A Taste of Honey

Prologue


Cavanaugh Family Nursery, Oberon, California
Seven months ago

“Nick...what is all this stuff?” Dan Cavanaugh leafed through the folder his wife’s cousin had thrown at him--a folder full of photos and surveillance reports and investigator’s notes, over a decade’s worth of confidential information--all of it pertaining to him. He looked over at the other man, feeling nauseous and disoriented. The sky above was just as brightly blue as it had been a couple of moments earlier, the late September sun was still shining, and the multitude of green plants that surrounded the two men radiated with life, but Dan’s world had gone suddenly dead cold and gray.

“Dunno. I was hoping you could tell me,” Nick Greco answered. Dan glanced at him sharply. His shrug seemed just a little too casual. And he was using his cop voice, too—never a good sign. “We found it in Paige’s apartment.”

Paige Delaney. Dan swore silently. Yeah, that figured. Hadn’t he always known she was trouble? Small wonder that someone had finally decided to kill her. “Jesus. That woman was nuts. So, what’re you saying--she was stalking me?”

“Could be.” Nick eyed him curiously. “You really didn’t know anything about this?”

Dan stared at the photos again. “Hell, no. And I tell you, it’s a damn good thing Lucy never got wind of it, either.” He could just imagine what his wife would have done had she known. It scared the shit out of him.

“There’s still something else you gotta see,” Nick said quietly.

Dan rifled through the rest of the papers, wondering what could make Nick look so grim, and then stopped when he found it. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This is some kind of joke, right?”

He stared in disbelief at the birth certificate in his hands and sixteen years dissolved in an instant—

“You’ll have to marry me now, Dan,” Paige had insisted, all those years ago. “I’m pregnant.”

Dan remembered how he’d laughed. How often did a man get to hear that twice in one night? He wondered whether she really was pregnant, at all. Not that it mattered, of course; because even if she were, it wasn’t his child she was carrying. He had no doubts on that count. Not possible.

“Jesus Christ, Paige,” he said, trying to joke, “How many pregnant women do you think I can marry at the same time?”

“But, Dan—” she protested, before he cut her off, laughing again, this time at the thwarted expression on her face.

“Ah, c’mon, Paige, knock it off, already. You don’t really expect me to fall for that fairy tale, do you? I mean, I think I’d have known it, if I’d actually gone and knocked someone up. Now, d’you mind? I have to finish packing. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

He’d tried to stay civil, but his good humor had faded quickly in the face of her threats to go to Lucy with her news. He’d gotten angry then, and issued a few threats of his own. Shortly afterwards, she’d left his apartment. For sixteen years he hadn’t heard another word about this supposed child of theirs. Until right now.

“It’s no joke. I checked.” Nick paused to light a cigarette. “It’s a certificate of live birth, sure enough.”

“And she really went ahead and listed me as the father?” Dan felt his mind balk as it tried to wrap itself around the concept. “I don’t freakin’ believe this!”

“So, you’re saying you’re not the father?” Nick’s voice was a little too cool, a little too non-comittal, as he tossed the match aside. “But you knew she was pregnant, right?”

“Yeah, I mean--well, she said she was. But I thought—” He glared at him. “Hell, yes I’m saying I’m not the father. I was always real careful about stuff like that.”

“Still…accidents happen, don’t they?” Nick said, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Not to me they haven’t,” Dan answered resentfully. He and Nick had been friends for a lot of years. Friends? Hell, they were family! And after all this time, he would have thought he earned a little of the other man’s trust. He didn’t deserve to have his word doubted. Especially not about something like this.

“So, uh, how d’you explain Seth, then?” Nick asked, sounding almost apologetic. Dan flinched slightly at the mention of his son’s name.

“Ah, that was different.” He rifled through the papers a few moments more, pausing to shake his head over a copy of the adoption records. Jesus. Three last names? That was a helluva moniker to stick on one little girl. “She wouldn’t marry me,” he muttered as he heedlessly stuffed the papers back into the folder. “I had to do something.”

Nick gaped at him for several seconds. “You’re saying you got Lucy pregnant...on purpose?” He asked at last, and Dan could tell how little he liked that idea. Almost as little as Lucy would, probably. If she ever found out. “So that she’d have to marry you?”

“It wasn’t like that. Not exactly.” Dan squirmed a little, suddenly realizing that okay, maybe it had been like that, after all. “But--oh, hell. She’d already left me once, Nick. I couldn’t let her get away again. You know what that’s like.”

And if I had it to do over, I’d do the same damn thing again, he thought, stubbornly.

“Yeah,” Nick admitted, after a moment; although he was still looking none too happy. “Yeah, I suppose I do. So...what do you plan to do about this, then?”

“Do?” Dan frowned. “What do you mean? What d’you want me to do about it?”

“Well, from what I’ve learned, this was an open adoption. The girl knew Paige. Apparently they’ve been having regular visits. So probably she knows about you, too. But if you think you’re not the father, you oughta—”

“I’m not the father,” Dan insisted again, as he got to his feet. “Which is why I’m not going to do a God damn thing about any of this. It’s got nothing to do with me, Nick. And it’s gonna stay that way.”