CHRISTIAN DIDN’T SAY a word after Uncle Nolan was done, not during the short drive home, not once they were in the house. He couldn’t. Too much was boiling inside him. He ran straight to his room, leaving his uncle at the foot of the staircase watching him.
He dived onto his bed and curled into a ball, his knees to his chest. Don’t let Uncle Nolan follow me in here. Please don’t let him. Nausea swelled until he wanted to puke, but tears threatened again, too, even though his eyes already burned and felt swollen. He’d been such a baby, crying like that.
Baby. Even thinking the word had him close to hurling.
He sucked in air through his nose, out through his mouth, over and over until the nausea subsided.
He kept hearing things Uncle Nolan said.
She found a baby the right age, the right gender, and she took him. She claimed you and threw another woman into hell.
“Mom,” he whispered. “Mommy.”
Cruel and selfish.
The acid in his stomach felt like it was eating him. He held himself tighter to protect his middle.
An admission crept into his head, one he didn’t want to hear. She was selfish. Sometimes. The way she’d just disappear and not come home for weeks or even, sometimes, months. Back when Uncle Nolan was still deployed, when Christian actually lived with her, every time he walked in the door after school, he would wonder if she’d be there. And if she wasn’t, whether she’d come home that day. Once he was seven or eight, he’d stay by himself for a day or two without telling anyone, in case his mom wasn’t really gone, because even though Grandma and Grandpa would come right away to pick him up if he called, they would get this look on their faces, pain and anger and disappointment. He could never count on Mom being there even when she knew he was really excited about pitching his first game or winning an award or being in a school play. After he didn’t have anyone in the audience a few times, he made sure to tell his grandparents, because they always came. Until they died.
When the police arrived to tell him about the accident, he’d been so scared, thinking, But what will I do? His mom could die, too. And if she didn’t...what if she took off again? He could mostly take care of himself, but he didn’t have money to buy groceries. And people would notice. If that happened, Mom would get in trouble and they might take him away to live in a foster home. It might not even be in Lookout, where all his friends were.
And then Uncle Nolan walked into the Dunbars’ house where he’d been staying, swept him into a hug and said, “I’m home for good.” Christian knew everything was okay then. He’d pretended to Mom that he minded not being able to live with her, but he didn’t really. He trusted Uncle Nolan.
He used to trust Uncle Nolan.
No, he still did, except... He felt sick again. Uncle Nolan sounded so hard, so angry, when he talked about Mom, and it made Christian remember how mad he’d been sometimes, only it wasn’t Mom’s fault. It wasn’t!
While you’re clinging to the memory of Marlee as your mother, remember that she did something terrible. Something that does not deserve forgiveness.
Christian didn’t know what to believe. Except he did. It just made him feel so guilty he wanted to pretend it couldn’t be true. If he believed it, he’d have to be nice to that woman who claimed to be his mother. It might even mean he’d have to go live with her.
It meant...he wasn’t really Christian Gregor at all. He was someone named Gabriel.
His belly cramped and he stifled a moan against his knees.
Tonight...he’d been mean to her, even when he could tell he was hurting her. Uncle Nolan had been ashamed of him.
But I don’t want to be Gabriel, whoever he is. I don’t.
* * *
THE FIRST DAY of Dana’s job was a week away. The woman she was replacing had only finished her last day on Friday, just before Dana arrived in Lookout. Dana had offered to start right away, but her new boss insisted on giving her time to settle in. Time that she wasn’t so sure she wanted. Being busy would be better.
Christian was in school anyway, and what was she going to do? Loiter at Wind & Waves from three o’clock on so she could greet her son with a beaming smile? She bet that would go over well.
No, she would stay away for a few days, at least. She’d pretty much thrown herself on the road in front of them. Now she had to be a little patient. See if Nolan and/or Christian made any overtures.
She laughed, a not very nice sound at all. Okay, see if Nolan made any overtures. The idea that he and Christian wanted to take her to dinner had been pure fiction. She could only imagine what he’d held over her son to make him agree to sit across the table from her. Too bad whatever it was hadn’t been better blackmail material; Christian might have had to be polite, too.
Had the two of them exchanged high fives after they’d dropped her off? Because, wow, Christian had certainly managed to let her know how he really felt about her. Of course, he’d done that the first time they met. She’d been delusional to hope giving him time to know her might soften his instant rejection.
Not so much.
Well, news to them: she wasn’t defeated that easily. Fortunately, getting settled into the house gave her plenty to do for the next few days. The moving truck had arrived midday, the two men unloading her furniture and heaps of boxes with startling speed. She’d had to leap aside to avoid getting run over a couple of times.
Now she had a sofa, a TV, a coffee table and a bed. A dining room table and chairs. She also had those mountains of boxes. Her next task was to find her linens, her socks and underwear, the multiple-device charger for her iPod, laptop and phone. She wanted her books on the shelves, her dishes in the cupboards.
Sighing, she went back to work in the kitchen, where she’d begun this morning. Empty totes were piled next to the refrigerator. Finding her coffeemaker and toaster hadn’t been optional. Those, she’d dug out last night.
She had unpacked every box labeled Kitchen and was wondering what to do with tablecloths and place mats and cloth napkins when her doorbell rang. Her stupid microwave didn’t have a clock. Maybe a neighbor had noticed someone new had moved in.
In faded jeans, a Denver Broncos sweatshirt and sneakers, her hair straggling out of a ponytail, she didn’t look her best, but anyone would understand. Moving was hard work.
She opened the door, a smile forming, and found her son on her doorstep. His bicycle lay on its side on her ragged front lawn. Her gaze went back to the boy with shaggy blond hair, jeans and a Wind & Waves hooded sweatshirt, a blue backpack slung over his shoulder. Nolan was nowhere in sight. Disbelieving, Dana looked both ways to be sure.
She caught herself an instant before she said, “Gabriel.” However much she hated using the name given to him after his abduction, she had to for now, or alienate him further.
“Christian. Does...your uncle know where you are?”
“Not exactly.” He squirmed. “But he won’t worry about me or anything.”
“Um...come in.” She backed up. “Why won’t he worry about you?”
“’Cuz I said I was going to a friend’s house and I’d see him at home.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t care what I do after school.”
She sincerely hoped that wasn’t true, even if this was a small, relatively safe town. She closed the front door and saw him gape at the mess.
“How’d your stuff get here?”
He was talking to her. Why? She didn’t dare get excited.
“Moving truck.”
“Oh. That’s a cool TV.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
He kept standing there. He twitched, he shuffled his feet, he opened his mouth and closed it. Dana wouldn’t have been surprised if he had bolted for the door without saying whatever he’d come to say.
But at last he blurted, “Uncle Nolan was mad at me.”
Kudos for courage, she thought. “Because you were rude yesterday.”
Christian drew up his shoulders like a turtle. “Um, yeah.”
“Why were you rude? Did you think I’d pack up and go back to Colorado?”
He sneaked a desperate look at her with eyes the same shade as Craig’s. “I don’t know. I just...” His throat worked, but he didn’t finish.
Taking pity on him, she said, “You wish everything could go back to the way it was before.”
Now she was exulting. He was here. He hadn’t exactly apologized, but that was really what this was about.
“I guess so.” He was mumbling, but that was okay.
Dana leaned against the back of the sofa. “I don’t. Finding you, at least knowing you were alive and well, was everything to me. Maybe too much.” It could be this was a mistake, but she didn’t think so. “My husband—your dad—did a better job of moving on with his life. I’ve learned since then a lot of parents react the way I did when a child is abducted or lost. It’s as if...your life stops. How can you go on without knowing? As terrible as it sounds, being able to bury your child has to be better than never knowing. So I won’t apologize for anything I’ve said or done since I found out about you.”
He’d watched her throughout this speech, his lips pinched.
“What I am sorry for is that it’s been such a shock to you. I was so happy I didn’t let myself realize how you’d feel.”
He lifted one shoulder.
She wondered suddenly, painfully, whether he would smell like her Gabriel if he let her hug him. The thought stole her breath.
Don’t blow this. She forced herself to smile. “So, do you like to read?”
He looked at her like she was nuts.
“Most of those boxes—” she waved toward one of the mountain peaks “—are full of books.”
“Really?”
Laughing at his incredulity, she said, “Really. I’m a huge reader, and I like to own books. I use the library, too—” Wait. “There is a library in town, isn’t there?”
“Well, yeah. They have lots of computers. I think you can get books from other libraries, too, like Parkdale.”
“So it’s a county-wide library system.”
“I don’t know.” He cast what she took as a longing glance toward the front door. “I guess.”
She had a flashback: her brother coming home from school and going straight to the refrigerator. He was always starving.
Inspiration struck. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat or drink?”
He hesitated, but her lure succeeded. Dana was able to offer soda, which she occasionally drank, and a selection of cookies as well as a sandwich. She was glad she’d found the bakery on River Street and let herself be tempted by the goodies.
As Christian opened a cola, she wondered if she should have asked whether Nolan allowed him to have caffeine. Then he dived into the sandwich she made. While he was still wolfing that, she set out the cookies.
Underhanded tactics, but if the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, the strategy had to work even better for a nearly teenage boy.
Her phone rang while she was sitting across from him with a cup of coffee. If it had to do with work—No, her ex-husband was the caller. She tried not to let Christian see the tension that knotted muscles in her neck.
Ignore or answer?
It wasn’t fair that she was here, feeding their son, and Craig hadn’t even heard his voice. She couldn’t reconcile it with her conscience to not answer.
“Craig.”
“You promised to stay in touch.”
How like him to go straight to an accusation. “I only arrived in Lookout yesterday,” she pointed out.
“Well? Have you seen him?”
Recognizing the strain in his voice, she closed her eyes on a wave of guilt. “Yes. The three of us had dinner last night.”
“Just like that? Gregor isn’t trying to keep him away from you?”
“No.” Oh, Lord—did she have to tell him she was with their son right now? Christian had set down the remnants of his sandwich and was watching her, renewed wariness in his expression. Could he hear both sides of the conversation? “I’m...actually with him right now.” Ignoring Craig’s exclamation, she pressed the phone against her thigh. “Christian, I’m talking to my ex-husband. Your father. Will you talk to him? I think he’d love it if you would say hello.”
Panic flared, but after a second he swallowed and nodded.
She lifted the phone to her ear again. “Would you like to talk to him?”
There was a tiny pause. “You know I would,” he said.
“Then here he is.”
She handed over the phone and started to push back her chair. “If you’d like me to give you some privacy...”
Christian shook his head frantically. Sandy hair flopped over his forehead.
Dana heard the rumble of Craig’s voice but couldn’t make out words.
“Uh, yeah,” was Christian’s first response, followed by, “I guess,” and her personal favorite, “I don’t know.”
She couldn’t yet accurately read her own son’s rapidly shifting expressions. All she could do was wait tensely and hope Craig didn’t blow it by demanding too much, too soon.
Like she’d done during that first visit.
Although she wasn’t sure why she cared. On a wash of more guilt, she knew that wasn’t true; back then Craig had grieved just as she had. She had never felt the same about him again after he had also lashed out at her, but in other ways he’d been a rock. People mourn differently. How many times had she read that, been told the same? Men were more likely to take refuge from grief in anger. Craig had loved their baby boy, too.
Christian mumbled something even she couldn’t make out and thrust the phone at her. She took it.
“Craig?”
“I take it he doesn’t want me to come out there.”
“I don’t know.” She winced at the echo of their son’s favorite response. “I think he has a lot to deal with, Craig. Can we talk about this later?”
He grumbled and growled but eventually agreed that he could wait. Call over, she set the phone on the table and looked at Christian.
“What did you think?”
All the animation had left his face. He ducked his head. “I don’t know.”
“Have a cookie.” She pushed the plate toward him.
He ate two, guzzled the rest of his cola and said he had to go. Dana swallowed her protest and walked him to the door. “Thank you for visiting,” she said.
He slipped his other arm through a strap so that his pack rested between his shoulder blades, picked up his bike and pushed it across the lawn. When she called goodbye, he hesitated at the sidewalk, turning his head. “I guess I’ll see you.”
Not until she felt the sting in her sinuses as she watched him pedal away did she realize how much sadness underlay her exhilaration.
She had always known his body might be found someday, that her only resolution would be having the opportunity to bury her little boy. What nobody ever said was that finding your miracle also meant being confronted with how much you’d lost.
Her son could just as well be some random neighborhood boy, reluctantly compelled to be polite to this strange adult.
He’s not your baby anymore. How right Nolan had been.
* * *
“SO ONCE SHE had you alone, she made you talk to your father.” Newly awakened anger in Nolan’s blood reached a simmer.
Christian hunched in that disconcerting way he had taken up since the revelation about his background had been sprung on him. Hair that shouldn’t have been long enough somehow succeeded in veiling his expression. “Well, not like made.”
Nolan’s teeth ground together. Damn that woman. He’d trusted her. The deal was, he cooperated, she held off her ex. Instead, the second she got Christian alone, she’d pressed him to talk to the bastard.
Of course, Craig Stewart hadn’t actually threatened Nolan directly. Who knew how much of what she’d told him was true? Her ex-husband’s supposed determination to sue for custody could have been nothing but a tool she’d used to worm her way in.
“You do your homework.” Nolan turned off the oven. “I won’t be gone long. Dinner will only take half an hour or so when I get home.”
“Wait.” Christian jumped up, the straight-back kitchen chair rocking. “You’re not going to her house, are you?”
“She broke her word to me. Yeah. I intend to talk to Ms. Stewart.” Dana was a nice woman; Ms. Stewart, who knew what she was? He sure as hell didn’t.
“But it wasn’t like that!” Christian cried.
“Homework.” Nolan grabbed his keys and wallet out of the basket on the counter and stalked out the door.
The drive took less than five minutes. He could get anywhere in Lookout in under five minutes. His once-large world had shrunk in many ways.
He slammed to a stop in front of her small house, killed the engine and strode to the front porch, where he leaned on the bell.
Dana opened the door almost immediately, looking rumpled and relaxed in a way he hadn’t yet seen. A snug T-shirt and skinny jeans let him see every curve. Had she maybe put on weight since her first appearance in town?
Didn’t matter.
“Nolan.” She peered past him. “Is Christian with you?”
“No. I came to talk to you.”
Her face tightened. The happiness, or maybe only peace, evaporated, leaving her skin stretched tight over her cheekbones and her eyes big and wary.
“All right,” she said slowly, and let him in.
Still feeling the slow burn, he stopped in the middle of the living room, cluttered with boxes, and faced her. “I thought we had an understanding.”
Her expression was now icy cool. “I thought we did, too.”
“And yet the minute you get Christian alone, you have him talking to your ex. The guy you told me is pushing to go to court. Who is looking for any nugget of information he can use to persuade a judge Christian can’t be left with me.”
She simply didn’t react, which infuriated him further. Hyped on adrenaline, his body was combat ready. He leaned toward her. “So either you’re colluding with him to go behind my back, or you were playing me. And that tells me he isn’t the threat.”
Anger sparked in her gray eyes. Folding her arms was the only giveaway that his aggressive body language might have caused her to feel defensive. “Craig is Gabriel’s father. Neither you nor I has the right to deny him the chance to talk to his son. The son who was abducted from us by your sister.” Her voice sizzled by the end.
“You and I both know you can’t prove that. We don’t know how Marlee ended up with Christian.” He leaned on the name, furious to have been driven to defend Marlee’s indefensible acts.
Strung tight, Dana appeared too thin again. He’d swear he saw ghosts in her eyes. “I suppose you’ll blame me next. If I hadn’t left the window open, none of this ever would have happened.”
Pissed to the max, he came closer than he wanted to saying something unforgivable like, Seems you think I should. Whatever she’d done today, she didn’t deserve that kind of blow.
“I hope you know I’ll never say anything like that.”
Looking brittle, she backed a couple of steps toward the front door. “I have my differences with my ex-husband, but he loved our baby boy, too.” She spoke coolly. “He deserved a chance to hear his voice. What I told you was that I’d persuade Craig to allow us a chance to work out a plan without involving lawyers. I did not promise not to allow Gabriel to speak to his father. And when he’s in my home, he’s my son.”
Nolan saw red, as she’d no doubt intended. “Then I guess he won’t be spending time with you unsupervised, will he?”
For a moment, she said nothing, her face so lacking expression he expected it to crack. Then she opened the front door and said, “You need to leave.”
“With pleasure,” he snapped, walking out. His shoulder brushed her, knocking her momentarily off balance. He hadn’t meant to do that and hesitated, about to turn and apologize when the door closed quietly and he heard the dead bolt engage. Angry at himself as well as her now, he muttered an obscenity and returned to his truck, where he shoved the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it.
She was right. Goddamn it, she was right. Nothing had been said about whether Christian could talk to his dad on the phone. It was the idea she’d pressured him that had enraged Nolan—and the fear that Craig Stewart would be cold-blooded enough to try to lure an eleven-year-old boy into saying something that would put a weapon into the son of a bitch’s hands.
Nolan sat unmoving for a long time. The blinds had already been drawn, and as far as he could tell, she never parted them to sneak a look out. He felt sure she wouldn’t let him in again. He was still on edge from the flood of adrenaline, his fingers tight on the steering wheel as if he were strangling it.
Way to go, he congratulated himself. Now what?
Swearing some more, he fired up the engine and drove home.
Distraught, Christian met him at the door. “Did you get mad at her? Why did you get mad at her?”
“Because she shouldn’t have encouraged you to talk to him when I wasn’t there.” He explained his fear that Craig Stewart would mine Christian for some detail that the attorneys could spin into poison.
The accusation on the boy’s face remained. “But she didn’t. I tried to tell you. He called while I was there. I don’t think she wanted to let me talk to him, but she asked me and I said okay.”
Nolan didn’t so much as breathe. Oh, man.
Wound tight, Christian cried, “And he didn’t ask me anything like that. He just talked about how happy he was when he heard I was okay, and how he looked forward to getting to know me, and how he’d call another time so my sisters could say hi ’cuz they were so excited to meet me.” His voice grew smaller. “You were the one who said we should be nice. Then you didn’t even listen to me!”
Nolan dropped into a chair and bent forward, elbows on his knees, his fingers tangled in his hair. Among the guys, he’d always been known as rock steady, the last one to shoot off his mouth or throw a fist. So what had happened?
He’d panicked, was what had happened. He could never set aside the deep-down, sickening fear that he’d lose Christian. Twenty-four/seven, it stayed with him. Anxiety filled his dreams. First thing when he awakened, he felt the rock in his stomach. Last thing at night, he lay calculating how long he could hold off these people who had a claim to Christian that he couldn’t match. His only remaining mission in life was to keep his nephew safe, and he didn’t know if he could. He’d been primed to blow.
He gave his hair a last yank and lifted his head, meeting the boy’s eyes. “You’re right. I went off the deep end for no good reason. I’ll make it right with Dana. I promise.”
“Were you really awful?”
Now there was a question he didn’t want to answer. He did, anyway. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t give her much of a chance.”
The brown eyes he’d always believed came from the boy’s father stayed anxious. “I kind of said I shouldn’t have been rude last night, and she said it was okay. Then she made a sandwich for me and gave me some really good cookies and asked whether you’d be worried about where I was.” The speech surprised Nolan. Christian still talked to him sometimes, but he hung out with his friends more, and they played either video games or sports.
“I was a jackass. You don’t have to tell me again.”
Christian’s grin popped out, letting Nolan know he’d said the right thing. “Is that swearing?”
“Probably.” Nolan smiled ruefully. “Actually, it’s an animal.”
“So can I say ass?”
“Depends on the context.” Seeing the kid’s mouth open, Nolan said, “And don’t ask. You know what that means.”
“I’m hungry,” the boy announced.
Nolan shook his head. “You just finished telling me about the sandwich and cookies you ate.”
“And a Coke, too,” Christian said with satisfaction. Nolan let him have soda when they ate out but didn’t buy it for home.
“So how can you be hungry?”
“I just am.”
“Fine. You can cut up the asparagus.”
“Do I hafta eat—”
Reassured by the standard-issue protest, Nolan said, “Yes,” shutting down any further argument. Rising to his feet, he gave Christian a gentle, reassuring bump with his shoulder—their version of a hug.
And he winced at the recollection of his bad-tempered display at Dana’s house.