by Anna Adams
“Notice I’m not offering to talk to him for you.” Raina’s eyes warmed with a mixture of empathy and affection over her tea glass. “I know you want him to decide, even though I could assure him I believe in you.”
To Daphne’s surprise, Raina’s loyalty brought the sting of tears. “You don’t have any more reason to believe in me than he does.”
“But I won’t change.” Looking over Daphne’s shoulder, Raina got serious. “His mother’s coming over.”
Daphne froze. She feared she might bend her fork.
“Excuse me.” His mother had a slightly less blue version of his icy eyes, but hers were kinder. “Raina, how are you today?”
“Happy Mother’s Day, Gloria.” Raina stood and only allowed the shadow of grief to touch her face as she hugged the older woman. “I’m all right.” She held her hand out toward Daphne. “Have you met my sister?”
“Obviously, you’re Daphne.” Gloria touched Daphne’s shoulder, staring. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Hello.” Daphne stood, as well. She felt Patrick’s presence as if he were part of the conversation.
“I won’t keep you, but I thought this day might be a bit difficult for you, Raina. Call if you want to talk, and Daphne, you drop by with Raina.”
“Thanks.” Raina hugged her friend again. “You’re thoughtful to come over.”
“Nonsense.” But her smile held motherly affection. “I’ll hope to run into you both again soon.” Mrs. Gannon looked at her table where Will had gone back to a toy and Patrick was looking cold and intense again.
From across the room, his message was clear: Stay away from me and mine.
Gloria walked away, but not without curiosity.
“Raina, I don’t mean to gossip, but you said Patick’s ex neglected Will. What exactly did she do?”
“She left him in her car one day last winter while she went into a shop, and then she overdosed in the dressing room.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She left town after the judge told her she couldn’t see Will until she cleaned up.”
Daphne looked down at her plate. “And Patrick’s afraid I’m like her?”
“She refuses to admit she has a problem, Daphne. You’re taking care of yours.”
“I wonder if Patrick could ever believe that.”
“He looks at you as if he wants to.” Raina stabbed at the lettuce on her plate again.
Daphne turned her head. Gloria and Will had their heads bent over something they were writing together. Patrick’s gaze, hot and hungry, crossed the room and ignited the feelings she was trying to keep under control.
She wanted to be angry, but her body went heavy with need. Her pulse ricocheted as she felt the simple thrill of hope. She wasn’t like his ex-wife, and surely he was intelligent enough to see that.
As if he were reading her mind, he shook his head, just enough for her to see. Then he cradled his son’s head in the palm of his hand. Will turned toward him with a sweet, guileless grin.
“Everything you feel shows on your face,” Raina said. “If Patrick could really see you, he’d know you’d never hurt Will.”
“I see a man who loves his son.” Her voice felt thick as she remembered the pressure of his legs against hers. He’d danced her across his yard, almost to the gate. “He could love a woman that much, too.”
PATRICK SPENT A WEEK of sleepless nights. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the vibration of Daphne’s pulse against his lips. He dreamed of peeling that peach-colored shirt off her. Then he dreamed of tearing it off. As he ran his hands from her waist to the curves of her breasts, frustration woke him.
Night after night.
He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t paying close enough attention to his work. He’d been late to court this morning, and now he was running back to his office for a file he should have had with him.
He’d felt as if he’d had no choice when he’d let Daphne walk away, but wanting her in his sleep wasn’t making things easier.
His cell phone rang as he rushed into the elevator. He flipped the top open.
“Patrick, it’s Mother. I’m picking Will up at school today.”
“What’s wrong?” He pushed his hand between the closing elevator doors and forced them open again so he could get out. “Is he sick?”
“I had a strange call from Lisa and I wonder if she might not be in town. She asked me where Will is.”
“What?” His bark turned the heads of every human in the lobby. He ducked into one of the alcoves. “Did she say she’s in town? Call the cops, Mom. He didn’t shut his eyes for two weeks the last time she tried to grab him.”
“Maybe I’ll take him out of school early.”
“I shouldn’t have sent that flower arrangement to Lisa for him.”
“Your son wanted his mother to have a gift. You had no choice. I’m leaving now to pick him up.”
“And bring him to my office.”
“No, no. You have to work, and we don’t want to alarm Will.” She tapped something against the receiver. “I’ll take him to the park by the courthouse. We’ll have a picnic. He can swing and climb on the fort and run till he’s too tired to breathe. And you can look out and see him whenever you need to.”
He’d rather have him in his office or in the courtroom. “He might get bored after a few hours.”
“Not with my trusty cell phone. Video games are a grandma’s best friend. In my day, Grandma’s best friend was her dress-up trunk, but I don’t really see Will in Victorian cuffs and collars.”
“Thanks, Mother.”
“Think nothing of it. I’m on my way to his school. You might put in a call to warn them I’ll be checking him out.”
“I’ll do it right now.”
“And I’ll call when I have him.”
“Okay, but I’ll be in court for a few more hours this afternoon. We have the plea bargain in place, but Hal has to allocute.”
“If you don’t answer, I’ll leave a message.”
My son. “If only I’d been smarter with Lisa. I wanted to believe her lies about the drugs and the phony illnesses.”
“You aren’t responsible for Lisa’s crimes.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not saying anything more.”
“I’ll see you in a while.” He started to close his phone but brought it back to his ear. “Mother, if you need me, and I don’t answer, call back right away. I’ll leave the phone on vibrate in my pocket, and I’ll explain in court if I have to. What’s a little contempt?”
“Sounds good. Try not to panic. Your son will be fine.”
He went upstairs and grabbed the file from his office. Back in the courthouse conference room they’d been assigned, Alexis was handling the prep for Hal’s allocution. Hal found a male too challenging in any situation, so Patrick took care of the paperwork, perched against the window. By the time his mother called to let him know she had Will, he’d already seen them.
She hung up her phone, and they both waved from the playground. He waved back and silently blessed his mother for going beyond the call of duty.
She’d stop Lisa if she had to use a tank, and he’d go through that damn window before he’d give his ex-wife access to their innocent child again.
Patrick turned his laptop so that he only had to look over the top of the screen to see his son and mother working their way along the rope netting. Thank God she’d taken up some sort of commando training.
He settled into his paperwork. This was better. Like shoving half the courthouse off his chest.
IN THE MIDDLE of loading plants into her car for delivery, Daphne lifted her face to the spring sky. Everything seemed to be blooming. And the sound of the laughter from children in the playground inside the courthouse square added to her sense of well-being.
When laughter turned into a scream, Daphne shuddered as if a memory were forming and exploding out of her soul. But this scream was no memory. She straightened, a heavy crystal vase in her ha
nds.
“Grandma, help me, help!”
Men and women dotted the square and the sidewalk. All stopped, all turned like spectators at a sports arena. A man came, half weaving, half running across the lush grass, clutching a little boy beneath his arm like a football.
Will? That guy had Patrick’s son.
“Will.” Daphne started across the street, vaguely hearing a car’s brakes squealing.
“Grandma,” the boy keened, wriggling, waving his arms at his grandmother, who ran behind them, terror on her face.
Daphne’s heart pounded. The man hadn’t seen her. He didn’t yet understand that no one was going to hurt Patrick’s child in front of her. Ever.
Will’s name swelled in her chest, but she gritted her teeth to keep from saying it again and alerting his captor. She suddenly remembered the vase she was still clutching in her hands, slopping water.
Perfect.
Daphne got in front of the man and Will. The man’s eyes were all pupil, barely focused. He was obviously high. He looked at her like a rat searching for a way out of a cage.
She knew that look. She’d lived on the streets where that look made a person a mark, a victim. She’d protected too many people on the street when they couldn’t save themselves because they were damn near unconscious.
And damn her own soul to hell, she suffered a pang of pity.
The man garbled, not a word, hardly a sound. His hair hung in strands clotted with oil. He lifted his free hand. An open switchblade glinted.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She hoisted the vase as high as she could. “Don’t make me,” she said, knowing too well he wasn’t going to listen. Unable to stop hating violence even now and reluctant to chance hurting Will, she knew she had to stop the man.
The vase literally jerked out of her hands.
“Don’t dither, girl.” Gloria Gannon swung the thick glass into the attacker’s head. The vase made a thunking sound and then shattered on the ground and the man wobbled.
Too stoned to actually sense pain, he looked as if he might manage to stand and stay conscious.
But then his body began to react.
Daphne grabbed Will as his captor’s legs buckled beneath him. A sense of relief nearly dropped her to her knees. Patrick’s child, the boy who meant more to him than anyone or anything, was safe.
Despite Patrick’s love, this child had already survived a childhood surprisingly like her own. She cradled him, feeling his pulse pounding all through his body.
“Grandma.” He was still clawing his way to her through midair. “Grandma.”
Gloria stepped over the man and the glass and took Will from Daphne’s arms.
“Go into the courthouse,” Daphne said. “I’ll call the cops.”
“Thanks.” Gloria peered at the citizens of Honesty grouped around them, most with phones out and open, also dialing. “People will talk. After you get through to the police, please call my son. Do you know his number?”
“I’ll get in touch with him. He’s at work?”
“He may actually be in the courthouse by now.”
“I’ll find him.” Nausea and adrenaline danced inside her.
She gave the necessary details to the 911 dispatcher. All around her, urgent voices spoke. She kept an eye on the unconscious man, lying in eucalyptus and long-stemmed blossoms and the shards of about a month’s worth of her salary.
She hung up and called information, asking for Patrick’s office number. A detached female voice listed the partners’ names. Daphne asked to be connected to Patrick’s office.
“Mr. Gannon is not available now. May I give you his assistant?”
“Someone just tried to grab his son on the courthouse square. His mother has Will, and she’s taken him inside the courthouse. Can you get word to Patrick?”
“Absolutely. May I tell him who’s calling?”
Too frustrated with the woman’s slow pace to argue, Daphne gave her name and hung up. Already, two police cars were circling the square, lights strobing, sirens bleating.
They skidded toward the sidewalk and four officers jumped out. The female reached Daphne first. No one else had come any closer to her or the lunatic at her feet.
“Your name, ma’am?”
“Daphne Soder. This man tried to kidnap Will Gannon.”
“You stopped him?”
“Not really.” She’d hesitated. “The boy’s grandmother hit this guy with a vase I was holding.”
“Where is Mrs. Gannon?”
No hesitation. She obviously knew Patrick and his mother. “In the courthouse. She took Will to safety, but I think she knows you’ll want to speak to her.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened first.” The officer, whose name badge read Delancy, waved one of her colleagues over. “The kid’s in the courthouse with Gloria Gannon. Go take a statement. I don’t want the boy dragged back over here, but we’re going to need Mrs. Gannon’s side of the story.”
The man began to stir at last, groaning, pushing glass off his chest. Paramedics arrived in an ambulance. They hurried over, but the other two police officers helped the would-be kidnapper to his feet, cuffed him and read him his rights.
While Daphne was telling Officer Delancy what she had seen, someone bolted from the courthouse. A broad arrow of pure fury, he headed straight for the guy in handcuffs.
“Where is she?” Patrick’s voice cut through the crowd. “Where is she, you bastard? I’ll kill you both with my bare hands if either of you comes near my child again.”
Both Delancy and Daphne ran at the two men. The one in handcuffs struggled, wanting to get at Patrick, and Patrick seemed willing to carry out his threat immediately.
“Mr. Gannon,” Delancy said, “calm down. Everyone here will pretend we didn’t hear that, and we’ll all hope this guy won’t remember it when next he’s sober.”
Daphne took Patrick’s arm, all reticence gone. “Will’s fine. He needs you free, not in jail for threatening this guy.”
“I know Lisa sent him,” Patrick said to the officers holding the men apart. “She’ll send someone else. She has to be stopped, and if the system doesn’t step up, I’ll stop her—”
With all her strength, Daphne yanked him around. “Think about Will.” She took possession of his gaze, knowing too well what could happen to the little boy if his father went to jail. “He’s fine right now. He won’t be if you get arrested.”
“He’s not fine.” The rest of the square and all the low-voiced onlookers faded. Only she and Patrick were standing there, holding each other by the wrists. “His mother keeps trying to destroy any chance of a normal childhood for him, and I’m afraid she’ll get him killed if she manages to take him away from me.”
“So you need to make sure that doesn’t happen. Look at that guy. He’s hardly conscious.”
“She sent him. You don’t understand this situation, Daphne.”
“And you’re not going to dismiss me that easily. If your ex-wife is behind this, don’t let her manipulate you into doing something that will give her Will.”
“Mr. Gannon, this is a serious matter.” Officer Delancy broke the spell. “Let us talk to this guy. If your wife is involved, we’ll get the truth out of him, and she’ll face charges, too. You know how this works.”
“I know the custody agreement should have kept Will out of her hands, but this is the second time she’s tried to take him.”
“The second time?” Delancy asked.
“The first time she kept him after a visit. He was terrified by the time I found them—in Kentucky.”
“Do you know this man? What’s his name?”
“I don’t know him, but who else would have sent him to grab my child?”
“Go back to Will. Comfort him. I may have to send a child services officer to talk to him. Ask your mother to come out here.” Delancy started to walk away, but turned back. “Thank you, Miss Soder, we’re done here.” Her nod suggested Daphne go with Patrick.
What the hell? He needed someone and she cared about him. “I’m coming along, Patrick. I’d like to thank your mother.”
He tugged his rumpled clothes into order. “Thank her for what?”
Daphne hurried to keep up with his worried stride. “She actually stopped him.”
“She said you did, that she’d never have caught him if you hadn’t gotten in front of him.”
“I blocked his way,” Daphne said. “But then I hesitated. Your mom sprinted over and clubbed him with a vase I was holding.” Daphne looked back at the ruins on the ground and then at her open trunk. Miriam would want to know about the wrecked floral arrangement and the others sitting out in the open.
“Why did you hesitate?” Anger simmered in the question.
“I told you. The guy’s so strung out I’m surprised he made it through the grass without pitching Will on his head.”
“You feel sorry for him?”
“Definitely not, but I doubt he’ll remember anything when he sleeps it off.”
“He’ll remember Lisa.”
“She’d be crazy to send someone as unreliable as he is. Doesn’t it seem more likely this junkie wants drugs and saw a kid with an older, clearly affluent woman? Maybe he thought he could get money for Will.”
“That would be too much of a coincidence.”
“Fine, Patrick. I see you have this idea stuck in your head, but here’s the truth. I’m worried about you and about Will.”
He looked at her, his suffering as painful to her as if she were also a parent enduring the threat of danger to her child. “I am grateful you stopped him.”
“With your mother.” She could fight him, but his gratitude reminded her he didn’t want her in his life. She turned her face from his. The little boy, who’d felt as shocked and frightened as a small animal in her arms, was in the revolving courthouse door. “Look. There’s Will.”
The door disgorged the child, and he ran into his father’s arms. His eyes were wide, but he’d stopped crying.
“Let’s go home, Daddy. I want to be home.”
Will’s small, tense voice scared Daphne.
“I need a few minutes, buddy. Maybe you could stay with Grandma while I get my things together?”