by Lisa Childs
She’d been avoiding that last conversation for eight years. Until recently, Tommy had been fine with having no father. He’d only occasionally asked about his dad, but when Jessie had replied that he didn’t have one, he hadn’t pressed for more information. Then.
“Wait,” the sheriff said. “I have a question for you.”
She closed her eyes and drew in a breath before turning back to him. Heat rushed to her face as she wondered exactly what else Tommy had told him, besides the fact his mother wouldn’t notice him missing, and what Chance Drayton must think of her because of it. But she had stopped caring what people thought of her years ago, when she’d decided to become a single mother. “Yes?”
“Where do you want me to put his bike?” he asked. “I have it in the trunk of my car.”
She expelled that breath in a soft sigh. “I should probably have you keep it there—after what he did. I can’t believe he rode all the way to your office.” She shuddered. “Alone.”
Thank goodness he’d been wearing a sweatshirt or he might have gotten cold despite spring coming early to western Michigan this year. March was definitely going out like a lamb after having come in with a heck of a snowstorm a few weeks ago. But the recent warm temperatures had melted all the snow and revived the dead grass.
Without a word, the sheriff walked down the steps to the car parked at her curb. She followed him and remarked, “This is where, as sheriff, you’re supposed to reassure me that it was only a few blocks and Forest Glen is a safe town.”
He touched a button on his key chain and the trunk opened with a pop and metal clink. A shotgun and extra ammo were strapped under the lid. Tommy’s small black bike, with its wide tires and handle bar grips, lay atop a first aid kit, a hazmat suit, road flares and a roll of yellow crime scene tape. “As sheriff, I’d be a fool to assure you that any place is truly safe.”
A slight shiver raced across her skin along with the breeze that had begun to cool as night approached. Tommy should have been home over an hour ago. “I know. That’s why I only allow him to go as far as the Johnsons’ by himself. And I usually stand on the porch and watch to make sure he gets there. But the phone was ringing as he rode off. I thought he stopped at their gate…”
“He didn’t,” Sheriff Drayton said, his deep voice betraying a hint of the disapproval she already thought she’d glimpsed in his eyes.
She didn’t care if he disapproved of her; she didn’t care what he thought. Yet she replied, “I’ll talk to him about disobeying me.”
Muscles rippled in his broad back as he leaned over and lifted out the bike. Holding it in one hand, he slammed the trunk lid closed with the other. Jessie reached for the bike, but he stepped around her and carried it up the steps to the porch.
“Thank you,” she said.
He arched a dark brow as if questioning her gratitude. “I thought you weren’t sure you wanted his bike back.”
“I’m not sure about the bike,” she admitted, “but thanks again for bringing my son back.” With a smile, she added, “I’d hoped he would never get driven home in a police car, but I figured that if he ever did, he’d at least be older than eight.”
“He wasn’t riding in the back,” he replied with a reassuring smile.
And Jessie’s pulse quickened in reaction to the sparkle in his blue eyes and the curve of his lips.
“He was sitting there for a little while, though. He had to check out where the criminals ride, you know.” The sheriff’s smile widened even more.
“I’m sure he went over every inch of the car and asked you a million questions.”
“He’s an inquisitive kid.”
“I know,” Jessie said with a weary sigh. And now he didn’t accept her answer about his father. He wanted more information, information she wasn’t sure he was ready to learn or that she was ready to tell him.
“Did you know that he wants to find his dad so badly he’d file a missing person’s report on him?”
“I didn’t think he’d actually file a report,” she said. But ever since the Johnsons had moved to Forest Glen, Tommy had been envious of Christopher and Bruce’s loving father-son relationship. Over the past year, he’d begun to ask more questions about his own dad. “Of course, it’s not a real report. You wouldn’t take one from an eight-year-old.”
“Kids should feel they can report things to the police,” he said.
She nodded her agreement. “Abuse. Crimes. But nothing like that is going on here. Your protection isn’t necessary.”
“Probably not.”
“Probably?” Her temper sparked. “You better not be implying that I’m abusing my child!”
“Not physically,” he said. “He told me he’s never been to the doctor or hospital for anything more serious than an earache and his shots.”
“You interrogated my son?” Her anger ran hot now as she realized what he’d done.
His voice deepened with impatience and a trace of defensiveness. “It’s my job.”
“To grill an eight-year-old?”
“To find out why he asked for my help.”
“He doesn’t need your help,” she insisted. She would answer Tommy’s questions when he was older, like when he was about to leave for college. But she couldn’t tell him now because she didn’t want to risk losing him.
“I promised I’d give it to him,” he said.
“You promised what exactly?” she asked as dread, almost as intense as when she’d discovered Tommy missing, wound through her.
“I promised that I’d help him find his father.”
Chapter Two
“You shouldn’t have done that!” the redhead exclaimed, her creamy skin paling even more with shock and outrage. A handful of freckles, the only marks on her porcelain complexion, stood out in sharp relief on her small nose.
She wasn’t the only one his declaration had surprised. Chance had been shocked himself when he had first offered to help the boy. And he was shocked now to find himself so determined to keep that promise. Hopefully this would be a promise he could keep, unlike the one he’d made to a boy in Afghanistan.
“This isn’t any of your business,” she continued, her green eyes bright with anger.
“Your son made it my business when he asked for my help,” Chance pointed out. The little boy had done more than that; his vulnerability had reached the protective father in Chance.
“He doesn’t need your help,” she insisted.
“Then you’re going to tell him what he wants to know?” He suspected the mother was just as stubborn as the son.
She nodded. “When he’s old enough to understand.”
“I’m thirty-three and can’t understand why anyone would keep a father and son apart,” he said. Robyn wasn’t just punishing him, unless he had been gone so long that his son really didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
Jessie lifted her chin in the gesture her child emulated. “Tommy doesn’t have a father.”
“You’re young. You were only seventeen when you had your child. As a minor, you wouldn’t have been able to go to a sperm bank or been allowed to serve as a surrogate.”
“You didn’t learn all that from interrogating my son,” she said, eyes narrowing with suspicion and anger. “You checked me out.”
“I pulled up your driver’s license,” he admitted. “I had to verify Tommy had given me the correct address.” It wasn’t the only reason he’d checked her out. He’d wanted to make sure that little boy, so desperate for his help, didn’t also need his protection. But Chance hadn’t found so much as a parking ticket on Jessie Phillips; no one had ever filed a complaint against her, not a teacher or a neighbor.
“He did. He’s home safe and sound. You can leave now.” Her voice was as cold as the glare she directed at him. “And you shouldn’t have made him a promise you won’t be able to keep.”
He agreed. Silently. He personally knew the pain of broken promises and didn’t want Tommy Phillips to have to experience tha
t hurt. “What makes you so certain I can’t keep that promise?”
“Because you don’t know me.” Those green eyes flashed a warning and a challenge at him. If she had her way, he wouldn’t get to know her. And he wouldn’t find out anything about Tommy’s father.
His pulse kicked into a quicker pace. Since taking on the job of Forest Glen’s sheriff two months ago, he hadn’t even had a speeder challenge a ticket. He’d told himself that was what he wanted, peace and quiet and a safe environment after two tours of duty and years on the Chicago police force before that. But Tommy’s mother, with her red hair and eyes bright with anger, disrupted his peace in a way that had his muscles tensing and his breath coming faster and harder. “So you’re not going to tell me anything.”
She shook her head again, her lips pressed tightly together—the same way Tommy had responded to her questions. Like the red hair, her son had definitely inherited his stubbornness from her. But from whom had he inherited his pale blue eyes?
“Hey, Jessie,” a man called out, drawing Chance’s attention. A skinny guy with thinning brown hair stood on the sidewalk.
Chance had been so focused on her that he’d barely noticed the neighbor walking up. Two months as the sheriff of a sedate town must have dulled his reflexes.
“Everything all right?” the man asked with a friendly smile.
Jessie nodded. “Yes, Bruce. Thanks for checking.”
“Tommy’s not in any trouble, is he, Sheriff?” Bruce walked down the short sidewalk to climb the stairs to the porch.
“No,” Chance assured the nosy neighbor. Something else he had to get used to in a small town was how everyone was always in everyone else’s business. Of course Jessie Phillips probably figured he fit in just fine. What she told her son about his father really was her business, and he had no legal reason to butt into the situation. But the kid’s plea for help had gotten to him on a whole other level, had reached the father in him more than the lawman.
“The boy came into the office is all,” Chance explained to the man, who was obviously waiting for more information.
“He has wanted to meet you for a while,” the guy said. “So have I.” He held out a hand.
“Excuse me, please,” Jessie said as the men shook. She pulled open the bright red front door of her house and stepped inside. “I need to talk to Tommy.”
“Bruce Johnson.” The neighbor introduced himself to Chance, sparing a quick glance at the door closing behind Tommy’s mother. “You’re sure everything’s okay?”
Chance nodded. “Yeah…”
Except that he doubted Jessie would open the door to him unless he served her with a search warrant, and he had no grounds to request one. No judge would consider Chance’s promise to a young boy probable cause. He’d have to find another way to keep his promise, like persuading the mother to talk to her son. He’d glimpsed the fear in her eyes and suspected she was as scared as she was defensive. Why? What was Jessie Phillips’s story?
“Let me know if you need anything,” Bruce said. “I know what it’s like to be new to town. My wife and I moved here just last year.”
Chance smiled in appreciation of the offer. “Forest Glen seems like a nice place to live.”
“Great place,” Bruce assured him. “Especially if you have a family.”
Chance didn’t.
Not anymore.
JESSIE GLARED at the shadow the sheriff cast through her living room window onto the hardwood floor. His deep voice rumbled through the leaded glass as he and Bruce continued their conversation on her front porch. How dare he…how dare he bring back all her guilt and regrets and fears?
“You’re really mad, huh?” Tommy asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he hesitated in the arch-way between the tiny living room and tinier dining room.
Yes. At herself and the handsome sheriff. “I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re not?” he asked, his brows drawn together in skepticism.
“Well, you shouldn’t have gone into town alone on your bike,” she admonished him.
“It’s only a couple blocks farther than Christopher’s house,” he said.
She shook her head. “You can’t go anywhere without asking my permission first.”
“You would have told me no,” he pointed out—correctly. Tommy was much too smart for her peace of mind. “You wouldn’t have let me file a police report.”
“No, I wouldn’t have,” she agreed. “Your not having a dad is not a crime.”
“I have a dad,” he said. “I’m not stupid. I know where babies come from.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock and dread. “How do you know that?”
Just what the heck were they teaching in elementary school nowadays? Of course, knowing Tommy, he had looked it up online. If someone wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer one of his questions, he’d find the answer himself. Or ask someone else, such as Sheriff Chance Drayton, to help him. She swallowed a sigh.
“I know storks don’t bring babies. And they’re not found in cabbage patches, either. It takes a mom and a dad to have a baby. So I know I have a dad. You just won’t tell me who he is.”
She could have lied to him and claimed that he came from a sperm donor or a test tube. But when he figured out, as the sheriff already had, that she’d been too young when she’d had him for either of those options, Tommy would resent her even more for lying.
If she was going to answer with a lie, she could have gone with an easier one. She could have said his father was dead. When she’d first told him he didn’t have one, he’d initially assumed that was the reason and hadn’t asked about him again for several years. Until the Johnsons had moved in down the block. Then he’d wanted to know more about his father, and she hadn’t been able to let him believe a lie. So she’d clarified that when she’d said he didn’t have a dad, she’d meant such a man didn’t exist.
“We’ll talk about it when you’re older,” she promised him now. The panic that she’d felt when she’d realized he hadn’t gone to the Johnsons returned and pressed heavily on her chest. Her son had been lost to her then, for an excruciating half hour, until the sheriff had brought him home to her. If she told Tommy about his dad, she risked losing him again. Maybe permanently…
“You always say that,” he griped. “It’s not fair. I’m old now.”
The panic increased, shortening her breath. He was growing up too fast, much faster than she’d realized. Where had her sweet little boy gone? And how much longer could she put off the conversation about his father? He deserved to know the truth.
So she told him at least part of it. “You’re not old enough to understand that sometimes things happen between adults and they can’t be around each other anymore.” Especially when one of them wanted nothing to do with the other…
“I’m not stupid,” Tommy said, his voice rising to a shout. “Moms and dads get divorced, but they still get to see their kids.”
From the shadow darkening her window and the rumble of those male voices, Jessie was aware that the sheriff and Bruce were still on her porch. She lowered her voice and admitted, “I’ve never been married, honey.”
“Why not?”
She would have had to have been asked, and his father hadn’t been about to do that. She forced a smile. “I was too young.”
“You, too, huh,” he grumbled.
Her lips curved naturally, and she closed the distance between them. “Yes. And I was older than you are now. Just…trust me, okay?”
That was why she hadn’t lied to him; she wouldn’t deserve his trust if she had.
He studied her, his eyes narrowed. The pale blue color always struck a pang of recognition, loss and regret in her chest. Finally he nodded.
She exhaled a slight breath. “Now it’s getting late. I have to heat up our dinner, and after you eat, you need to get to bed. You have school in the morning.”
He must have been hungry and tired because he stopped arguing with her. A couple of hours lat
er, long after the sheriff had left her porch, she tucked Tommy into bed. He didn’t even squirm as she kissed him good-night and pulled the covers to his chin. Her heart warmed with love for her little boy. “I love you, Tommy.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” he murmured sleepily, his eyes already closed.
Hours later, Jessie had yet to close her own eyes. And it wasn’t because she was studying for the one class she was able to take each semester toward her nursing degree. Nor was she doing laundry. Or dusting. She lay in bed, in the dark, but guilt kept her from sleeping. And the anger that heated her blood whenever she thought of the sheriff’s promise to her son.
How dare he presume to do…what she should have done herself? She loved her son, so why did she keep denying him the thing he most wanted—his father? Resigned to not sleeping, she snapped on the Tiffany lamp beside the bed and pulled open one of the drawers of the mission-style table beneath it. After pushing aside some books and papers, she removed a small box wallpapered in faded rose-colored taffeta from an old prom dress.
With her fingers trembling, she lifted out a letter that, like her son, was eight years old. She hadn’t read it that often over the years, but she remembered what it said. And every time she began to doubt herself, she read it again.
Dear Jess,
I’m so glad you aren’t pregnant. Us having a baby would’ve been a huge mistake. We’re too young and have too much living left to do. I think my folks are right. We got too serious too soon. And with me away at school now, it’s not working out anymore. It’s too hard on both of us trying to keep a long-distance relationship going. We really need to end it. You might be mad now, but you’ll thank me later.
Keith
Would he thank her now—if he learned that she’d lied to him? Back then, reading that letter and realizing how he’d felt, she had been glad that she’d lied about the pregnancy. But with Tommy desperately wanting a dad, she worried now that she’d made the wrong decision all those years ago. Yet trying to fix it at this point could cost her everything.