Fay Lynden lay beside her sleeping husband and thanked the gods she had a man like Bradford Lynden.
Now all she needed was her son to make life complete once more.
A single hitch of breath escaped her mouth as she thought of the little boy who had been torn from her arms that day over thirty years ago. Her wild cries, her struggles, had not moved the government officials who had come to take her child away. Her last sight of the son she had named Patrick was his little face—scrunched up in a horrific howl—as the social worker buckled him in the car seat. She would never forget his little outstretched arms, his tiny fists beating against the glass as he was driven out of her life.
Prison had been only a minor circle of hell for Fay O’Reilly. Her true punishment had been the absence of her little boy and the torture of not knowing if he was alive or dead, of wondering if he was being cared for and loved or if he was being abused. The most terrible day of her life had been the day she learned her precious child had been adopted by some nameless family. Patrick would never know her as the woman who had given him birth and who loved him still more than life itself.
“It’s the best thing for him,” the social worker sniffed, “and I’m sure you want the best for the boy.”
As the years passed, her son’s memory remained bright and clear in Fay’s mind and the determination to find him once she had served her time never wavered. She wrote him every day even though she knew her letters would never be forwarded to the family who had adopted him. In those letters she poured out her soul, explained how and why she had wound up in the nightmarish prison that kept her from him; she begged his forgiveness for what she had been forced to do.
On the day she was finally released from her hellish incarceration, she had stood outside the prison gates in the pouring rain, her face to the heavens, tears mingling with the raindrops and vowed that no matter what it took, or how long, she would find her son, now a grown man.
Trudging down the interstate, cheap suitcase containing all her worldly possessions clutched in her cold hand, she had passed the sign warning motorists not to pick up hitchhikers. Resolved to walk all the way to the next town, she had been surprised when the expensive white Lincoln Town Car’s brake lights came on and it pulled off the slab just ahead of her. Cautiously approaching the idling car, she had flinched as the front passenger door swung open when she drew near.
He was leaning down in the seat so he could see her beneath the barrier of the door opening. “Hop in,” he said. “You’ll catch your death of cold out there.”
While her people gauge had been skewed by prison life, she recognized something warm and non-threatening in his open face. He was smiling at her in a way no man had in a long, long time.
“Can’t you read, Mister?” she had asked, nudging her chin toward the sign warning motorists not to pick up hitchhikers.
“Yes, I can,” he replied. “And I can do math, too. Been able to since I was knee high to a possum’s belly.”
Watching his infectious grin widen, she had figured he’d be a means to an end and would help her get to a place where she could start looking for Patrick. She accepted the stranger’s offer, and, as the years would prove, she never once regretted her decision.
“Where you headed?” he inquired as he pulled the car onto the interstate.
“You can drop me wherever is convenient for you. I got nowhere to go and no time to get there.”
“Done your time and don’t have to worry about a parole officer, huh?” he asked.
Fay O’Reilly had stared at the middle-aged man behind the wheel. “How’d you know I—”
“The Correctional Institute for Women is back there,” the man interrupted, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I imagine that’s where you were.”
“Do you make it a habit to pick up ex-cons?” she snapped.
“Only ones who look like cute little wet puppies,” he responded, glancing over at her. “You give new meaning to having a bad hair day, little lady.”
Fay turned her attention to the front of the car, staring out the windshield at the rain lashing against the glass. Eastward, lightning flared in the sky. As grateful as she was to be inside the warm car, she was suspicious of her companion.
“My name is Bradford Lynden,” the driver said. “I live in Altoona but I’m on my way to Davenport for a meeting.”
“Fay O’Reilly,” she supplied. “Davenport sounds good.”
Her companion was quiet for a moment then cleared his throat. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had bled of color.
“Look here,” he said, clearing his throat before he continued. “If you need some money to help you—”
“That’s what I figured,” Fay hissed. “Just pull over and let me out right now.”
She saw his head swivel toward her. “Ma’am, I think you misunderstood me,” he said quickly.
“Stop the damned car and let me out,” she shouted.
Lynden put on his turn signal and slid cautiously onto the breakdown lane. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he braked then put on his emergency blinkers. Even before the car stopped moving, Fay was fumbling at the door handle.
“Now, wait just a minute,” Lynden growled, reaching for Fay’s arm. Her response to his touch stunned them both—the crack of her palm meeting his face echoed through the car.
The fiery red handprint on his left cheek could be seen clearly even in the dismal light cast from the storm. As rivulets of water cascaded down the windshield, thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flared around them, the wind buffeted the idling car, rocking it as traffic skirled by on the superhighway. It seemed the bottom had fallen out of the sky for the volume of the rain suddenly increased.
“You know, I believe we’re on the edge of a wall cloud,” Lynden said in an uneasy voice.
Fay blinked. “A tornado?”
“Just listen,” he said.
Off in the distance, there was a low droning sound that might well be coming from the train tracks running parallel to the interstate. Driver and passenger looked at one another.
“We’re not that far from an overpass,” Lynden said. “I believe we’d better make for it.”
Nodding her acceptance, Fay kept her fingers wrapped around the door handle as her companion eased the town car back onto the highway. She realized he hadn’t turned off the emergency blinkers and that his face was strained in the glow from the dashboard lights.
“I don’t like bad weather,” Fay commented.
“It’s all right as long as you’re inside a sturdy building,” Lynden stated, “but I don’t care for it at all when I’m out driving in it.”
The rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers was so fast their movement was giving Fay a queasy feeling as she tried to peer out the glass. There was limited visibility and the flare of lightning pulses further obscured the highway.
“The overpass should be just up ahead. Let’s hope nobody else is parked under it,” Lynden said.
The droning sound was getting louder, the rumble of a runaway train coming at them from the south side of the interstate.
“Hurry,” Fay said.
Lynden hunched over the steering wheel and reached up to wipe away the condensation that was forming on the windshield. He glanced at his passenger when she slid toward him and used the sleeve of her blouse to help clear the fogged area.
Fay could feel the car shuddering beneath her rump. The wind was shrieking so loudly she couldn’t hear his words but she realized he was pointing toward a dark shape just up ahead. She nodded.
One moment they were rolling to a stop beneath the overpass, the next Bradford Lynden was shoving her out the passenger door, scurrying after her then pulling her with him up the concrete incline and under the soaring rafters.
Wind and flying debris were pummeling them, stinging their flesh and blinding them as they climbed as high as the concrete slope would allow. A deafening roar drowned out any other sound as Lynden pulled her head against his chest, arched his upper body over hers and wrapped his legs around her hips. Wedged tightly into the triangular section of concrete between the bridge overhead and the incline, she held onto his waist with all her might while he wrapped his arms around the steel girder above them.
For what seemed like an eternity, the sound of the tornado—the shrill flute of its movement—traveled the length of the overpass. The girders hummed, the concrete sang and the accompanying music of flying debris chimed in harmony with the plaintive voice of the fierce, deadly wind. Fay kept her eyes tightly closed, her arms squeezing Bradford Lynden, her cheek pressed to his chest where she could hear the wild beat of his heart as he strained to keep them attached to the girder.
She felt Bradford’s legs trembling as he anchored her to him while the wind pulled at him and strained his arms, trying to suck the two of them away from their hiding place. Something had struck the back of his head and she could feel the warmth of his blood oozing down his neck trickling onto her clasped hands. By the time the howl of the wind had died down to a fading rumble to the north of them, he was unconscious, the loss of blood having taken its toll, but his legs were locked around Fay O’Reilly’s hips, keeping her safe.
As he had kept her safe for four years now, she thought as she wedged herself against his sleeping body. Even in sleep, he reached out to put an arm around her, anchoring her securely to him.
“We’ll find your boy, darlin’,” Bradford had promised and over the years had done everything he could to keep that vow.
Rich beyond Fay’s wildest dreams, powerful as any state politician could ever be, her transplanted Alabama boy had provided her with wealth and position, a stunning home and happiness that knew no boundaries.
If she turned sad and quietness settled over her now normally buoyant personality, Bradford understood and held his arms out to her. And if she turned morose and introspective, concerned her past would somehow harm this wonderful, supportive man, he’d get down and dirty with tickling fingers and a pounding with the sole intent of taking her mind from her troubles.
At least for a little while.
“I love you, Bradford Lynden,” Fay whispered against her husband’s throat.
“I love you, too,” Bradford mumbled.
“They’re gonna find him, Brad.”
“Yes, they are.”
“What if he won’t…?”
“Don’t borrow trouble, Fay-Fay,” her husband said.
She closed her eyes and settled closer still to her rock, her anchor, the love of her life. When sleep finally overcame her, she dreamt she was standing at the kitchen sink of the shabby little trailer to which she had brought her son all those years before. She was bathing the little boy, laughing with him, being splattered by his flailing arms as he tried to grab the rubber ducky floating in the sink beside his chubby leg. As she gently washed his tiny genitals, she smiled at the odd little birthmark on the puckered flesh of his scrotum.
“That’s gonna intrigue a lady one day, Paddy,” she said, picking him up and wrapping the towel around his squirming little body.
She carried her son to the bed and dressed him in his nightie then sat down in the old rocking chair to croon him to sleep.
Deep in her slumber, her face pressed against Bradford’s chest, Fay O’Reilly Lynden heard the song she was singing to her child and tears slid from the corners of her eyes.