Sweet Child of Mine

by Jean Brashear

  She brushed his hair off his forehead and kissed him to check his temperature, but he didn’t feel warm. “You okay, Bobby Bear?” she asked.

  He smiled up at her. “Yeah. Just kinda tired.”

  “We did a lot today, didn’t we?” She’d decided it was too soon to start him in his new school. Next week would be soon enough. So she’d taken him with her to the Colton ranch to check on her kids, and everyone there had treated him like a mascot. While some of the boys showed him around, she’d thanked Blake again for letting her have time off to get Bobby settled. Blake knew the situation and had been sworn to silence. Until Bobby knew she was his mother, they would stick to the cover story that he was simply a friend’s child for whom she and Michael were caring.

  “When’s Michael coming home?” Bobby asked.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. When he called, he still had reporters to talk to and more plans to work out.”

  “He’s really important, isn’t he?” There was pride there.

  She nodded. “Yes. Right now he’s especially important because people are looking to him to lead them.”

  “Because the water’s bad?” Bobby asked.

  She hadn’t tried to hide the danger. Bobby needed to know to be careful what he consumed until the crisis was over.

  “Yes. People are afraid, but Michael says that Mr. Colton’s experts have figured out a way to treat the water, so he’s hoping the citizens will calm down once word gets around.” She smiled. “But we still need to be really careful until Michael says it’s clear, even though our well tested out all right.”

  Bobby nodded, then did one of those lightning-fast changes of subject that children did. “I liked the kids where you work. They were pretty cool to me.” He grinned. “Some of the boys say you’re the ench.”

  Suzanne stifled a groan. She wasn’t ready for teenspeak from Bobby. Then she grinned and gently tapped his nose. “And what do you think?”

  “I think my dad was right.” Sorrow drifted over his sweet face. “He said you would do everything you could to make it not hurt so much.”

  “Oh, sweetie…” She gathered him into her arms. “I wish I could make it all go away right this second, but it’s just what happens when we lose someone we love. It’s part of love, but it will get better after a while.”

  “I don’t want to forget my dad, Suzanne,” he whispered.

  “I don’t want you to forget him either. He was a very good man, the best kind of man.”

  Bobby leaned his head back. “Like Michael.”

  An ache speared through her, but she nodded. “That’s right. Just like Michael.”

  “What’s like Michael?” a deep voice asked.

  Both she and Bobby jumped, then Bobby wriggled from her arms and raced from the bed. “Michael!” he shouted, leaping into the man’s arms.

  Suzanne cringed as she saw the pain on Michael’s face, but he didn’t rebuff her son. Instead, he engaged in a few moments of horseplay until Bobby collapsed in giggles.

  Michael looked exhausted, so gently she urged Bobby back to bed, but nothing would do but that Michael tuck him in.

  She started to intervene, but Michael shook his head. Instead, he talked quietly with Bobby, helping him calm down and get ready for sleep. Bobby’s small hand slipped trustingly into his, and Suzanne ached for both of them.

  She stepped back toward the door when Bobby spoke in a sleepy voice.

  “Michael, sometimes I wish you would be my new dad. Would my dad be upset that I wish it?”

  She saw raw anguish slide over Michael’s face, and she knew in that moment that they’d made a terrible mistake. They’d underestimated the price on Bobby of their marriage of convenience. Every one of them would suffer—but none more than this innocent child.

  She didn’t stay to hear his answer. She couldn’t listen. All she could think was that it was over, that there was no way she could stay one second longer and let Bobby get more and more attached to a man no sane person could resist.

  The knowledge left her trembling with fury—blind, raging fury at whom, she wasn’t sure. Herself, certainly, for being so naive. Michael, for clinging to a love long dead when he could have one that lived. And fate, the coldhearted witch, for taking Jim Roper from the son who needed him so much.

  When Michael walked out of Bobby’s room, they faced each other in profound silence, the knowledge as plain on his face as it must be on hers that the stakes had changed.

  “Let’s talk downstairs,” he said grimly, though he looked ready to fall on the floor in exhaustion.

  “Fine.” This couldn’t wait.

  When they reached the kitchen, she tried desperately to hold on to the fury that simmered.

  “Suzanne—”

  “I’m leaving. Tomorrow. Bobby and I will be out of here as soon as I can pack.”

  “What?” He looked at her, stunned. “Why?”

  “Why?” It was a match to tinder. “After that, you can ask me why? He’s getting too attached, and you have no intention of loving him back.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You don’t have to say a word.” Fury dug in its spurs. “You made it abundantly obvious last night that your heart is dead and gone.” When he started to speak, she held up a hand. “You warned me, I know. But like a stupid fool, I fell in love with you, even knowing I’m not your type of woman.”

  “What do you mean, you fell—”

  She rode right over his words. “But I’m not the issue here. I’ll get over it, but I won’t let you break my son’s heart, too.” She glared as fire shot through her veins. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong with my son that he’s not good enough to gain your love. You tell me where that boy falls short because from here, he seems like one very wonderful kid.”

  “He is a wonderful kid. He’s the best. If I could love any child, I’d love him.”

  She shoved away the hurt of being excluded from that statement. “Why, Michael? Why can’t you love him?” Why can’t you love me?

  His voice was soft but fierce. “I made a promise.”

  “To whom?”

  “To them. To Elaine and the baby.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “That I’d never replace them.” And the depths of his grief and guilt dug deep grooves in his face. “They’re dead because of me, and I owe them that, at least.”

  “Why do you say it’s because of you?”

  “She’d told me the day before that there was something strange about the brakes, but we couldn’t afford a mechanic and I was too rushed to check them that day, too worried about school and my job and proving to my folks that they were wrong about me. We argued that morning because she’d tried to call my parents behind my back to make peace, but they weren’t home. We had a terrible fight. She left, and I never saw her alive again. Her brakes failed, and she was hit in a major intersection. The baby died with her.”

  God. How horrible for him.

  “I can’t be alive when they’re not, don’t you understand? Elaine taught me how to love, how to take joy from every day. She taught me everything I know about what’s meaningful in life and how to make it count. I can’t betray that like I did last night when you and I—” He fell silent.

  “Say it, Michael. When we made love. Because that’s what it was. It wasn’t sex. It wasn’t about using someone’s body. Until you let your guilt creep in, we were as close as two people ever get to be.” She leaned toward him. “Your heart touched my heart, Michael, can’t you see that?”

  “You don’t understand.” His jaw hardened.

  She looked at him for a moment, all her rage falling away and replaced by the weariness of knowing that he would never let go of his grief. But she had to make one last stab, though it would hurt them both.

  “Elaine would be ashamed of you.”

  Fire sparked in his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You say she taught you to love, and look at what you’re doing. You
’re acting like love’s a sin, when it’s right there in front of you for the taking. You want it as badly as I do, but you won’t break some vow that Elaine never asked you to make.” She saw rage in his features, but she went on, anyway. “The circumstances just before she died were terrible and tragic, but the woman you described to me would consider it a far greater sin to cast away love when it’s offered to you. That woman would never have intended you to spend the rest of your life with your heart locked away in mourning. She would have told you to live and honor what she taught you, to honor her love by giving it to others.”

  His voice was a low growl. “You don’t know what she was like, how she could light up a room, how she lived in that rat-trap for my sake, how she stayed at that nothing job for me.” He jabbed a thumb into his own chest. “For me, for love of me, she lived with even less than she’d had before me so that I could go on with my dreams while hers were put on hold. It’s pretty damn poor repayment that my stubborn pride cost her life, wouldn’t you say?” The anguish in his face hurt Suzanne so badly that she wanted to stop this now, but she knew she was hearing things he’d never told anyone else.

  “It was all I had to give her,” he whispered. “My heart. My damn worthless heart that demanded too much of her. That dazzled her with dreams she’d never get to share.” His voice broke. “She wanted a big old two-story house like this, you know that? She wanted to fill it with children. Our children. Simple dreams she should have been able to have. Instead she had nothing.”

  “She had a dream I’d sell my soul to have, Michael,” Suzanne whispered. “She had you. All of you.” Blinded by tears, by the agony of knowing that she would never have his love, all Suzanne wanted was to get away, to lick her wounds in private. She turned to go.

  He caught her arm. “Suzanne, I—”

  She couldn’t look back. She pulled away, but at that moment she heard Bobby scream in fear and pain.

  Whatever Michael meant to say would have to wait as they raced up the stairs.

  When they burst into his room, Bobby was writhing in pain and he’d vomited all over the bed.

  “Oh, God,” Suzanne moaned. “That’s what happened with the kids at the ranch.”

  “What did he drink? Where did you go today?” Michael asked, but he was already scooping Bobby up into his arms.

  “I don’t know. We went to the Coltons’ ranch, and we stopped in town, but I never saw him drink anything, and he knew better than to—”

  “Come on. It would take too long to get an ambulance up here. We’ll drive him into town. You ride in the back with him.”

  Swiftly they made their way out to the car, Bobby holding his stomach and crying out in agony. Suzanne’s heart beat a tattoo as she tried to think what could have happened.

  Michael drove swiftly but surely and soon, they were racing into the emergency room, Michael’s long strides covering ground with Bobby in his arms while she answered rapid-fire questions from the staff.

  Twelve

  “Michael.” The door to the examining room opened, and Blake Fallon walked in with a man Michael didn’t know. Michael stopped pacing, but all he could think about was his fear for Bobby and his concern for Suzanne, who stood beside the bed stroking Bobby’s head as he slept uneasily while they waited for the results of all the tests.

  Blake crossed the room and spoke to Suzanne briefly, hugging her as Michael would like to do. But his ears still rang with their bitter words in the kitchen, and he knew he was probably the last person Suzanne wanted nearby.

  Then Blake stood in front of him. “Can we talk outside?”

  Michael frowned and glanced at Suzanne, but she’d already turned back to her child. “Sure. But I don’t want to go far.”

  “I understand,” Blake said.

  Once they were outside, he introduced the other man. “Mayor Michael Longstreet, this is a friend of mine, Rafe James. He’s a private investigator.”

  Michael studied the other man as they shook hands. Then he turned to Blake. “So what are you doing here?”

  Blake smiled faintly. “Rafe was in my office visiting me when I got word that one of the Hopechest kids had gotten hurt out at the Coltons’ and needed stitches, so I told them I’d meet them here.” He shook his head ruefully. “Kids.” Then he seemed to remember why Michael was here. “I’m sorry. You must be worried sick.”

  He shouldn’t be, but he was. His careful distance from Bobby had never materialized. “Suzanne’s the one who’s having the worst of it.” He couldn’t tell Blake that Bobby was her natural child, but he could see the questions in Blake’s eyes. “My well tested fine. I don’t know where he could have gotten the water, but—” He broke off, furious at his inability to get this damn water situation resolved. “Any more word on Corbett? Is he still claiming ignorance?”

  Rafe James spoke up. “Something’s not right here. I know David Corbett. He isn’t capable of something like this. He’s a good man.”

  Michael nodded. “That was always my read on him, too. But the FBI seems to think differently.”

  James nodded. “Corbett’s daughter Libby is an attorney in San Francisco. She’s flying in to take over his case, but I told Blake I’m going to hang around, do my own investigation. Something just doesn’t smell right.”

  “Nothing’s been right around this town for weeks.” Michael felt the weight of all the days and weeks of tension. Suddenly he was as tired as he’d ever been in his life.

  “It’s been a long haul, buddy.” Blake clapped him on the shoulder. “You want us to wait here with you?”

  Michael shook his head. “No. We’ll be fine.” How he hoped that was true. If anything happened to that boy—

  But he couldn’t think that way. Even if she didn’t want him near, Suzanne needed him to stay strong to help her fight her own fears.

  He shook Rafe James’s hand. “Good luck. Let me know if I can help with anything.”

  The other man nodded. “I will.”

  Michael turned to Blake. “And you, my friend, don’t look a lot better than I feel. Go hit the sack.”

  “I think I will. But you call if you two need anything, all right?”

  “Will do.” Michael waved them off and went back into the room.

  Suzanne stood watching her son sleep, arms wrapped around her slender waist, her body bowed inward beneath the weight of her fear. He wanted to go to her, wanted to hold her—but after the angry words they’d exchanged, he had no right.

  He rubbed his eyes. God, he was tired. So tired he was making mistakes, losing his judgment. He didn’t know how Bobby had gotten hold of contaminated water, but he should never have let Suzanne bring the boy back here in the first place. It didn’t matter that the house had been so empty without her that he’d jumped at the chance to bring them home after the funeral. He should have sent them away somewhere, anywhere they’d be safe. If anything happened to Bobby or to Suzanne…

  Something deep inside him shuddered. He couldn’t lose them. He couldn’t go through that again. But when Suzanne had said they were leaving, all he could think was that he had to make her stay, had to find a way to keep her near.

  And suddenly he knew. Suzanne had it right, but only part of it. When she’d said Elaine would be ashamed of him, that he did Elaine’s love no honor, he’d lashed out with words because she’d struck at the heart of something he’d buried beneath the weight of his vow never to replace them.

  But he knew now that it was fear that kept him frozen in grief—fear of ever knowing that pain again, ever putting his heart in harm’s way by loving anyone as much as he’d loved Elaine. As much as he’d wanted their child.

  And when he’d realized that what he felt for Suzanne was many times stronger than anything he’d shared even with Elaine, it struck right at the core of him, dead center of his guilt. He’d known in that moment of ecstasy that what he and Suzanne could have would be more powerful than anything he’d ever dreamed.

  And it scared him to death. Bec
ause he didn’t know if he could survive it if anything happened to Suzanne. He knew only too well how puny man’s powers were against the hand of fate.

  But now he looked across the stark, sterile room at a boy he loved against reason, at a small woman with the heart of a lion, a woman who fought with everything in her for those who needed her.

  Could he do less? How long would he let the pain win? When everything he wanted was right here within his grasp, what was he waiting for?

  So he crossed the floor to offer himself to a woman who might no longer want him. But he had to try.

  “Suzanne,” he said softly, one hand hovering over her delicate shoulder.

  She turned toward him, her eyes huge with her terror, but she didn’t speak.

  He didn’t know where to start. “I told the staff to spare no expense. I’ve asked them to bring in specialists or we’ll fly Bobby to San Francisco if needed. Anything, Suzanne. Anything I have is yours. I—” He took a deep breath. “I care about that boy. I want him well and safe.”

  If anything, her eyes darkened with pain. For a moment she closed her eyes as though unable to look at him.

  He wanted to touch her so badly he ached, but he’d hurt her too much already. She had to be the one to let him in.

  With effort, she straightened and looked right at him. “Thank you, Michael. I don’t know how I’ll repay you, but somehow I will.”

  “Suzanne, don’t—” His own pain bled through in his voice. “It’s not about money. I love Bobby.”

  Her head jerked up and for a moment, he expected sparks. Instead, he saw defeat. “That will only make it harder when we leave,” she whispered.

  He knew in that second that he would never let her leave of his own volition. But he had work to do to convince her, and he wasn’t sure how she felt about him now. There was nothing of the fiery angel in the woman before him, nothing of the woman who led with her heart. She was still, too still.

  He couldn’t find the right starting place, so he just took a deep breath and leapt in. “Don’t leave, Suzanne. Please. You were right. I do no honor to Elaine’s memory by burying myself with her. She would hate that. I just…I felt so helpless. I felt so responsible, and I didn’t know how to make it right.”