Forever Grace

by Linda Poitevin

  His face took on a determined look, and he met Grace’s gaze. “We’re fine because you’re here with us, Aunt Grace, and whatever happens, you’re doing your best.”

  “Oh, Josh.” Grace ruffled his hair. “You’re an awesome kid, you know that?”

  He ducked his head and shrugged awkwardly around his armload. “Do you want me to read Annabelle a bedtime story?”

  “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

  He headed out the door, then turned. “Aunt Grace?”

  “What, sweetheart?”

  “Is it okay if I learn jujitsu, too?”

  “It’s more than okay, Josh. I think it’s a great idea.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ………………

  GRACE UNLOADED THE SHOPPING CART onto the conveyor belt, separating Sean’s groceries from her own with a bright red stick emblazoned with Thank you for shopping with us! Sage and Lilliane assisted, carefully lining up boxes of pasta and bags of produce. It was nice, being out with just the two of them, but weird, too. She felt lost without Josh and Annabelle. She hadn’t been away from any of the kids in more than a month. Never been more than arms’ reach away or not known exactly where they were and what they were doing.

  Well, except for their cookie escapade.

  Grace’s mouth tipped upward. She had to admit she was rather glad the kids had taken matters into their own hands, keeping Sean in their lives. She wouldn’t have done so herself. She still meant what she’d told Luc about not spilling her guts to the man, but Luc had been right about having another grownup around.

  And a grownup willing to take a two-year-old off her hands for the afternoon? Pure gold.

  The girls set the last of the groceries on the belt, and Grace turned her attention to her lists—one for her family, one for Sean. She scanned them one last time to be sure she had everything. The conveyor lurched forward as the cashier began processing the order. Sage and Lilly moved ahead to watch her scan the items. Grace followed.

  “It’s two separate orders,” she told the cashier, “but if things get mixed up in the bags, it’s not a big problem.”

  “Sure thing, hon.” The middle-aged woman didn’t slow down, whisking items through at a steady pace.

  Cheerful and efficient, the woman—Dana, according to her name tag—was by far one of the best cashiers Grace had ever run across. She’d found herself in the woman’s lineup once before and was only too happy to have her again today. No unnecessary chatter, no fumbling to find codes, just a quick, friendly delivery of service and—

  “You’re short a couple today.”

  “Pardon?”

  Dana nodded at Sage and Lilliane. “You only have two along. You’re short a couple.”

  Cold pooled in Grace’s belly. “Excuse me?”

  “Last time I saw you, you had four in tow.” Dana chuckled, running three more items over the scanner in quick succession. “Lord, I love that little one. Such a cutie, with all those blond curls. And so good-natured. Did she and your young man stay home with dad today?”

  As if sensing the panic swelling in Grace’s chest, Lilliane’s hand slipped into hers, and Sage’s arms stole around her waist. Grace fought down the urge to scoop up both girls and bolt from the store.

  “Don’t do anything to attract attention,” Paul Kingsley’s voice rang in her ears. “You don’t want anyone to notice you or remember you.”

  Anyone such as a too-observant cashier in a store they’d only visited twice before. She forced herself to smile at Dana. To squeeze Lilly’s fingers in reassurance. To gently rub Sage’s shoulder.

  “She is a sweetheart, isn’t she?” she replied to the cashier’s question. “And yes, they stayed home today.”

  Dana reached the stick dividing Sean’s groceries from her own.

  “You know what?” Grace said, blood thundering in her ears. “I’m in a bit of a rush, so let’s just put both orders together.”

  “Are you sure? It’s no trouble for me, and it will only take a few extra minutes.”

  With what she considered astonishing restraint, Grace managed not to scream at Dana. Or to reach across the counter to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. She smiled again.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “But thanks.”

  Back at the minivan a few minutes later, Grace did up Sage’s seatbelt with trembling fingers.

  “Aunt Grace, is the lady going to tell Daddy where to find us now?”

  Grace swallowed against the bile rising into her throat at the worry in her niece’s voice. At knowing what lay behind that worry. Composing her features, she pulled back to look down at the five-year-old with a confidence she didn’t feel. “No, sweetie. The lady doesn’t even know your daddy.”

  That much was almost certainly true. The chances of a direct connection between a cashier in Perth and a cop on the run in Ottawa were infinitesimal at best. It was the possibility of indirect connections that made Grace’s blood run cold. For all that Perth might be nearly an hour from Ottawa, and Ottawa might be a sizeable metropolis, the entire valley was surprisingly well connected.

  Frighteningly so.

  People knew each other. They were related to one another. They would talk. And the friend of a friend of someone’s third cousin twice removed would mention something in a coffee shop, and another friend would overhear, and then Barry would know, and—

  Grace expelled a shaky breath. Stop it, she scolded herself. Barry will be found long before word of a woman with four children in Perth ever reaches his ears. You’re being ridiculous.

  But even so…

  She tapped Sage’s nose with the tip of her finger and looked over at Lilliane in the other seat. “What say we skip the ice cream cones today, and we make hot cocoa at home instead? Just in case Mr. McKittrick needs rescuing from Annabelle.”

  Both girls nodded agreement. Then Lilliane giggled.

  “At least there’s no more tape to make casts for her animals.”

  Grace laughed. “True, that. And a good thing, too.”

  Still grinning, she withdrew from the minivan and slid the side door closed. Then she climbed into the driver’s seat, started the vehicle, and put it in gear.

  Ridiculous, her voice reminded her.

  But she cast a last glance around the parking lot anyway.

  Just in case.

  ………………

  Sean studied the Spiderman figure on his cast.

  “Your sister is right,” he told Josh as the boy put the finishing touches to it. “You’re very good.”

  Josh mumbled a thank you, the tips of his ears turning as red as Spiderman’s mask. Hiding a smile, Sean glanced at his watch. Grace and the girls should be back any minute from their grocery expedition into Perth, and Annabelle would likely be up soon, too. Grace had told him the toddler would sleep for two hours max, but they’d passed that time allotment a good half hour before. He’d considered waking her, but Josh assured him Grace would want her to sleep. It was weird, having a ten-year-old giving him instructions on how to handle a toddler, but Josh was far more competent than his age suggested. All the kids were.

  In the three days Sean had been coming over to deliver the promised cooking lessons to Grace, he’d had ample opportunity to observe them in their daily activities. He’d seen the level of self-reliance each of them possessed, watched the way they came together to function as a unit. Grace hadn’t been kidding when she said they pretty much managed their own lessons. Lilliane appeared to be as proficient a reading teacher for Sage as she was a reader, and Josh had infinite patience when it came to their math lessons. And significant aptitude in that subject, too, from what Sean could see.

  “Advanced algebra?” he’d asked Grace, holding up a text from the table on the first day. “Isn’t that high school stuff?”

  “Grade eleven,” Grace had agreed, looking up from the eggs she whisked for a frittata. “Now you know why I let him teach the math around here. Science, too.”
>
  “He must have a hard time of it in school.”

  “Surprisingly not. Yet, anyway.” Her gaze had flashed to the living room, where the three kids were immersed in watching episodes of Horrible Histories on a laptop set up on the coffee table.

  Mouth tightening, Sean had filed away the information with the other tidbits he’d gleaned. A level of maturity in the three older kids that went well beyond their years; their pronounced care not to step out of line; Josh’s hyper-developed sense of responsibility for his siblings; his knee-jerk over-apologizing if he thought he’d done something wrong.

  Someone had seriously damaged these kids, and if it was who he thought…

  Josh returned a black marker to its zippered pouch. Looking satisfied, he sat back in the chair he’d pulled up beside the casted leg Sean had propped up on the coffee table.

  “I’m done.”

  “Thank you. Annabelle will be thrilled when she sees it. Do you do a lot of artwork?”

  “Cartoon stuff, mostly.” Josh shrugged one shoulder. “Superheroes.”

  Sean leaned back against the couch cushions and locked his fingers behind his head.

  “So if you could have a superpower, what would it be?”

  “Strength,” Josh said without hesitation. “So I could protect people.”

  Such as his mother? His sisters?

  Sean kept a carefully neutral expression. “Good one. Good reason, too.”

  Josh eyed him. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you like beating up on people?”

  Sean’s eyebrows twitched together in surprise. So much for neutral. “Not particularly, no.”

  “But you have beat up on them.”

  “Because I’m a cop, you mean?”

  Josh nodded.

  Holy hell, this kid had a twisted perspective.

  “I became a cop to help people, Josh, not to beat up on them. Sometimes force is necessary if I’m trying to stop something bad from happening, but cops don’t like when that happens. We try to avoid violence whenever we can.”

  Josh stared at the hands he’d clenched in his lap. His voice dropped to a whisper that Sean had to strain to catch. “Some cops like it.”

  Before Sean could respond—hell, before he could recover enough to think of a response—the crunch of tires on gravel came from the driveway. Josh bolted from the chair like a startled fawn, all legs and eyes. He stood in the middle of the living room, fists clenched, every line of his body rigid not just with tension, but with terror.

  Sean reached for his crutches, biting back the multitude of questions he still had. And the many more that had just been raised.

  “Sounds like your aunt is back,” he said easily. “Why don’t you give her a hand with the groceries?”

  “But what if it’s not—” Josh broke off. He sidled closer to the uncovered window overlooking the driveway and peered out at its edge. His fists uncurled. “Never mind. You’re right. It is her.”

  He turned and headed through the kitchen to open the side door. From outside came the high-pitched voices of Sage and Lilliane, the lower pitch of their aunt. A vehicle door slammed. Sean stayed where he was, listening, thinking, weighing his choices. The decision he was going to have to make.

  Josh’s reaction just now had been the last piece of the puzzle Sean knew now he’d been trying to avoid putting together. A completed picture he couldn’t ignore—and one he didn’t need his cell phone to confirm. Grace had taken her sister’s kids from their father. They were hiding from him. And no matter how well intentioned her motives might have been after her sister’s accident, her actions put her in the wrong. They made her a fugitive.

  And they made Lucien Tremaine—who as a lawyer should have known better—an accomplice.

  And they put Sean in the most difficult position he’d ever occupied in his life.

  Hell.

  CHAPTER 25

  ………………

  “Grace, can I ask you a question?”

  Grace looked up from stirring the thick, fragrant soup on the stove.

  “Um…I suppose,” she said. She took the bowl of chopped kale Sean handed to her.

  “Stir that in, then turn the heat off and just let it sit until you’re ready to eat,” he said. “The kale cooks fast.”

  She did as instructed, then slanted him a glance. “You had a question?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I’m cooking…wait.” Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Did you take too many painkillers again?”

  A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Sean’s mouth. He pulled it straight. “I didn’t mean why are you here in the kitchen. I meant why are you here at this cottage? In the middle of nowhere with four kids, three of whom should be in school?”

  Grace swallowed the flutter in her throat. “I told you—”

  Sean shook his head, cutting her off. “No more half-truths. When you and the girls pulled into the driveway, Josh damn near died on the spot until he realized it was you. Who else was he expecting?”

  The ever-present knot in Grace’s chest grew three sizes, squeezing out her voice. Shit. She dropped her gaze to the pot of soup again.

  “Tell me, Grace.” Sean prodded, his voice gentle but insistent.

  The flutter of panic spread, coating her palms in sweat. She set the wooden spoon on the counter and wiped her hands against her denim-clad legs. He wasn’t going to give up until she told him, was he? But if she did, if she started talking, started telling him about Julianne and Barry, about the door hanging off its hinges when she returned home with the kids, about the battered form she’d found on her kitchen floor…

  If the rigid control she maintained began to unravel…

  Her gaze went to the sliding glass doors off the dining area, to the kids seated around the picnic table on the deck beyond. Three of them there, another sleeping peacefully in her cot; all depending on her to keep it together, to look after them, to be their anchor in a world that had turned upside down and inside out for them. She drew a shaky breath.

  She couldn’t. Didn’t dare. Because if she couldn’t put herself back together again—

  “I can help you, but only if you tell me everything. Has a warrant been issued for you?”

  Her startled gaze shot back to his. “A what? Of course not! Why would there be—” She stopped short as understanding dawned. “You think I took them. The kids. You think I kidnapped them?”

  Sean’s lips drew even tighter. “I think you meant well,” he said. “I’ve seen how Josh and the girls are, and I know you’re trying to protect them. To do the right thing. But Grace, there are laws. Channels. You can’t just up and circumvent those—and I can’t ignore the fact that you have.”

  Grace’s mouth flapped wordlessly. That was the problem?

  “Look,” Sean said. “Let me help you. I’ll walk you through turning yourself in, make sure the kids get the help they need from Children’s Aid so they’re safe until their mother recovers. I’ll even testify on your behalf, but—”

  “Stop,” she whispered. She scraped her fingers through her hair, squeezing them against her head so her brain wouldn’t explode. “Just stop. It’s not what you think.”

  “I think it is. At first I wanted to believe it was just the trauma of their mother’s accident, but over the last few days—“He broke off and rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn it, I know what the symptoms of bullying look like, Grace, and those kids have all the signs.”

  The bile of panic rose in Grace’s chest, pooled in her throat. She was going to have to explain. To tell him everything. Talk about finding Julianne, about hiding from Barry, about everything. The edges of her heart frayed and began to unravel. Her toes curled against the floor.

  “You were concerned for them,” Sean persisted. “I get that, but you still can’t just up and take them away from their father like that. Not without the authority to do so.”

  Breathe, she told herself
. You can do this. You’ll be okay, because you have to be.

  “Aunt Grace? Is everything all right?”

  Josh stood on the other side of the counter, his face pale, eyes wide behind his glasses, and hands bunched into fists. How much did he hear? Grace fought back the roll of her stomach. She made herself smile a reassurance. But it took three tries to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth and find enough voice to lie to him.

  “Everything is fine, Josh. Mr. McKittrick and I are just talking.”

  “You look upset.”

  “I think I’m a little stressed by this whole cooking thing. It’s harder than it looks, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. How are you and the girls doing? Are you ready for a snack?”

  Josh hesitated, his gaze flicking from her to Sean and back again, clearly undecided as to whether he should accept her explanation, but at last he nodded. A grim-faced Sean moved out of the way, his impatience palpable. He leaned against the counter as Grace took a plate of cut-up vegetables and a container of hummus from the fridge. She set them on a tray along with a handful of napkins, feeling the burn of Sean’s gaze between her shoulder blades the entire time. Silence sat thick over the kitchen.

  She knew she should speak, if only to reassure Josh that all was well, but she couldn’t find the words, never mind the voice. The best she could manage was a smile as she slid the tray across the counter. With a last, lingering glance between her and Sean, Josh carried the tray to the sliding door and tapped with his foot to summoned Lilliane to open it. When the door closed again, Grace took a deep breath, steeling herself to face Sean, to meet the sympathy warring with accusation in the green gaze.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said. “I have papers. Custody papers. I’m their legal guardian.”

  Sean’s jaw dropped. “You—what?”

  “You’re right about the abuse. It wasn’t physical,” she added hastily as Sean’s hands curled into fists, “at least it hadn’t been that I know of. Not at first. And not with the kids.”