“Did you guys manage to pull anything from any of the local cameras? Have you gotten any definitive answers?” she asked, begging for information about her son.
Kevin sighed. “I’m so sorry, Summer. All I can tell you is that we’re doing our best and we are trying to work as fast as we can. Just know that we are using every single thing we can to get Joe back.”
She held no doubts he was telling her the truth, but it did nothing for the panic and terror she was feeling. Nothing would help calm her until she had Joe in the safety of her arms. She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“I assume Mike is working on things from his side, correct?” Kevin continued.
“Yeah.”
“Keep us apprised of any issues that may arise from his digging. We need to keep your role in the DTRA concealed—even from him. If not...well, you know how these things work. If you are exposed or your cover is blown, we are going to have to deny everything. You know what’s at stake here, I hope.”
Apparently, he meant beyond the scope of losing her son—the most important person in her life—she was also quite possibly going to lose her job and her freedom if her truth was uncovered.
Swell. Just swell.
Everything was falling down around her.
“I don’t need you to tell me what else I have to lose. I’m more than aware. But right now, my main concern is the welfare of my son.” Her anger pulsed within her and, for a moment, she wondered if it was misplaced and ill-advised for her to speak up, but at the same time she didn’t care. “I think you calling me to tell me this is reprehensible. You promised to keep me and my son safe—and yet here we are and now you are threatening to throw me under the bus.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Summer,” Kevin said, contrite. “I just mean that you need to be careful with Mike. This is a tough situation, but know we are all working to fulfill our promises to you. However, you need to focus on doing your job.”
Summer sighed. Maybe she was lashing out in the wrong direction. It was just...well, it was this inability to take direct action that was really killing her. All she wanted to do was to rush out, cut down the bad guys, and get her son back into her arms. And yet, all she could do was to sit in her apartment, make phone calls and wait for them to come to her. This powerlessness was unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
Not even being left at the altar compared.
And then there was that.
Here she was, forced to trust a man who had broken her heart and ripped out a piece of her soul once before. And already, he had allowed kidnappers to get to Joe. He’d only been back in her life for a matter of hours and he was destroying it all over again.
Logically, she wasn’t angry with Mike. She couldn’t be. Not really. The kidnappers had been targeting her; she had brought them to her doorstep. But she couldn’t help the anger she was feeling from spilling over and tainting everything in her life.
Bottom line, she was angry with the world.
“Is there anything I can do beyond sit here and wait?” she asked, hoping Kevin would have something that could help staunch the roiling emotions threatening to destroy her.
“Like I told you earlier, the best thing you can do is stay exactly where you are. Get as much information about Rockwood as you can.”
When she had been a child, she had been taught that if she was ever truly lost in a forest, the best thing she could do was just sit still—to stay where she was. Others would find her. And yet, this tore at the very cloth of her being. She wasn’t a sit-and-wait kind of woman, especially in situations like this. She had to do something.
“Mike won’t tell me anything. I need to start moving, to do something that will bring me closer to getting Joe back.”
“Stop, Summer.” Kevin’s voice was rife with pity, and she hated it. “Let us take care of you. We have teams in place who are doing more than even I can tell you. Just give us time.”
When she had signed her Department of Defense contract with the DTRA and taken the oath of office, there had never been anything about putting herself first. This was about her team and keeping them safe even if that meant putting the needs of her son and herself second. She didn’t have to like it, but she had made the deal when she had taken the job.
She had known there would be sacrifices she would need to make when it came to being a DTRA agent, but she had never assumed her sacrifices would come in the form of her son’s life.
She had been a fool to take this job on. She should have just stuck it out with STRIKE and made it work. She’d loved her contracting world, but when things had gone haywire, she’d thought it had been the impetus she had needed to work full-time for the DTRA, which had led to her taking a position at Rockwood as a spy.
She’d thought she’d been making the right choice, making the best out of a bad situation and getting her life set up so that she could be a good mother while also being able to stand on her own two feet. But all she had done was make everything so much worse. She had fallen for the trap of greener grass in the hope of being a better provider. Guilt flooded through her. She should have just shut her mouth and done the job she had been paid to do for STRIKE, taken the money and gone home to her son. But no, and look where being a good person and doing the right thing had gotten her.
Why did being a good person, a good employee, and a good mother have to be such a juggling act? There was always one ball being dropped.
“You okay, Summer? Do you need anything from us, something I can have someone deliver? Maybe some dinner?” Kevin continued, breaking her train of thought.
“That’s kind of you, but we’ll be okay.” She wasn’t hungry and until now she hadn’t even bothered to think about food.
“Okay, but let me know if you want or need anything. And I’ll be in touch if we get any more leads.”
“Thanks, Kevin. And hey, I appreciate all you’re doing.” She sounded resigned, even to herself, as she ended the call.
When she walked out, Mike was holding a pizza box. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought you might be hungry.”
What was it with everyone thinking that she needed to eat?
Summer nodded, giving him a weak smile as she forced herself to remember he didn’t deserve to be the target of her rage. She followed him into the kitchen, where he set the pizza down and grabbed a couple of paper towels, handing her one. “Only the finest china for you, m’lady.” He gave a little bow as she took the towel.
“Thank you, kind sir.” She forced herself to curtsy as she played along, the small exchange reminding her of the dorkiness and quaint familiarity they used to have.
“And it is plain, just as you like it—thick crust and extra cheesy.” He pulled out a chair at the island and helped her to sit before sitting next to her.
He remembered. The thought made some of the heaviness in her chest lift. He had made his mistakes and she had made hers, but there was such deep love between them. No matter what, they would always share an inexplicable bond; one filled with the nuances that came with familiarity and time.
This man still loved her, though it would never be the same love he had once felt for her—or the love she had once felt for him. They had now entered the world of love reserved only for those with the most broken of hearts.
He opened the box, the greasy scent of dough and butter filling the air and, doing so, making her stomach pang. She chuckled at the thought of how funny it was that others could sense things in her that she denied noticing in herself. Or maybe it was just that what she was really hungry for was the act of caring, a hunger Mike had filled, even without her so much as asking.
Mike was a good man.
She took a bite of the pizza as he made his way to the fridge and looked inside. It was exactly as she had remembered it, empty except for a few old beers, a bottle of mustard and some banana baby food she had forgot
ten to use up. He grabbed one of the beers, twisted off the cap and handed it over to her.
“No, I don’t think I should.” Summer shook her head slightly. In truth, she wanted the beer and the relaxation that it whispered of, but what if someone called about Joe?
She looked over at the clock. He should have been in bed right now.
Had they changed his diaper? Given him a bath?
At night, he loved to be rocked to sleep after a warm bottle. If they didn’t do it, Joe would pitch a fit and, once he got started, and if he was overly tired, there was little anyone could do to calm him except to let him cry it out until he wore himself down and went to sleep on his own.
Anxiety pierced through her. What if they weren’t taking care of him at all? What if Joe was alone, unchanged and unfed?
Her breathing started to quicken as all the fears she held for Joe’s safety filled her mind.
This wasn’t going to be okay. Nothing was going to be okay. Things would never get back to where they had once been. And what was she doing about it all? Eating pizza. She was the worst mother ever.
“He is going to be okay, Summer.” Mike spoke as though he could read her mind, or maybe it was that all of her thoughts were streaming on her face like it was a wide-screen television.
“How do you know, Mike? What if—”
“Stop. Don’t swirl the drain of what-ifs. It does you and Joe no good.”
He was right, but she hated to admit it. Without the what-ifs, she was left with only the reality of the situation—her son was in the hands of potential killers.
She took the beer Mike offered and took a sip.
“This is all going to be okay. We will get him back and they will take good care of him. A baby has a way of making everyone around them love them. I mean look at me,” Mike said, sending her a wilting smile. “I love him. I loved him the moment you told me about him. That’s all it took. And when I saw him, man...put a fork in me.”
She smiled. “He is a handsome boy. And when he laughs, he laughs with his whole body in a way that makes you laugh too. I never thought I could love something as much as I love him.”
“See what I mean? No one can walk by that boy and not fall for him. He is going to be safe if these men are at all partial to his charms; which, after our conversation with them, I think they are.”
“We will see if they say the same thing in the morning; after he keeps them up all night. He likes to fall asleep with me, in my bed.” Her eyes welled up with tears as she thought about the week after she had brought Joe home from the hospital. How hard she had tried to follow the rules she had read in the parenting books, chapters of which discussed the pitfalls of co-sleeping. In the end, instinct had taken over and she had given in to the needs of her baby over the opinions of a few.
Snuggling with Joe had become one of her favorite moments in her life. It was an incredible feeling to fall asleep with a baby, flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. This little being who trusted her so much.
She had let him down.
Taking a long pull off the bottle, she thought about her mistakes. There had been so many in her life already, so many wounds, bruises, scrapes and scabs. It was really no wonder no one made it out alive.
“Mike, what did I do wrong with us? How did I push you away?” She put her beer down on the counter and started to play with the paper ring around the bottle’s neck, pulling at the corners like behind it were the answers to life’s questions.
He reached over and took her hand, interlacing their fingers. “Summer. Babe.” He spoke the word like it was even more tender than his touch. “My problems that day... They really had nothing to do with you.”
“Ah,” she said with a forced laugh, hoping to diffuse some of the tension, “the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t you. It was me. I saw the future. I’d overheard Troy talking about a threat STEALTH had neutralized. A threat to us. To you. And I thought, I can’t do this. I couldn’t live a life with you, knowing I put you in danger. It was the hardest thing I ever did, walking away from that altar.”
“You never told me...”
“I didn’t think you would understand. You would have told me to push aside my fears and just follow through with the wedding. But I couldn’t... I couldn’t risk having you hurt or killed because of me.”
He was right. She would have tried to convince him not to leave. But it wasn’t him. It was her. What she had needed was a real, concrete answer...an aspect she could change in herself that would help her become stronger, better, and then never find herself in the same position again—and especially not with him.
“Do you think you will ever want to get married again?” he asked.
“To you?” She jerked, stunned by his question.
He let out a tight, surprised laugh. “Sure, or to whomever you love. Man, woman, alien...” he teased.
He had said “sure.” Did that mean he was thinking about them becoming an us again? Could she handle something like that? Could she trust him with her heart after all the pain, confusion and misery he had put her through the last time?
If she said no, would she be doing a disservice to Joe? Probably. But if she said yes, would she be doing a disservice to herself?
“I don’t know,” she said, striking down the middle. This was one question better unanswered. “I guess I haven’t really thought about it too much. I’ve been really busy for the last year or so.” She sent him a smile to let him know that her words weren’t meant as some kind of jab, but rather a truth masked in cotton. “And I’ve loved every second of it,” she added.
“After we get Joe back, do you think I can get involved? I mean maybe we can figure out some sort of parenting plan or something. I don’t want to step on your toes, but I can’t imagine knowing that I have him and yet not having time with him. You know?” He looked slightly stricken at the thought.
Was his question about marriage directly related to his concern for being or not being in Joe’s life? “If I get married, don’t worry. You will always have a place. You are Joe’s dad, and I want to give you every opportunity to be a part of his life as much or as little as you want. I will never stand in your way.”
Even if they weren’t destined to be together as a married couple, it didn’t mean they weren’t supposed to be together as parents. Raising Joe would require a collaborative effort and they would both have to give a little to make things work, but she was willing to do the work if he was.
“I just want what is best for Joe,” he said.
“I agree. But I also think you coming and going in Joe’s life will be hard.” She paused. “So, if you are going to be in and out of his life when it’s convenient for you, it’s not going to be good for him. Before you commit to anything, I want you to really think about your options. With this, you are either all in or all out. No in-betweens.”
He squeezed her hand as he listened, like he was already agreeing to her terms.
“Mike, this isn’t going to be easy. I don’t think you can possibly understand how hard parenting is going to be.”
He smiled softly at her. “You know, I have always found the things in my life most worth having are never easy. Far from it.” He moved her closer to him and lifted her hand to his mouth, softly kissing the back of her knuckles. “Those things that I have to struggle to attain are what I respect, love and cherish the most.”
Ummmm... What? Did he just tell me that he loved me? That he cherished me? I didn’t even know he knew that word. What in the hell?
She couldn’t read too much into his words or his actions. Nope. This had to be one of those times her imagination was playing tricks on her. Mike was the silent type. The type who rarely spoke the truths that lay in his heart. Then again, since they had reconnected, he had been more candid with her than he had been
in nearly their entire previous relationship. Had he changed? Had he realized their communication was one aspect of their relationship that had been lacking, by both of them?
“Mike...” She said his name, the sound barely above a whisper. It instantly took her back to the many nights they had spent making love until they were exhausted and only sated when they found themselves engulfed in one another’s arms.
Was that where this was headed? Was he making his move? Was he hoping she would take him to the bedroom? That they would make love?
She panicked and yet she didn’t pull her hand away from his; she needed his touch. Tonight, of all nights, she wanted the support and love his being there provided. And, well, she wanted all of it, and him.
He helped her to stand and she took the lead, walking him slowly toward her bedroom. He had to have known what was coming next, just as much as she did, but he didn’t seem to hesitate, though he also wasn’t taking the lead. She liked that. He had normally always been the one to be the commander in the bedroom, taking what he wanted from her and leaving her so well pleased that she would collapse into a comatose-like sleep. Yet now he seemed almost passive, demure, in his want of her.
Or maybe he didn’t want her?
No. She couldn’t think about that—about being rejected by him for a second time, albeit maybe in a slightly less painful way.
Though, come to think of it, which was worse—having a heart or a body turned away?
Either way, it hurt.
She stopped outside her bedroom door. Questioning the step they were both about to take. “Mike—”
He stopped her by taking her lips with his, unexpectedly hurried but tender as he stole her words.
His tongue found the center of the bottom of her lip and she met him there. He pulled her close against his body and her hands moved down his sides. She could feel the bulge of his muscles underneath the fabric of his shirt. He still worked out. So many push-ups.
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