Long-Lost Mom

“We can fix that easily enough,” he said, disturbed by the anguish in her voice. “I’m Stone Cameron. And you’re…”

“I’m…” She hesitated so long Stone became convinced she wasn’t going to tell him. She continued to regard him intently, as if he could fill in the blank for her. “Cindy,” she said finally, almost regretfully. “My name is Cindy Beatty.”

A lie. He knew it even before she refused to meet his gaze. And just that quickly, his sympathy and curiosity vanished, for he’d had enough of that sort of woman to last him a lifetime. Standing abruptly, he shrugged into his jacket and without another word started walking away, across the sand, toward the steep stairs that led to his truck.

“You’re…leaving?” The last word was a squeak of surprise.

“Yes. Goodbye,” he added politely, unwilling, even in the face of her lie, to be completely rude. Hardening himself to the pained disbelief in her voice, Stone forced himself to keep walking. His reaction was ridiculous, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Not on this day.

She’d lied, and hated herself for it. Still, Jenna watched him go with hungry eyes, suddenly transported back in time. Ten years since she’d seen him. He’d been the most coolheaded, most strong-willed and honest man she’d ever known. That had obviously not changed with time, for she knew he’d sensed her lie.

Heart aching, she watched his broad-shouldered form slowly disappear from sight. Physically he’d changed little. His laugh lines were deeper, his eyes a bit more cynical, and he wasn’t as lanky, almost gawky, as he’d been at twenty. But he still possessed a raw sensuality that tugged at some elementary core of her, and his body was still honed to a lean toughness by the physical labor he’d done to put himself through college.

She’d gotten that tidbit from the detective she’d hired, and her heart had nearly broken. For it had been her fault that he’d had to work so hard back then.

Her fault. Her fault. Her fault.

The words repeated like a mantra through her head, mixing with the crashing waves.

Why hadn’t she told him the truth just now? Why had she reverted to the young girl of her past and taken the easy way out, using the name she’d adopted for herself-Cindy Beatty?

She could have told him about the car accident that had changed her life. Yes, she’d nearly died- should have died. Instead, she’d been given a new lease on life. A chance to right her wrongs, of which there were an unfortunate many. And oh, yes, thanks to plowing face first through her windshield and then having three cosmetic surgeries to repair the damage, she had a new face with which to do it.

Jenna had waited until today, her twenty-seventh birthday, to make the final move, to come back to San Paso Bay, midway up the California coast and get what she’d always dreamed of.

Forgiveness. And her daughter.

A new birthday, a new beginning.

She hoped.

But sitting on the rock that had once been hers and Stone’s safe haven, all she could think of was how it’d been one of the last times she’d seen Stone. The way he looked without the restriction of any clothes covering that surprisingly savage strength. What she would give to feel him pressed against her, to have his hard arms encircle her body and tighten around her until…

She was crazy thinking like this. Crazy. Drawing a shaky breath, Jenna cleared her head and forced her thoughts in a different direction.

She had to right some of her wrongs, and as hard as it would be, she had to tell everyone who she was.

Or did she?

Confused and surprisingly hurt, she stared at the stairs up which Stone had disappeared.

The detective she’d hired had done his job. She knew all the paper facts about Stone and his daughter- her daughter knew where they lived, what he did for a living, what he drove, and still it wasn’t enough. She yearned for more. She yearned to see her child.

For that, Jenna needed forgiveness. And Stone-she needed him, too. He’d looked so good. So big and powerful and darkly beautiful. So… hers. Only he would never be hers again. She’d seen to that ten years ago, when she’d run from both of them like the frightened seventeen-year-old she’d been. The ache in her heart was so sharp it almost doubled her over.

So did the shock of him not recognizing her-an additionally painful and deflating blow.

Well, what had she expected? A jagged windshield tearing off her face hadn’t helped any. Neither had the reconstructive surgeries or the way her hair had returned darker after being shaved in pre-op. And no one would recognize her voice, which was now throatier-even sexier-thanks to her voice box also being damaged in the accident. But most of all she blamed the ten years that had passed so quickly since she’d left the small town nestled on the California coast.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered. Stone, in spite of his inner toughness and sometimes blunt nature, was a gentleman at heart. No matter how much rage and resentment he’d built up against her-and she was certain there was plenty-his sense of decency and honor would prevail. He had a will of iron and a stubborn streak to go along with it, but regardless, Stone was honest to a fault.

Unlike her.

At the thought, the tears she’d been barely holding back began to fall.

Late that afternoon Stone flipped up the page on the calendar and drew a ragged breath as he reminded himself what he already knew.

Jenna’s birthday.

She’d be… He pretended to count. As though he’d forgotten it’d been ten years since he’d last laid eyes on her.

She’d be twenty-seven now. And he wondered, as he often did, what she was doing. She wasn’t living in a small town enjoying the quaint lifestyle, that was for certain. Jenna had never been one for restrictions of any kind, and San Paso Bay, a typical small town, certainly posed them. Stone found the place refreshing and real compared with the bigger cities of the world, but he knew Jenna would be doing something entirely different.

Such as hang gliding off the Angeles Crest. Or sky diving in the Mojave Desert. Maybe even mountain climbing in Tibet. Wait-this was the nineties. She was probably bungee jumping off the Golden Gate bridge or extreme skiing in the Canadian Rockies.

In the quiet of his shop Stone felt his anger swell up once again and grab him by the throat.

He turned abruptly from the calendar.

This date always got him, left him feeling as though he’d just taken a sucker punch to the solar plexus. Always left him drowning in a sea of furious emotion that time never seemed to ease. But it was just this one day, he told himself. All the other days of the year he was perfectly fine.

Yet he went to the beach-their beach-on this day every year at dawn. Just as they had together… The pencil he held snapped. He couldn’t keep doing this.

Look what had happened to him this morning with that woman. Hours later, and he was still thinking about the mysterious Cindy Beatty.

Purposely Stone drew a deep breath and let his surroundings calm him. Toy Station, his pride and joy, never failed him. Some said he wasted his talent as an architect designing and building educational toys for gifted children, which he insisted on making by hand for classrooms all over the globe. Others rumored he’d been disinherited by his rich family and therefore had to spend every day working his fingers to the bone.

It was true, all of it. But Stone loved his life. Loved his work.

And loved…

Sara rushed into Toy Station with a wide grin on her face.

Sara. Just the sight of her completed his thought. He loved his daughter.

“Didja get it?” She bounced from one foot to the other like a Ping-Pong ball. “Didja? Didja?”

“Get what?”

“Daddyyyyy!”