ONCE MORE A FAMILY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  She walked to the window to draw the drapes, conscious that he was watching her. She'd never allowed herself to imagine him in the home she'd made without him. But now that he was here, the rooms seemed smaller, somehow and annoyingly … dull.

  "Would you like some coffee before you leave?" she asked, turning.

  "I'm not leaving." he said quietly, but with enough steel to tug on her temper. She took a breath, decided she was just too emotionally drained to argue and shrugged.

  "Suit yourself. You have a choice of the floor or the divan."

  Eyes narrowed suspiciously, he glanced behind him at the narrow, high-backed sofa she'd bought at an estate sale and reupholstered herself. It was more Jimmy's size than his.

  "How about we cut for it?" he drawled, indicating the deck of cards Flynn had left on the coffee table.

  She let her lips curve. "Not a chance."

  "I was afraid of that," he muttered, running his hands down his stubbled cheeks. He smiled at her then, just enough to let her know he wasn't taking it personally. His eyes had the drowsy, half-asleep look of a tired little boy, but the obstinate line of his jaw was all man. She felt her protective armor rattle a little.

  "I'll get you a blanket and a pillow."

  The linen closet was in the hall. On her way there, she stopped to peek into the guest room. Jimmy was sleeping on his stomach, one impossibly long arm dangling over the side of the daybed. His face was turned toward the door, and he was frowning. His cheeks were tracked with tears.

  Her own eyes were suddenly brimming, and she pressed a fist against her lips to keep from crying out. She closed the door, then turned away, only to come up against Grady's hard chest.

  "I was so sure he'd remember me," she said, staring at the crescent scar curling like a dimple in his chin. "It wasn't—all the times I imagined—" Her voice broke. "Oh, Grady, when I tried to kiss him good-night, he looked at me as though he … he hated me."

  "He's worn out, honey. And it's a good bet his tummy is still pretty riled up. I've been there a time or two myself. It's a pretty miserable feeling, but a good night's sleep works wonders. It'll be better tomorrow." He pulled her into his arms and rested his cheek on top of her head.

  "I know it's silly and selfish, but I want my baby back," she said in a voice that vibrated with pain. "I want to hold him in my arms and breathe in the smell of his skin. I want to rock him to sleep at night and listen to those funny little snuffling noises he makes when he's dreaming." She took a breath, then closed her eyes and dropped her head to his shoulder. "Half his life, just … gone." She drew a harsh breath. "Those bastards. I hope they rot in hell."

  "Shh, baby, it's okay." His voice was gruff, as though his vocal cords had suddenly turned to sandpaper. His body was warm and solid. The familiar scent of her shampoo contrasted sharply with the lingering smell of cigar smoke still clinging to the cotton shirt. There was another more elemental scent in the mix. A seductive, primitive hint of a sexually active male. She should have felt uncomfortable. Instead, she felt safe for the first time in months.

  Years.

  "I sound s-so ungrateful, and I'm not." She lifted her head and looked up at him through the shimmer of tears. "It's just that my emotions keep shifting on me. One minute I'm so happy I can't breathe properly and the next I'm terrified I've lost him forever."

  "You haven't lost him, sweetheart. On some level he still knows you. It's nature's way." His big hand sifted through her hair, letting the strands slip through his fingers slowly.

  "It hurts."

  "It's only been a few hours. Give yourself—and Jimmy—some time to sort things through."

  She managed a nod, even a small smile. "I know you think I spoiled him, but I couldn't help it." Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard.

  "You were loving and sweet, and you wanted the best for him. That's not spoiling him." Not too much, anyway. And if she pampered him a little too much, who could blame her?

  Illegitimate and sickly, she'd spent the first eleven years of her life with a seriously unstable mother who'd fed her on junk food and soda pop. By the time Ria had been rescued by the child welfare services and shuffled into the foster care system, the early years of neglect had done permanent damage. Having Jimmy had nearly killed her. There couldn't be any more babies. Ever.

  Sensing her pain, he turned to rub his cheek against her shoulder. He was afraid to move.

  "Were … were they good to him? Those people? The Wilsons?" She pulled free to look at him. In all his years on the force, all the agony he'd seen, the despair and anguish of the victims, he'd never quite been able to seal off his emotions. A woman's tears were the worst.

  Ria's tears flat-out ripped him apart.

  "Honey, you're exhausted," he murmured, his voice embarrassingly thick. He had to clear it twice before it felt safe to continue. "Let's save the Q and A until tomorrow, okay?"

  Alarm lanced into her eyes, and he cursed his tired brain and rough tongue.

  "No, I need to know. You have to tell me."

  Grady rubbed her back, grateful that the years he'd spent undercover had taught him how to hide his feelings. "It's been a long road, Ree," he said quietly. "A lot of sleepless nights. Let's not add one more, okay?"

  "But—"

  "Shh, you'll wake Jimmy."

  She shot a fast glance toward the door, then nodded. "I'll get your bedding."

  He had to let her go then. But damn, at least he'd had a few moments of sunshine. It wasn't nearly enough.

  * * *

  The sheets smelled funny in this place, and the room was all strange, like, with scary shadows. Only Stevie wasn't really scared. Only girls and sissies got scared.

  Lance got real mad if he acted scared, and he hated it a lot when Lance got mad. His face got all red and his voice got real loud. Sometimes Moira's voice got loud, too. Real screechy, and it hurt his ears.

  Then she called him a "spoiled brat" and threatened to send him back to his real parents so they could beat him again. "They" didn't want him, she told him. "They" said he was ugly and dumb and paid someone to take him to the river and drown him. 'Cept Lance saved him and brought him home so he could be their little boy. Only he mustn't ever tell anyone, else about that because then "they" would come and take him back. And beat him and beat him until he was dead. She and Lance said that lots of times, so he knew it was true.

  Stevie didn't really remember much about when he was a baby. Sometimes he'd get blurry pictures in his head, but that scared him a lot so he real quick thought about something else. Now he mostly didn't get those pictures.

  Moira and Lance never did mean things like hit him or make him do stuff he hated, like go to school or eat liver, and sometimes Moira even hugged him, mostly when she was coked up and all-happy.

  Stevie didn't know much about golden eggs. He mostly didn't like eggs at all which is why Moira let him have pretty much anything he wanted for breakfast. Not that she noticed, anyway, 'cause she always slept in, sometimes past lunchtime unless she and Lance were making another trip to Mexico.

  He liked Mexico a lot. Lance was always happy in Mexico, giving Stevie sips of his margarita and making jokes about ladies' boobies that Stevie pretended to understand 'cause that made Lance laugh.

  Him and Lance were best buds, Lance said, which is why Stevie wasn't supposed to call him "Dad." It made Stevie a little sad sometimes, 'cause it didn't really seem like Lance wanted to be his father very much. He remembered once when he used to get nightmares, and he woke up yelling for his daddy. Lance got all bent out of shape and called him a crybaby and threatened to make him wear diapers.

  It was okay, though, because Lance told him lots of things he didn't tell Moira, like how Moira was a bitch in heat, only Stevie wasn't exactly sure what that meant. He knew it made Lance mad. Stevie was supposed to tell Lance if strange guys came to the house when Lance was gone.

  Sometimes they did. Moira told him she and Lance would get divorced if he told, and Stevie didn't wa
nt that, did he? Stevie didn't, which is why he promised not to tell, only it made him a little sick inside to keep secrets, like it was wrong or something. He hated it when guys kept showing up, sometimes when Lance was playing golf and could be home any minute. Moira just laughed when he said, "What about Lance?" and gave him money to go to the arcade at the beach. Stevie didn't much like the arcade. Real scary dudes hung out there, and sometimes bikers, so he mostly hung out at the lifeguard station.

  Sometimes, when Lance was out of town with those guys who talked funny, Moira stayed out real late. His best friend, Marcus, thought it was real neat Stevie got to stay home all by himself, 'cause he could watch all the videos he wanted and eat ice cream and junk like that.

  Only Stevie wasn't so sure it was neat at all. The house made funny noises when he was alone, and he kept thinking about what would happen if the house caught fire like the apartment house down the block.

  Marcus's mom and dad were real strict, making him clean his room and do his homework and be in before dark. It was a real bummer, Marcus said. Nothing like how cool it was at Stevie's house. Stevie's toys were way bad, especially his computer games.

  Marcus thought it was real rad that Stevie got to be home-schooled. Your folks are really neat, Marcus said. Only they weren't really his folks, and if anyone ever found out, they'd take him away.

  Whenever he thought about that, his heart felt like it was going to pound right through his chest and he couldn't breathe. He would never tell.

  Never, never, never.

  The stupid lady who asked him piles of questions in a little room in the jail kept asking him hard stuff, like where he was born and did he have grandparents. He knew he messed up on his answers, but he'd been so scared he'd gotten all the things Moira had told him to say scrambled up in his head.

  The lady got a funny look on her face, and then she took him to his house where another lady fussed over him. Stuff got all messed up after that. All kinds of people came to the house, asking where he went to school and what was the name of his doctor and did he ever go to church.

  No one was going to make him say nothing he didn't want to. Stevie Wilson wasn't no dumb dweeb. He knew how to hang tough. No one was gonna make him do nothing he didn't want to. Following the rules was for suckers, Lance said. Guys like you and me, kid, we're cool, he said.

  A strange, scary feeling started in the back of his head, and his heart started pounding real bad. What if he never saw Moira and Lance again? What if the big blond guy really was his father?

  Trudy, the lady at the house where they stuck him, said this guy Grady was a cop. Stevie had seen his gun at the airport when they'd gone to a special room to get permission to get on the plane.

  Stevie had seen guys like him in the movies. Like Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" which was his favorite cop show or maybe Mel Gibson in those movies, only Mel was a lot shorter and maybe not even as tough. The look around the eyes was the same, though. Like he could look right through you and know stuff you were trying to hide.

  Stevie was pretty sure he didn't like Grady much. He had big hands, Stevie knew. He'd felt the calluses when the guy was washing his back. Had he really meant to kill him when he shoved him under the water?

  His stomach pinched hard, and he scrambled to his knees. Holding tight to the pillow, he scooted backward until he was smashed against the curvy railings.

  He didn't want to get beaten.

  He didn't want to die.

  He wanted to go home.

  He wanted to be in his own bed with his own stuff. He didn't want to be in a strange place with people he didn't know. No matter what they said, he knew better than to trust them.

  He wasn't exactly sure why, but he knew that guy, Grady, had something to do with Moira and Lance being in jail. Stevie had seen how everyone looked at him, like he was some important dude.

  He said dumb stuff, too. Like how he loved Stevie and all.

  Only Stevie knew better. He'd seen a lot of cop shows on the tube. Grady just wanted Stevie to say bad stuff about Moira and Lance so he could keep them in jail.

  And that stuff about being his son, well, that made Stevie really nervous. But … maybe Grady and the pretty lady with green eyes and a soft voice only thought he was their son. Maybe, if he threw them an attitude, they wouldn't want him and they'd take him back to California.

  He knew all about attitude. Talking back and using bad words. Moira had threatened to throw him off Sunset Cliffs if he didn't stop mouthing off.

  Yeah, that was it. Attitude. Nobody wanted a smart-ass.

  Stevie closed his eyes and hugged the pillow tighter. The tears that had shamed him earlier started all over again, and he clamped his mouth shut real hard to keep from making those dumb slobbery noises.

  He saw the light slice across the floor a split second before he saw Grady standing in the doorway. He was stripped down to his jeans, and his bare chest seemed almost as wide as the door. Stevie froze, his stomach making like a roller coaster.

  Lance worked out a lot, and he had big muscles. But Grady's were bigger, and he walked like the tigers Stevie loved to watch in the San Diego Zoo. Kinda proud, like. And sort of dangerous.

  "Thought you might want a glass of water or maybe some milk before turning in," Grady said as he came forward. "Me, I'd rather coffee but you have a few years to go for that."

  "I have coffee all the time in California," Stevie blurted out. It wasn't quite a lie. Moira sometimes let him finish hers.

  "Yeah?" Grady sat down on the bed, making the mattress sag a lot.

  "All the time," Stevie repeated, hugging the pillow a little tighter.

  "Guess that makes you tougher than me, because I threw up the first time I filched some of my dad's java."

  "I never—" Stevie stopped just in time to keep from making a dumb fool of himself. Even so, he felt his face getting hot as fire. "It was your fault I got sick. You made me come here!"

  He held his breath, waiting for Grady to raise that big hand. Instead, Grady just tugged a little on the sheet, straightening it.

  "You ever been fishing, son?"

  Stevie blinked. What kind of a scam was the guy pulling, anyway?

  "My dad—your grandpa—gave me my first pole when I was about your age. I hated just sitting there, staring at the water, doing nothing, which is just about the hardest thing in the world for me. Thought I should be able to just toss in my line and come up with a big fat catfish. But it didn't work that way… Took me one solid year of trying before I caught anything bigger than a minnow." Grady laughed then, crinkling up his eyes. Stevie felt a little dizzy, like the world had just tilted.

  "I threatened to quit a dozen times. Broke my pole clean in two once, and then had to do chores for a month so I could buy another one."

  Stevie waited, but Grady just looked at him, his mouth curved a little. "So did you ever catch anything?" he asked when he couldn't stand it any longer.

  "Yep. A whole stringer of big suckers." His grin flashed, stirring up Stevie's head again. "Your dad holds the Hardin family record for the biggest catfish pulled out of Lake Freeman."

  "I've never seen a catfish," Stevie admitted, intrigued in spite of himself. "Does it really look like a cat?"

  "Yep. The face part, anyway. Has this big old whiskers. I'll show you one of these days."

  Stevie felt a rush of panic and pulled back. "I hate fishing. Fishing's for losers."

  Grady did raise his hand then, but only to put it on Stevie's knee. "One more thing I learned from my dad besides how to bait a hook," he said in a voice that was real soft and maybe a little rough. "It's called patience, son. Lots and lots of patience."

  He squeezed Stevie's knee, then stood. Before Stevie could move, Grady reached down and roughed up his hair a little. The dizzy feeling flared again, and Stevie blinked.

  "Good night, son," Grady said, his voice even rougher. "I love you, and I'm glad you're home. One of these days I think you will be, too."

  Stevie
sat for a long time staring at the crack in the door. And then finally, he closed his eyes. The last thing he remembered was the feeling of Grady's big hand on his knee. Strange as it seemed, it made him feel … safe.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  It wasn't quite six, but it was already light. Afraid that she'd only dreamed the miracle of Jimmy's return, Ria had leaped out of bed as soon as she'd opened her eyes.

  Jimmy was still asleep, sprawled on his tummy at a rebellious angle. He had kicked off the covers, and his pajamas were twisted around his skinny body as though he'd spent the night wrestling with the covers. Though her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep and the tears she'd shed, she suspected they were shining like bright stars. And inside, she felt little bubbles of happiness bursting in her chest. She loved him so much it was sometimes a physical ache in the vicinity of her heart. Her precious miracle.

  She smiled as she caught sight of his bare feet. They seemed huge, compared to the rest of his body. Like a puppy's outsize paws. According to Sarah, Grady had been wearing size thirteen since the age of eleven, which was one of the reasons he'd been so clumsy and uncoordinated as a teenager.

  Jimmy had taken his share of tumbles, too—most notably at the age of two and a half when he'd fallen from the top of the kitchen counter, which he'd scaled in order to gorge himself on the gingerbread men she'd set out to cool. He'd been as resilient as a rubber ball. Grady had sworn he'd actually bounced.

  Her heart thumped a little too fast as she tiptoed across the hand-woven rug to smooth just the tips of her fingers over the thatch of unruly hair that was as thick and silky now as his dad's.

  Flynn was right, she thought, smiling through a sudden wash of happy tears. Her baby needed a haircut. Not his favorite thing, something else he'd inherited from his dad, who, even as a giant of a man, had squirmed like a little boy whenever he'd had to sit still for more than a few minutes.