Run to Me

by Lauren Nichols

“Mac, she’s pregnant.”

  His heart stopped. When it started again, every beat was a reminder of Audra’s deceit. “We’ve been divorced for two years. She has her life, and I have mine.”

  “Good,” his friend replied without a lot of conviction. “Glad to hear it. Just thought you should know.”

  Mac muttered something he hoped was appropriate in return, hating the hollow feeling in his chest after so long. He didn’t love her anymore. That was something he knew without a doubt, because he could never love a woman he didn’t trust. But this thing with the baby hit him in a different place. In his pride. “I’ll call you about the partnership in a week or so. Right now things are too up in the air to make plans. But thanks for asking.”

  “Just call me back with the right answer.”

  Mac said goodbye and hung up. So Audra had married the creep. Well, bon voyage and have a happy life.

  Still bitter? a small voice asked.

  Damn right he was bitter. Learning that she’d been screwing around on him had been bad enough. Finding out that he’d been paying for Buzz and Audra’s motel rooms and fancy dinners, courtesy of their joint savings account had really knocked him on his ass. Then, the coup de grâce. While he’d been waiting from month to month to see if she was pregnant, she’d been swallowing birth control pills and making sure it wouldn’t happen. Having his baby wasn’t on her agenda.

  Having Buzz Willett’s kid was.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Amos called from the living room.

  “Nobody,” Mac returned.

  “Didn’t sound like nobody.”

  A nerve leaped in Mac’s jaw. “It was Shane, Granddad. He just called to touch base.”

  “Then why did you say it was nobody? Somethin’ goin’ on you don’t want me to know about?”

  Muttering a breathy curse, he walked into the living room, his lousy mood following like a stray dog. “No, there’s nothing going on, and I don’t know why I said it was nobody. Do you need anything from the kitchen? Something to drink? Or do you want to get up and walk around a little?”

  Amos looked up at him in annoyance. “No, I want to sit right here and finish readin’ the paper. If I get thirsty, I’ll get my own drink. You don’t have t’ wait on me.”

  “Then maybe I’ll take a walk. I’ve been staring at the books too long.” He needed some time alone, without questions being fired at him every two seconds.

  “Go,” Amos said, sliding his reading glasses down from where they stuck to his forehead.

  “All right. I won’t be long.”

  Mac filled his lungs with the fresh pine air and sunshine as he descended the porch steps and started toward the pasture where the horses grazed alongside Amos’s red-coated Herefords. Then he saw Terri and Christie, still laughing and splashing in the pond and his plans changed. Suddenly his boots were moving toward Terri. They hadn’t spoken much since that ill-advised kiss Friday night. Hopefully, enough time had elapsed for them to get back on a decent footing. He needed a distraction. He needed to think about something besides Audra’s pregnancy. And why his child wouldn’t have been welcomed.

  “Hi, cutie,” he said to Christie when he’d hunkered down beside them on the grassy bank. “I didn’t know you could swim.”

  Christie flapped her arms, showing off the inflated yellow cuffs above her elbows. “Mommy buyed me water wings!” Her excitement ebbed. “But you can’t fwy wif ’em.”

  “You can’t?”

  Christie shook her head.

  “Well, they look like fun, anyway.” He worked up a passable smile for Terri. Even with her hair knotted at the nape of her neck and strands from those too-long bangs falling into her eyes, she was beautiful. Lousy as he felt, he still took in her long, shapely legs, starting at the cuff of her tan shorts and ending with her polished-pink toenails flashing beneath the water. “Glad you’re enjoying the pond.”

  She tugged her wet cuffs lower on her thighs. “I checked with your grandfather a few days ago,” she said, her gaze increasingly curious as it moved over his face. “He said this end is fairly shallow, but I’m keeping Christie close, anyway.”

  “Probably a good idea.” He glanced at Christie again. She was shoveling tiny yellow ducks into a sand pail already filled with naked Barbie dolls, then dumping them out and snatching them back before they could float away.

  “How far out before it gets deep?” Terri asked.

  “About twelve feet. Then it tapers from three feet to six—maybe seven—at its deepest. Amos had it put in when I was a kid. Made me a pretty popular guy.”

  “I imagine so. I guess you spent a lot of time here.”

  “Actually, I lived here,” he returned, glad they were talking with some degree of comfort. He reached into the water for a blue plastic cup that had sunk to the gravel bottom, then set it aside. “My parents died in a small plane crash when I was ten. Amos took me in.”

  Sympathy—but not pity, he noted—flickered through her eyes. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

  He sent her a brief, wry smile. “It wasn’t easy. I’ll never stop missing them, but…Amos was there for me.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “Nope.” Frowning, he shifted the subject, partly because he was already tired of talking about himself, and partly because he still knew very little about her. “How about you? Are your parents still living?”

  Her gaze clouded slightly. “My mom passed away five years ago, but my dad’s still around. Somewhere,” she added with a mirthless laugh. “They divorced when I was in high school. I haven’t seen or heard from him since her funeral.”

  “Then, he’s never met his granddaughter?”

  “No. Last I heard he was living in San Diego, and—” She halted abruptly, a startled look passing over her pretty features. Then she flashed a tight smile and rose. “Time to get out, Christie.”

  “You don’t talk much about yourself,” Mac observed.

  She shrugged and picked up the white towel beside her. “Be thankful. It’s all boring. As for my dad, I’ll probably look him up one of these days—see if there’s anything between us. California’s right next door.” She reached for Christie’s hand and repeated, “Come on, sweetie. Time for your Barbies and ducks to dry off.”

  “No! I need to fwim!”

  “Yes. You’re starting to prune.”

  Christie let out a squeal as Terri lifted her out of the water and onto the bank, then promptly dissolved into tears.

  “Shhh,” Terri said. “You’ll scare the birdies.” She slipped off Christie’s water wings and blotted her hair, then draped the towel over her shoulders. “You can swim some more in the tub. Now stand here like a good girl while I gather your toys.”

  In a flash Christie was out of the towel, her little legs pumping away from her mother. Before Mac knew it, she’d smacked into him and latched onto his thigh. “I wike it outside!”

  “Christie Lynn,” Terri warned. Frowning, she walked to Mac and crouched to unhook her daughter’s arms from his thigh, her fingers burning through worn denim. “That’s enough, now. We have to go in.” But Christie hung on, Terri’s hands crept higher in their struggle, and Mac felt a jolt of desire so powerful—and given the day, so unexpected—that his breath caught.

  Simultaneously lifting Christie onto one of his arms and taking Terri’s hand, he tugged her to her feet. “Know what?” he said to Christie. “I have an idea that’s more fun than swimming.”

  Christie’s chin quivered. “What?”

  “Ice cream. There’s some in my freezer. I have chocolate syrup, too.” He glanced at Terri, hoping Christie’s dangling legs and feet covered his indiscretion. “That is, if it’s okay with Mommy.” She looked irritated that he’d taken over, but he hadn’t had a lot of options. Mac lowered his voice. “Sorry if I over-stepped.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, then her gaze flicked back to Christie. “Let’s get a bath first—without any more crying—then we’ll talk ab
out ice cream. Okay?”

  Sniffing, nodding, she reached out for her mother, and Mac let her go.

  “That’s my girl,” Terri murmured, tucking the towel around her and kissing her cheek. Her shoulders sagged in dismay as she took in the front of Mac’s shirt. “I’m sorry. Now you’re all wet.”

  His shirt was the least of his problems. “I’ll dry.” He bent to gather the toys, loaded them into her pail, then handed it to Christie. “Here you go. Enjoy your treat. Ice cream’s in the freezer in the basement,” he added, meeting Terri’s eyes. “Syrup’s on a shelf in the door of the refrigerator.”

  “You’re more than welcome to join us.”

  “Nah, you two deserve a full day together. We take up too much of your time as it is.”

  A troubled look entered her blue eyes. “Christie and I have plenty of time to be together. I wish you’d reconsider. When you walked down here a few minutes ago, you looked like…well, like the day had beaten you down a little. And it is your ice cream and your house.” She smiled. “Maybe Amos would like to have a sundae, too, after all the angel food cake and fat-free whipped topping I’ve been pushing this week.”

  Mac glanced toward Amos’s white clapboard. He didn’t need the stimulation of her, but the distraction and company were doing him nothing but good. “All right,” he finally said, bringing his gaze back to her. “Thank you. Let me see if Amos is interested, and I’ll let you know.”

  She smiled again. “Good. Just give me a few minutes to get Christie in and out of the tub.”

  The only thing Amos was interested in was an old John Wayne movie. “You go ahead,” he said, his eyes glued to the TV. “I’ll be fine. Already got myself a drink.”

  “Care if I take that can of whipped cream in the refrigerator down to the house with me? Christie might like that.”

  “Hell, take it all. There’s cherries and caramel topping someplace under the cupboard, too. Lord knows I won’t be eatin’ it with that gal houndin’ me day and night about my blood pressure and cholesterol.”

  Mac had to smile. His granddad didn’t mean a word of it, and Mac knew it. “Unhappy with Terri?”

  “Nah, she’s okay. And even when she cooks healthy, her food’s a damn sight better’n anything you fix, so I should prob’ly count my blessings. You have a good time.”

  Making ice cream sundaes with Christie and Terri didn’t turn out to be the wholesome thing Mac had expected. Because as he watched Terri drizzle chocolate syrup over their vanilla-bean ice cream, snozzle on whipped cream and balance maraschino cherries on top of it all, Mac’s mind crept happily into X-rated territory. Within minutes he had to excuse himself to check on Amos from the intercom in the great room.

  “I’m watchin’ the Duke,” Amos yelled back over the blare of gunfire and pounding hooves. “If I need ya, I know where to find ya. Can’t you find somethin’ t’ do?”

  Mac sighed at the ceiling. He’d love to find something to do. But he doubted that he and Amos were on the same page as to what that something was, and he doubted Terri would be a willing participant with a small child in the house.

  But when he returned to the kitchen and discovered the cherry on top of his sundae missing—and saw Christie’s impish look—the feelings he’d been fighting ebbed a little.

  He winked at Terri, then looked at Christie again. “You know, there was a cherry on my ice cream when I left the room. Who do you think took it?”

  “Maybe Waggedy Ann?”

  “Maybe Raggedy Ann’s best friend,” he said. Then he sat, glanced around at his kitchen table, so full of life and fun…and dug into his sundae.

  Later, Mac lay in bed, staring through the guest room’s window at the stars peeking out of the thin, tattered clouds, reflecting on Audra’s carrying another man’s child, and wishing he’d been thinking with his head when he’d asked her to marry him. He would’ve saved himself three years of lies and two years of grieving over them. Funny, though. After the initial shock of hearing about her remarriage and pregnancy, things were settling into place in his mind and he was beginning to accept that they were never meant to be together. She’d valued monetary things, had never understood the simple beauty of a crystal-clear stream or the tall, straight trunk of a Ponderosa pine. Worse, she’d seen Amos as an obligation, not a friend and family member. But Audra was the past.

  Tonight all he wanted was warm, sweet, leggy Terri Fletcher. And he wanted her with a ferocity that made sleep impossible.

  Chapter 5

  Charles glared down from the glass wall in his office to the bustling city beneath him, impatiently clicking the tip of his pen in and out.

  Late-day commuters snagged taxis while other Chicagoans moved about like wind-up toys, scurrying in and out of shops and buildings. He snapped back his left cuff and glared at his gold timepiece again, the pounding in his head worsening. Seven forty-eight. Forty-eight minutes past time, and still no word from Smith. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.

  He felt his control spiraling away, sailing out of reach.

  Whirling from the glass, he hit a wall switch, and the heavy damask drapes whooshed closed behind him as he stalked to the recessed aquarium in the paneled north wall.

  Inhaling and exhaling slow, metered breaths, he stared into the tank, willed himself in there with his neons and mollies…cerebrally joined his angel fish as they skimmed languidly through aerated water, their delicate dorsal and side fins gently undulating like the diaphanous wings of their namesakes. There were six among the coral and castles, all treasured, all hypnotic, all infinitely better at soothing his anger than Dr. Hastings Sherwood.

  When the call came seventeen minutes later, most of the pounding in Charles’s head had subsided. His tone was still curt as he depressed the button on the speakerphone. “You’re late.” Once again there was no one to hear him. The office was empty, though cleaning crews were working on the lower floors.

  “I was having dinner—though I guess they call it supper here.”

  “Where is here?”

  “Care to know who joined me?”

  Charles paced the floor. “I repeat, where are you?”

  “Maine. By the way, her name’s Trisha, and she’s very pretty, very gullible and very hot for me.”

  “Goddammit, punch notches in your belt on your own time. Just tell me about my wife.” And she would always be his wife. Marriage vows were a sacred commitment. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

  Smith’s indifferent voice flowed from the speaker. “Don’t worry, young and jiggly isn’t my type. We did have some fun yesterday and again today before she started her shift at a little place called Krafty Millie’s Café. Ring any bells?”

  Charles’s blood leaped. “This girl knows where Erin is?”

  “No, but she knows where she was two days after your private investigator flashed photographs of her and your daughter around town—to the wrong people, I might add. Apparently a shopkeeper near the docks had taken a liking to your wife, and when the P.I. started asking questions, this guy phoned the café to warn her.”

  This guy? A cold trembling began in Charles’s gut. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. “Was she sleeping with him?”

  “That’s doubtful. Trisha said she never dated—spent all of her time with the little girl. Anyway, your family was packed and gone thirty minutes after the guy called. I’m amazed that your P.I. picked up her trail at all.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Smith took a drink of something and swallowed.

  The pounding in Charles’s head threatened to return.

  “According to Trisha, Mrs. Kraft sent your wife to her brother’s car dealership near Bangor. She dumped her white Ford Windstar and bought another van—different color and make.”

  She’d lost his P.I. in Boston, then returned to Maine? “Erin has contacted this girl?”

  “No. The day Kraft’s brother phoned the café, Trisha took the message. He told her that he’d set y
our ex up with a new vehicle, and to pass the information on to his sister. Mrs. Fallon is now driving a gray, 1995 Dodge Caravan with Maine plates.”

  “Then she’s still in Maine?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. The best hiding place is one that’s already been searched, right? I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Wait!” Charles shouted, feeling his control begin to slip again. “How will you track her?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Smith replied. “I don’t intend to canvass the highways. There are more efficient ways to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Don’t get too visible,” Charles warned coldly. “This girl, this Trisha—”

  “—won’t say a word. I guarantee it.”

  Smith hung up.

  Incensed, Charles glared at the phone, his head threatening to split in two. He’d been dismissed?

  Punching the disconnect button, he whirled and fired his pen against the tank. Startled fish darted away. He didn’t put up with insolence! Especially from employees! For $60,000 and expenses he deserved respect!

  But a few minutes later as he smoothed manicured fingertips over the cool glass of the tank, he smiled at his gaily painted angels in their softly lit world. Perhaps a little insolence could be tolerated if Smith got the job done.

  His passport was ready, as was Christiana’s, though hers had been prepared by a talented man Charles had come to know.

  The instant Smith completed his assignment, Charles would collect his daughter, and they would fly to a country without an extradition treaty with the United States. A country that respected a man’s ordinance over his family. There he would raise his mother’s namesake to be a proper young lady, not the duplicitous liar her mother had been.

  Charles left the tank, picked up his briefcase then exited his posh office and took the elevator to the ground floor.

  He had money, power and the will to succeed. That was all any man needed to get what he wanted.

  Dusk gathered in the shadows of the pines and pressed against Amos’s old windows. Erin clicked on the light over the sink to rinse Christie’s cereal bowl and milk cup, her snack before bedtime. She was already asleep on Amos’s couch, hopefully dreaming of glass slippers and fairy godmothers after story time. Amos, too, had turned in for the night after an exhausting, late-day physical therapy session.