Lost and Found (24 page)

“
Done.” He sucked in a
breath. “Tomorrow seems like a great day to do that.”

She nodded and moved her mouth back to
his.

But the moment was gone when they
heard an enormous crash from upstairs and a slew of curses from
Christian.

The smoldering looks were now filled
with fear and panic.

Ed reached for his pants and somehow
managed to get them on as he ran up the stairs.

Darcy was right behind him.

As they ran from the kitchen and into
the living room, they saw the mess they had heard.

Christian sat on the floor, next to
the overturned coffee table. His hand was on his forehead, and
blood dripped from under it.

“
Crap! What did you do?” Ed
ran to his brother as Darcy ran to the kitchen for a
towel.

“
I guess I’m a little
dizzy. I went to stand up and fell over.”

Darcy handed Ed the towel, and
Christian grinned. “Nice top, Darcy.”

Ed turned and noticed it was still
hanging open, but she was frantically buttoning it. He smacked
Christian in the arm.

“
What’s that
for?”

“
You’re a pig,” Ed said as
he examined the cut over his brother’s brow. “You’re going to need
stitches.”

“
Damn it!”

“
Don’t be such a
baby.”

“
You know if you were in my
shoes, you’d be crying.”

Ed shook his head as he held the towel
to his brother’s head. “I’m pretty sure I’ve always been stronger
emotionally.”

The conversation stopped
there.

Ed stood and motioned to Darcy to grab
Christian’s crutches. Then he pulled him to his feet.

“
C’mon. When was the last
time you were in the clinic?”

“
Seriously? You’re taking
me there?”

“
Curtis is working tonight.
He’ll love stabbing you with a needle.”

Ed made sure Christian was stable and
the bleeding had stopped enough before he turned to
Darcy.

“
I’ll be back.”

“
Don’t you want me to go
with you?”

Ed touched her face. “You get some
rest. And tomorrow, we’ll go get that tattoo.”

She smiled, but she wasn’t happy about
any of it. Those damn beautiful brown eyes sure could tell him a
lot about this woman. And yet, deep down, they held some kind of
secret he didn’t know about. He wasn’t sure she did either. Darcy
McCary, the future Mrs. Eduardo Keller, was so familiar to him,
which was the rush to make her all his. But those eyes…what were
they hiding?

Ed wondered how it was that late on a
Friday night a medical clinic could be so busy. He and Christian
had been waiting almost an hour, and dropping the name Curtis
Keller had done nothing to get them in any faster.

It was nearing ten o’clock when they
were finally called back.

A nurse took Christian’s vitals and
flashed a smile at him when he turned on his charm.

Ed shook his head. Where had this man
come from? Christian had been such a shy kid, emotional, and, well,
a total nerd. The minute he made his first varsity baseball team, a
new man emerged and he had a healthy dose of smart ass to add to
the mix that made Christian Keller.

Curtis pulled back the curtain and
laughed. “I promised I’d be at dinner on Tuesday. You don’t have to
keep showing up.”

“
Funny,” Christian scoffed.
“Just fix this please.”

Curtis took a look at the cut on his
head. “You’re just an accident waiting to happen, aren’t
you?”

“
Waiting? Look at me. I’m
messed up from head to toe.”

“
You’re going to need about
four stitches.”

“
Really?” Christian’s
shoulders dropped. “Women dig scars, right?”

“
So they tell me.” Curtis
poked at the wound with a gloved hand, and Christian
winced.

Ed could feel his airport dinner
churning in his stomach.

“
Let me get the stuff I
need to fix this up.”

Curtis left the curtained-off
area.

“
This isn’t how I wanted to
spend my weekend,” Christian complained.

“
You’re tough.” Ed looked
at his watch. “Hey, is that tattoo parlor still open where we got
our family tattoos?”

Christian shrugged. “I think so. Why?
You getting Darcy’s name tattooed on your butt?”

Ed laughed. “It’s a thought. No. She’s
going to get the family tattoo on her wrist, like
Clara’s.”

Christian narrowed his eyes. “I can’t
believe you’re this serious about her.”

“
You think I’m wrong about
her.”

“
No. Oh, no,” he was quick
to answer. “I like her. I like her a lot. In fact, had you not
gotten to her first, well…”

Ed didn’t want to think about that
more than he already had.

Christian adjusted on the bed. “I’ve
just never seen you so…possessive over someone.”

“
Possessive?”

“
It’s like you were meant
to take care of her. I don’t know.” He touched his head. “I’m still
fuzzy.”

Curtis returned with a metal tray full
of utensils and went about stitching up Christian’s
head.

Ed sunk into his hard, plastic chair
and diverted his eyes. He didn’t want to see what was going on in
front of him.

But Christian’s words kept
playing in his head.
It’s like you were
meant to take care of her.

He was right. That was exactly what it
was like. She was a gift. She fell right into his life. God, he was
a lucky man.

Curtis finished stitching up
Christian’s head. “Keep it dry until tomorrow. I’ll go get you
ointment to put on it to keep it sanitary.”

Curtis left again, and Christian sat
up on the bed. “I was thinking, did Darcy ever find anything on her
birth parents?”

“
No.” He didn’t want to
tell him about her searching the company records. It didn’t sound
too good. “She gave up the search. She decided it wasn’t too
important. Besides, when she went to see her dad, he told her that
her birth mother had died.”

“
That’s sad.”

“
She’s fine.”

“
But if her birth mother
died then, really, there’s no harm in finding out who she was
right?”

“
Why?”

“
To know.”

Ed shook his head. “I told her I’d
help her find them if she wanted, but she said she’s fine. So
that’s that.”

Christian nodded, but he was still
thinking.

Curtis came back into the curtained
area with a tube and handed it to Christian. “Here. Use this to
keep it moist.”

Christian nodded, exchanged a glance
with Ed, and then looked back at Curtis. “If someone was born in
the hospital, could you look up their records?”

Ed pursed his lips, but Christian just
narrowed his eyes.

“
Depends. You got a kid you
didn’t know about?”

Christian laughed. “Not that I know.
How far back can you go?”

“
If it’s further than ten
years, we have to order up charts. What’s this about?”

Ed didn’t like this, but there was
something about wanting to know himself that kept him from stopping
Christian.

“
Darcy came to Nashville to
find her birth parents. She was born in Nashville
General.”

“
Really?”

“
What can you
do?”

Curtis shrugged. “I could look her up.
What’s her full name and birthdate?”

Ed winced before he spoke. “Darcy Ann
McCary.”

“
And her parents were here
when she was born? They are the ones on her birth
certificate?”

“
Yes.”

Curtis reached into the pocket of his
jacket and took out a note pad. He wrote down her name. “What are
her parents’ names?”

“
George and Francis
McCary.”

Curtis nodded. “What date?”

“
August twenty-first.
Twenty-five years ago.”

Curtis stopped writing.
“Really?”

“
Yeah, why?”

He shook his head. “No reason.” He
tucked the note pad back into his coat. “I can’t even start to get
this processed until Monday. And my ass is on the line if I give
you the info. So as far as you know, you don’t know. Got
it?”

Both Ed and Christian
nodded.

“
But if the mother died in
child birth then I don’t really see a problem. You might have the
information by Tuesday, if you were looking at giving it to her for
her birthday.”

Christian grinned. “Yep. I thought
that would be the perfect present.”

Ed wasn’t so sure.

Darcy had been asleep when Ed had
crawled into bed with her. She was so comfortable with him around
her that it never fazed her when she heard him come in.

This would be what it was like, she
thought as morning broke and the deep breaths of the man she loved
were the only sounds. It would be them, in their bed, waking as man
and wife. She wondered when he would actually ask her to marry him.
He’d hinted to it enough. There was time, she reminded herself as
she moved closer into Ed’s sleeping embrace.

By ten o’clock, Ed had finally
stumbled out of the bedroom. He raked his fingers through his thick
hair.

“
What are you doing?” he
asked as he looked down at Darcy, who was now sitting on the floor
surrounded by boxes.

“
I’m going through all the
stuff my father sent me home with. My mother saved all of this for
me, and now I have to decide what to do with it.”

“
What is it?”

“
I would assume this is my
hope chest.”

Ed rubbed the back of his neck. “As in
someday you hope to get married and here are things for your
house?”

“
Yep. There are tea-towels
that my grandmother, whom I never met, cross-stitched. Some silver
spoons. No forks, just silver spoons. Linens, table cloths, and a
box of mismatched china plates.”

Ed nodded. “Can’t beat
eclectic.”

Darcy laughed.
Eclectic.
That word
seemed to sum up her life. Not only had her past been an eclectic
tide of military-base houses, schools and friends, but now she was
becoming part of a family, which in its own right was
eclectic.

When she thought about his family, she
thought about the tattoo they were going to get for her.

“
Do you think that tattoo
place is open now?”

Ed shrugged. “I don’t know. But how
about I run home, get a shower and some clean clothes, and I’ll
pick you up for lunch and we can go after.”

Darcy smiled. “Sounds like a
plan.”

Three hours later, Darcy was having
second thoughts. She was seated in the tattoo parlor with her arm
stretched out. They had already drawn the outline that the man,
bald and tattooed on every part of his body, had put down. Ed held
tight to her other hand as the whir of the tattoo pen
started.

The moment the pen touched her arm,
she gritted her teeth and gripped tighter to Ed’s hand. She’d never
felt such pain. Tears welled in her eyes, and she squeezed them
shut. This pain would be over soon, but the precious meaning behind
the tattoo would last forever.

“
You’re doing great,” Ed
said as the word family was formed on her arm.

“
Why do people do this?”
she whispered as she winced.

“
To make it
forever.”

His voice was soft over the whir of
the pen, and suddenly, it didn’t hurt anymore. The pain was nothing
in comparison to the meaning.

It seemed like it had been hours, but
in no time, she was marked for life. The dark ink against the red
swollen skin was the most beautiful thing she’d ever
seen.

“
I can’t believe I did
that. My mother is probably giving God an earful right
now.”

Ed laughed. “I think it looks
wonderful. I can’t wait for my mother to see it.”

“
Why?”

“
This design was all her
idea. Just like shaving our heads, I don’t think she thought we’d
all follow suit.”

Darcy held her arm, as if she’d smudge
the art work under the loose piece of gauze, as they left the
parlor. She looked at him. “What did you mean you shaved your
head?”

Ed opened the door to his truck and
helped her in. Then he walked around to the other side before he
answered. “When Mom started losing her hair, my dad shaved it off.
Then he told her to shave his. She wouldn’t do it. So he took the
clippers down the center of his head.”

Darcy laughed out loud. “He did
not.”

“
Yep. Then he told her she
had to finish it.”