Gwynne Forster - Swept Away

She stifled a smile of relief because she didn’t want to encourage him. “As soon after breakfast as possible. The hotel must have worried that I didn’t get back there last night.”

From his facial expression, you’d have thought he saw a Martian. “They don’t care, as long as you or somebody pays the bill. We’ll leave here at seven-thirty. If you don’t mind riding in the truck, I’ll drive you down to Interlaken.”

“Thank you, Kurt. For…for everything.”

He shrugged. “Maybe next time I’ll get lucky.”

Veronica walked into her room at the Hotel Europa in Interlaken, so-called because of its position between two lakes. Excited about her adventure but relieved that it had ended without mishap, she got the notebook she’d bought in the hotel’s small store and began to write. Kurt hadn’t interested her, but during their ride down the mountain and through a narrow pass to Interlaken, she’d developed compassion for him. Eligible though he was—and handsome, if your taste ran to his type—he couldn’t find a woman he wanted who would agree to live with his family in the home whose foundation his great-grandfather had built and that he refused to leave. The worst of it, to Kurt’s way of thinking, was that his brother couldn’t marry until he did. She recorded the events of the previous two days and put the tablet aside.

Time to move on. She walked out on her tiny balcony and looked at Lake Thunersee nestled in the bosom of an endless flower-filled meadow beneath the Jungfraujoch Mountain on which she’d skied. Why couldn’t she have shared it with Schyler? Here, in the most beautiful place she’d ever been, she was alone. She shrugged it off, as she’d always done, packed, paid her bill and took a taxi to the station. The taxi driver assured her that if the United States was full of women who looked like her, it must be paradise for a man. She took that with the proverbial grain of salt, not bothering to disabuse him of his assumption; she was already learning that it wasn’t the place but the person who counted most.

Her hotel in Geneva faced the train station. She dropped her bags inside her room door, went to the phone and called American Express.

“Yes, Miss Overton, we have a message for you. We don’t open mail, so you’ll have to pick it up here.”

A feeling of dread stole over her, but she blew out a heavy breath, called Swissair and in four hours was on her way to Pickett. She was eating lunch on the plane before she remembered her mail at American Express. It didn’t matter; Papa was the only person who knew her whereabouts, and as much as he hated to write letters, something had to be seriously wrong.

A week after her return home, she sat on the edge of her mother’s bed and leaned forward so she could understand the muffled words. She couldn’t make sense of them, except for the last.

“…find him. Find your father…please find him. Sorry.”

Days later, the services over, she and her stepfather began adjusting to life without Esther Overton. Veronica hated to leave him, but he insisted that he’d be happy with his memories, because Esther would always be with him.

Shortly after her return to Baltimore, she made a luncheon date with Enid. She had to talk to someone other than her stepfather.

“If she told you to find your birth father, you’d better do that,” Enid said. “She had a reason.”

“But I grew up thinking he…he deserted us. She said so herself. I don’t want to find him. I spent my whole life detesting him.”

Enid was adamant. “Maybe she wanted to right a wrong. How do you know? If that’s the last thing she said, you’d better do it. Get a private detective.”

“I…I suppose you’re right. Anyway, I promised her I’d do it. Uh…How’s…uh…Mr. Henderson these days? Still rolling heads?”

Enid pushed her glasses up on her nose. Since she’d had her face lifted, the bridge of her once prominent nose was considerably smaller, and her glasses no longer stayed in place. Veronica wished she’d get a pair that fit her nose.

“Mr. Henderson called several times just after you left. At first, he thought I was lying when I said I didn’t know where you were and that you’d taken leave from the agency. Veronica, he was distressed. Have you two been together…I mean…Is anything going on with the two of you? His reaction wasn’t what I’d expect of someone who only knew you casually.”

Veronica shook her head, knowing that Enid’s sharp eyes wouldn’t miss her discomfort. “There’s nothing between us, Enid.”

“But there could be?”

“Better to say there could have been.”

“My Lord! And he knows that, too, doesn’t he?”

Veronica nodded. “So it seems. It’s been good talking with you. Let’s…let’s see each other often. Okay? I’ve gotta run back down to Pickett and get what information I can about my birth father. Call you when I get back.”

She passed Jenny’s corner on the way to her train but didn’t expect to see the woman on that rainy day.

Bright sunshine relieved the dreariness of her task as she sat in what had been her parents’ bedroom shuffling through the papers she’d found in the bottom drawer of her mother’s dresser. Tension gathered within her as she stared at the picture of a happy threesome—herself at about age two sitting on her birth father’s lap and her mother smiling up at them. She stared at the likeness of the man her mother had begged her to find. Now she at least knew what he looked like, and she realized that she resembled him. She put the picture aside and searched further. Satisfied that she had enough information, she took out the few items she needed and closed the drawer. Her stepfather didn’t seem to have touched anything in the room or to have slept in it since losing his wife.

She went back to Baltimore, hired a private detective and gave him the photo and other information about her father, including his status as a Vietnam veteran. Six weeks later, the detective informed her that he had found a man who acknowledged being her father and who offered as proof the birth dates of her and her mother and when and where he’d lived with them as a family.

“He lives with his adopted son in Tilghman, Maryland, on a little fishing peninsula. Has a great place a few steps from the Chesapeake Bay. Nice guy, too,” the detective informed her.

Her hackles shot up, and she could feel her bottom lip struggling to stay in place. How dare he desert his own child and adopt someone else’s? The bitter taste of bile formed on her tongue, and she couldn’t wait for the chance to tell the man who sired her how she detested him.

“Something wrong?” the detective asked. “Not to worry, Miss Overton. He’s an okay guy.”

She took control of herself. “No. No. Everything’s fine, and you’ve done a great job.”

She jotted down the address and telephone number that the detective gave her, paid him and turned a new page of her life.

It wasn’t a journey she’d ever thought she’d make, and she’d as soon not have to do it now, but she’d promised, and it couldn’t be done except in person. A travel agent reserved a room for her in the town’s only hotel. She rented a Taurus, packed enough for an overnight stay and set out for Tilghman. Ordinarily she tended to speed, but on that morning she lumbered along at forty miles an hour. Killing time, postponing the inevitable and annoying other drivers. She crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, took Highway 50 toward Easton and turned into Route 32, which took her along a winding two-lane highway past the yacht haven known as St. Michaels. From there to Tilghman, she could see the bay on either side of the winding route, but with the sharp and frequent curves of the road, she didn’t dare enjoy the view.