Her Secret Miracle

In her defense, she’d tried contacting Eric early on, but the information on him from the seminar had been old, and she’d refused to ask her aunt to forward information on to him as that would have revealed her pregnancy long before she’d wanted to. So, she’d put it off. Had promised herself she’d do it later. But later had brought her pregnancy difficulties, then a sick baby, outside complications...too many “laters” had added up until she’d known she’d passed the point of reasonability. All that, plus she simply hadn’t been coping. One step at a time. That was all she had been able to manage. One difficult, often heartbreaking step at a time.

Still, she had always intended to find Eric at some point, maybe when Riku was through the worst of it. Or maybe when she wasn’t so consumed by guilt and confusion and strange emotions she couldn’t even identify.

Even with all the mistakes she’d made, though, look what she had. The world. Riku was the whole world to her. And now, as she hugged him and stood looking into the Hart building, the urgency to make this right was pounding at her. “He’s in there somewhere,” she said, hoping yet not hoping to catch a glimpse of Eric. “Anyway, it’s silly standing out here, not sure what I’d do if I did see him,” she said to her son. “Besides, look who’s here.”

She twisted so Riku could see his great-aunt walking with outstretched arms to greet them. Riku stretched his arms out to her as well.

“Just what we need,” Agnes Blaine said. “A whole afternoon to spoil my nephew.”

Michi laughed. “Not too much spoiling, I hope.”

Takumi, Agnes’s partner of twenty-five years and Michi’s uncle, stepped to Agnes’s side. “That would be between Riku and us.” He bent over and kissed his nephew. “And maybe the clerk in the toy store.”

Michi loved these people. They’d been there for her at the end of her pregnancy, then through some of Riku’s early tests. And they were part of the small circle of family she’d trusted enough to let them care for Riku for a few hours, or even a full day.

“The amount of spoiling we bestow upon our nephew is a personal matter,” Agnes teased, looking up at the gold embossing over the building: Eric Hart Property Management. “You haven’t...?”

Michi shook her head, then stepped back. Agnes and Takumi knew to leave it alone. Her whole family did. Yes, everybody knew Eric Hart was Riku’s father, but it was not a topic anyone ever discussed. At least, not in front of Michi. “He’s just up from his nap, so he should be good for a while. And I shouldn’t be gone long.” Just long enough to spend some time alone, to think.

“We’ll be back home when you get there,” Takumi said, pulling Michi into his arms. “Be patient with yourself,” he said. “Everything will be as it’s meant to be.”

And, in the blink of an eye, she was alone on the sidewalk in front of Eric’s building. It was the first step. And her second step would take her inside.

* * *

“No, I’m not going to my afternoon meeting. We couldn’t come to terms over the phone, so I cancelled it. No point in wasting everybody’s time. But Bucky Henderson is still coming in this morning since he flew all the way from Texas before I could stop him, and I’m hoping we can come to some kind of terms. I like the land he’s proposing I buy, but I’m not really into what he wants to do with it. Which means I need this meeting to see if he’s open to compromise.”

So maybe he wasn’t the best businessman in the world. Lord knew, he wasn’t his old man when it came to property management and land deals, but this was his lot now. People depended on him, and he tried his best not to let them down.

“Will you need the lawyers here for the meeting?” his secretary Natalie asked.

“No. And I don’t need anybody from the real estate acquisition division here either.” He’d settle for it to go all his way, or even for a compromise. But if Bucky didn’t buy into that... “They know what the deal is, and what I’d like to see it become, so we’re set.” Besides, having too many people around the business table was intimidating and while that might have been his old man’s way of conducting business, it wasn’t his.

“Then you’ve made up your mind?” Natalie asked. She was an older woman. Nearing seventy, he thought. Efficient, smart, and his dad’s mistress for more than a quarter of a century. One of the many. Only Natalie was the one who’d kept him on the business track and for that devotion, no matter how misguided, Eric had let her stay, despite the badly kept secret that she’d played some part in his parents’ divorce. But Natalie wasn’t alone—there was the part his mother had played in the story, a part he knew nothing about.

“Not entirely. But I’m getting closer.”

“Your father would have had this deal wrapped up weeks ago,” Natalie reminded him. Her gray hair pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck, her glasses riding low on her nose, her perpetual frown and critical tone...there were days he wished she’d retired. Pretty much most days. But, like everything else, he felt an obligation to right his dad’s wrongs. And there were so many of them. As for Natalie, she was just a drop in his father’s unfortunate ocean.

“Of course he would have. But I’m not my father. I’m a surgeon, and as a surgeon I don’t just hop into a procedure without knowing every angle of it.” He forced a friendly smile, even though he knew Natalie would take one more shot. She always did.

“You were a surgeon,” she reminded him. “Past tense, Eric. Remember that.”

“You’re right, of course. I was a surgeon.” At heart, he still was. But circumstances had changed when his dad had died, leaving him not only an international property management corporation but a billion dollars, windmills, camels and God only knew what else.

Oh, his dad hadn’t expected he’d be able to run the company and had even gone so far as to make provisions to put the governance under the control of a hand-picked board. Hand-picked by his father, of course. In other words, ten daddy clones trying to rule his life instead of one daddy. He’d fired them and put into place various people who made sense to him. An environmentalist, a construction engineer, a social worker, even a teacher. All people he respected and admired and not a designer suit amongst them.

“Look, I’m going across the street for coffee.”

“But we have that expensive coffee system your father had put in.”

“We have a coffee system that makes espresso, latte macchiato, cappuccino and even milk foam. It makes café mocha, frappé and yungyang, whatever the hell that is. But what it doesn’t make is a decent cup of black coffee. So, I’ll run out and grab one, then I’ll be back in time to meet with Bucky. Oh, and if the coffee machine doesn’t make anything he prefers, text me and I’ll bring him a cup of black coffee, too.”

“He’s a busy man, Eric,” she warned. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

He never did. A habit from his doctor days, he supposed. But Natalie always said it, and he always responded with, “I won’t.” While gritting his teeth. “Anyway, would you like something?” he asked. “Regular coffee, tea, a scone?”

Every time he asked she always looked surprised. Probably because his dad had never made a simple, kind gesture toward her. Which, in a way, was the same boat he was in. Always trying to find a way to get noticed by his dad, and never succeeding. So, while she may have had the occasional romp in his father’s bed and a paycheck, at the end of her day she’d always gone home alone. Just like he had, until he’d been sent off to boarding school.

Was there a term that meant more than alone? Because that was what he’d always felt growing up...more than alone. The one left out. Left behind. Forgotten. An obstacle in his dad’s path.

“I’m perfectly fine with what your father’s coffee system makes,” she said.

Poor Natalie. Always the trouper. And always let down. Yep, he knew the feeling. “OK, then I’ll be back in a few.” Even though he would have preferred a nice walk, or maybe some people-watching in Central Park, he didn’t have a choice. That wasn’t his life now. Getting back to Bucky Henderson to discuss the purchase of a large chunk of Texas for a casino with all the frills was.

Sighing, Eric stood after Natalie left, then went to the window. His dad’s office had always been at the top—the twenty-fifth floor. In a massive corner suite, with plate-glass views of the city in all directions. His own office, however, was on the second floor, one window, limited view, and small in comparison to what awaited him on the top floor. Occupying it was an egregious act, he supposed. One that signaled ambivalence. And being at the top signified power. So, his defiant little office on the second floor would probably speak volumes to a shrink, if he cared to go that route. Which he didn’t. But none of it really mattered, did it? He did his job, his employees had their lives secured, and the world kept spinning.

For a moment, Eric scrutinized the people walking on the sidewalk below. Where were they going? Why were they in such a hurry? Were they happily married or cheating on an unsuspecting spouse? He liked speculating about other people’s lives since he barely had one of his own. Speculating made him feel like he was still in touch, even though he knew damn well he wasn’t.

One last glance before he headed out for coffee and someone down there caught his eye. From his vantage he couldn’t see much of her, so he adjusted for a better look and what he saw was well worth the effort. She was walking with a purpose. Long strides that outdistanced all the people around her. Shouldering her way through all the congestion like a woman with a purpose. He could almost hear the click of her heels on the cement, she was moving so fast. Like a whirlwind whooshing in and out of the crowd. And beautiful. Black hair pulled back away from her face. A stunning figure that men could only dream about.

She was Japanese, he thought. Reminded him of Michi...her height, her stature. Michi...so often on his mind. The one he shouldn’t have let get away. But in the nearly three years since he’d spent that incredible night with her, too much had happened. Too many responsibilities had pulled him away from what he wanted to do and dumped him into the pile of all the things he had to do.

There had been a time Michi had been what he’d wanted. Maybe in some ways, she still was. But it was too late for that. He’d made his choice the morning he’d left without a goodbye. After that, there was no turning back.

Michi was the one he regretted walking away from, though. The only one. Even now, she floated through his mind in the unguarded moments, taunting him for what he’d missed out on. One night only. It was what he’d told her because it was what he’d meant. Something had happened that night. Something that had unhinged him and compelled him to do what he’d never done before—given himself over to a casual fling that had turned out to be so much more. At least, in his thoughts. Still, one night with Michi...

Eric closed his eyes, conjuring up her image. Funny how what he remembered of her seemed to meld with the woman he’d just seen on the walkway outside. Maybe it was because he’d never truly gotten over her. Granted, they’d only known each other a few hours when the text that had changed his life had come. But in those few hours...it had been like he’d known her for days, or weeks, or months. Maybe his whole life. Could she have been the one? He didn’t know as he’d never found himself in that mindset before. The possibilities hadn’t escaped him, however. And as she’d lain there next to him, her breath sounds so tiny and precise, he’d simply listened, and wondered what would happen if they had one more night.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to go beyond that night had never happened. Still, in the very few—as in could be counted on one hand—dates he’d had with other women since then, nothing had ever seemed right. To himself, he’d nitpicked every woman to pieces before their date, then always cut the evening short because she hadn’t what he’d wanted. And for sure, he’d never dated any of those hopefuls twice. Because of his job, he always told himself. Yes, because of his job.

But somewhere in all that mess, thoughts of Michi pushed everything away. Even now, when he should be concentrating on Bucky’s proposal, his mind was wandering back to Sapporo, to that one perfect night.

Which meant it was time to go get that coffee, refocus, and figure out his next step in the Texas land acquisition deal. So, Eric put on his suit coat—he really hated wearing suits every day, but that was the dress code, so he observed it—took a quick look in the mirror in his private bathroom, straightened his tie, then traced, with his left index finger, all the new lines and creases that were beginning to show. So many changes to his body in the past couple of years. What did it matter?

There had been a time when he’d appreciated the sideways glances of the nurses who hadn’t known he knew they were watching. And that obvious flirtation from Michi in Japan...something that had twisted and turned him in ways he hadn’t expected then, and even now. So maybe the looks weren’t going down too badly, but what he saw staring back at him from the mirror was a man who was...resigned to something that didn’t make him happy. Didn’t satisfy him either. Didn’t give him the good, hard feeling of being tired but satisfied that made him sleep well at night. As long as he spent his days behind this desk, doing mediocre work at best, it would always be that way.

“But we keep promising to fix things, don’t we?” he always said to his mirror, ever hopeful that saying it out loud to an inanimate object that wouldn’t criticize him might actually inspire him to go out and find some of that old mojo again. And did he ever need that inspiration. Where and how, though? He didn’t have a clue. But at least all hope hadn’t died. That was something to hang onto. Although sometimes hanging only by a thread.

Once Eric decided he was “Hart-ready,” as his dad had called it, he headed for his office door. And his thoughts—on the woman he’d seen outside. The fairy-tale would have them bump into each other in the coffee shop, then spend hours talking, laughing, getting to know each other. They would make plans for dinner that night—someplace slow and dim, where they could talk quietly and tell secrets. Then they’d go back to his place...and that was where it stopped.

Those days were behind him even though he was only thirty-six, and now he was all about the corporate life where everything ran on fear and promises, and most of those promises were empty, like his social life.

“Sure you don’t want something?” he asked Natalie again, as he headed out the door. The fact that she didn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen didn’t surprise him. Now, as she did so often, she was looking through her gallery of pictures of the only man she’d ever loved. Lost in his world. Reliving the life she’d never had. Sad. But sometimes the choices people made weren’t easily shed. For Natalie, that was his father. For him...trying to please a man who would never be pleased. And now it was too late.

Would that be him someday? Sitting at a computer, looking through reminders of a life he had never had, and an undertaking in which he’d failed so miserably. He sincerely hoped not.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS A cozy little café. Pastries, teas, coffee, flowers, and all sorts of gifty things that were cute, but not practical. And the café was full to overflowing with people. Loud, but nice. Michi had managed to snag the last table available, the one in the corner, the one with the worst view in the shop. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the mood for being social or enjoying views. All she wanted was a tea, and some time by herself to think.

She was worried, naturally. Riku would be in great hands with Dr. Kapoor. She was sure of that. But right now, that wasn’t her biggest concern. It was Eric, and what to do about that whole situation. He had a right to know he had a son. He also had a right to know his son had a heart defect. But hadn’t she tried to contact him early on her pregnancy? Then later, after Riku was born, hadn’t she tried again?

Well, that was the way she pacified herself when she got in the mood. Telling herself she’d tried. That she’d been so overwhelmed that her thinking hadn’t been sharp. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Today it wasn’t even coming close because her motivations were not even clear to herself anymore. Except for one. But that had nothing to do with Eric, and it was something she surely didn’t want him to know: being accused of being an unfit mother.

So, there was that weight she always carried, as well as not telling Eric the truth from the start. And, of course, her default excuse...yeah, right, she’d tried. What of it?

Yet he was right across the street now. Easy, convenient. All she had to do was walk over there—and then what? Would she produce papers proving Riku was Eric’s? Wait, she didn’t have papers. Hadn’t even put Eric’s name on the birth certificate. So, would he simply believe her? Hello, Eric. I had your baby two years ago. Probably not. Then there was always the question of whether he’d want to be an involved father. She knew he’d be a good father, just from the little she knew of him. But would he want that?

There were so many questions with answers awaiting her. Answers she feared. So, for now, she’d sip her tea and hope for an angel or something to drop down from the sky and give her the solution she needed because she sure wasn’t in any state to figure it out on her own.

“Would you care for a refill on your tea?” a young man asked, startling Michi out of her thoughts. “Another tea bag, more hot water?”

She looked up at him and smiled. “That would be lovely,” she said, gazing beyond the server to the table where four women sat chattering away as they ate their pastries. “With a little more lemon,” she added. “And maybe one of those scones I saw earlier when I was at the counter.”

“Happy to oblige, ma’am,” the young man said, then scooted through the tangle of people who weren’t lucky enough to have a place to sit but who obviously weren’t ready to go back outside and face the rest of the day.

Michi leaned back in her chair, trying to relax, but she was too wound up for that, so she simply sipped her tea, ate her scone when the server brought it, and stared out the window at Eric’s building, like that was going to give her some kind of resolution. Intermittently, she flipped through her phone to various photos of Riku and only then did that feeling of despair go away. One perfect little face with such a calming effect. Who would have ever guessed that she could have fallen in love so deeply. But she had, and she would literally give her life for that little boy.

“I hope you like blueberry, because I’ve bagged up one to take with you. You look like you’re in a blueberry kind of mood,” the server said, handing over a bag. “On the house.”

“Thank you,” she said, as she repositioned herself in the seat. “So, tell me—what, exactly, identifies a blueberry mood?”

“Someone who’s worrying or being contemplative. You’ve been in here quite a while and it’s obvious something’s on your mind. Something heavy, judging from all the frowning.”

Was she so transparent that the young man with the scones could identify her mood? He was right—it was definitely blueberry. “Maybe if I come back, I’ll be in a strawberry mood. Would that be better?”

“Yes, because our strawberry scones are one of the most popular and strawberry is a very happy state of mind.”

“Then make sure you save me a strawberry and I’ll work hard on my strawberry mood before I get here.” She took a bite of her blueberry scone, then a sip of her tea, and started to pop back into her photo gallery, but a voice at a nearby table startled her out of her plan.

“Help! Somebody, please, help. She’s choking.”

Instantly alert, Michi jumped up and ran to the table where the ladies she’d observed were sitting. Sure enough, one of them was choking. Sitting up straight, confused, trying to breathe, the woman rolled her eyes up at Michi, and her expression was beyond frightened. She was dying, and she knew it.

“Please, stand back,” Michi yelled to the crowd, as she leaned the choking woman forward and slapped her back five times. She’d hoped that whatever was lodged in the woman’s windpipe would come loose, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

So, from behind again, she wrapped her arms around the woman’s ribcage, forming a fist with both hands. Then she pulled the woman toward her, giving an upward thrust each of the five times she tried. Still, nothing happened. And now the woman was turning blue. Her lips, her fingernails. Oxygen deprivation, Michi knew as she started the whole procedure over again. “Has somebody called for an ambulance?” she shouted to the crowd.

One deep, smooth voice stood out over the noise of the crowd. “ETA less than five,” he said, pushing himself through the crowd, then kneeling next to Michi. “And she doesn’t have five minutes left in her,” he continued.

Michi looked over to see who was working with her, and gasped. “Eric?”

“Michi?” he said, as he took over the upward thrusts Michi was doing. One, two—on the third thrust it worked and the woman sucked in a deep breath.

“Stay still,” Michi cautioned her, trying not to think what would happen next, when the ambulance took her to the hospital. “The paramedics will be here shortly, and they’ll take you to the emergency room so the doctors there can run some tests to make sure you’re good.”

Gasping for breath, the woman nodded her understanding as Eric took her pulse again. “Much better,” he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the arm. “You’ve come through the hard part like a champ, and this next part in the hospital will be much easier. And it won’t be happening on a cold cement floor.”

She smiled up at him, drew in a deep breath, then closed her eyes, not from fear but from trusting Eric, who’d taken off his jacket and placed it under her head.

The way Eric was with the poor woman...it nearly brought a lump to Michi’s throat. This was a man who was born to be a doctor. A man who shouldn’t have given it up. And he was Riku’s father, she thought as a swell of pride overtook her. “Paramedics are on their way in,” she said, glancing out the window, not so much to watch for the paramedics as to pull herself together.

Immediately, the onlookers in the café began to move tables and chairs back and push the display shelf of coffees and mugs for sale to the wall to make room for the two paramedics, their equipment and their stretcher. “Her vitals are stabilizing,” Eric said. “So now it’s more about her being frightened than anything else.”

The woman looked up at him again and nodded, and Michi was still amazed by the way not only the woman but everyone in the room responded to him. Even in the middle of a medical crisis his voice was so calm, so reassuring she was impressed by how much she remembered the detail of it. It was the same deep, convincing undertone that had seduced her. The same richness that had enticed her into his bed. Yet now she could hear the edge, the command. And she could see the way people were responding.

“I was actually thinking about you earlier,” Eric said.

There hadn’t been a day gone by since he’d left her that she hadn’t thought about him. She’d sculpted the perfect words to say when she did finally catch up to him. Practiced them. Edited. Practiced. Edited. And now that the moment had arrived, all she could think to say was, “How have you been?” Stupid. Stupid. And she didn’t hear his answer between the noise of people still moving tables back and the mad flurry of the pounding feet of people trying to get out of the way.

“She’s doing better,” Michi said, as Eric bent down again, but this time not as keen to watch the patient as he was to look at her. “Respirations still shallow and fast, but nothing dangerous.”