Running Scared

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Maybe, but first I’ve got a couple of windows and doors to put in.”

  “By yourself?”

  “It’s Thanksgiving weekend. My friends are celebrating with family, so that leaves me. If I want to be moved in by Christmas, I’ve got to work whether I have help or not.”

  “Why don’t I see if I can hire a contractor to come in and finish the job for you?”

  “No.” Her tone was sharp, and she glanced at Eli, who’d already grabbed another cookie from the package. “I appreciate the offer, but I planned to spend the weekend working at my own pace and doing my own thing.”

  Kane wanted to argue. He wanted to remind Maggie that he owed her everything and that he’d be more than happy to make sure the entire house was renovated before her Christmas deadline.

  Wanted to, but didn’t.

  She’d already made her position clear, so he kept quiet as she offered his son one more cookie.

  His son.

  Here in the room with him.

  He’d prayed for this, hoped for it, but there had been a part of him that had given up believing that God would provide the miracle he’d wanted so desperately.

  “Want one?” Maggie asked, holding out the cookies, her hand shaking a little.

  Was she angry? Nervous? Scared?

  Something was bothering her, that much was certain. He wanted to ask what, but Eli hovered a few feet away, slowly chewing his cookie and watching the exchange intently.

  “No, thanks.” Kane smiled, hoping to put Maggie at ease.

  “I appreciate your bringing me the message about my car. When the tow truck pulled into the driveway, I was sure it was a reporter who’d followed you from the town.”

  “And that would have been bad news?”

  “That’s one way to put it.” She offered a brief smile. “I don’t suppose you got the name of the tow truck driver?”

  “I’m afraid not. Is it important?”

  “Probably not.”

  “But?”

  “But I’d rather not have the news of your visit spread all over town. If Adam was the driver, he won’t say anything to anyone. If he wasn’t…” She shrugged.

  “I didn’t come here to cause you trouble, Maggie.”

  “You haven’t. I just don’t want any part of the media hype that’s surrounding you. I’ve got a lot to do in the next few weeks, and the last thing I need are reporters camping around my property trying to get a story.” Her voice was light, and Kane almost believed that was all there was to the story.

  Almost believed it, but didn’t.

  He dealt with secrets every day. Big ones. Small ones. He knew when a person was hiding something, and Maggie was.

  Right now, he had no choice but to let her keep her secrets, yet Kane had no intention of letting Maggie suffer because of the part she’d played in bringing Eli home.

  “Okay.”

  “What do you mean, ‘okay’?” she asked, frown lines marring her forehead.

  “Just that you have a right to your privacy. Whatever your secrets are, I’m not going to try to uncover them. But if you’re in trouble because of what you’ve done for my family, I’ll do whatever it takes to help.”

  “Are you in trouble, Ms. Tennyson?” Eli asked, the cookie he was holding crumbling in his hand, and Kane could have kicked himself for giving his son more to be anxious about.

  “Of course I’m not. Am I, Kane?” She frowned, spearing Kane with a disapproving stare.

  “That was just a figure of speech, Eli. Ms. Tennyson isn’t the kind of person to get into trouble.”

  Somehow, though, Kane had a feeling she was in trouble.

  He wanted to push her for answers, find out what was really going on, but couldn’t. Not with Eli listening. Kane would bide his time, wait until he had a chance to speak to Maggie alone, and then he’d try to get to the bottom of things. In the meantime, the best thing he could do was clear out of the house before word of his visit spread and she was inundated with the press she was so eager to avoid.

  “You finished with those cookies, sport? Because I think it’s time to head home.”

  “Can I have one more?”

  Kane wanted to say yes. He wanted to give Eli everything in some vain attempt to make up for all the years he’d been unable to give him anything. That wasn’t the way to build their relationship, though. God willing, he had a lifetime to live with his son, and the rules for their relationship needed to be set now rather than later. That meant being a father rather than a benevolent friend.

  “You already had three. I think that’s plenty.”

  “But they’re my favorite.”

  “Then we’ll pick some up at the store tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and your parents are coming. We can’t get cookies when they’re here, can we?”

  Your parents. Not Granddad and Grandma.

  There was no connection between Eli and his grandparents, no shared holidays or birthdays that the boy could remember, nothing to make them more than strangers. But it still hurt to hear Eli refer to his grandparents in such an unemotional way.

  “Sure we can. We’ll just go in the morning before they arrive. Even if we can’t, I’m sure Grandma won’t mind doing a store run with us.”

  “Okay.” Eli gave in easily enough, but that was the way he’d dealt with everything during the past twenty-four hours. Whether it was his nature, a learned behavior, or simply a response to a stressful and upsetting situation Kane didn’t know. Would probably never know.

  “Ready?” Kane held out his hand, his heart aching as Eli skirted by it and walked out of the kitchen.

  “It must be incredibly wonderful to have your son back—and incredibly difficult to know he’s not quite yours yet,” Maggie said, neatly describing exactly what Kane felt. Elation. Sorrow. Joy. Pain. All of it mixed together in a confusing mass of emotions that Kane could only sometimes control.

  “It is, but we’ll make it through this. We’ll get back to some kind of normal, and eventually we’ll feel like a family again.”

  “I know you will. Eli is a wonderful little boy. He’s going to be just fine.” She walked out of the kitchen, and Kane followed, wishing he was as confident as Maggie seemed to be.

  Time and patience. They were the key.

  Kane just needed to keep that in mind as he navigated the new life he and Eli were forging together.

  “You two be careful out there,” Maggie said as she opened the door, stepping behind it so that she wouldn’t be visible to anyone outside.

  Was she hiding from someone?

  If so, Kane wanted to know who.

  He was tempted to go back to the hotel, log onto the Internet and do a search on Maggie Tennyson. Try to figure out what her secrets were and just how worried he should be for her.

  Doing that would be a lot easier than trying to figure out the path that had taken Eli from chubby, happy toddler to quiet, solemn child. Figuring out where Eli had been, who he’d known, how it was possible that a kid whose picture had been on milk cartons and billboards, whose story had been in newspapers and on television, had escaped detection for so long, was something that Kane had to do. For his sake. For Eli’s.

  Kane had learned a lot in the past decade. He’d learned that grief wasn’t fatal. He’d learned that life continued no matter how much a person might not want it to. Losing his wife had taught him that. Losing Eli had reinforced it. Now he’d been given a second chance, and he wouldn’t waste it burying his head in the sand and ignoring what his son had been through.

  He opened the car door for Eli, waited as he climbed in and then shut it again. As he rounded the SUV, his gaze was drawn to Maggie’s farmhouse. She’d closed the front door, but light spilled out from a downstairs window. As Kane watched, a figure passed in front of it. Quickly. Furtively. Maggie.

  The woman who’d listened to Eli, who’d cared enough to go to the police when no one else had, had secrets that she didn’t want to share. He w
as sure of that.

  Maybe he should leave her to them, but Maggie had stepped in when others had stepped back. She’d listened to Eli’s story about having another name and another home, and she’d acted on what she’d heard. She’d been the catalyst that had brought Kane’s family back together. That was something Kane would never forget and could never repay. If what she’d done had caused her trouble, he’d do whatever it took to help her.

  If she let him.

  And based on the way she’d acted when they’d met, Kane doubted she would.

  He got in the car and backed out of the driveway, Eli’s silence filling the darkness. Was this what they were destined for? Long silences and stilted conversation.

  Kane refused to believe it. God hadn’t brought them this far to leave them floundering. There would be healing. There would be a future filled with all the things they’d missed out on during the past five years. As Kane drove toward the hotel, he tried to take comfort in that.

  THREE

  Maggie paced the bedroom at the top of the stairs, her stomach churning with dread. She needed to lie down on the inflatable mattress, close her eyes and try to sleep, but sleep didn’t come easily on the best of nights.

  And this definitely wasn’t the best of nights.

  As a matter of fact, Maggie figured it rated right up there with one of the worst.

  No good deed ever goes unpunished.

  She could almost hear her grandmother’s raspy, smoker’s voice, could almost see her wrinkled face and time-ravaged body sitting in the dark corner of the room, watching through still-sharp eyes.

  “That’s a wonderful image to have in the middle of a storm, in the middle of one of the worst nights of your life,” she muttered, shivering a little as a gust of wind rattled the window and shot through its old frame. It was one of the windows she planned to replace. Maybe she shouldn’t bother.

  Maybe she should have a Realtor come and re-hang the “for sale” sign that had caught Maggie’s eye nearly four months ago. Then Maggie could get in her car and drive back through the mountains, back down into the open land that she’d passed through when she’d run from Miami three years ago.

  When she’d run from Derrick, the man she’d once believed herself madly in love with.

  She was older now, hopefully wiser, and she knew the truth about love. It was fickle, blind and dumb. Pursuing it was a waste of time and energy, and when Maggie left Miami, she’d decided to put her efforts into something more concrete. Education, financial security, creating the kind of life she could be proud of.

  And she had.

  She was.

  With God’s help she’d pulled out of the downward spiral that had nearly killed her. She’d given up the party-hard lifestyle, and she’d finally found a measure of the peace she’d wanted so desperately when she was a young kid.

  And now it was slipping through her fingers like mist on a summer morning.

  One little boy with sad eyes and a wary demeanor, and Maggie had gotten herself embroiled in the biggest feel-good story of the year.

  Feel-good for everyone but her.

  If it weren’t so awful, she’d laugh.

  She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to ease the tension there. God had reasons for everything. Maggie believed that. Just as she believed that going to Sheriff O’Malley with her suspicions about Eli had been the right thing to do.

  No good deed goes unpunished.

  Maybe Grandma Jane had been right, but Maggie wouldn’t change what she’d done. Seeing Eli with his father had been one of the best gifts she’d ever received. Sure, it had been difficult to observe the tension between the two, but Maggie had no doubt that Kane would eventually win his son over. The man had determination and patience to spare. She’d seen that in the way he’d stood back and let his son just be. No pressure. No expectations. He was going easy, not demanding anything from his confused little boy.

  Maggie couldn’t help but admire that.

  Her cell phone rang, its shrill tone making her jump. She grabbed it, her heart beating rapidly as she glanced at the caller ID. It was after midnight, and Edith was calling. That couldn’t be good.

  She braced herself as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you, Maggie? I wasn’t going to call, but it’s just so exciting, I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Exciting? What’s exciting?”

  “Well, first of all, the fact that Kane Dougherty showed up on my doorstep a few hours ago. You know who he is, right?”

  Maggie considered playing dumb but knew Edith wouldn’t fall for it. “He’s the father of the little boy who was missing for five years.”

  “Exactly. And he was here looking for you. He said it was imperative that he speak to you. Did he make it out to the house?”

  “Yes, he did.” And Maggie had no intention of saying more than that.

  “I’m not nosey enough to ask why he wanted to find you, but I’d be tempted to hint broadly that after three years of renting an apartment from me, you could trust me with any tidbit of information you wanted to throw my way.”

  Maggie laughed, some of her tension easing away. “Fine. I’ll throw a tidbit your way. Kane’s son is one of the students in my classroom.”

  “And?”

  Maggie hesitated. She didn’t want to lie, but she wasn’t ready to tell Edith everything. “Eli was feeling unsettled, and Kane thought it would be good for him to see someone familiar.”

  “Makes sense. That poor child has been through a lot. Too much.”

  “Hopefully, things will be better for him now that he’s back with his father.”

  “No doubt they will. I still can’t believe that woman was right under our noses, and we didn’t know it. A kidnapper in our midst.”

  “She hasn’t been here long, and I don’t think anyone got to know her. That made it easy for her to hide who she was and what she’d done.”

  “I suppose you’re right. They showed a photo of her on the evening news, and I don’t recall ever seeing her in town. Showed a photo of the little boy, too. Guess who was in the picture with him?”

  Maggie’s heart stuttered, then started up again. “Who?”

  Please, don’t say “you.” Please don’t.

  “You!”

  She said it, and Maggie’s heart sank, her stomach tying in a knot so tight she could barely breathe let alone speak.

  “Maggie? Did you hear me? You’re famous!”

  “I heard.”

  “Well, you don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “I just don’t understand where they got a photo of me, or why they’d put it on the news.”

  “It was taken at the harvest party at school. You were supervising some sort of game, and Eli was standing right next to you. I guess the parents of one of his classmates took the photo and sold it for a good price.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Don’t sound so glum. This is great.”

  “It is?”

  “I’ve had at least a dozen people call me to ask if it was really you in that picture. You’re headline news here in Deer Park, and that means every eligible guy in the area will want to find out more about you.”

  Maggie laughed again, but this time the sound was hollow and empty. “Edith, you never give up, do you?”

  “On finding Mr. Right for a good friend? I’m afraid not.”

  “For me, there is no Mr. Right.”

  “You’re too young to be so cynical. Sometimes a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs before she finds her prince.”

  “And sometimes every frog she kisses is a toad,” Maggie responded, only half listening to Edith.

  She’d spent the better part of the day planning ways of staying out of the news, had driven out to the farmhouse in the first storm of the season to avoid cameras and reporters, and she’d been undone by a photo snapped at the class harvest party nearly a month ago.

  “Okay, so maybe there are a lot of toads, bu
t what if the next one is a prince? What if he’s just waiting for his true love to appear? For all you know, he could sweep you off your feet tomorrow because he saw you in the news today.”

  “Edith, you read way too many romance novels.”

  “Romance novels? I’ll have you know I lived the greatest romance of all. Can I help it if I want the same for the people I care about?”

  “No. And I love you for it, but I’m not looking for Mr. Right, and I never will be.”

  “That doesn’t mean you won’t find him. God has His ways, you know.”

  Maggie did. She just didn’t understand them. “Right. When was the photo in the news?”

  “Eight o’clock is what Margaret said. She called me right afterward to tell me, but I wasn’t sure I could believe her. Her eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”

  “When did you see it?”

  “Ten o’clock. I was going to call you right away, but I got so many phone calls, I couldn’t.”

  “Was it the local news?”

  “Nope. You’re famous countrywide. Probably farther. This story is a big one.”

  “That’s for sure,” she muttered, grabbing the few things she’d taken from her duffel and shoving them back inside it. Her first instinct had been right. She needed to leave town, get as far away from Deer Park and its sensational news as she could.

  “Are you okay, dear? You sound…agitated.”

  For a moment, Maggie considered telling Edith that she was terrified, not agitated, but she didn’t dare drag someone she cared about into her troubles. “I’m fine. I’m just surprised so many people noticed me in the photo.”

  “Noticed? You were a showstopper. Let me tell you. All that honey-blond hair hanging around your shoulders and the sweet smile you were giving that poor little boy. You looked breathtaking. There isn’t a man on this planet who wouldn’t want to get to know you, and there isn’t a woman who isn’t going to wish she was you.”

  “You’re exaggerating, Edith.”

  “I’m not. Though I admit to a certain amount of bias when it comes to you. You’re like one of my children, my dear, and I couldn’t be prouder to know you.”

  Maggie’s throat tightened at the words, her eyes filling with tears. If she could have chosen a mother, she would have chosen one like Edith. A woman who had devoted her life to her husband and children rather than to drugs and booze and the next creep with a wallet. “Thank you, Edith. That means a lot to me.”