Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(32)

He noticed Aiyana making her way toward him and straightened. He could tell by her expression that something was wrong. Her smile, always so warm and infectious, didn’t reach her eyes. “What is it?” he asked, tossing his keys from hand to hand.

“I don’t know exactly,” she replied.

“What do you mean? This isn’t about Aaron...”

“No. A young woman—quite attractive—showed up here today, asking for you.”

“A young woman.”

“About your age, yes.”

“And? Who was she?”

“She didn’t give me her name. Just said she needed to talk to you. When I told her I couldn’t share your contact information, she took this from her purse and told me to tell you that she’ll be in room 103 at The Mission Inn until the day after tomorrow.” She handed him an envelope with his name penned in a feminine script on the outside.

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Ms. Turner! Ms. Turner! Are you coming to watch my debate?” Colin Green called out from near the English department.

“Of course,” she called back.

“Hurry! It’s about to start.”

“I’ll be there!”

When Aiyana returned her attention to Hudson, he raised the envelope in a salute. “Thanks for this.” He began to get in his truck but she stopped him.

“Hudson?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t get the impression she came for a social visit—an attempt to reconnect or anything like that. She seemed nervous. Said something about fulfilling her ‘obligation,’ so you might want to be prepared for the unexpected.”

“I’m not worried,” he said. “I haven’t done anything that could come back to bite me.” Whatever this was, it had to be some sort of mistake. Or maybe, even though Samuel Jones, the private investigator he’d hired, had checked in just last week to say he hadn’t been able to find anything yet, this was a result of some stone he’d overturned. Most likely Hudson’s mother was the one who’d abandoned him. Perhaps she’d made a friend or loved one promise not to reveal her identity until after she was dead, and now she was gone.

Had to be something like that, Hudson decided. He couldn’t be in the kind of personal trouble Aiyana seemed to think. Very few single men were as circumspect as he was.

At his reassurance, her smile eased. “Great. I’ve been worried for you. Now, good luck with...whatever it is. I have to go see how well Colin defends his favorite president.”

He told her goodbye and shut his door before tearing open the envelope. He expected the note inside to contain some news about his background—if not what he’d imagined, then something similar. Perhaps this was from a woman claiming to be related to someone who’d seen or heard something that day. Heck, it could even be someone claiming to be related to him. Wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened. In the year following his first pro contract, he’d had three different women come forward, declaring they were his mother. One had been only twelve years older than he was. Another was in Pennsylvania the day he was born, and DNA had ruled out the third. DNA had ruled out a handful since then, too.

But the note didn’t say anything like that.

Hudson, this is Ellie Fisher, the woman you met at the nightclub (Envy) in Miami on September 10. I went to your hotel room with you at the Four Seasons.

She didn’t have to get that specific. Ellie and Envy would’ve been enough. He hadn’t forgotten her. Couldn’t forget her. But the note went on.

I’m sorry to surprise you like this. I’m sure you weren’t expecting to hear from me. But I need to talk to you for a few minutes. Please call me.

She’d scrawled her number below her name, so he added it to his contacts. He’d wished, on several occasions, that he’d asked for a number or email address, some way to reach her before she could slip away. He would’ve requested her number; it just hadn’t occurred to him to do that up front. He’d never had a woman run out on him like she did.

Feeling more excited than worried, he started his truck. Aiyana didn’t understand the circumstances. Ellie had figured out who he was, or she wouldn’t have been able to track him down. She probably hadn’t been nervous when she met Aiyana so much as angry because she felt she’d been misled.

Before shifting into Reverse, he almost called Ellie’s number to let her know he was on his way. He had his phone in his hand but changed his mind at the last second. Why call? Aiyana had told him where Ellie was staying.

He’d just go there.





9

The Mission Inn was the least expensive motel in town, but Hudson preferred it to the others. White, with a red tile roof, it was modeled after the twenty or so religious outposts built by the Spanish to expand Christianity in the late eighteenth century. It even had a bell tower, like the nearby Spanish mission he’d used as inspiration when he’d had to create a replica in fourth grade. Most California students had to build a miniature mission as part of the history curriculum in grade school, and he hadn’t been any different. The memory stood out because that was the year he’d been placed in a home that had a mother who tried to support him in his schoolwork. If only she hadn’t lost her sister in a car accident six months after he moved in, she might’ve kept him. Instead, she’d taken him back to the orphanage so she could cope with the adoption of her two nieces and one nephew.