Right by Her Side

by Christie Ridgway

  It was Mrs. Logan who answered, giving him another of her warm, wonderful smiles. “Trent, you’re family, remember? And we’re told this has something to do with Children’s Connection. You already know what’s been going on there, so sit down.” She glanced at her husband. “Terrence agrees with me, right?”

  Though Terrence didn’t look as certain as his wife, he nodded. Trent figured the older couple had been married for close to forty years, and he wondered how they’d managed that. Respect, he decided. And trust. If love was a sham, a shallow, fickle feeling that described that sizzle of one woman’s skin against one man’s, then a long-term marriage must last due to respect and trust.

  Or not. Because, hell, he’d respected Rebecca. As for trust…

  You didn’t trust her enough to tell her your feelings, a little voice whispered. Not any of them.

  At that moment, Katie ushered the police detectives into the living room. After being introduced to Detective Levine, a middle-aged man, and a younger woman, Detective Ellen Slater, both from the Portland P.D., Trent retreated to an out-of-the-way corner.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Logan, we have some news about your son Robbie.”

  Robbie! Trent found himself leaning forward in his distant seat.

  “News about Robbie?” Leslie Logan repeated. “But I thought—”

  “Twenty-eight years ago, did you know any persons by the name of Joleen and Lester Baker?”

  The older Logans looked at each other, then shook their heads.

  The detective twisted in his chair to pin Trent with his gaze. “What about you, Mr. Crosby? Do those names ring any bells?”

  Thinking back, Trent repeated the names in his mind. “No. I was only nine, you understand, but I don’t recognize them.”

  “What exactly are you saying?” Terrence asked calmly. He had reached over to clasp his wife’s hand, but he looked at perfect peace. “Are those the people who stole our son?”

  “Yes.” The detective nodded. “What we’ve been able to piece together is that Lester Baker lured Robbie into his truck. Because of your wealth, the investigators at the time hoped to hear from the kidnapper about a ransom, but the truth is that Lester quickly drove out of town and to his wife, Joleen. They’d lost a child years before and Lester brought Robbie to her as a replacement for their son.”

  “Are they…a nice couple?” Leslie whispered.

  Detective Levine grimaced. “From the information we’ve been able to gather, they’re both gone now, but no, Mrs. Logan, I can’t say they were a nice couple. They drank, they were known for running when the law or a landlord got too close. They hopscotched around Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Ten years after the abduction, Lester left his wife and the boy and was later killed in a accident. Joleen lived until 2001, when she died of liver cancer.”

  “And my son?” Leslie’s face had lost its color, but her voice was stronger than before.

  “Right before Joleen Baker died, he discovered what had happened to him as a little boy.”

  “What do you mean?” Terrence asked. “He didn’t remember?”

  Detective Levine shook his head, then gestured to his partner.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Logan,” the woman began. “Besides being a detective for the Portland police, I’m a psychologist. I was asked to consult on this case. You need to understand that on the ride away from the Crosby house that November twenty-eight years ago, your son was given a sedative, and then more doses for several days thereafter. The drugs and the trauma were the first and very effective tools in brainwashing your Robbie. The human mind is elastic and resilient, and Robbie did what he had to do to survive.” She paused, looking back and forth between the couple.

  “Please go on,” Terrence prompted.

  “The Bakers told Robbie that he’d been bad. That his parents didn’t want him any longer.”

  Leslie gasped. “Surely Robbie didn’t believe that! He knew how much we loved him!”

  Detective Slater nodded. “In some ways, that made it even more imperative that Robbie bury his old life and accept the new one. The love that he remembered hurt very, very much when he could see that returning to you was not within his power. So he came to accept this new identity as protection from the sometimes violent Bakers and as protection from the bittersweet memories of the past.”

  Leslie put one hand up to her mouth. Peter rushed to his mother’s side. “Mom? Can I get you something?” He glanced over at his father whose composed expression hadn’t cracked. “Dad, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, son.” He inhaled a slow breath. “So then what happened?”

  The psychologist-detective glanced at Leslie and hesitated.

  Trent felt his hands fist. What had happened to little Robbie? There must be ice water in Terrence Logan’s veins if he could sit there like that, as if he was etched out of stone.

  “Robbie found out the truth from Joleen shortly before she died, after he had put himself through college and was working at a good job in St. Louis. He was stunned. Any memories that had ever bubbled up, he’d dismissed as fantasies.”

  “But 2001,” Peter put in. “That was years ago. Why didn’t he contact Mom and Dad?”

  “He’d gone through a lot with the Bakers,” Detective Slater started to say, then stopped. “More than a lot. In his mind, after what he’d experienced, he felt he wasn’t good enough for your family.”

  “Not good enough?” Katie rose to stand behind her mother-in-law, putting her hands on the older woman’s shoulders. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Some part of him blamed himself. He thought that he was the one who should have managed to break free and find his way back to the family,” the detective said.

  Leslie sank back into the pillows of the couch. “My boy.” Tears began rolling down her cheeks. “My poor boy.”

  Katie looked over at Trent. She was crying, too. And thinking what he was, Trent guessed. What if their nephew, Danny’s Noah, was under the control of people like the Bakers? Peter glanced at his wife, saw her distress and rose hurriedly to take her into his arms.

  Trent’s fists tightened and he wondered why it was so damn cold in his corner. Katie and Peter had a drafty house.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Logan,” Detective Levine took over the story now. “I don’t know how to tell you this—”

  “Straight out,” Terrence Logan said. “Just give it to us straight out.”

  The detective nodded. “Your son moved to the Portland area, but he couldn’t bring himself to contact you. He got mixed up with some bad people, Mr. and Mrs. Logan. Some very bad people.”

  Terrence nodded slowly. “You’re telling me that Robbie isn’t dead.”

  “You’re right. Robbie is in our custody and he’s pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes committed under the name Everett Baker.”

  “Everett Baker?” Leslie echoed, sounding stunned.

  Everett Baker! Trent was stunned. When the police had quizzed them about a Lester and Joleen Baker, Trent, for one, hadn’t put the last names together.

  My God, my God. Robbie Logan was Everett Baker.

  “Everett Baker?” Terrence said it, too. It was impossible to know what he was thinking, his face was expressionless, his voice neutral.

  Ice water in his veins, Trent thought again. And a refrigerator compressor for a heart. Rebecca accused him of being emotionless, but Terrence Logan was the real robot of Portland.

  But this is just how you appear to Rebecca, that little voice said.

  Leslie gazed at her husband, then looked up at Peter and Katie. “He’s alive!” And then she slumped over.

  Everyone rushed to her side, and it only took a second or two to rouse her again. Katie and Peter wanted to call an ambulance, but Leslie assured them she was fine. “The excitement,” she said. They’d bundled her in a blanket, and above the thick fabric, her face had new color. There was a new brightness in her eyes. She held out her hand to Terrence. “Darling, our Robbie! Our Robbie!”

  He br
ought his wife’s hand to his mouth and smiled. It was the first real emotion that Trent had seen the man reveal.

  And then Terrence wept, still wearing that smile on his face.

  Astounded by the change in the older man, Trent took an instinctive step back. His shoulder hit Peter’s and he looked over at his brother-in-law. “Your father…” He gestured at the man who was holding on to his wife and crying those silent, smiling tears. “Is your father all right?”

  Peter nodded. “Dad holds on to his cool with a stronger grip than any other man I know. But don’t make the mistake of thinking him heartless.”

  Don’t make the mistake of thinking him heartless. One look at Terrence sharing his emotion with his wife and there was no doubt he was anything but.

  Terrence looked up, his gaze taking in Peter and Trent. “Our child is alive!”

  And Trent thought he understood a tiny measure of the other man’s joy, because Trent’s child was not.

  Before he could let that thought overtake him, before he started screaming with the pain of leaking emotion, he rushed away from Katie’s house.

  Fifteen

  Rebecca heard the front door of Trent’s house slam shut and poked her head out of the den. He stood in the foyer. Somewhere since she’d last seen him, he’d shed his sport coat and tie. His hair was rumpled and the cuffs of his dress shirt were rolled up unevenly. She’d never seen him appear so disordered. “You’re back,” she said.

  He looked at her, then looked around him. “I suppose I am,” he said, as if he was mildly surprised to find himself there.

  “Well, good.”

  He looked even more surprised at that. “Good?”

  “I could use some help.” She kept her voice brisk. “Come into the den.”

  By the time he made it into the other room, she had blinked away the pinpricks at the corners of her eyes.

  “What is it you need?” he asked.

  You. Us. Everything the way it was, only better. But that could never be, so she pushed it out of her head. “The playhouse is too big to fit through the den door. Maybe between the two of us we could squash it a little or slant it or something.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his head as if considering the idea. She looked back at the playhouse herself. There was little else to do before it was ready for Merry. Over the past week, they’d finished the construction and then she’d put down tarps on her day off and painted the palace a bright green, with purple “bricks” around the door and windows. The roof was blue, the drawbridge as well. Multicolored daisies “grew” out of the grass lining the bottom of the walls.

  Rebecca bent to lift the drawbridge. She pushed it over the door opening and felt the Velcro fasteners—Trent’s brilliant idea—latch it closed. Then she scooted around the backside and gave it a little shove that moved it forward a couple of inches. “Or maybe if I pushed and you pulled…”

  Trent pulled, and it slid toward the entry a few feet. “It’s too big,” he called out. “We’re never going to manage it this way.”

  “But I have to take it with me!” She couldn’t leave anything of herself behind. She just couldn’t. “There must be a way.”

  There was another moment of silence. Then she heard Trent’s footsteps in the kitchen. She heard him open a drawer, then close it. “You can use this,” he said.

  Rebecca came around the side to face him again. In his hand, he carried a tool. He held it out to her, his palm up.

  She stared at what he offered. A box cutter. Swallowing hard, she lifted her gaze to his. “You expect me to cut apart Merry’s castle?”

  “You want it out of here, then that’s what it takes.”

  Her hand reached for the tool. Her fingers hovered over it.

  With a breath, she forced them lower.

  He closed his own fingers over the cutter, dropped his arm to his side. “Don’t do this, Rebecca,” he said. “Don’t destroy something we built together.”

  “But there isn’t another way,” she whispered. “You said it yourself.”

  His mouth compressed to a thin line. “It could stay right where it is. You could stay right where you are.”

  “Trent—”

  “It’s stuck here, Rebecca. Just like you’re stuck in my heart.”

  She shook her head so hard that tendrils flew free of her ponytail. “No. No. You don’t want me. You don’t want that.”

  “Well, hell, Rebecca, maybe I’m not glad about it,” he said, his tone impatient. “Maybe I was accustomed to spending eighteen hours a day in my office. Maybe I was good at being Trent Crosby, workaholic CEO, when I’m obviously lousy at being Trent Crosby, Rebecca’s husband and lover. But it’s not as if I have any choice.”

  “It’s that you feel responsible for me.”

  He sighed. “You give me way too much credit.”

  She didn’t think so. This was the man who’d practically raised his brother and sisters. The man who’d been nine years old when he’d felt guilty about another child being abducted from his home.

  “Then it’s that our marriage was a mistake you don’t want to admit to,” she said, throwing everything she could think of at him in order to keep herself safe.

  His jaw set and he took a step closer to her. “I’m admitting I was wrong about love, aren’t I? Because that’s what I’m saying, Rebecca. I’m saying I love you. I’m saying I’m in love with you.”

  “No.” One part of her wanted to turn ballerina and go up on tiptoes, there to twirl and swirl to music that was swelling in her head. But she couldn’t allow herself to believe that. “No.”

  “Damn it!” It wasn’t exactly yelling, but it was the loudest voice she’d ever heard him use. He tossed the box cutter into a corner. “What does it take to get through to you, Rebecca?”

  Tears gushed from her eyes and washed down her cheeks. He’d gotten to her already. Days ago. Weeks ago. But she couldn’t let him know, so she swiped at the wetness on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s the hormones. The doctor said my emotions might roller-coaster like this.”

  “Oh, hell, Rebecca.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t you see that now is not the right time to make a decision like this?”

  She wanted to move away from him. She really did. Instead she stood in the warm circle of his arms, shaking her head.

  “You’re not yourself.”

  More wetness soaked into his starchy dress shirt, then she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “This is me,” she said. “This is me, Trent. I’m afraid. You didn’t believe in love. I didn’t believe it could ever happen to me. This thing between us must be something else. It must be.”

  With his hands still on her shoulders, he backed off a little more to look into her face. “I don’t know the counter answer to that. I don’t know what changed. We found ourselves in a situation—”

  “By mistake.”

  He put his hand over her mouth. “We found ourselves in a situation that gave us a chance to find each other. And what did we do then?”

  “We talked ourselves into getting married and then we made a mess of it.”

  “We made this castle, Rebecca. We built something that reflected what was building inside of us.”

  She snatched his hand away from her mouth. “I have to point out that you were the one who appointed yourself royal architect.”

  “I did, didn’t I? Does that mean I get the credit for believing in our happy ending first?”

  Rebecca stepped away, her hand going to her abdomen. “There wasn’t a happy ending.”

  He sucked in a breath. “Not the one we were planning, maybe. But think about this. If Eisenhower had been born, we would have always considered we had to get married. This way we know we chose to be together.”

  “You’re trying to use logic on me again, aren’t you?”

  His half smile was rueful. “I don’t suppose that means it’s working?”

  She couldn’t deny him any longer. What wa
s the point? “All right, Trent. All right. I do love you. I am in love with you.” Her hand came up as he moved toward her. “But I—I need something more from you. There’s still something missing.”

  “What?” he demanded. “What could possibly be missing?”

  He talked about what was in his heart, but she hadn’t seen it. She shrugged.

  Gazing at her, he shook his head. “You’re a tough sell, Rebecca Crosby, do you know that?”

  “I’m not one of your clients, Trent.” That was it, she realized. Though he’d managed to say the words straight out, she was afraid he was still figuring the angles, still working the business meeting, going down points on some prepared agenda.

  That impatient note entered his voice again. “I came back today because I believe in you. In us. What does a man have to do to prove that to you, Rebecca?”

  “Show me your heart, Trent.” She didn’t know how to explain it any plainer than that. “Don’t talk about what’s there. Show me.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “I drink your green tea—”

  “Show me.”

  “Damn it! Last Sunday I folded laun—”

  “Show me.”

  He stared at her, frustration, exasperation apparent in his tousled hair and fuming expression. At least he looked a little less perfect than usual. “Damn it, Rebecca,” he repeated. Then, bowing his head, he murmured something strange. “This is all your fault, Terrence Logan.”

  Then Trent jerked up his head and caught Rebecca’s gaze. His hands lifted and he yanked the edges of his dress shirt apart. Buttons pinged against the cardboard castle.

  She blinked. “What…?” And then she saw it. On a longer chain than the one he’d given her. But she recognized the tiny figure. The Eisenhower angel, dangling right in the middle of Trent’s chest.

  “You left it on the bathroom sink,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The night you were in the hospital, I picked it up and…and I couldn’t put it down again.”