Ever Since Eve (The Keeping Secrets Series, Book 1) Read online

  "I'll have my lawyer draw up the papers," Derek Lang said, smiling widely and shaking her hand in farewell. His hand was firm, his grip reassuring.

  "I'll call you and let you know when they're ready," Kelly said with a cheerful smile before folding the crisp white linen of her exquisitely cut dress around her and ducking into their silver Mercedes sedan.

  It's almost too easy, Eve thought in amazement, watching their Mercedes until it was swallowed up in rush-hour traffic.

  And then, still slightly stunned by the staggering events of the day, she drove her own unassuming Volkswagen Beetle twenty-five miles home to Wrayville, the level of her optimism falling lower and lower with the passing of every mile.

  Because now she was going to have to explain this whole strange business to Al. And telling her father, Eve knew, would not be easy at all.

  * * *

  "Oh, Derek, Eve is everything I had hoped," Kelly Lang said later in their bedroom, twining her fingers together behind her husband's neck. She gazed at his handsome face, at his wide eyebrows, which were a bit too short, at his nose, which would be ordinary if it were not blunted at the end.

  He nuzzled her forehead. "She's perfect," he said, slapping his wife affectionately on the rump before moving to the closet and removing his tie. He hung the tie on its rack, straightening it until it hung neatly.

  "She has a matter-of-fact look about her, doesn't she?" As though she wouldn't go into a dither over anything. That's good, Derek, because I've been reading about babies before they're born, and the experts think they can hear while they're still inside the mother. I wouldn't want our baby to be carried by somebody who was noisy and quarrelsome and—"

  "I don't think you have to worry about that with Eve Triopolous," Derek said, picturing Eve's intelligent face in his mind. And not only her face but the rest of her, too—the white skin, the narrow shoulders, the waist not as small as it might be. And her hips, wide hips that would spread to bear a child with no trouble at all from the look of them. Wide hips swelling gently from waist to thigh, fertile-looking hips, hips that could easily accommodate a baby for nine months, and no doubt a pelvis that would cradle that baby in comfort until the time of birth.

  His eyes softened on his wife. Kelly glowed, she sparkled, she looked happier than he'd seen her in a long, long time.

  Slowly, he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and then he unbuttoned the next.

  Kelly caught the meaning in his eyes.

  "Do you think we have time to make a baby before dinner?" Derek asked softly, moving to take her in his arms. It had been too long since the last time; with his busy work schedule, he was always rushed.

  Kelly lifted her lips to his. So many times Derek had initiated their lovemaking with those very same words back in the days before she had her hysterectomy. The words brought back fond memories of a time when she had still hoped that she could bear a child of their own, and today that hope had been rekindled in the person of Eve Triopolous.

  "This time let's pretend we're really making a baby," she said, because in her heart she knew—she knew—that soon, soon their baby would be conceived, not inside her body but in a laboratory, but it didn't matter at all.

  The important thing is that there would be a baby, hers and Derek's, and in her heart she would hold close the comfort that it could have been this act of physical love that created their baby; it could have if things had been different.

  * * *

  At that moment, Eve was parking her VW under the chinaberry tree in front of a white frame house with a green shingled roof, one that was almost identical to every other house on Cotton Mill Hill.

  She spared a quick glance toward the mill itself, a sprawling and abandoned brick building with two tall smokestacks dominating the scene. Wrayville would never have existed if it were not for Wray Mills, and now a new chapter in the town's history was beginning. The old mill was slated to be torn down, and the river that had powered the mill was to be bordered by a greenway where people could picnic, ride bikes, and hike.

  Most of the houses on Cotton Mill Hill had been sold to their occupants long ago. Some were, eventually, to be part of an historic site so that people could learn how mill workers had lived in the days when textile mills contributed a large part of the Carolinas economy. Other houses, like the one her father rented from its current owner, the Wray Mills Historic Project, were scheduled to be torn down to make way for the bike trail.

  As Eve got out of her car, she wrinkled her nose at the odor of fatback hanging in the humid air. Mrs. Quick across the street was boiling up a mess of collard greens, no doubt, for that big family of hers. The smell of food cooking, even the greasy smell of fatback, made Eve's mouth water. She'd skipped lunch again today.

  "Al?" She swung inside the house, her heart sinking. She hoped he'd had a good day. But there was no sign of her father in the small comfortable living room.

  "In the kitchen," she heard, and Eve peered around the door frame to see her father standing in front of the sink washing salad greens.

  "Thought I'd get a start on dinner," he said, his voice wheezing. He caught her in a big bear hug.

  "Have any luck looking for a job today?" he asked after he let her go.

  "Not much," Eve said. She paused. "Let me do that. You sit down and rest."

  "Don't boss me, daughter," he said playfully, but she noticed that when he sat in the kitchen chair, he sank into it as though he had little energy. Out of the corner of her eye she noted the sallowness of his skin. She'd thought his breathing had sounded more labored than usual last night, and it worried her. All those years of inhaling cotton dust, even after new filtration equipment had been added to the mill in response to federal regulations, had taken their toll on his health.

  What to tell him about her day? She still didn't know how to tell her family-oriented father, so set in his old-fashioned ways, that she'd hired herself out as a surrogate mother. He worried about her too much as it was.

  Which was what he was doing at the moment. Poor Eve, Alexander Triopolous thought as his daughter blended lemon juice and olive oil for salad dressing. She tries so hard.

  "Eve, you know, I can sympathize with you being out of work," he said, thinking she might want to talk about it. He'd been a long time without employment in his youth.

  Eve swished the salad dressing in its cruet before answering. "These are hard times," she said.

  "Like when I was a young man," he agreed. Al, brought to the United States by his parents when he was a child, had served in Viet Nam and come home to Tarpon Springs, Florida, where his family's profession of harvesting sponges had already died out. When he couldn't find a job in the post-war economy, Al contacted his army buddy, Joe Rigby. Joe hailed from Wrayville, North Carolina. Did Joe know of any work there?

  "Yes," Joe had enthused, phoning long distance over a crackling wire. "Get up here. The mill is hiring."

  And so Al Triopolous hitched a ride to the little town not far from Charlotte. The handsome Greek-American appeared breathtakingly exotic to the local girls, who were entranced by his un-Southern accent and his flashing brown eyes. Still, he managed to elude all of them for years until he met blond, petite Betty Simpson. Al married Betty within three months of meeting her. He'd kept his job at the mill until it closed.

  Since then he'd tried selling bait in a service station, being a greeter at Walmart, and handyman work when he could find it. He could no longer do any of those things due to his illness, and that left Eve to be the breadwinner of the family.

  "Did Nell Baker stop by today, Al?" Eve asked casually as she dished up their dinner, leftover lamb stew, from a pot on the stove.

  "Can't you tell? She brought cherry this time." He nodded toward the pie reposing on the counter.

  "She likes you," Eve said teasingly as she sat down beside him. "In fact, I think she has a crush on you."

  "Ha!" her father said. "Nell Baker just wants somebody to push around. I remember how she used to t
reat poor old Bud. 'Do this, do that,'" he mimicked. "Drove the fellow to his grave, if you ask me."

  Eve's smile faded. Bud Baker had died over a year ago of what was termed "acute chronic respiratory disease." Bud had worked in the mill too.

  "Say," her father was saying, realizing it was time to change the subject, "I heard a rumor today. The McGill kid, the one that moved away, came back for a visit. Somebody over in Gastonia told him the mill might not be torn down after all."

  "Is that because the historic project is stalled?" Despite all the planning, the effort to preserve the town's history was running out of money.

  "Could be. It's not cheap to demolish a place the size of the mill. I heard someone wants to buy it."

  Eve was skeptical of that possibility. "Who'd take on the problems of a building that's falling down?"

  "Don't know," her father said. "There've been rumors before. Since they're going ahead with the bike path and the picnic area, what they do with the mill won't affect us, except I can't imagine getting up in the morning and not seeing it up on the hill."

  "If we're going to be vacating the house, it doesn't matter." Eve spoke with irony. It would be a blessing if they could stay in the house until she had the baby... until she collected the twenty thousand dollars.

  Eve shoved her plate away. She got up and rinsed it in the sink. Al began to cough, and she turned in alarm. His skin looked papery and old, and the coughing was wearing him out.

  "Ah, Eve," he said, his voice no more than a whisper. "You'll get a job soon—sure you will—and then maybe in a couple of years you'll meet a nice man, get married and have babies. You know, that would comfort me in my old age. I've always loved kids. Wanted more of my own. You'd be happy, Eve, settled down with a husband and babies."

  He smiled at her wistfully, and Eve pressed her cheek against his so he couldn't see the despairing expression in her eyes.

  Eve couldn't tell Al now—she didn't dare tell him—that she was going to bear a child, that the child wasn't even going to be hers, and that she would have to give it up in the end. He wouldn't understand.

  The question tormented her: if she couldn't tell her father she was going to be a surrogate mother, how in the world was she going to manage it at all?

  Chapter 2

  Charlotte, North Carolina, is named after Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III of England, and the city bills itself today as the Queen City. If Charlotte is truly the Queen City, thought Eve as she steered her Volkswagen down shady tree-lined streets on an unseasonably warm March afternoon, then Myers Park must surely be the jewel in her crown.

  It was a section of town where big houses sat so far back from the street that all Eve could tell about them was that they were large and in some cases palatial. Here the very air was rarefied, and the breeze slipping through the leaves overhead whispered ever so discreetly, "Money, money, money."

  The Langs' house turned out to be a Georgian structure of old brick with an imposing front door and a neatly manicured garden. Eve didn't know why Kelly Lang had insisted that she sign the papers relating to their employment of her as a surrogate mother at their home. She would have preferred the cool formality of the lawyer's office. But it was too late now to insist upon that.

  Eve smoothed her hair before walking swiftly to the front door. As she raised the brass lion knocker and let it fall, she realized how hollow her stomach felt. She wasn't sure if the feeling was due to nervousness or if it was because she hadn't been able to face the thought of another bologna sandwich for lunch and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

  "Come in out of the heat," invited Kelly, who answered Eve's knock wearing a rose-red dress and dangling gold hoop earrings. When Eve hesitated inside the door, Kelly immediately put an arm around her waist and drew her across the hall to the study.

  "This is Harry Worden, our attorney," Kelly said, indicating a white-haired man who spread papers on the desk. He looked up as they entered, gave Eve a curious once-over, and stumped over to shake her hand.

  "And of course you know Derek," Kelly went on.

  Derek nodded. Today Eve wore a simple blue short-sleeved dress of some soft fabric, severely tailored except for a white collar. With her coloring, the effect against her pale skin and dark hair was stunning.

  "If you'll sign here... and here," Harry Worden told her, and without a word, but gripping the pencil tightly in her nervousness, Eve signed and sat back in the big wing chair.

  The papers were shuffled to Derek, who scrawled his name quickly and with a flourish, and then to Kelly, who signed and flashed her husband a radiant smile.

  It's legal, Eve thought with a sense of amazement. Just like that. Three signatures and I get pregnant. When I pass go, I'll collect twenty thousand dollars... twenty thousand dollars... twenty thousand dollars.

  The attorney handed each of them a copy of the contract and snapped his briefcase closed. "Now if you'll excuse me," Harry Worden said with a brisk nod, "I'll be going back to my office." Kelly left with him, presumably to see him to the door.

  Eve rose from her chair. She had signed away at least nine months of her life, but the reality hadn't hit her' yet. The enormity of what she was doing, the impact of it—when would she believe it? When the embryo was implanted in her uterus? When her body began to change from the effects of pregnancy? When her pregnancy was so unmistakable that she finally had to tell Al, or worse yet, that he guessed? She grabbed the back of the chair in sudden dizziness as Kelly returned.

  "Eve?" Kelly's worried face wobbled in front of hers.

  "I—I'm all right," Eve said.

  "Are you sure?" Kelly felt her forehead.

  "It's just the heat. Or something," Eve said, struggling to sit up.

  "Umm," Kelly said uncertainly with a quick glance at her husband, "there was something Derek and I wanted to talk over with you. If you feel up to it, that is. Are you hungry? That is, would you join us for a snack?"

  Eve's stomach manufactured unseemly noises at the mention of food. She managed to look mortified.

  "Yes," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "Actually, I forgot to eat lunch today."

  "Oh, in that case," Kelly said, summoning a kind-looking black woman, "we'll have some of my aunt's chicken salad sandwiches. Louise, this is Eve." She turned to Eve. "Louse is our housekeeper extraordinaire."

  "She makes too much of me," Louise said, her face lighting up with a smile. "Pays me for what I like to do."

  "Louise, make sure some of Aunt May's sandwiches are on the tray, will you, please?"

  "They already are," Louise said before disappearing down a long hall.

  "We'll be comfortable on the terrace. It's shady there this time of day." This was Derek. He regarded Eve seriously and with concern as Eve passed a hand over her face, trying to brush away the lightheadedness.

  At Derek's suggestion, the three of them gravitated without discussion through the French doors to the adjoining terrace overlooking a rose garden and sat at the small wrought-iron table. Eve tried to restrain herself from eating too many of the delicately assembled chicken-salad sandwiches, but they were so good.

  "Are you feeling better, Eve?" Kelly inquired after she had polished off at least half a dozen of the little triangles, and Eve smiled and nodded and reached for one last sandwich.

  "Then perhaps we should talk about—" And here Kelly looked at her husband for help.

  Derek cleared his throat. "Kelly and I thought that—or rather we hope that—you will consider moving in with us after the baby is conceived. That you'll live here, with us, until the baby is born."

  Wide-eyed, Eve looked from Derek to Kelly, who nodded to corroborate the invitation.

  "Our contract stipulates that we take care of your living expenses," Kelly reminded her.

  "But—"

  "We would still pay you an allowance," Derek interrupted, mindful that she had replied in part to the form's question "Why do you want to be a surrogate mother?" with "For the
money." It hadn't escaped Derek's attention that Eve had looked hungry when she arrived here, and he didn't want his child to be deprived of the proper nutrients while it was in utero. If she lived here, she would eat properly. Kelly and her Aunt May would see to that.

  "Please say you will," Kelly said softly but persuasively. "It would be fun for me to watch the baby grow, to go with you to Dr. Perry for checkups."

  Still undecided, wondering if Al could manage without her, if Mrs. Baker would look after him, Eve only stared.

  "Would you like to see your room?" Kelly stood up, taking Eve's answer for granted. Eve found herself being propelled up the wide stairs, past the majestic grandfather clock on the landing, down a hall carpeted in jade green, to a guest room that was a charming vignette of antiques. A French needlepoint armchair waited elegantly before an English lady's writing desk. The bed was heaped with fringed pillows, and the duvet cover was pale-pink damask.

  "It would make my wife happy if you'd stay with us," Derek said, sliding an arm around Kelly's shoulders and pulling her close.

  Eve loved the room. It was beautiful. "I'll think about it," she said, feeling as though she'd been inserted unawares into a fairy tale of her own imagination. She felt like a princess, and a bogus princess at that. What had she done to deserve such beautiful surroundings? She peered into the corners of the room and regarded the closet door with trepidation. She fully expected a frog to leap out wearing a sign demanding Kiss Me.

  "You wouldn't have to move in, you know, until you're actually pregnant," Kelly said anxiously, totally unaware of Eve's feelings of unworthiness.

  "When—when will that be, I wonder?" Eve asked as the three of them walked downstairs together.

  Kelly's face shone. "That's the other thing I wanted to tell you. Eve, I spoke with Dr. Perry this morning," she said. "You'll start hormone treatments next week. When you're ready, he'll implant the embryo." She smiled lovingly up at her husband.

  Eve thought, Pregnant. Me!

  It awed her.

  * * *