Promise to a Boy

by Mary Brady

  He stared at the picture. Did young Jesse look like Kyle Fairbanks as he had imagined?

  He got up and went into the bedroom. The photo of Jesse, Lena, Kyle and Abby grinned back at him from the bedside table as if daring him to decide. He snatched it up.

  Side by side, there was no doubt. The two boys looked enough alike to be father and son.

  He slumped his shoulders and flopped down on the edge of the bed holding one of the pictures in each hand.

  Abby Fairbanks, how could she do this? He had to ask the question. Maybe that was what she was trying to tell him last night when he wouldn’t let her.

  He looked at his watch. It was just after noon. She’d still be at work.

  He should leave today. Go to Utah no matter what the sheriff said. First he had to have a discussion with Abby.

  ABBY SAT AT HER DESK in the clinic. The patients were gone, the charts were finished and she should go home, but all she could think about was Reed. All day, she had had the feeling he would be gone when she got home. Why would he stay? No one knew any more about Jesse. Would Reed go back home or to Utah?

  As much as she wished she had depleted the supply from the little brown bag of condoms last night, she also wanted to hold on to her heart. If she let herself fall in love with Reed Maxwell…

  Fall in love? She was nuts, so very nuts. What could possibly come of falling in love with Reed? He lived a half continent away. She’d like to think he could feel the same things for her as she felt for him, but though she could save a life in an emergency, efficiently bandage all wounds, and had even been known to throw a few stitches in from time to time, she had to admit she was not a very capable judge of how a man was feeling.

  Two ex-fiancés followed by a resident doctor in Denver had pointed that out quite blatantly. When she had thought the resident was a trusted friend, he had pointed a finger at her for his mistake, a mistake that nearly cost a patient her life. Doctor versus nurse. They had stood behind the doctor. And because the patient was a prominent woman, her photo had been splashed all over the news. The lawsuit had been horrendous, but since Abby didn’t have any money, all they took was her self-esteem and the hospital’s check.

  “Yo, Abby.”

  Abby looked up to see Dr. DeVane standing over her smiling.

  “Finished, Doctor,” she said and smiled at the very pregnant Dr. Maude DeVane who owned the clinic with her husband, Dr. Guy Daley.

  “Me, too, Abby, and thanks for all your help today. You were your usual efficient self. Though maybe a little distracted from time to time?”

  “I didn’t mean for you to notice.” Abby let out a long breath. “Lena’s squad is overdue and there’s been no word. And Jesse Maxwell has been officially declared missing.”

  “I’m sorry, Abby. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. So far I’ve been able to convince myself they’re both okay, and Jesse’s brother is here.”

  “I heard about the brother.” Dr. DeVane smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “I was behind the pea display in the grocery story and one of your neighbors was there telling all.”

  “Ah, small-town living.” Abby in no way wanted to know what her neighbors had to say about Reed. It wouldn’t be relevant, as he’d be gone soon. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Me, either. I’ll always be grateful to the town that could help me fall in love with the perfect man.”

  “Is the perfect man picking you up today?”

  “We’re driving to Kalispell for a checkup.”

  “Have you decided whether you are going to deliver here or there?”

  “It’s a tough one. Who’d have thought I’d be a pregnant woman first and a doctor second. Even with both of us, the jury is still out.”

  A tall, darkly handsome man walked into the clinic and Maude DeVane gave her husband such a smile it almost broke Abby’s heart. Those two had started out as the most unlikely to even speak civilly to each other and ended up happy like this. Abby doubted Guy Daley even knew she was there. He had eyes only for his beautiful wife.

  A few minutes later, as she headed out to her SUV. She thought she should be tired, but energy infused each step she took. Maybe that was what being around true love could do for a person. Energized or not, she was glad to leave the clinic for the day, glad there were no patients who needed hospitalization today. She would have been the on-call nurse who would have to wait for the transport unit to take the patient to the hospital in Kalispell.

  When she got to her truck in the parking lot, Reed was sitting in his rental car waiting for her. Her steps faltered for a moment. More bad news? He got out of his car and came toward her.

  “We have to talk.”

  “Okay. I don’t know why, but all day today I thought I might come home and find you gone.”

  He stopped in front of her and looked at her for a long moment as if trying to decide something about her.

  “Can we find some place neutral to talk?” he asked.

  That seemed ominous. “All right. There’s a path by the river—is that good enough?”

  He nodded and took her arm, and she led them out front of the clinic and across the street. Vala was standing in the window of the diner. She waved to them. Abby waved back. Why did she feel as if she were being led to her own execution?

  Flickers of images of photographers pressing in on her flitted through her mind. The dark wave of anxiety these images usually caused tried to intrude, but she pushed back this time, hard, and the wave subsided. At least she had control of something in her life.

  As they passed the drugstore, Mrs. Taylor smiled and Abby smiled. Just before the turnoff to the path, John Miller from the hardware store and his friend passed on the other side of the street. They also waved and Abby responded. Reed walked silently beside her holding her arm.

  When they reached the path by the river, the water burbled quietly as it passed over the rocks. A few leaves floated like pea-green boats downstream and squirrels played in the branches of the trees above their heads.

  When she could take the silence no more, she stopped and made Reed face her.

  “I almost did leave today,” he said in a restrained tone.

  “And you didn’t because?”

  Instead of answering, he pulled something from his pocket. Abby looked at it for a moment and realized only that it was an old photo, in sepia tones with color added by hand. The photo was of two young boys. And then she looked closer. Kyle. No.

  She looked up at Reed.

  “Wow” was the most profound thing she could think to say.

  “Did you know?”

  She started walking down the path.

  “Abby, did you know?” he called after her.

  “Did I know what?” Could looks like that be coincidental? There seemed to be nothing she knew for sure.

  “Did you know about Kyle and Jesse?”

  “Is that—” she pointed at the picture he still held “—why you had a private investigator checking into me in Denver?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why don’t I believe that?”

  “How could you not tell me? No, wait. I get why you didn’t tell me. But is that fair to the boy?”

  “I suppose, if he is Jesse’s son he should be taken to the Midwest where he could be rich enough to be raised by nannies.”

  “I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”

  “No, it’s my sister’s decision.”

  “Or my brother’s.”

  “The picture doesn’t change anything.”

  “You knew.”

  “All I ever had were unfounded suspicions. That’s all I have now.” She couldn’t disrupt the boy’s life because of a picture.

  “Abby, you have to face facts.”

  “Face facts? Jesse is missing. Lena is missing. Those are the facts I have. And what if they’re gone, Reed?” Her voice was suddenly so small it barely carried above the sound of the water.
r />   “There’s a woman back in Evanston, Illinois, who deserves to know she has a grandchild. She deserves to know she has another chance to get things right.”

  “Even if that’s true, does that child, that five-year-old deserve to be somebody’s chance—I am so sorry, but I have to be there for him. Does he deserve to be somebody’s chance to mess things up again?”

  “There’s not a perfect answer here.”

  “I’m sure your intentions toward Kyle are honorable, but if you decide to fight me and my mother, and even Lena, I’m sure you have the power and the money to get whatever you want.”

  “I did not come here to break up anybody’s family.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  “She’s on a downward spiral and if Jesse is truly gone, there may be only one way to stop it or even to slow it down.”

  Abby felt the tears on her cheeks before she even knew she was crying.

  “If he’s Jesse’s son, does Kyle get any say?”

  “He’s a child. He can’t possible know what’s best.”

  She smiled when she thought of Kyle, how bright he was, how wise he seemed at times. She thought of him in the bunny slippers and of how he thought his mommy might be afraid.

  “I’d be scared if I had to go and live with strangers—that’s what he said the other day. He was thinking about his mother in the army and about how she was with so many people she didn’t know. I’d be scared.”

  “You don’t play fair.”

  “I guess we both use what we have, and what I have is the happiness and welfare of one little boy with a great big heart to think of.”

  She turned and hurried back up the path and down the street to her car. She drove home with purpose and when she stopped in front of her own garage, she wiped away the tears. If she had to fight, so be it.

  “Abby. Abby.” Her mother called out the kitchen door and waved to her as Abby got out of her car. “Good news.”

  Good news—she could use some good news to help loosen the knot in her chest that was once her heart. “Hang on, Mom. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Aunt Abby.” Kyle ran from the house and into her arms.

  “What did you and Gramma do today?” she asked, hoping she could distract herself and forget about the picture.

  “We played with Legos and we went to see the tow truck and guess what?”

  “What?” It was hard not to catch his enthusiasm.

  “The tow truck guy said I could go for a ride someday and we had those waffles for lunch.”

  “The tow truck man’s name is Mr. Nivens and waffles sound so good.” Abby collected her purse and headed for the house.

  “And then we went to the park and then we walked here, but the other kids were going back to the park after dinner. Can I go back to the park? Can I?”

  Kyle’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Reed,” he shouted.

  Abby turned to see Reed’s rental car approaching. As he pulled into the driveway, Abby grabbed Kyle’s hand to keep him from darting toward the moving car.

  Reed smiled as he got out, but Abby couldn’t find a smile anywhere. Her reserve had been drained by the sight of the man who could make her soar one minute and then make her crash and burn. The man who could make her betray her sister’s trust and take away the reason her mother felt as if she could face the world as a responsible adult.

  “Hi, Reed!” Kyle tugged his hand away from hers and ran around the car toward the man who was his uncle.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “HI, REED,” HER MOTHER shouted from the back doorway, and then waved wildly at Abby with a plastic spatula in her hand. “Abby, come here.”

  Abby gave her mother a backhanded wave as she leaned into her SUV to pick up the ever-present trash from the floor. Reed listened politely to Kyle and seemed truly interested. Was he interested in Kyle’s words or interested in befriending the boy so it would be easier to take him away?

  Reed had listened so attentively to her last night. Been so empathetic. She should have told him her suspicions, no matter what the cost.

  Please let him be a good person, please.

  She watched Reed as he squatted down to listen to Kyle, to speak eye to eye with him.

  He must think they all know Kyle and Jesse are family. What must he think of them?

  “Abby. Abby are you deaf?”

  She closed the hatchback and stepped away.

  “I can hear you just fine, Mother. I’ll be there in a second.” She turned to Kyle. “Kyle, honey, it’s time to come in the house.”

  “But Reed said he’d take me to the park for a while. Can I go, please?”

  She looked at Reed and tried hard not to glare. He looked innocent, not like a sneaking, conniving uncle.

  “Not now. It’s getting kind of late.”

  “It’s only quarter after six, Abbs. He ate a good dinner.” Her mother accentuated her words with the dish towel she held in her hand.

  “Can I go?” Kyle charged in between Abby and her mother. “Puh-leeese? Angus will be there.”

  “Kyle, go wash the dirt off your face. Grandma and I need to talk for a minute.”

  “Okay.” The boy ran into the house.

  “I don’t mind, really. He’s a cute kid.” Reed entered the conversation and Abby didn’t turn to acknowledge him.

  She curled her fingers into her palms, made fists and squeezed. She could handle this. One way or another, she had handled everything that had come her way. “That’s nice of you, Reed, but I’ll take him,” she said, turning to present him with the friendly smile she had forced onto her face.

  “No,” Kyle cried as he flew off the porch. “It’s a guy thing. We want to do a guy thing.”

  Did the sky darken a little? Abby looked up at the blazing blue above. No, but her world had. Kyle deserved a man in his life. Every child deserved a man and a woman to learn from, to love them. But Reed Maxwell?

  “Aunt Abby—” Kyle started again.

  “Aunt Abby,” Reed interrupted, “is being cautious and she should be, that’s what adults do.”

  Abby speculated whether that was some sort of apology.

  Her mother poked her on the arm. “It is nice of him to offer, Abby, and you need to stay here. I have to talk to you.”

  Abby looked at her mother, then at Reed and then at Kyle and turned back to her mother.

  Kyle jumped up and down and her mother took her silence as acquiescence. Delanna glanced over Abby’s shoulder at Reed and pointed off to the south as she continued, “The park is two blocks that way. It’s really the playground at the school. And please be careful. Five-year-olds aren’t for the faint of heart.”

  “Yippee! Com’on, Reed. Com’on. Angus’ll be waiting for me.”

  Kyle dragged a grinning Reed away as Abby watched, feeling an ominous sense of loss that she hoped would never become permanent.

  “Abby, what’s the matter with you? Why do you look so strange?”

  “I am strange, Mother. You’ve told me so many times.”

  “Not strange, weird. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I am, Mother.” I am. I am okay, she repeated to herself. I am and so is Kyle and so are Lena and Jesse. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were going to keep Kyle again tonight.”

  “I was. I am, but this opportunity came up and—well, it’s a time’s-a-wasting thing for me. Besides, I wasn’t kidding about that faint-hearted stuff.”

  “Do you know who that man could be?”

  Her mother gave her a cautious look as if she knew she was answering a trick question and, without having any details, afraid of what the real answer would be. “He’s Jesse’s brother. Have you gone completely nuts?”

  “Kyle could be Jesse’s son.”

  Her mother froze for a moment and then a big smile spread across her face. “What do you know about that? I was always suspicious why Lena dragged Jesse to the back side of beyond with her. How long have you known?”

  “I’v
e always suspected. Although Lena never said, but Reed has this photo.” Abby paused to take a breath. “There are two boys in the photo and one of them is Jesse, who, as a kid, looks so much like Kyle it’s scary.”

  “Did Jesse have this all along?”

  “No. I would have seen it if he did. Reed must have brought it with him, and if he did, then he came looking for a child. And if he has been looking for a child all along, I don’t know what that means.” What it could mean brought dread. It could mean he’d been using her all along.

  “You’re paranoid, Abby. Why would Jesse’s brother even suspect Jesse had a child? Jesse didn’t know.”

  “I’m not sure.” Abby shrugged. “Maybe Jesse had suspicions like I did and passed them on to his family.”

  “Maybe Reed brought the picture because he thought he could get Jesse to go down memory lane, make him want to be a part of the family again, and I thought Jesse hadn’t talked to his family in a long time.”

  “He might have suspected when Lena was pregnant or when Kyle was younger and he told someone in his family then.” The memory lane stuff might be plausible. Abby didn’t know what to think.

  “Well, if Jesse is Kyle’s father, it’s great.” Her mother grinned and tossed a clump of auburn hair off her forehead.

  “Will you think it’s great when Kyle’s uncle sues for custody and takes Kyle away to live in Chicago?”

  “Why do you always have to believe in the worst?”

  “Because when I believe in anything else, I get smacked in the face, that’s why.”

  “That seems to happen a lot to you,” her mother agreed and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Life has been hard on you, yet you’ve always taken on everybody’s troubles—mine, Lena’s, even Jesse’s. I was never surprised when you decided to become a nurse.”

  Abby hugged her mother back. “Thanks for noticing, Mom.”

  “Now.” Her mother stepped away and then sat on the porch where she pointed to the spot beside her. “Sit. Talk to me.”

  “What are you up to, Mother?”