Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series)

by Wilson, Norah

  Why talk at all? He could plead a bone-deep agony in his hip and leg, which would be no lie. The pain pills hadn’t kicked in yet. Then he remembered the look on her face when she’d first mentioned her son.

  “Dillon, right?”

  She brightened. “Yes, Dillon.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  She shrugged, but it wasn’t the same nonchalant gesture she’d displayed before. This shrug spoke of helplessness.

  “I wish I knew. We used to be really close, but now ... his moods are so ... changeable.”

  “He’s eighteen.”

  “Not for another couple of weeks.”

  “My point is, being surly and uncommunicative is par for the course.”

  “I know. But he’s always been such a sweet kid.”

  He watched her absently stroke her coffee mug. “Boys grow up.”

  She shook her head. “That’s part of it, for sure. Maybe even the biggest part of it,” she allowed. “But he really didn’t want to make this move, or at least not as fast as we did. Consciously or not, he’s punishing me for disrupting our lives.” She chewed the inside of her lip a moment. “Maybe I should have postponed the move. But I’d already held off until he finished high school, and he’d have had to move somewhere in the fall anyway, for university, so I figured why not here, right?”

  He realized she was looking at him as though she expected some kind of reaction. “UNB’s a good school. He’ll like it.”

  She looked down into the depths of her coffee mug again. “Besides, I’d won a major contract that pretty much required me to relocate here. Not that he had to pick this university just because I was coming here. He’d been accepted by three different schools, and we could have stretched the budget to pay for residence, but this one really does have the best computer science program.”

  What was he supposed to say? “I’ve heard very good things about it.”

  “I know it was a wrench to leave his friends so soon after graduation, but I figured he could use the time to get to know the city, make a few friends here.”

  Man, she’d obviously been over this ground a few times, rationalizing, regretting, second-guessing. He knew all about that. “His father around?”

  Another shake of the head. “Not since Dillon was little.”

  “Maybe he needs to connect with his dad.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he recognized that he’d slipped into problem-solving mode. Dammit, he wasn’t a cop anymore. And he sure as hell wasn’t a social worker.

  “That’s not in the cards.”

  He pushed back his own too-raw emotions. She clearly needed to talk to someone, and he’d been elected. What had she said? Oh, yeah. The kid’s dad was out of the picture. “Dead? Dillon’s father, I mean.”

  “Deadbeat,” she corrected, lifting her gaze from her mug.

  “What about Big Brothers?” He found himself looking away. “It’s a good program. A lot of kids from single-parent families benefit from the influence of a male role‌—”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “You’re preaching to the converted, here. We were in the program for four years, until Dillon’s Big Brother moved to Halifax. Now, he thinks he’s too old for that kind of stuff.”

  Tommy gingerly shifted in his chair. “Again, he’s nearly eighteen. It’s natural for him to look to his peers rather than an adult.”

  “I think he found something else to fill the void.”

  Of course. “Girl, eh?”

  She grimaced. “I wish.”

  Whoops. “I see.”

  “Oh, no! It’s not like that. Dillon dates girls. There’s just no one special.”

  “You know, a lot of mothers might be glad there was no one special. I seem to remember my mother getting uneasy when I was that age and stuck on a girl.”

  That drew a weak smile from her.

  “Afraid one of those sweet young things was going to whisk her son off to the altar, was she?”

  Shotgun marriage? There’d never been much chance of that. Not that an accidental pregnancy had been out of the question. He’d just been far too immature and self-involved for marriage, as had the girls he’d run with. His father would have just pulled out his checkbook. Of course, his father also would have given him a hearty thump on the back as though he’d finally done something praiseworthy. Well, at least this proves you’re not a queer.

  “Something like that,” he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. Lord, even her coffee was incredible. “So, if it’s not a girl, he must be hanging with a bad crowd.”

  Her hand tightened on the handle of her mug. “Bingo.”

  “It’s probably not that bad,” he offered. “Kids that age talk a good line of trash, but they’re not nearly as bad as they’d have the world believe. I’ve seen ’em fold pretty quick when‌—” Damn. Talking like a cop again. “What I mean is, it’s usually just posturing. He’ll grow out of it.”

  She slanted him a look. “You don’t have kids, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Adults.” She sighed and pushed back in her chair.

  “Huh?”

  “He’s hanging around with adults. I only got a good look at one of them. He was relatively young, I suppose, but still a lot older than Dillon. Mid-twenties, probably, and way, way harder than my son, from the look of him.”

  Tommy frowned. That kind of age differential usually spelled bad news. He could too easily picture unscrupulous adults feeding a troubled kid’s ego and thirst for attention until the kid was ripe for exploitation. Drug-dealing, auto theft, pornography, prostitution.... All the ugly possibilities flashed through his mind.

  “And you think they’re up to ... what?”

  “No good,” she said darkly. “Although since I haven’t had an actual conversation with any of these men, I have to admit I’m basing that judgment entirely on prejudice and stereotypes. Which makes me feel like a total hypocrite, since it’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve tried to teach Dillon not to do.”

  “Let me guess‌—‌shaved heads, baggy pants, shirts buttoned at the neck and open at the bottom, tattoos?”

  “Not to mention the cold eyes. Oh, yes, and the chopped pick-up with the tinted windows, and the kind of stereo that sets off minor earthquakes with the bass notes when it drives by.”

  The cynic in him said she’d probably nailed the demographic accurately, but he stayed silent.

  “So?” She looked at him expectantly.

  “So, what?” He shifted again, just a few millimeters, to ease the ache in his leg. The relief was exquisite. Unfortunately, it lasted about a tenth of a second, then started throbbing again.

  “So, are you going to pat me on the head and tell me I’m being a paranoid, over-protective mother?”

  “No,” he said. “No, I won’t do that.”

  She sagged. “Damn. I was hoping you would. Hoping even harder that you could make me believe it.”

  “Sorry.”

  Their gazes locked for a few seconds, and Tommy felt an unexpected surge of sexual awareness rocket through him.

  His first reaction was relief; he’d begun to think of his libido as KIA. Then the inappropriateness struck him. This was a distraught woman, a worried mother. A mother whose son, technically speaking, was old enough to make her a grandmother.

  She jumped up and carried her cup to the sink, where she rinsed it and set it on the draining board. “Look,” she said, turning back to him. “I can see you’re in pain. You probably need to lie down or something. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “The leg’s gonna hurt no matter what. You don’t have to rush off, if you don’t want to.”

  Christ, was that him talking? Had he just invited the original Velcro woman to stay?

  Her green gaze caught and held his again. “Really?”

  “Really,” he heard himself say. Oh, Lord, he must have taken too many of those pain pills.

  “That’s very generous of you, especi
ally after I pushed my way in here.”

  “You did feed me.”

  She tilted her head in an attitude of listening. “Looks like you’re off the hook. That must be Dillon now.”

  He heard it too, the sound of a car’s engine. At the end of this cul-de-sac just barely inside the city limits, they didn’t get much drive-by traffic. Good. The kid was home where he belonged, and now he could have his solitude back.

  “Thanks for holding my hand,” she said, turning to pick up her plate. “No offense, but I hope it’ll be the last time.”

  The latter was delivered with a wide smile, but he could see the tension and worry beneath it.

  “Look, do you want me to talk to him or something?”

  Oh, hell, where had that come from? She looked just as stunned by the offer as he was about making it.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think so. I know my son. If I just spring you on him, it’ll be worse than if I just leave it alone.”

  “Well, if you change your mind....”

  She smiled at him again, and he was struck once more by a pang of desire, this one even stronger than the last.

  “Thanks, Tommy.”

  She let herself out, and the sound of the door closing echoed behind her. For a split second, her absence felt like a hollowness, in his house and in his chest.

  Damned lust. Now that the relief had passed, he almost wished he’d stayed dead that way. Didn’t he have enough aches without adding another?

  Pulling himself to his feet, mainly by dint of his upper-body strength, he picked up his cane and clumped toward the bedroom. He’d almost reached his customary resting spot by the sofa when he heard the scream‌—‌shrill, female and clearly terrified.

  Paige.

  Adrenaline ripped through his system like a shot of juice from a live electrical wire. He covered the distance to the door in a flash, with no sensation of pain. Endorphins. He’d pay for it later. Tearing the door open, he lurched out onto the step.

  “Paige?”

  A hand still clamped to her mouth to stifle the scream she’d been unable to suppress, she swiveled her head toward Tommy’s voice. He stood on the steps outside his unit, looking like he was ready, willing and able to use his cane as a weapon, if need be.

  “What it is? What’s the matter?”

  She pointed to her doorstep.

  “Jesus. What’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” Her stomach did a sick little flip, but her voice was surprisingly steady. “But it’s dead and it seems to be minus its fur.”

  He swore, then hobbled a few feet closer. “I take it that the car we heard wasn’t Dillon coming home?”

  “Dillon’s car’s not home,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. These days, she couldn’t rule out anything where her son was concerned, even his participation in something as ugly as this. He’d closed himself off so completely from her. Not that she thought he’d lead something as gruesome as this, but he might go along for the ride, especially if he didn’t know in advance what the plan was.

  “You’re welcome to call it in from my place,” he said, gesturing toward his unit. “Phone’s on the wall just inside the kitchen.”

  Call the police? Without talking to Dillon?

  “Ah, that’s okay.” She took a step backward, closer to her own doorstep. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll just deal with this myself.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Paige.”

  His tone was quiet, without any detectable inflection, but it arrested her retreat in a way a forceful command might not have.

  “What do you mean?”

  “By not reporting this. You think you’re protecting your son, but if his new friends did this, with or without his involvement, you’d do better to tackle it head on. He needs to know that his choices have repercussions.”

  He was right and she knew it, but it wasn’t that simple. Dillon was her son. He was all she had, and getting further away from her every day. She didn’t know how to guide him toward a better path without driving him to worse rebellion. Her frustration boiled up into anger.

  “Who said I thought this has anything to do with Dillon?”

  “So, you think it was what? Random sicko? Or maybe a customer who didn’t like your Tiramisu?”

  She glared at him. “There’s no need for sarcasm.”

  He sighed. “Okay, let’s say it has nothing to do with your son. All the more reason to call the cops right now. They might be able to get impressions from the car’s tires. Presuming somebody carried it to your doorstep, there could be footprint evidence. But that stuff is transitory. You have to act fast.”

  She snorted. “You sound like a cop.”

  “That’s because I am.”

  Oh, shit.