Lost and Found (11 page)

He’d been right. They didn’t look to
be in their nineties, but when they passed, she did hear his
grandfather ask who she was.

“
This is my Uncle Curtis
and his daughter, Avery.”

Curtis took her hand and narrowed his
eyes. “Zach’s right. You do look familiar. Maybe that was why Ed
was so comfortable to hire you. Welcome to our event.”

She thought if he were so comfortable,
he’d have shown up.

Christian continued around the table.
“This is Spencer and Tyler.”

Each of the men shook her hand, and an
odd sensation ran through her arm as she touched each of them. It
was her turn to notice the familiarity in the boys.

“
These are Zach’s
sons.”

She felt a lump form in her throat,
and it threatened to choke her. Zach. Her thoughts of earlier
zipped through her mind. Mary Ellen and Zach.

The world was beginning to
spin.

If Zach was, in fact, hiding his
paternity of her, and Mary Ellen had given her up for adoption,
then that would mean these were her brothers.

“
It’s very nice to meet you
both.”

Tyler held her hand a moment longer.
“Are you all right? Your hand is shaking.”

“
Just a bit overwhelmed, I
think.”

“
We get that a lot. This is
one large and eclectic group.”

As they continued around the table,
both John and Arianna stood and greeted her with a hug.

Arianna bent to whisper in her ear.
“He got cold feet?”

“
I’m sure something came
up, and he got busy.”

Arianna let out a grunt.

Zach held out his hand to shake hers,
but then pulled her in for a hug. “You sure do fit in here, don’t
you?” He stepped back and looked her over. “You look very nice this
evening.”

“
Thank you,
sir.”

“
No need to be so formal.”
He lifted his head as someone approached. “Oh, here’s a very
important part of my team.”

Darcy turned her head to see Mary
Ellen walking toward them. She waved and smiled. Zach’s lips had
turned up into proud grin, and Darcy’s stomach turned.

Mary Ellen gave her a big hug. “Oh,
I’m so glad you’re here. Simone throws the very best parties. I
suppose that’s why she makes so much money off of these events for
her charity.” Mary Ellen looked around. “Ed?”

“
Wasn’t able to make
it.”

“
Is that a fact? Well, I’m
glad you’re here. Remind me later to introduce you to my husband
and my girls.”

Darcy nodded, but inside her heart
thudded in her chest. Her stomach clenched. What kind of people
where these two? What they had was so casual? This was her life!
They had messed with her life!

At that moment, Zach looked up again
and the smile on his lips changed. “Oh, and here comes the love of
my life right now.”

Walking toward her was a woman whom
she could swear she’d seen a million times. Perhaps it was that she
was a very refined version of Arianna, whom Darcy was more familiar
with.

Zach pulled her into his side.
“Sweetheart, this is Darcy, Ed’s new assistant. Darcy, this is my
wife, Regan.”

Regan held her hand out to her, and
her eyes grew wide. “I’ve heard so much about you.
Welcome.”

This time, not only did her hands
shake, but her palms began to sweat. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs.
Benson.”

“
Oh, please call me Regan.
Zach and Ed have told me so much about you. I couldn’t wait to meet
you.”

Darcy forced a smile. Did this woman
even know the lies and deceit that ran in her small circle? This
man to their side held secrets, and she probably didn’t even know
about them.

Their attention was diverted when a
woman walked on stage. She was possibly the most beautiful woman
Darcy had ever seen, and when she began to thank everyone for
attending, she knew that was Simone.

Christian led Darcy back around the
table to the blonde which he’d earlier handed the drink
to.

“
Darcy, this is my date,
Victoria.”

The woman remained seated, but held
her hand out to shake Darcy’s.

“
Call me Tori. It’s nice to
meet you.”

Christian pulled out a chair for
Darcy, and she quickly sat down before her legs gave
out.

Simone continued to thank everyone for
attending and then introduced the entertainment.

“
I am so proud of this
young lady. Please help me welcome my very talented niece, Clara
Keller.”

The table of people cheered and
clapped.

Christian leaned in next to her.
“That’s my baby sister.”

She remembered that John had mentioned
she was the talented one, and when she began strumming on her
guitar and singing a Carrie Underwood song, Darcy wondered just how
long she’d be singing at venues for her aunt. The woman was
amazing.

As the night progressed, Clara
continued to perform, people danced, and food was served. The
Kellers moved around the table, not one of them keeping a seat for
very long. Each of them had included her in their conversations,
and she found that she enjoyed Ed’s mother tremendously. Too bad
she wanted to smack Madeline Keller’s son across the face the next
time she saw him, but she’d never let on.

Zach and Regan had gone out to dance
and so had Christian and Tori. Darcy sat and sipped her drink, but
a hand on her shoulder caught her attention. She spun to see Mary
Ellen standing behind her.

Darcy clenched her jaw and forced a
smile as she stood.

“
I wanted to introduce you
to my girls. My husband is in the hall, taking a business call.”
The women to her side were the spitting image of the woman. They
were fair complected and their hair hinted of red, where as Darcy’s
was very dark. Certainly, she hadn’t expected them to be so
similar. Well, she hadn’t seen the husband yet. Perhaps they took
after him, too.

The obsession with dissecting this
woman’s life was killing her. Darcy knew this wasn’t the time or
place to ask the woman the questions that burned in her head. But
she would. Oh, she would.

The night went on. Christian had asked
her to dance, but she had declined. She’d wanted to dance with Ed,
but now she was so mad at him she figured she’d have to
quit.

Regan walked around the table and sat
down next to her. “Are you having fun?”

“
It’s been a very lovely
evening.”

“
I’m glad. Zach tells me
you and Ed literally ran into each other at Starbucks.”

Darcy nodded. Under the table, she
wrung the napkin in her lap with her hands. This woman made her
very nervous.

“
We did. My drink spilled
down the front of me and ruined my interview suit.”

Regan laughed easily. “I got caught in
a rain storm the morning I was to start at BBH. Mary Ellen laughed
when she saw me come off the elevator.”

This was opening some doors. Perhaps
she could maneuver her way around the conversation a
bit.

“
Ed said you’d met your
husband on the bus?”

Regan laughed, and her eyes sparkled.
“I fell into his lap. I rode to work on his lap, but I didn’t know
he was my new boss.” She leaned in closer. “I wasn’t very impressed
when I found out he was.”

Didn’t Darcy understand that all too
well?

Regan sat back. “It didn’t take me
long to fall in love though.”

“
You were his
assistant?”

“
Yep, until he fired me and
hired Mary Ellen back.”

The woman was smiling. How could she
see the joy in that?

“
You’d met Mary Ellen
before you started?”

“
She hired me. She was
going on maternity leave. She’d worked for Zach for years, and she
wanted someone to take good care of him.”

Maternity leave.
The muscles in her neck tightened.

Again, Regan laughed. “I’m sure no one
had a first day like I did. She went into labor, and we had to take
her to the hospital. Oh, Curtis was frantic when he saw me there.”
She sighed. “Babies come when they’re ready, even if you’re
not.”

Regan looked up, and Zach was
motioning her to the dance floor.

“
It was nice to chat with
you. Looks like my man wants to take a spin.” She stood and placed
her hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “I hope Ed keeps you around. I rather
enjoy you.”

She gave her a wink and then headed
out with her husband.

It was time to get out of there. Darcy
was very sure her time with the Kellers was about over. As soon as
she had a few more bits of information, she’d demand that Mary
Ellen and Zach tell her about their affair and about her birth.
After all, if they were so compatible and even now still worked so
closely, why didn’t they keep her?

Darcy had very much done a Cinderella
at the ball move. She’d high-tailed it out of that hall as if the
dress she wore would turn into a rag.

The moment she was in her own house,
she stripped off the black dress, kicked off the shoes she’d worn,
and took down her hair. It was as if she needed to rid herself of
the person all those people had met.

When she was done, she plopped down on
her sofa in a pair of lounge pants, a Kentucky University T-shirt,
and her hair pushed back in a headband. If only she’d had a pint,
or even a gallon, of Ben and Jerry’s, she’d be set to have the
biggest self-pity party.

She was an idiot. She’d asked for
this. It wasn’t anyone else’s idea to hire someone to tell her
where the trail to her birth parents led. It was fate that put her
in that building with the nephew of the man she was damn sure
fathered her.

Without ice cream to soothe her, she
turned on the TV, hoping to find some great Tom Hanks flick to take
her away. He was her father’s favorite actor and watching his
movies always made her feel better.

No luck.

She stopped on an episode
of
I Love Lucy.

There was a knock at the door, and she
was sure her soul jumped from her body. She was so startled she’d
even thrown the remote across the room..

It was late. No one in their right
mind should be knocking on her door.

Ed stood in the dark stairwell and
waited for her to open the door. His nerves were shot, and the Jack
and Coke he’d drank, before he’d decided to get in his car and
apologize face to face, was now sitting heavy in his empty
stomach.

Like a stalker, he’d sat outside her
house and contemplated what he was going to say—and do.

Truth was, he’d chickened out. Every
member of his family would have seen right through him. Everyone
would have known he had feelings for this woman he just
met.

He really should stick to women his
own age, but at the moment, it seemed like the twenty-four year old
Miss McCary was much more mature than he was.

The gnawing in his gut had only gotten
worse after his brother called and cussed him out. But Christian
was right. He was an ass, and he owed her an apology.

“
What do you want?” Her
voice came from behind the door. Obviously, at nearly eleven
o’clock at night, she wasn’t stupid enough to not look through the
peephole and just open the door.

“
I wanted to talk to
you.”

“
You could have done that
all night.”

Ed ran his fingers through his hair.
“Darcy, just let me in please.”

She didn’t say anything, and for a few
moments he just stood there wondering if she’d walked away from the
door, but then he heard the chain being removed and the deadbolt
unlocking.

Slowly, the door opened and there
stood Darcy McCary, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her
and as pissed as any woman he’d ever seen, too.

Her makeup was still fresh, but she’d
ridded herself of the rest of the night. This was how he liked to
see women—relaxed. Dressed up and done up was fun, but this was
when they let themselves be seen.

Ed stepped into the small, basement
apartment, and Darcy slammed the door behind him. As if she were
either comfortable with having him there—or didn’t care, which was
more likely—she walked to the corner of the room, picked up the
remote to the TV, and then sat on couch and turned down the
volume.

He stood for a moment and took in the
sight of her watching Lucille Ball. She wasn’t going to make this
easy on him, and he knew he didn’t deserve it.

“
Listen, I just wanted to
say I am sorry.”

Darcy nodded, her eyes still on the
TV. “Keep going.”

That burned him. “I should have been
there. That event was important for my aunt. I know my entire
family was there, but I should have been there, too.”

“
You were covered, right? I
mean, you sent your assistant. That should count.”