by Alison Stone
“I’m guessing you never told any of them you were pregnant,” he said. “Otherwise they would’ve let me know.”
Josie twined her fingers together. “I didn’t want you to hear the news from a third party. I assumed I’d find a way to contact you, but before I knew it, I was all out of leads.” She raised her head and locked eyes with him. “I would never intentionally keep your son from you. I prayed so hard for an answer.”
He smiled weakly at her. It looked like she shared his Christian faith now. It was comforting. “After I left Virginia, I went down to Florida and lived there for four years, working for a motor mechanic business. I was just bumming around with no direction and no hope. I wanted to drop off the radar. But then I met an athlete who competes in the Invictus Games, and he turned my life around. I started training with him, and I learned to be proud of myself again. I got back in touch with my SEAL buddies through the military support unit, and I moved back to my hometown in North Carolina.” He felt himself welling up. “But this is all irrelevant now.” He looked at the doorway that he assumed led into the kitchen. “What I really want to do is meet my son.”
Josie stood up, wiping her moist palms on her skirt. “Archie says he saw you on the news and contacted you through the station. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Blade replied. “Do you remember my old buddy Tyler?”
She nodded.
“I helped him catch the leader of a meth gang in Missouri recently. He’s a sheriff there. It’s a long story, but a national news station came to interview me about it. When I got back to North Carolina, there was an email waiting for me from Archie. He’d recognized my name and gotten my email address from the news station.” He smiled. “He’s a smart kid.”
“Yes, he is,” Josie said. “But why didn’t you contact me when he sent you the email? Surely that would have been the best option. And then I could’ve been better prepared for this moment.”
“I tried,” Blade replied. “But your number isn’t listed, and Archie wouldn’t tell me what it was. He thought you might try to stop me from coming. He said you were in trouble and needed somebody to protect you. I just had to get here right away, so I hopped in my truck and drove through the night.” Every moment that passed was another moment without his son. “Please, Josie, can I meet Archie now? I’m dying here.”
“Of course,” she said, extending her hand toward him. “Can I help you out of the chair?”
He briefly hung his head and sighed. So his most important question had now been answered. Josie did see him as a weaker man. And he was bitterly disappointed.
“No, thanks,” he said, standing with ease. “I’m good.”
She walked briskly to the doorway and closed her fingers around the handle. “Are you ready?”
Blade’s heart began to hammer. Would he ever be ready for this moment? “Absolutely.”
With that, Josie opened the door. “Archie, your dad is here to see you.”
* * *
Josie’s emotions ran rampant as she watched Blade kneel to the floor and hug his son for the first time. She saw a tear fall down Blade’s stubbly face, and she fought hard to suppress tears of her own. The instant love that her ex-fiancé felt for his son was clear to see, and his embrace was fierce yet gentle. It made her think of a father bear cradling a cub. But at the same time, Blade’s presence here caused her chest to ache with regret and pain. Could she ever forgive this man for abandoning her when she needed him most?
Archie, meanwhile, took this profound moment in stride.
“Hi, Dad,” he said, as if it were an everyday occurrence to hug his father. “I knew you would come.”
Blade pulled back. “Thank you for finding me, Archie.”
Archie smiled broadly, his freckled face a picture of innocence. “Which one of your legs was chopped off?” He glanced between the right and left. “They both look the same.”
Blade laughed heartily, throwing back his head the way he always used to. His mop of curly hair was as unruly as ever, just like his son’s, and his rugged face had gotten even more handsome over the years. His strong and chiseled jawline was hidden by beard growth, but his Roman nose was still his most prominent feature, the high bridge settled between his piercing blue eyes.
“I’ll show you if you like,” Blade replied, pulling up the left leg of his jeans. He knocked on the pink plastic beneath, making a hard clunking sound.
“Wow!” Archie said with genuine admiration. “Just like a superhero.”
Blade winked. “I keep my cape in the truck.”
Josie saw her father hanging back nervously. She coughed. “Edward... I mean, Blade, you remember my dad, right?”
“Sure I do,” Blade replied, holding his hand out to shake Tim’s. “It’s good to see you again, Tim.” He glanced around. “So where’s Martha?”
Tim looked at his feet.
“Mom died five years ago,” Josie said, saving her father the difficulty of answering. “Cancer.”
A look of pain swept over Blade’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“You have a lot of catching up to do,” Josie said. “An awful lot.”
“So,” Blade said, pulling a chair from the table and sitting on it. “Let’s start from the beginning.” He put two strong hands in his son’s armpits and pulled the child onto his lap. “I’m all ears.”
But as Josie reached for the coffeepot, a series of shots rang out, seeming to come from her front lawn. She screamed and rushed to take Archie from Blade’s lap.
“It’s the bad man,” Archie said, curling his arms around his mother’s neck as she lifted him up.
Blade’s demeanor changed to one of total control, rushing down the hallway to the front door. “I have a gun in my truck,” he said. “Stay here and keep out of sight. I’ll be back soon.”
“Blade, no,” Josie said, watching him peer through the glass panel in the door as the shots ceased. “It’s too dangerous for you. Let the police take care of it.”
But he didn’t answer. He silently slipped through the door and closed it behind him, leaving Josie and her father staring at each other in silence, neither believing that somebody was firing a gun outside their home.
“Dad can save us now,” Archie said. “He’ll get his cape from his truck.”
“He’s not really a superhero, honey,” Josie said. “He’s just a man.”
She sat on a chair, waiting for the danger to pass, wondering how she could keep her family safe from this escalating level of threat. She must try to shield Archie. But how? The only thing she could do was close her eyes and pray.
* * *
“There’s a shooter across the street,” the officer called to Blade from his protected position behind his cruiser. “He’s reloading. I’ve radioed for backup. Go inside, sir.”
Then the officer began firing at a black sedan parked just a few feet away, giving Blade the perfect cover to run to his truck at the curb.
“My son is in this home,” Blade called back, opening the door to his truck and reaching into the glove compartment for his weapon. “There’s no way I’m staying inside.”
He lifted his head over the hood of the truck to see the barrel of a gun poking through the window of the black car. The officer’s firing was opening up a series of holes along the metal, but Blade couldn’t see a person inside. The attacker must have been well shielded from the bullets because he seemed unharmed as his gun burst into action again, aimed squarely at Josie’s home. Windows shattered, tree bark spit onto the lawn and holes appeared in the yellow front door.
Blade thought of Josie inside, cradling Archie in her arms, and he began to see red. This was the family he never knew he had, and something primal stirred deep within him. He knew he had to protect them at all costs. He had no idea how he would fit into their lives, but he had arrived just in the nick of tim
e. While he suspected that Josie might have doubts about his ability to take care of them, he had none.
Rising from behind the truck, he took aim and fired back. Opposite Josie’s home were open fields, and his shots echoed across the grasslands, the noise of each bullet magnified tenfold. Blade managed to hit the car’s side mirror, taking it clean off. It obviously spooked the shooter enough to send him scrambling up from his hiding position in the car and into the driver’s seat. He raced away from the house, tires squealing on the frosty asphalt on the cold January morning. Blade gave chase, hoping to stop the car in its tracks, but he saw it round a corner and disappear out of sight before he could get an accurate shot.
He ran back to his truck to pursue, only to be confronted with a deflated front tire peppered with bullet holes. He sighed and holstered his weapon, rubbing his forehead in frustration.
The police officer spoke rapidly into his radio, relaying the information to patrol units, giving a description of the vehicle.
Blade walked back up the path to Josie’s home. When he opened the door, he saw her standing in the hallway, gripping their son tightly, her father to her side with an arm around her shoulder.
“Did he get away?” she asked.
Blade nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Josie’s face crumpled, but she composed herself quickly, taking a deep breath and holding on to her father for reassurance.
She looked Blade up and down. “Are you okay? You shouldn’t have rushed out like that. You lost one leg already. Don’t risk injuring the other.” Her voice was kind, but her words cut him to the quick. “I was worried about you.”
He suppressed his irritation, reading between the lines: You’re not strong enough to handle this.
“I’m absolutely fine,” he replied. “But this situation is a lot worse than I imagined. I think I should stay here for a while to help protect you.”
Archie lifted his head from his mother’s shoulder and smiled. “See, Mom, I told you he was a superhero.”
“I already told you, Archie,” Josie said gently. “He’s only a man.”
Blade knew it would be a challenge to insert himself into their lives under these circumstances. Josie would need time to accept his presence, and the existence of danger would make it doubly hard.
But Josie was wrong. He wasn’t only a man. He was a father, and a fiercely protective streak had torn itself through his body. He sensed her difficulty in forgiving him for vanishing from her life all those years ago, but whatever differences they might have, they would need to work together to ensure that their son’s safety came first. It would require all of his patience to work closely with Josie. Her throwaway comments had already confirmed his worst fears: she didn’t see him as an equal to an able-bodied man. He had briefly wondered whether their reunion would reignite a spark, but he was wrong. He could never get close to a woman who treated him with pity or who tried to shield him from danger because of his disability. No way.
He was a complete man. And he intended to prove it. This time, he would go the distance.
Copyright © 2017 by Elisabeth Rees
ISBN-13: 9781488018992
Plain Sanctuary
Copyright © 2017 by Alison Stone
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