“Hi, everyone,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Jacob,” Daniel said, rising. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“I know. I came back early.” He glanced around. “Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in the kitchen, cleaning up,” Emily said.
He dropped the bag of presents he’d brought onto the coffee table. “Em, you’re in charge of passing these out. I’ll go give Mom hers in person.”
As Zach rifled through the bag, Jacob headed for the kitchen. His mom was listening to the radio. Christmas songs. The faucet in the sink was running, and she was scrubbing a pot vigorously, though it looked pretty clean to him.
He pulled up a stool and sat across from her on the kitchen island. “Hi, Mom.”
“Jacob!” She blinked. “I wasn’t expecting you. Aren’t you in...” She let the question drift off. Anxiously, she peered at his bandage.
“I’m okay,” he said quietly. “And yes, I was in Scotland with Isabel.” He paused. He’d realized on the plane that he shouldn’t have ditched Isabel so abruptly, but he’d needed to do this. He needed to set this straight.
“Mom,” he said. “I had to come home to see you.”
She smiled slightly. “You’ve not done that for many years now.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy working so much, away most holidays. When I was in Scotland with Isabel, I realized, well... She took me to talk with the woman who was with Donald when he died.”
“You...” His mom seemed to sway on her feet. He got up and helped her into a chair.
“Mom, I just wanted you to know, he thought about us. He may have left us and made things hard, but I think he regretted how he treated us. He was sorry about it. It was the last thing he talked to her about before he died.”
She shook her head at him. She seemed bewildered.
“Mom, it’s okay.”
“Jacob,” she said, flustered. “I left him.”
“You...did? Why?”
She pressed her hands to her mouth, staring at the bandage on the side of his neck. “You were only a toddler,” she said, her face lined with pain. “I turned around for a moment, and when I looked back, there you were, playing with his gun.”
Jacob stared at her. “His gun?”
“You were so curious, and he was so careless with it. All the time. I couldn’t stay with him after that. I couldn’t risk a terrible accident. I was so angry with him. So I took you one day, and I left.”
Jacob exhaled. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”
She shook her head. “I had hoped that he would follow us,” she said helplessly. “But he didn’t. He just...didn’t.”
She’d felt guilty for leaving Donald. Jacob saw it clearly. He drew her to him and hugged her. “You know what, Mom,” he said. “I’m glad you came here. We’ve had a good life, haven’t we?”
“You don’t blame me?” she whispered.
“No, I don’t blame you. I’m happy.” He gave her a smile. He was happy.
“So...do you have any chowder left?” he asked. Daniel liked to have New England clam chowder for Christmas lunch. It had become his mom’s ritual, too. “Because I’m kind of hungry.”
His mom smiled at him. “I’m glad you came home.”
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Jacob sat in a private interrogation room at the New York Field Office and steepled his hands. He gazed at Diane across the conference table.
“Thank you for meeting with me on short notice,” he said.
She placed her reading glasses on the files she’d brought along with her and raised a wary eyebrow. “Jacob, I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but I can’t possibly expedite your case this quickly, or give you clearance to join Eddie Walsh in the Presidential Protective Division. I’m sorry, but that’s my answer for now.”
“Really,” he said, deadpan. “That’s interesting, because I asked you here in order to get your professional opinion about something else.”
Diane leaned back; he’d surprised her.
“Really,” she replied, echoing his tone.
“Yeah. I went to Scotland and I did the investigative work I told you I had planned. I saw the place where my father was killed. I talked with the hostage that he died protecting.”
Diane was listening intently. He continued on. “I wrote the details down for you on the flight home. Everything I learned about the timeline, the hostages, my father’s role.”
“All right,” Diane said, nodding.
“But then I threw the notebook away because I realized the details didn’t matter. None of the technical aspects of the operation were even important to me. Not really.”
“And why is that?”
“Because my father loved me. That’s all that matters.”
“He said that?”
Jacob nodded. “He said that to the vic before he died—yeah.”
“Jacob, my purpose in questioning you was to assess—and more important, to get you to assess—your fitness, motivations and state of mind, given what happened in your family’s background.”
“Yeah, and I’m grateful that you pushed me. Look, I know now that the whole birth certificate quest you gave me was just to get me to talk to my mother about what happened. She’d told me he’d abandoned us, but that turned out not to be true. And the trip to Scotland—that made me confront what really happened to him and my reaction to it. I got to see it through the eyes of the people who were with him when he died.
“My dad didn’t fail, Diane. I’d always assumed he had. The way he abandoned us and then died, well, it was pretty traumatic to me, even if I never wanted to admit it. By choosing to join law enforcement, I wanted to...I don’t know...in a twisted way, maybe I wanted to prove that his life had meaning. I was going to do what he did, only better.”
He shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “It didn’t work out that way,” he finished. “His life did have meaning, just not in the way I’d expected.”
Diane was listening, silent.
“Look, all I can do is make meaning for myself. And I have. I know I’m super lucky. I have people who love me and want me to come home to them at the end of the day, and living with that is what matters most to me at this point.”
“You sound like you’ve made a decision?”
“I have. Remember how you gave me a choice—stay in the field office, avoiding the work you were asking of me, or explore my motivations and eventually transfer to the PPD? Well, I’m not avoiding the work you asked for, but I do prefer to stay in a field office.”
“So...do you want to continue meeting with me, here in New York?”
“Actually, I notice we have a London field office,” he remarked. “And since I was born in Great Britain, I figure that gives me a leg up.”
She eyed him. “Did you know we have an Edinburgh field office, too?”
His heart beat faster. “No, I didn’t.”
“It’s new. Not many protective details are involved, but we do have a burgeoning investigative office there.”
“I love investigative work,” he deadpanned. “Especially credit-card fraud.”
She cracked a smile. “Are you asking for my blessing in preparing your transfer papers?”
“That is affirmative.”
“Is moving to your father’s country just another way of following in his footsteps?”
“Actually, I’m following my heart. Her name is Isabel and she lives in Edinburgh.”
Diane nodded, fully smiling. “You have my blessing, Jacob Ross.”
“Great. There’s just one more thing.”
“Oh?”
“I, ah...might want to talk with a professional now and then. Someone with a specialty in trauma therapy.”
> He gave Diane credit; she kept her composure. “That...is for the best, and it certainly can be arranged.”
“Great.” He stood and reached for his sunglasses. “I feel like we’re developing something here, Diane.”
She nodded, not batting an eye. He was starting to like this psychologist.
“Before I leave...” Jacob pointed to the stack of files that Diane had laid on the table before her. “May I have that original birth certificate I gave you? I never made a copy of it, and it occurs to me that I’d like to see where in Scotland my parents were born. Because who knows? Maybe I have cousins I’d like to meet while I’m over there.”
Diane reached into her pile of folders. “I can certainly support that.”
* * *
NEW YEAR’S EVE—Hogmanay—in Edinburgh and Isabel was solo. She had invitations to several parties, with people she liked, but in celebration of her newfound independence, she decided to spend the night taking pleasure in her own company.
Bundled up in her warmest winter coat and hat and her favorite boots, she walked through the city, alive with people. Lingering where she liked, and enjoying her own observations.
On one street a stage was set up, and she watched the comics there for a while. On another street she strolled through a festival geared toward children, with puppet shows and sing-alongs. She bought a hot cider from a vendor, and she sipped as she walked, warming her hands on the cup.
All along her meandering stroll, she made comments in her head, things she and Jacob would have noticed and discussed. A funny song. The sweet smell of cinnamon pastries. The wonder of a new year beginning.
For so long, she’d wanted to be home in Scotland, and now she finally was. She felt happy; she loved it here. And yet, with Jacob, the happiness would have doubled.
She thought about the phone in her pocket, and wondered if this was the time to call him. But he’d asked her to wait, and waiting meant being patient. And it was a stretch to hope he might return to Scotland, especially more permanently. Moving between countries was a major life change.
She had just made the most important life change. She had moved to the Land of Isabel. The Land of Isabel didn’t need “one more year to be happy.” In the Land of Isabel she could seek contentment daily. Because her decisions were hers alone.
That was why, when her phone rang, her heart leaped. She pulled off a glove with her teeth and in her haste spilled a bit of her cider in the rush to get the phone from her pocket.
“Jacob?” she said. She had to yell, because the noise on the street was so loud.
“No, it’s Malcolm,” her cousin yelled back.
That was good—she liked Malcolm, too. “What’s going on?”
“Are you near the Royal Mile?” he shouted.
She was on it, near the bottom. “I’m working my way up the hill for the fireworks!”
“How far away are you from my party?”
The pub where Malcolm was hosting friends in a private room was only a few blocks closer to Edinburgh Castle. “Five minutes, I think,” she yelled. “Maybe I’ll pop in.”
“Brilliant! Please join us, straightaway. Hurry!” Malcolm shouted.
“I’m coming!” She ditched the cider and pocketed her phone. Of course, there were festive crowds ahead, but she plunged her way through.
As she came closer to Malcolm’s party, she heard a man singing karaoke, “A Red, Red Rose,” over a microphone inside the pub.
Jacob! she thought again. She ran to the door and burst inside just in time to see the singer serenading Malcolm and Kristin. Jacob wasn’t in sight.
Sighing, Isabel grabbed a glass of wine and stood along the wall to listen. How could she not think of the Vermont wedding and her first kiss with Jacob as she danced with him in his kilt?
“Isabel?” Jacob’s voice was low in her ear, and she thought she must be imagining him. “Isabel, it’s me.”
She felt Jacob’s strong arms around her and, twisting to see him, threw her arms around him, too. She hadn’t forgotten how good he felt to her, how solid and strong. No person had ever looked so welcome to her. “You’re here!”
“I’d hoped to surprise you. Are you surprised?”
She laughed. She should have known he would coordinate something wonderfully top secret. “How long are you staying?”
“Forever.” He grinned at her. “I’m moving to Edinburgh, if you’ll have me in the same city as you.” And then he kissed her. He cupped her face and kissed her as if she were the most precious person to him.
When he finished, she was breathless.
“Yes, I’ll have you!” she said.
He wiped her lip gloss that he’d smudged, smiling at her. “I’m sorry I left so abruptly, but I needed to get things straight. I transferred to the Edinburgh Field Office. I wanted to surprise you after I’d nailed everything down.”
“So...” She was almost afraid to ask. “You’ll still be a bodyguard, but over here instead of in Washington?”
Someone bumped into them, so he steered her by the shoulders to a quiet corner. “Nope, something entirely different. I know it’s late, but here’s my gift.” Beaming, he pressed something solid into the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around it. Then he put his hands over hers.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Credit-card fraud.”
“Excuse me?”
“Credit-card fraud. It’s my gift. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always business law. You reminded me of my aptitude there.”
She broke out laughing. “This is business law?” She shook the small box in her hand, because she’d realized that a box was what it was. Inside it, something rattled.
“No, not exactly. This is love. You love me, right? And I love you. Well, if you’ve decided you can carve out time for me, I’ve put my gun away for you. Instead, I’ve brought roses.”
Roses? He had not. This was a ring. She shook the box again to be sure. “May I open it now?” Because it was a jeweler’s box, and she was giggly with anticipation and excitement. “Please!”
“I take it you can make time for me?” He said it in a teasing voice, but she knew he was utterly serious.
“Oh, yes!”
“Even if you’re CEO?”
“No, Jacob—I met with my uncle at Christmas, and we’ve decided I’ll manage the Cosmetics Division. I’ll be busy, but fulfilled-busy, happy-busy and—”
“And with a personal life?” he finished.
“Absolutely.” She leaned over their hands, wrapped around the box together, and kissed him. With a slight sigh, he kissed her back.
“You’re the most important thing to me,” she said.
With that, he took his hands away from hers. She opened the box he’d given her. A golden ring sat on a white satin cushion, a beautiful, one-of-a-kind piece with roses sculpted around it. She grasped the significance, and held on to it tight. It occurred to her that she had everything she wanted, here at this moment.
“Which hand should I place this on?” she murmured.
“Whichever one you please.”
She was the luckiest woman she knew. “The left hand, please.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I love you, Isabel Sage. How could I ever stay away?”
* * * * *
Be sure to look for the next book about
the Sage family from Cathryn Parry and
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CHAPTER ONE
SHE’D MOVED WITH confidence on some pretty exclusive Vegas stages. Had entertained moneyed and powerful men. With and without her clothes.
But as she walked down the hushed elementary-school hallway lined with short lockers that Friday afternoon, twenty-seven-year-old Talia Malone had never felt more uncomfortable in her life.
No one at that school was going to know that the ten-year-old boy in the classroom midway down that hall was her son.
She’d given birth once, ten years before, but she’d never been a mother.
Had no idea how to be one.
You were a mother when you were his age. Tanner’s words from earlier that morning played over and over again in her head, much like his words had always done when she’d been growing up and her big brother had been a demigod in her life.
Before she’d grown deaf and dumb to his wisdom, slept with one of her high-school teachers and ended up pregnant.
She slowed her step, eyeing a deserted alcove hosting a water fountain that was so low to the ground she’d have to bend in half to take a sip.
She hadn’t technically been a mother at ten. Tanner, of all people, knew that. But she’d been ten when their baby sister, Tatum, had been born. Between her and Tanner and their brother Thomas they’d managed to make sure that baby girl was protected and loved.
But then Talia had run off. Abandoned the family. Abandoned Tatum. And her sweet baby sister had ended up a victim of domestic violence—drugged and pretty much raped, too—all because she’d been so desperate for love and acceptance that she’d believed the young rich creep who’d told her he loved her more than anyone else ever would.
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