Kitabı oku: «The Greek's Tiny Miracle»

CHAPTER ONE

April 27

EVERY TIME MORE hotel guests entered the beachfront resort restaurant on Grace Bay in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, Stephanie expected to see her black-haired Adonis appear. That was how she thought of Dev Harris.

After their fantastic ninety-foot dive to Elephant Ear Canyon that afternoon to see the huge sponges, the tall, powerfully built New Yorker, who resembled a Greek god, had whispered that he’d meet her in the dining room at eight for dinner. They’d watch the sunset and later, each other.

As he’d helped her out of the dive boat, giving her arm a warm squeeze, his eyes, black as jet, conveyed the words he didn’t speak in front of the others in their scuba diving group. He was living for another night with her like last night.

She’d reluctantly left him to go to the beachfront condo and get ready for dinner. Her silvery-gold hair needed a shampoo. She’d decided to wear it loose from a side part. Time with the blow dryer and a brush brought out the natural curl, causing it to flow across her shoulders.

With the golden tan she’d picked up, tonight she’d chosen to wear a blue sleeveless sundress. She wanted to look beautiful for him. Last night she’d worn a filmy tangerine-colored dress and had bought a shimmering lip gloss to match. He’d told her that, in the dying rays of the sun, she’d look like a piece of golden fruit he longed to devour very slowly and thoroughly.

Her body trembled just remembering those words. While she waited for him to come, the memory of the way he’d made love to her over and over again made it difficult to breathe. It was her first intimate experience with a man, and had happened so naturally she felt as if she was living in a dream, one from which she never wanted to awaken.

In ten days’ time Stephanie had fallen so deeply in love, her whole world had changed. Throughout her dating years she’d had various boyfriends. Just last week she’d gone on a date with a guy named Rob Ferris, who ran an auto parts franchise, but she knew when he took her home after dinner that she really wasn’t interested in a second date.

Then she met Dev. The first time she’d seen him walking toward the boat with the dive master, her breath had caught. When their gazes collided, that was it. The feeling she’d been waiting for all her adult life.

Other relationships with past boyfriends had nothing to do with the profound kind of love she felt for the sophisticated thirty-two year-old bachelor, who’d told her he was in the international exporting business. He blew away every other man in existence.

Her three girlfriends who’d arranged their April vacations to come on this scuba diving trip with her fully agreed he was out-of-this-world gorgeous. Melinda thought he must be one of those frogmen from the military, the way he maneuvered under the water. He was certainly built like one.

Stephanie agreed with her friends, but there was more to Dev than his physical attributes and diving skills. Much more. Everything he said and did revealed that he was well-traveled and educated, making him exceptional, and so charismatic she could hardly breathe when she thought about him.

Where was he? By now it was quarter to nine. Obviously, he’d been held up. The only thing to do was go back to her room and call him on the hotel land line. His beachfront condo, where they’d spent last night, was located on the other side of the restaurant, but she thought she should phone him first.

Stephanie was on her way out when a waiter came toward her with a florist box in his hands. “Ms. Walsh? This is for you, with Mr. Harris’s compliments.”

Thrilled to have received it, she went back to the table to take off the lid. He was probably on his way to her now. Inside the tissue was a corsage of gardenias with a card.

Thank you for the most memorable ten days and nights of my life, Stephanie. Your sweetness is like these gardenias and I’ll never forget you. Unfortunately, I’ve had to leave the island because of an emergency at my work that couldn’t be handled by anyone else. Enjoy the rest of your trip and be safe flying back to Crystal River. I miss you already. Dev.

Stephanie sat there and felt the blood drain from her face.

Her spring idyll was over.

He’d already driven to the airport to catch his flight to New York. Of course he hadn’t left her a phone number or address, nor had he asked her for the same information. On purpose he hadn’t given her a shred of hope that they’d ever see each other again.

She had to be the biggest fool who’d ever lived.

No, there was one other person she knew who shared that honor. Her mother, who’d died from cancer after Stephanie had graduated from college. Twenty-four years ago Ruth Walsh had made the same mistake with an irresistible man. But whoever he was hadn’t stuck around once the fun was over, either. Stephanie didn’t know his name and had no memories of him, only that her mother had said he was good-looking, exciting and an excellent skier.

He and Dev were two of a kind.

Stephanie closed her eyes tightly. How many females went off on vacation and supposedly met their soul mate, who swept them off their feet, only to abandon them once the excitement wore off? It had to be in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions. Stephanie, like her mother, was one of those pathetic statistics who’d gotten caught up in the rapture.

White-hot with anger for being in her mid-twenties before learning the lesson she should have had memorized early in life, because of her birth father, Stephanie shot out of the chair. As she passed the waiter, she gave him a couple dollars and told him to get rid of the things she’d left on the table.

Stephanie didn’t know about her friends, but she couldn’t possibly stay on the island for the last four days of their trip. Tomorrow morning she’d be on the first plane back to Florida. If a man was too good to be true, then shame on the woman who believed she was the first female to beat the odds.

Dev was so attractive there had to be trails of broken-hearted females around the scuba diving world who knew exactly what it was like to lie in his arms and experience paradise, only to wake up and discover he’d moved on.

He’d told her that scuba diving was his favorite form of recreation. What he hadn’t mentioned was that womanizing went hand in hand with his favorite pastime. It was humiliating to think she was one of those imbeciles who didn’t have the sense to take one look at him and run far away as fast as possible.

Too furious for tears, she returned to the condo, thankful her roommates were still out. They’d probably gone into town to party with some of the other tourists staying at the resort. That gave Stephanie time to change her flight reservation and pack without them asking a lot of questions.

By tomorrow afternoon she’d be back on the job. Stephanie loved her work. Right now she was planning on it saving her life.

If she let herself think about those long walks with Dev, past the palms and Casuarina trees while they were entwined in each other’s arms, she’d go mad.

July 13

“Captain Vassalos?”

Nikos had just finished putting on the jacket of his uniform—the last time he would wear it. Steadying himself with his crutches, he looked around in time to see Vice Admiral Eugenio Prokopios of the Aegean Sea Naval Command in Piraeus, Greece, enter his hospital room and shut the door. The seasoned Greek naval hero was an old friend of his father and grandfather.

“This is an honor, sir.”

“Your parents are outside waiting for you. I told them I wanted to come in first to see you. After your last mission, we can be thankful the injury to your spine didn’t paralyze you, after all.”

Thankful?

Nikos cringed. His last covert operation with Special Forces had wiped out the target, but his best friend, Kon, had been killed. As for Nikos, his doctor told him he would never be the man he once was. His spine ought to heal in time, but he’d never be 100 percent again, and couldn’t stay in the Greek military as a SEAL, not when he would probably suffer episodes of PTSD for a long time, maybe even years.

He’d been getting counseling and was taking a serotonin reuptake inhibitor to help him feel less worried and sad, but he’d had several nightmares. They left him feeling out of control and depressed.

“Now that you’re being released from the hospital this morning, it won’t be long before you won’t need those crutches.”

Nikos hated the sight of them. “I’m planning on getting rid of them as soon as possible.”

“But not until you’ve had a good long rest after your ordeal.”

“A good long rest” was code for one reality. The part of his life that had brought challenge and purpose was finished. Only blackness remained.

“I don’t expect it to take that much time, sir.”

After a two and a half months’ hospitalization, Nikos knew exactly why the vice admiral had shown up. This was his father’s work. He’d been thwarted when Nikos had joined the military, and expected his son to return to the family business. Now that he was incapacitated, his father had sent his good friend Eugenio to wish him well with a pep talk about getting back in the family fold.

The older man eyed him solemnly. “Our navy is grateful for the heroic service you’ve rendered in Special Forces. You’re a credit to your family and our country. Your father is anxious for you to resume your place with your brother at the head of Vassalos Shipping so he can retire.”

His father would never retire.

Vice Admiral Prokopios had just let Nikos know—in the kindest way, of course—that though his military service was over, the family business was waiting to embrace him again. Of course, the older man knew nothing about Nikos’s history with his father, or he would never have said what he did.

Until after Nikos was born and turned out to be a Vassalos, after all, his father hadn’t believed he was his son, all because of a rumor that turned out to have no substance. The experience had turned him into a bitter, intransigent man. The damage inflicted on the Vassalos marriage carried over to the children, and had blighted Nikos’s life.

The navy turned out to be his escape from an impossible situation. But ten years later it was back in triplicate.

He was thirty-two years of age, and everything was over.

Sorrow weighed him down at the loss of Kon Gregerov. Nikos’s best friend from childhood, who’d come from a wonderful family on nearby Oinoussa Island, had joined the navy with him. The man had been like a brother, and had helped keep Nikos sane and grounded during those tumultuous years while he fought against his father’s domination, among other things.

He and Kon had plans to go into their own business together once they’d retired from the military, but his friend had been blown up in the explosion that almost killed Nikos.

It should have been me.

“I’m sorry you were forced to leave Providenciales unexpectedly to perform your last covert operation. So when you’re ready, we’ll send you back there for more rest and relaxation.”

Nikos’s stomach muscles clenched at the mere mention of Providenciales. That experience had been like a fantastic dream, one he’d relived over and over on those nights in the hospital when he wasn’t suffering flashbacks. To go back there again without her would kill him. After what had happened to him, there could be no Stephanie Walsh in his life. He was going in another direction entirely.

“Nikos?” the vice admiral prodded.

“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’d rather recuperate at home.”

“If that’s your wish.”

“It is.”

“Then I’ll say goodbye for now. Be assured I’m mighty proud of you. Good luck.”

They saluted before he left the room. Moments later one of the hospital staff entered with a wheelchair. As Nikos sat down, his parents swept into the room. They’d been constant visitors, but they hovered until he felt he would choke.

“Darling!” his mother exclaimed, and hugged him before carrying his crutches for him. “You look wonderful despite your weight loss. Once we get you home, we’ll fatten you up in no time. Your grandparents are elated and your sister and Timon have already arrived with the children to welcome you back.”

“This is a great day, son.” His exultant father embraced him before reaching for his luggage. “Leon’s eager to talk business with you.”

Nikos had no intention of working in the family business like his elder brother, and his father knew it. But his dad never let up about anything, and it had driven a wedge between them that couldn’t be breached. However, now wasn’t the time to get into it. The three of them moved out of the room and down the corridor.

“How did it go with Eugenio?”

As if his father didn’t know. “Fine.”

They emerged from the main doors of the hospital under a blue sky. Once they were settled inside the limousine, his father said, “We’ve been waiting for this day. So has Natasa. She and her parents will be joining us tomorrow evening for a small party.”

Nikos’s anger flared. “Then uninvite them. You might as well know that after tonight, I’ll be living on the Diomedes while I get my strength back.” He was sick of visitors and hospital staff. He needed to be completely alone and didn’t want anyone to know his activities. His boat would be his refuge from now on.

“You can’t do that to us or to her!” his father thundered. “You’ve put this situation with Natasa on hold for long enough. A marriage between the two of you has been understood for years. She’s expecting it now that you’re home for good. Your mother and I want you to give us grandchildren. We’ve waited long enough.”

Their families had been best friends for years. His sister, Gia, and Natasa Lander had always been close. It had been an impossible situation he’d been happy to get out of when he’d joined the military.

“Then that’s a pity, because I never made love to her or asked her to marry me. She should have moved on years ago.” She was attractive enough and would have made a good wife and mother, but he’d never been on fire for her. Thank heaven he hadn’t made the mistake of sleeping with her. After meeting Stephanie, the thought of Natasa or any another woman was anathema to him. “Now that I’m out of the hospital, I need to go my own way.”

“But that’s absurd! She’s in love with you.”

“It’s a moot point, since I’m not in love with her and never have been. Any hope you had for me marrying her is out of the question. I’m deadly serious about this.”

His father’s cheeks grew ruddy with emotion. “You don’t know what you’re saying!”

“But I do. Natasa is a lovely person, but not the one for me.” Unless she had an agenda of her own, there was something wrong with her for waiting around for him this long. “At this point I’m afraid a marriage between the two of us is only a figment of your and her parents’ imagination.”

“How dare you say that!” his father muttered furiously.

“How dare you?” Nikos retorted back. “You’ll be doing her a favor if you tell her and her family that I’m not well enough to see anyone now. Hopefully, they’ll finally get the point! Don’t turn this into a nightmare for me or you’ll wish you hadn’t!”

Nikos had suffered too many of them since the fishing vessel with all the surveillance equipment, along with Kon, had been blown out of the water by the enemy. If Nikos hadn’t happened to be over the side, checking the hull for damage because of a run earlier in the day, he wouldn’t still be alive.

As it was, he’d been found unconscious in the water. The doctors at the hospital hadn’t given him a chance of walking again due to the damage to his lower spine, but they’d been proved wrong. He’d come out of it with deep bruising and reduced mobility. No one could say how much he would heal with time.

“We can discuss this later,” his mother said, always anxious to mollify his father. For as long as Nikos could remember, she’d tried to keep peace between them. Though he loved her for it, the ugly history with his father had dictated that certain things would never change....

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

His military career was over. Life as he’d known it was over. Nikos was living for the moment when he could be away from everyone. Both his parents crowded him until he felt stifled, but he knew he had to endure this until tomorrow morning.

He’d already made arrangements with Yannis, who would come to the house and drive him to the marina in Nikos’s car. Once on board the Diomedes, he intended to stay put. Drinking himself to death sounded better and better.

Silence invaded the vehicle until they reached the small airport in Athens. Nikos took a fortifying breath as he stepped out and reached for his crutches to board his father’s private jet. The steward knew him well and nodded to him. “Welcome home, Nikos.”

“Thank you, Jeno.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Some tea?”

“How about a beer?”

The other man smiled. “Coming right up.”

Nikos found a seat in the club compartment with his parents, who for once had gone quiet. He put the crutches on the floor and fastened himself in. It was a short forty-minute flight across the Aegean to Chios. From there they’d take the helicopter to Vassalos Shipping on Egnoussa, where they’d land and drive home.

He stared blindly out the window until fatigue took over, causing him to lounge back in the seat and close his eyes. The mention of marriage had triggered thoughts of a certain female in another part of the world he’d had to leave two and half months ago—so abruptly he still hadn’t recovered from the pain.

Stephanie Walsh would have received the gardenias with his note. It would have sent a dagger straight to her heart. Nikos knew how it felt, because when he’d had his farewell gift delivered to the restaurant, he’d experienced gut-wrenching pain over what he’d been forced to do.

His hand formed a fist, because there hadn’t been a damn thing he’d been able to do to comfort her at the time. As a navy SEAL, everything about his life was classified. Since then his whole world had been turned upside down, ensuring he would never seek her out again.

From the second he’d first met the beautiful American woman on the beach, her appeal had been so strong he couldn’t find the strength to stay away from her. Knowing his leave was for only two weeks, he hadn’t intended to get involved with her. Because he’d be returning shortly to join his unit, there could be no future in it.

Every day he kept telling himself he’d go to another resort on the island to keep his distance, but every day he grew more enamored of her. The night with her before he’d received orders to return to Greece should never have happened.

He loathed himself for allowing things to get that far, but she’d been like a fever in his blood. Intoxicated by her beauty, by everything about her, he’d given in to his desires, and she’d been right there with him. Her loving response had overwhelmed him, setting him on fire.

There’d been other women in his life, but never again would he know a night of passion like that. What he and Stephanie had shared for those ten precious days had been unbelievable. His longing for her was still so real he could taste it.

When he’d awakened on their last morning together, they’d been tangled up in each other’s arms. She’d looked at him with those sapphire eyes, willing him to love her, and he’d wanted to stay in that bed with her forever. After their dive that afternoon, it had shredded him to walk away from her and board the jet for the flight to Athens, but he’d had his orders. He couldn’t imagine a world that didn’t include her.

After meeting up with Kon for their next covert operation, Nikos had confided his deepest feelings, telling him that after this last mission was completed, he planned to resign his commission and marry her. But just three days after that, the enemy had struck, and his best friend was dead. Nikos was no longer a whole man. Stephanie could be only a memory to him now.

En route to the Caribbean he’d never dreamed he would meet the woman who would leave her mark on him. His mind went over the conversation he’d just had with his father.

You don’t know what you’re saying!

But I do. Natasa is a lovely person, but there’s something wrong with a woman who waits around for a man who’s never been interested in her romantically. I’m afraid a marriage between the two of us is out of the question.

Nikos had met the ideal woman meant for him, but she would have to remain in his dreams. If Kon were still alive he’d say, “Get in touch with her and tell her the truth about your condition. You trusted her enough to spend every living moment with her. It might ease the pain for both of you if she knew who you really were, and what happened to you.”

A groan escaped Nikos’s throat. With his spinal injury, he wasn’t the same man she’d met. Part of the collateral damage had rendered him sterile. He’d never be able to give a woman a child from his own body. Nikos lived in a dark world now. He looked and felt like hell. No woman would want a man whose flashbacks could make him dangerous to himself and others. Stephanie would only hate him for lying to her. For using her for pleasure, then dumping her without explanation.

“Nikos?”

His eyes flew open. “Jeno?”

The steward looked at him with compassion. “Are you feeling ill? Can I get you anything?”

He shook his head. He’d come to a dead end. The woman he loved and desired was permanently beyond his reach now.

“We’re getting ready to descend.”

“Thank you.”

He fastened his seat belt. Jeno was right about one thing: Nikos did feel ill. The meeting with the vice admiral was like the first handful of dirt thrown on top of the coffin. He saw the life he’d once known vanish into the void, leaving him to travel through a tunnel of blackness that had no end....

July 26

Stephanie was going to be a mother.

She ran a hand over her stomach, which had grown fuller, making it harder to fasten the top two buttons of her jeans. It still seemed unbelievable that she was carrying Dev’s child. When she’d missed her period last month it hadn’t alarmed her, because she’d always been irregular. In college she’d gone six months without a period.

But over the last three weeks she’d felt weak and nauseated. In her depressed state she’d lost her appetite and thought she had a flu bug. But it didn’t go away and then she started noticing other changes to her body. It all added up to one thing, and the home pregnancy test yesterday had turned out positive, shocking the daylights out of her.

The trip to Dr. Sanders today had confirmed that she was three months along with Dev’s baby. Incredible. Her OB had ordered pills for her nausea, plus iron and prenatal vitamins to build her up.

If she caught up to Dev, would he want to know he was going to be a father?

Deep down, she’d been waiting for him to contact her. He knew she worked for Crystal River Water Tours. It would have been easy enough for him to call and leave a message. But that hadn’t happened. He hadn’t planned on ever seeing or talking to her again.

Yet she felt certain the man she’d fallen in love with would have wanted to hear the truth about his own baby. But it seemed that man didn’t exist. If she were able to find him, would he still tell her he wanted nothing to do with her or the baby, once he found out?

For the next twelve hours she agonized about what to do, vacillating over the decision she needed to make. By morning, one thing overshadowed every consideration. She knew her child would want to know its father. It would be the most important thing in her baby’s life.

Stephanie knew all about that, having always longed to meet her birth father and know his name. It took two to make a child, and it was up to her to inform Dev if it was at all possible. What he did with the information was up to him.

But her hand hesitated before she reached for the phone to begin her inquiries at the resort. The two people she knew there might wonder why she needed information. They’d probably deduce she was some obsessed girlfriend.

How humiliating would it be to confide the truth about the baby to them? She just couldn’t. But maybe it would work if she explained she’d been worrying about him ever since he’d disappeared, the very night they were going to have dinner together. She felt certain he’d been ill, thus the reason for his swift departure. Did they know any way she might get in touch with him, just to see if he was all right?

With her hand shaking, she called the number on the brochure she’d kept, and waited.

“Dive shop. This is Angelo.”

She gripped the cell phone tighter. “Hello, Angelo. I’m glad it’s you. I tried to reach you earlier, but you were out. This is Stephanie Walsh. You probably don’t remember me. I was there almost three months ago.”

“Stephanie? I always remember the pretty girls, you especially.”

Her heart beat too fast. “You just made my day.”

He laughed. “You had a good time on vacation?”

“Wonderful, thanks to you.” The best of my whole life until the box of gardenias was brought to the table.

“That’s good. How can I help you?”

“I’m trying to reach Dev Harris, the scuba diver from New York I partnered with that first week. Do you have a phone number or an email for him? Anything at all to help me? He left so suddenly, I’ve worried over the last few months that he might have been taken ill. I have pictures I’d like to send him via email.”

“Let me check. Don’t hang up.”

“No. I won’t.”

She paced the bedroom of her condo while she waited. There were a lot of Devlin, Devlon or Devlan Harrises listed in New York City, but none she could reach was the man she was trying to find.

When she’d first gotten back to Florida, anger had driven her to phone New York information, but there was no such name listed for him. She’d spent several days phoning exporting companies where he might be working, but she’d turned up nothing.

After exhausting that avenue, she’d called various airlines that had landed planes on the island April 18, but got no help. The resort could tell her only what she already knew, that he was from New York. That was when she’d given up. But her pregnancy had changed everything.

“Stephanie? I’m back. Sorry, but there is no address or phone number. Perhaps one of the shops you visited would know something.”

She bit her lip in disappointment. “We didn’t do any shopping, but he did have some flowers delivered to me. Would they have come from the resort?”

“No, no. The Plant Shop in town. Just a minute and I’ll give you the number.” She held her breath while she waited. “Yes. Here it is.”

Stephanie wrote it down. “You live up to your name, Angelo. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck finding him.”

After hanging up, she placed the call. Stephanie had once told him she loved gardenias. Tears stung her eyes. She had to admit his parting gift had been done with a certain style, while at the same time destroying her dreams. If there were no results, then the baby she was carrying would never know its father.

“The Plant Shop.”

“Hello. My name is Stephanie Walsh. I’m calling from Florida. On April 27 a box of gardenias from your shop was delivered to me at the Palm Resort. I never did get to thank the gentleman who sent it to me. He left before I realized he’d gone. His name was Dev Harris. Could you give me an address or a phone number, please? He’s from New York City. That’s all I know.”