by Jason Mott
“Yes, ma’am,” Harold said. “Wouldn’t want to be flippant.”
* * *
But when the devil actually showed up at the front door—their own particular devil—small and wondrous as he had been all those years ago, his brown eyes slick with tears, joy and the sudden relief of a child who has been too long away from his parents, too long of a time spent in the company of strangers…well…Lucille, after she recovered from her fainting episode, melted like candle wax right there in front of the clean-cut, well-suited man from the Bureau. For his part, the Bureau man took it well enough. He smiled a practiced smile, no doubt having witnessed this exact scene more than a few times in recent weeks.
“There are support groups,” the Bureau man said. “Support groups for the Returned. And support groups for the families of the Returned.” He smiled.
“He was found,” the man continued—he’d given them his name but both Harold and Lucille were already terrible at remembering people’s names and having been reunited with their dead son didn’t do much to help now, so they thought of him simply as the Man from the Bureau “—in a small fishing village outside Beijing, China. He was kneeling at the edge of a river, trying to catch fish or some such from what I’ve been told. The local people, none of whom spoke English well enough for him to understand, asked him his name in Mandarin, how he’d gotten there, where he was from, all those questions you ask when coming upon a lost child.
“When it was clear that language was something of a barrier, a group of women were able to calm him. He’d started crying—and why wouldn’t he?” The man smiled again. “After all, he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But they settled him down. Then they found an English-speaking official and, well…” He shrugged his shoulders beneath his dark suit, indicating the insignificance of the rest of the story. Then he added, “It’s happening like this all over.”
He paused again. He watched with a smile that was not disingenuous as Lucille fawned over the son who was suddenly no longer dead. She clutched him to her chest and kissed the crown of his head, then cupped his face in her hands and showered it with kisses and laughter and tears.
Jacob replied in kind, giggling and laughing, but not wiping away his mother’s kisses even though he was at that particular point in youth when wiping away a mother’s kisses was what seemed most appropriate to him.
“It’s a unique time for everyone,” the man from the Bureau said.
Connect with us for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Subscribe to our newsletter
Share your reading experience on:
Harlequin Books
Facebook
Twitter
Watch our reviews, author interviews and more on Harlequin TV
ISBN: 9781743643747
TITLE: BEFORE THE RETURNED: THE FIRST/THE SPARROW/THE CHOICE
First Australian Publication 2013
Copyright © 2013 Jason Mott
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. N.S.W., Australia 2067.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office in other countries.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
www.harlequinbooks.com.au