Passion and Scandal (4 page)

"I'll expect you to make the coffee every morning," he said, determined to avoid another fiasco like the last one. "Or to run down to Thuy's if the pot's on the blink. I'll also want you to drop my laundry and cleaning off every week at By George down the block. And walk my dog and, ah... You're shaking your head," he noted, relieved. "Does that mean you don't want the job?"

"Yes. It means I don't want the job," Willow said. "It means I—"

"Great. Then how would you like to have—"

"—didn't come here for a job in the first place," Willow finished.

"—lunch with me today?" Steve said at the same time.

They stared at each other over the desk, both of them suddenly realizing they didn't have the faintest idea of what the other was talking about. Steve managed to gather his thoughts together first.

"We seem to have gotten our wires crossed somewhere," he said, the expression in his blue eyes sharp and considering as he stared at her. She was wearing an elegant charcoal gray pin-striped suit and a softly tailored white silk blouse. Her small hoop earrings and the heavy serpentine chain around her neck were real gold. Her dark brown hair was cut in a sleek, sophisticated style that swooped down from an off-center part, emphasizing her large golden brown eyes and delicately chiseled jaw. The black leather briefcase she'd placed on top of his computer would have cost four hundred dollars on Rodeo Drive. The woman was definitely upper-management material. "Obviously, you're not from the employment agency."

Willow shook her head. "No."

"And you don't want a job as my secretary."

"No."

"I see. So..." There was no idle sexual speculation in his eyes now; his gaze was direct and focused, intent on the possibility of a case. "What do you want, Willow Ryan?"

She met his direct look with one of her own. "I want you to help me find my father."

Chapter 2

It wasn't a request Steve heard every day but it wasn't one he'd never heard before, either. Teenagers weren't the only ones who ran away from home when life got to be too much. "Why don't you sit down," he said kindly, gesturing at the chair behind her, "and tell me about it."

Willow nodded and sat, nervously perching herself on the edge of the chair. "I got your name from Angie Claiborne," she explained. "She said you found her younger brother, Teddy, when no one else could. That even with practically no clues and nothing to go on, you didn't give up until you'd brought him home to his family."

Steve nodded, waiting for her to go on, knowing she'd get to it in her own time. Lots of clients had to talk around the real reason they'd come to him before they got down to it.

"I remember Teddy," he said. "Skinny kid with a wild mop of black hair. Tall for his age. Big, scared eyes." Teddy Claiborne had been one of the good cases, one of the satisfying ones, where he'd been able to get to the kid before he'd been completely lost to the streets. It didn't always work out that way. "How is Teddy?"

"He's doing much better. He's back in school and doing okay. Angie says the whole family's in therapy."

"Glad to hear it," Steve said, and meant it. It was good to know an effort was being made to correct the circumstances that had sent the kid running in the first place.

Willow smoothed her hands down her skirt. "Angie said to tell you hello," she said.

"Next time you see her, tell her I said hello back," he said easily, still patiently waiting for her to get to the point.

She bit her lip, wondering where to start.

"It's usually easiest just to jump in and tell it," Steve prompted.

"I don't have a lot of information to give you," she warned him.

"Let's just start with the information you do have, and see where it goes. How long has your father been missing?"

"Twenty-five years."

"Twenty-five... You're looking for your biological father, then? You're adopted?"

"I'm looking for my biological father but, no, I'm not adopted. Not officially. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Mostly, anyway." One corner of her mouth lifted in a little half smile. "It's a little complicated to explain."

"It usually is, but try."

"Yes, well..." Willow smoothed her skirt down over her thighs, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. "I grew up in a commune."

"A commune? You mean with hippies? Back to nature? Turn on and drop out? That kind of commune?"

Willow nodded, sending a heavy sheaf of shiny brown hair swinging down over her cheek. She hooked it behind her ear with the tip of one well-manicured finger. "Pretty much, although it was more back to nature than drug oriented, even in the very beginning. My aunt Sharon and her husband Dan, and about fifteen others, founded it in the mid-sixties. It was just a farm, really, located outside Bend, Oregon, in the Cascade Mountains, but Dan—he was a third-year law student before he dropped out—made sure it was legally incorporated as a real township. Unlike most communes of that era, they've managed to survive, more or less intact, right on into the nineties. Are you familiar with Blackberry Meadows' Pure Fruit Essences?"

Steve accepted the apparent change of subject without blinking. "Organically grown, pesticide-free, sugar-free jams and jellies? Available in limited quantities at the toniest gourmet shops and health food stores in town? That Blackberry Meadows?"

"That's us. The commune, I mean."

"Raspberry Rhapsody is my favorite," Steve informed her. "I put it on my frozen toaster waffles. It makes a good ice-cream topping, too."

"I'll be sure to tell Sharon that," Willow said, smiling a little when she thought of what her aunt's reaction would be to having her healthful fruit spreads used as a topping for junk food. "According to family legend, she cooked up the very first experimental batch of Blackberry Bliss Pure Fruit Essence on an old wood-burning stove. It was so good, she ended up practically denuding the farm's blackberry patch to make enough to sell to a couple of the local merchants. Hard cash wasn't easy to come by back then," she confided, "so everyone did what they could. Today, we make six different flavors and sell it in select markets up and down the West Coast."

Steve nodded and waited for her to go on.

"So, anyway..." She smoothed her hands down the front of her skirt again, suddenly not at all anxious to get to the heart of the matter. She was desperately afraid he would say he couldn't help her, that there wasn't enough information to go on.

"I was born on February 26, 1971," she said. "My mother left Blackberry Meadows when I was three months old, in April of that year, leaving me with Sharon and Dan. Two months after she left, she was hit by a car while crossing Hollywood Boulevard." Willow recited the facts calmly, as if they had long ago lost the power to hurt her, but her hands were rubbing up and down the tops of her thighs as she spoke. "Sharon didn't even know my mother was dead until almost a month after it happened."

"And your father?" Steve asked gently.

"I don't know who he is. Nobody knows."

"Is that what it says on your birth certificate? Father unknown?"

Her hesitation was slight but telling, clearly telegraphing her uneasiness with the subject. Her hands stilled on her lap, pressing down against the tops of her thighs, as if she were trying to keep herself from jumping up and running away from his questions. "I don't have a birth certificate."

Only his quick reading of her distress enabled him to hide his astonishment. "No birth certificate?" he asked mildly. "How did that happen?"

"I was born at home," she explained, "in a log house, with Sharon and a couple of the other women serving as midwives to my mother. Back then, the inhabitants of Blackberry Meadows considered birth certificates to be a meaningless establishment convention, just like marriage licenses."

"How were you able to register for school? Or get a social security card? Or a driver's license?"

"Sharon used the family Bible as proof of when and where I'd been born. She recorded all the births in the commune that way. Marriages, too. It's unorthodox but perfectly legal. After that, it was just a matter of taking the school's aptitude tests and placement exams to figure out which grade to put me in."

"I take it they didn't start you in kindergarten like everyone else?"

"No," she said. "I was home schooled until I was eleven. There were three ex-teachers in the family, so it wasn't nearly as unconventional as it sounds," she added defensively. "I scored two grade levels above my age group on the placement exams and attended regular schools from then on. I have a Bachelor's degree in Accounting and an M.B.A. and, as soon as I graduated, I took over the management of the family business and—" She stopped abruptly, realizing she was rambling like an idiot in an attempt to balance the un-conventionality of her early childhood with her very conventional life since then.

But none of what she'd just told him was going to help him find her father. It was time to give him the pitifully few clues she did have and pray they would be enough.

"My mother wrote to Sharon twice while she was living in Los Angeles. I have the letters," she said, reaching for the briefcase she'd set on top of the computer. She laid it on her lap and unsnapped the locks but didn't open it. "My mother's name was Donna. She was working as a waitress while she tried to break into acting. In April of 1970, she wrote that she'd gotten a small part in a soap opera and that she was moving to a new apartment with a girlfriend. Soon after, there was another letter saying she'd met a really great guy and the writers on the soap opera had made her part on the show a continuing one. It sounded as if everything was really going her way, that she might actually make it as an actress. And then, after that, nothing until September when she showed up at Blackberry Meadows, sick, broke and four months pregnant."

"Alone, I assume."

"Yes."

"And she never said another word about this supposedly great guy who'd gotten her pregnant, then abandoned her?" he said, unable to hide his contempt for a man who would do such a thing. "Not even to her sister?"

"Not a word."

"Are you sure you want to find this character?" Steve asked, already knowing what she'd say. She wouldn't have come to him if she hadn't already made up her mind. Still, he felt obligated to point out a few home truths. "If by some wild chance I do manage to locate him for you—and, believe me, with the information you've given me so far, the chances are slim to none. But if I
do
locate him, he might very well refuse to see you or to acknowledge you in any way. Have you thought of that? How you'll feel if that happens?"

"Yes, I've thought of that. But I still want to try." Her hands curled into fists on her lap. "I
have
to try."

"All right," Steve said, acquiescing without an argument; he knew grim determination when he saw it. "Let's see the letters."

Willow opened her briefcase, withdrew a small manila envelope and handed it to him across the desk. "There are some pictures in there, too, and a card, written to my mother and signed with the initial E," she said, watching as he opened the envelope and tipped the contents out on top of the ledger on his desk. "The three Polaroids are of my mother and me, but the others are from her time in L.A."

"No envelopes?" Steve asked, as he picked up one of the letters and unfolded it.

"No, Sharon just saved the letters," Willow said, apologizing for her aunt's oversight. She snapped the locks on the briefcase closed and set it on the floor by her chair. "She had no way of knowing, back then, that the envelopes might be important someday."

The two letters were short, overflowing with the enthusiasm and emotion of youth, woefully inadequate when it came to hard facts. '"I finally got a part,'" Steve read out loud as he scanned the letters. "'I play a nurse at Meadowland General on 'As Time Goes By' ...I met this really great guy.... Christine and I move into our new apartment next week.... The writers expanded my role and made the nurse a continuing character. Maybe now I'll be able to cut down on my hours at the restaurant." Both letters were signed "Love, Donna" and both were written in purple ink on the kind of standard pink writing paper that could be found in any stationery or office supply store. Steve set them aside and picked up the card.

The envelope had neither stamp nor address, suggesting that it had been hand delivered. Steve lifted the tucked-in flap and extracted the card. It was one of those romantic soft-focus ones with a picture of a hand-holding couple walking on a sunset beach. Someone had written
you
and
me
over the couple, with arrows pointing down so there would be no mistake about which was which. Inside was a sappy verse about the nature of love and the inked-in sentiment, "You really blew my mind last night, babe. Love, E."

Steve set it on top of the other two letters and picked up the pictures. The first two showed Willow and her mother, obviously only minutes after the birth. The newborn baby was red and squalling. The mother looked wan and exhausted, her expression a touching mixture of triumph and sadness. The third snapshot showed mother and child a few weeks later. The baby was plump, healthy and content, tenderly cradled in her mother's arms. The mother appeared marginally less exhausted but the sadness hadn't left her eyes. If anything, it seemed to have grown, overshadowing her obvious pride in her baby girl.