patio to the stairwell which led to her apartment with Curtis right
behind her.

As Darcy pushed open her door, she
turned to Curtis. “Thanks for seeing me home.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled
out a card. “If he needs anything, just give me a call.” He handed
her the card. “This is the second time he’s hurt himself like
this.” He shook his head. “Reason I never played too many
sports.”

Darcy looked down at the card and then
back up at him. She swallowed hard. “Your wife said you used to
work in emergency medicine at Nashville General.”

“
I sure did. I’ve only been
at the clinic full time for the past five years.”

Darcy nodded. “I was born at that
hospital.”

“
No kidding? But you’re
from Kentucky?”

“
Yes.”

Curtis smiled. “Well, you never know.
If your mom came through emergency, maybe I saw her…or you.” He
gave her a wink and a wave and headed back up the
stairs.

Darcy looked down at the card in her
hand. Every time she thought she could forget about finding her
birth parents, another opportunity arrived. And, once again, it was
from within the Keller family that she could maneuver another piece
of information.

This was the second time in a day that
Curtis Keller had been considered for her source of information. If
the Kellers were as tight as she’d witnessed, Curtis would be back
tomorrow to check in on Christian.

It was time to come up with a clever
reason to start a conversation with him. Perhaps he knew someone
who could access files, just as Candy had in the HR department. If
she could only get to someone who could type her birthdate into the
database at the hospital, surely there’d be a hit.

It was two o’clock in the morning when
she was startled awake by someone calling her name. It took her a
moment to realize it was Christian.

She stumbled out of bed, nearly
falling into the wall when her legs tangled in the bedding. Darcy
kicked it away and hurried up the stairs and through the dark
kitchen.

“
Are you okay?” she croaked
out.

“
I have to pee,” he
retorted in a groggy voice.

She knew it was a serious thing, but
at the same time, there was a part of her who wanted to smack him
on the back of the head for waking her up.

“
How exactly am I supposed
to help you do that?”

“
By getting me the crutches
my dad moved over against the wall.”

“
Oh.” Even in the dark of
the hour, she could feel her cheeks heat.

She walked across the room and
retrieved the crutches. She clicked on the lamp, and they both
winced at the light as their eyes adjusted.

Christian wiggled toward the end of
the chair, and Darcy did what she could to help him up. Once he was
balanced, she took a step back.

He grinned. “You’re cute in your
pajamas.”

As he slowly headed to the bathroom,
Darcy looked down to realize she’d worn some very short shorts to
bed and the tank top she had on was more than a little revealing.
It was obviously colder down in the basement.

While Christian was occupied, she ran
down to her place, pulled on a sweatshirt, and ran back up the
stairs as he was coming out of the bathroom.

He gave her a sideways glance and
smiled. “You didn’t have to change for me.”

She let out a grunt. “How’s your
leg?”

“
Throbbing. Achy.
Stupid.”

This time, he made his way to the
couch and very skillfully let himself down on the cushion.
Obviously it wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with crutches. She
was sure that if he hadn’t been on pain meds, he would have tried
to have gotten them himself without her assistance.

“
Can I get you
anything?”

Christian pulled his leg up onto the
couch and adjusted it to rest on a pillow. “I could really use
another pain pill and a piece of toast.”

Darcy nodded and turned toward the
kitchen.

“
By the way,” Christian
called out, and she turned back to him. “The pills are behind the
peanut butter.”

Darcy smiled. “How do you know
that?”

He laughed. “I know her too well.
She’s my mom, after all.”

She shook her head and walked into the
kitchen to make him up some toast. As she reached into the cupboard
for the pills, a pang of regret filled her chest. She missed her
mother.

She’d been so angry about finding out
she was adopted and then about her mother getting sick—she’d
forgotten to appreciate her for a long time.

The first tear broke loose.

If her mother were still alive to take
care of her had she been hurt, she’d have sat in that chair next to
her the entire night. There’d have been a little light on in the
corner and a never-empty glass of water next to her on a
table.

The flood gate opened and she
sobbed.

Had she been a good enough daughter
that when her mother died she felt as though she’d done a good job?
She hadn’t been a troublesome kid. Darcy was a good student and
well-liked, but was she as kind to her parents as the Kellers were
to theirs?

And now, how did she honor her? She
was in Tennessee digging around as if her mother had taken away her
life by not telling her she was adopted. Perhaps there was a reason
behind that.

Darcy covered her mouth and tried to
stifle the sobs, but it was no use.

“
Darcy, are you
okay?”

She’d never been a quiet crier. She
sucked in a breath. “Yes. I’ll be out in a sec.”

Darcy hurried and made him a slice of
toast, filled a glass with water, and poured out a pain pill—making
sure to put the bottle back behind the peanut butter.

When she walked back into the room,
Christian was sitting up on the couch, but in the shadows of the
lamp, he looked so much like Ed her heart ached a little
more.

“
Were you crying?”
Christian asked as she handed him the piece of toast and his
pill.

“
I was having a moment. I’m
sorry.”

She handed him the glass of water, and
he swallowed his pill and looked up at her as she took the glass
and set it on the table.

“
Why are you sorry? What’s
wrong?”

Darcy tried to shake it away, but
there were still more tears to fall.

“
Oh, come here.” Christian
pulled her down beside him and wrapped his arm around her
shoulders. “What’s going on?”

“
I’m just missing my mama.”
She wiped at her cheeks. “You said you knew your mom well enough to
know where she hid the pills, and it made me miss my
mom.”

Christian smoothed his hand over her
hair. “Your mom—is she…”

“
She died of cancer last
year.”

“
Oh.” He let out a long
sigh. “I’m so sorry. My mom had cancer.”

“
Ed told me.”

“
Did she suffer
long?”

Darcy shook her head. “She went within
a year. And if she was suffering, you’d never have known. She
occupied herself with my well-being.”

Christian chuckled. “She sounds like
my mom. She went through a double mastectomy without telling a
soul.”

Darcy turned and looked at him. “She
was alone?”

He shrugged. “You’ve met this family.
Do you think they’d let her get away with that?”

Darcy shook her head.

“
She and my dad were
divorced back then, and my step-dad had left her. We didn’t know
that then. But she thought she could go through that alone, and no
one would worry about her.”

“
She needed people. That’s
a major surgery.”

“
Uncle Curtis saw her being
wheeled into surgery and called my dad. He was by her side every
moment.”

“
Was she grateful? Or was
she mad?”

“
Both, but in the end it
bonded our family back together. They’re happier now than they ever
were.”

Christian wrapped his arm around her
shoulders and pulled her next to him.

“
It’s okay to miss
her.”

“
I know. I just hope I was
the daughter she’d always wanted.”

“
I can’t imagine you let
her down.”

Darcy let out a sigh. “I was angry
when she got sick, but not just because she was sick.” She bit down
on her lip. It was okay to talk about it, she decided. “The year
before they had told me I was adopted.”

“
You’re
adopted?”

“
Yes, and I felt like my
whole life was a sham. That was something I should have known from
the start.”

“
Would it have made a
difference?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I was
so upset that I was angry with her while she was dying. Then I left
and came here to find my roots.” Now she’d said too
much.

Christian pulled her closer. “You came
to Tennessee to find your birth parents?”

He was quick, and she wasn’t sure she
wanted that at two-thirty in the morning. “It was a
thought.”

“
I’m laid up. Maybe I can
help.”

She patted his chest and sat up.
“Thanks. I’m rethinking it now. I should honor the parents I had,
not try to find new ones. Besides, if I’m honest with myself, they
gave me away because they didn’t want a baby. So why would they
want an adult?”

Saying that aloud nearly made it
impossible to think she’d even wanted to find them. But had she not
made her journey, she’d never have met Ed Keller. She missed him
terribly at the moment.

Darcy scooted off the couch and looked
down at Christian, whose eyes were growing heavy.

“
I’m going back to bed.
Yell again if you need me.”

“
I will.”

She turned to walk away.

“
Darcy,” he called after
her, and she turned back to him. “Some of the very best people I
know are adopted, and they don’t know their birth parents. It
doesn’t make them any less important to this family.”

She smiled and nodded. If she’d been
looking for a family to belong to, she’d found it. There was no
need to cause herself any more restless nights.

The clock on the microwave read 2:56.
First thing when she woke up she was going to call her father and
tell him that she loved him. It was time to honor the parents that
gave her a life—and forget about the ones who gave her
life.

Darcy had tried to reach her father on
her way into work, but he’d never answered. He’d call back when he
had a moment. He always did.

Now she sat at her desk and answered
emails that were coming in and went about with business as usual.
The only difference was the door to Ed’s office was open, but he
wasn’t there.

When the phone rang, she answered it
as she would any other phone call that came into his office, but
this time when she heard the voice on the other end, her heart did
a little flip in her chest.

“
Good morning,
sweetheart.”

She sighed. “Good morning. How is
Saint Louis?”

“
It’ll be better around
dinner time.”

“
Why is that?” There was a
flirty tone to her voice.

“
Because you’re going to
book yourself a flight out here and spend the week with
me.”

Now the flip in her heart became a
weight in her stomach. “I am?”

“
There are multiple
reasons. I need you to help me coordinate these meetings with
insurance companies and city officials. I can only do so much of
this without losing my mind.”

She’d thought maybe he’d wanted her
there because he was missing her, but this was her boss calling.
There was a serious difference.

“
No problem. I’ll make
arrangements, and I’ll meet you at the site.” Her voice threatened
to give out on her, but she could be a professional and keep it
together.