by Nora Roberts
“Well, sure.” He was beginning to feel trapped in the chair, barred by the tray. “We sailed together a long time, and he's...”
“Like a father to you,” she said gently. “I know. I just wanted you to know I love him, too. We're going to be married.”
“What?” His fork clattered against china. “Married? You and the Dutchman?”
“Yes.” Nervous now, because she couldn't tell whether his expression was horrified or simply shocked, Coco fiddled with the jet beads at her throat. “I hope you don't mind.”
“Mind?” His brain had gone blank. Now it began to fill again—the restless movements of her hands, the tone of her voice, the anxious look in her eyes. Nathaniel shifted the table away from his chair and rose. “Imagine a classy woman like you falling for that old tar. Are you sure he hadn't been supping something into your soup?”
Relieved, she smiled. “If he has, I like it. Do we have your blessing?”
He took her hands, looked down at them. “You know, for nearly as far back as I can remember, I wanted you to be my mother.”
“Oh.” Her eyes filled, overflowed. “Nathaniel.”
“Now I guess you will be.” His gaze lifted to hers again before he kissed her, one cheek, the other, then her lips. “He better be good to you, or he'll answer to me.”
“I'm so happy.” Coco sank, weeping, into his arms. “I'm so very happy, Nate. I didn't even see it coming in the cards.” Her breath hitched as she pressed her wet face to his throat. “Or the tea leaves, even the crystal. It just happened.”
“The best things usually do.”
“I want you to be happy.” Drawing back, she fumbled in her pocket for one of her lace-trimmed hankies. “I want you to believe in what you have with Megan, and not let it slip away. She needs you, Nate. So does Kevin.”
“That's what I told her.” He smiled a little as he took the hankie and dried Coco's tears himself. “I don't guess she was ready to hear it.”
“You just keep saying it.” Her voice became firm. “Keep right on saying it until she is.” And if Megan needed an extra push, Coco thought, she'd be happy to supply it herself. “Now, then.” She smoothed down her hair, her slacks. “I have a million things to do. I want you to rest, so you'll be up to the picnic and the fireworks.”
“I feel okay.”
“You feel as if you've been run over by a truck.” She marched to the bed, busying herself with smoothing sheets and fluffing pillows. “You can lie down for another hour or two, or you can sit out on the terrace in the sun. It's a lovely day, and we can fix you up a nice chaise. When Megan wakes up, I'll have her come give you a rubdown.”
“Now that sounds promising. I'll take the sun.” He started toward the terrace doors, but then he heard footsteps hurrying down the hall. Megan rushed in. “I can't find Kevin,” she blurted out. “No one's seen him all morning.”
Chapter 11
She was pale as ice, and struggling to be calm. The idea of her little boy running away was so absurd that she continued to tell herself it was a mistake, a prank. Maybe a dream.
“No one's seen him,” she repeated, bracing a hand on the doorknob to stay upright. “Some—some of his clothes are gone, and his knapsack.”
“Call Suzanna,” Nathaniel said quickly. “He's probably with Alex and Jenny.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly, side to side. Her body felt like glass, as though it would shatter if she moved too quickly. “They're here. They're all here. They haven't seen him. I was sleeping.” She said each word deliberately, as if she were having trouble understanding her own voice. “I slept late, then I checked his room, like I always do. He wasn't there, but I thought he'd be downstairs, or outside. But when I went down, Alex was looking for him.” The fear began to claw at her, little cat feet up and down her spine. “We hunted around, then I came back up. That's when I saw that some of his things... some of his things...”
“All right, dear, now don't you worry.” Coco hurried over to sh'p a supporting arm around Megan's waist. “I'm sure he's just playing a game. There are so many places to hide in the house, on the grounds.”
“He was so excited about today. It's all he could talk about. He's supposed to be playing Revolutionary War with Alex and Jenny. He—he was going to be Daniel Boone.”
“We'll find him,” Nathaniel told her.
“Of course we will.” Gently Coco began to ease Megan along. “We'll organize a search party. Won't he be excited when he finds out?”
An hour later, they were spread throughout the house, searching corners and hidey-holes, retracing and backtracking. Megan kept a steel grip on her composure and covered every inch, starting in the tower and working her way down.
He had to be here, she reassured herself. Of course, she would find him any minute. It didn't make sense otherwise.
Bubbles of hysteria rose in her throat and had to be choked down.
He was just playing a game. He'd gone exploring. He loved the house so much. He'd drawn dozens of pictures of it to send back to Oklahoma so that everyone could see that he lived in a castle.
She would find him behind the next door she opened.
Megan told herself that, repeating it like a litany, as she worked her way from room to room.
She ran into Suzanna in one of the snaking hallways. She felt cold, so cold, though the sun beat hot against the windows. “He doesn't answer me,” she said faintly. “I keep calling him, but he doesn't answer.”
“It's such a big house.” Suzanna took Megan's hands, gripped hard. “Once when we were kids we played hide-and-seek and didn't find Lilah for three hours. She'd crawled into a cabinet on the third floor and had a nap.”
“Suzanna.” Megan pressed her lips together. She had to face it, and quickly. “His two favorite shirts are missing, and both pairs of his sneakers. His baseball caps. The money he'd been saving in his jar is gone. He's not in the house. He's run away.”
“You need to sit down.”
“No, I—I need to do something. Call the police. Oh, God—” Breaking, Megan pressed her hands to her face. “Anything could have happened to him. He's just a little boy. I don't even know how long he's been gone. I don't even know.” Her eyes, swimming with fear, locked on Suzanna's. “Did you ask Alex, Jenny? Maybe he said something to them. Maybe—”
“Of course I asked them, Megan,” Suzanna said gently. “Kevin didn't say anything to them about leaving.”
“Where would he go? Why? Back to Oklahoma,” she said on a wild, hopeful thought. “Maybe he's trying to get back to Oklahoma. Maybe he's been unhappy, just pretending to like it here.”
“He's been happy. But we'll check it out. Come on, let's go down.”
“Been over every bit of this section,” Dutch told Nathaniel. “The pantries, the storerooms, even the meat locker. Trent and Sloan are going over the renovation areas, and Max and Holt are beating the bushes all over the grounds.”
There was worry in his eyes, but he was brewing a pot of fresh coffee with steady hands.
“Seems to me if the kid was just playing and heard all this shouting and calling, he'd come out to see what the excitement was all about.”
“We've been over the house twice.” Nathaniel stared grimly out the window. “Amanda and Lilah have combed every inch of The Retreat. He's not in here.”
“Don't make a lick of sense to me. Kevin's been happy as a clam. He's in here every blessed day, getting under my feet and begging for sea stories.”
“Something's got him running.” There was a prickle at the back of his neck. Rubbing it absently, Nathaniel looked out toward the cliffs. “Why does a kid run? Because he's scared, or he's hurt, or he's unhappy.”
“That boy ain't none of those things,” Dutch said staunchly.
“I wouldn't have thought so.” Nathaniel had been all three at that age, and he believed he would have recognized the signs. There had been times he ran, too. But he'd had nowhere to go.
The tickle at the back of h
is neck persisted. Again, he found his gaze wandering toward the cliffs. “I've got a feeling,” he said almost to himself.
“What?”
“No, just a feeling.” The prickle was in his gut now. “I'm going to check it out.”
It was as though he were being pulled to the cliffs. Nathaniel didn't fight it, though the rocky ground jarred the pain back into his bones and the steep climb stole his breath. With one hand pressed to his aching ribs, he continued, his gaze sweeping the rocks and the high wild grass.
It was, he knew, a place that would draw a child. It had drawn him as a boy. And as a man.
The sun was high and white, the sea sapphire blue, then frothy where it lashed and foamed on the rocks. Beautiful and deadly. He thought of a young boy stumbling along the path, missing a step, slipping. The nausea churned so violently he had to stop and choke it back.
Nothing had happened to Kevin, he assured himself. He wouldn't let anything happen to Kevin.
He turned, started to climb higher, calling the boy's name as he searched.
It was the bird that caught his eye. A pure white gull, graceful as a dancer, swooped over the grass and rock, circled back with a musical call that was almost human, eerily feminine. He stood, staring at it. For one sunstruck second, Nathaniel would have sworn the gull's eyes were green, green as emeralds.
It glided down, perched on the ledge below and looked up, as if waiting for him.
Nathaniel found himself clambering down, ignoring the jolts to his abused body. The thunder of the surf seemed to fill his head. He thought he smelled a woman, sweet, soft, soothing, but then it was only the sea.
The bird wheeled away, skyward, joined its mate— another gull, blindingly white. For a moment they circled, calling together in something like joy. Then they winged out to sea.
Wheezing a bit, Nathaniel gained the ledge, and saw the shallow crevice in the rock where the boy was huddled.
His first instinct was to scoop the child up, hold him. But he checked it. He wasn't altogether certain he wasn't the reason Kevin had run.
Instead, he sat down on the ledge and spoke quietly. “Nice view from here.”
Kevin kept his face pressed to his knees. “I'm going back to Oklahoma.” It was an attempt at defiance that merely sounded weary. “I can take a bus.”
“I guess so. You'd see a lot of the country that way. But I thought you liked it here.”
His answer was a shrug. “It's okay.” “Somebody give you a hard time, mate?” “No.”
“Did you have a fight with Alex?”
“No, it's nothing like that. I'm just going back to Oklahoma. It was too late to take the bus last night, so I came up here to wait. I guess maybe I fell asleep.” He hunched his shoulder, kept his face averted. “You can't make me go back.”
“Well, I'm bigger than you, so I could.” He said it gently, touched a hand to Kevin's hair. But the boy jerked away. “I'd rather not make you do anything until I understand what's on your mind.”
He let some time pass, watching the sea, listening to the wind, until he sensed Kevin relaxing a little beside him.
“Your mother's kind of worried about you. Everybody else is, too. Maybe you ought to go back and tell them goodbye before you leave.”
“She won't let me go.” “She loves you a lot.”
“She should never have had me.” There was bitterness in the words, words that were much too sharp for a little boy.
“That's a stupid thing to say. I figure you've got a right to get mad if you want but there's not much point in just being stupid.”
Kevin's head shot up. His face was streaked with tears and dirt, and it sliced through Nathaniel's heart.
“If she hadn't had me, things would be different. She always pretends it doesn't matter. But I know.”
“What do you know?”
“I'm not a baby anymore. I know what he did. He made her pregnant, then he went away. He went away, and he never cared. He went away and married Suzanna, and then he left her, too. And Alex and Jenny. That's how come I'm their brother.”
Those were stormy seas, Nathaniel thought, that needed to be navigated with care. The boy's eyes, hurt and angry, latched on to his.
“Your mother's the one who has to explain that to you, Kevin.”
“She told me that sometimes people can't get married and be together, even when they have kids. But he didn't want me. He never wanted me, and I hate him.”
“I'm not going to argue with you about that,” Nathaniel said carefully. “But your mother loves you, and that counts for a lot more. If you take off, it's going to hurt her, bad.”
Kevin's lips trembled. “She could have you if I was gone. You'd stay with her if it wasn't for me.”
“I'm afraid I'm not following you, Kevin.”
“He—he had you beat up.” Kevin's voice hitched as he fought to get the words out. “I heard last night. I heard you and Mom, and she said it was her fault, but it's mine. 'Cause he's my father and he did it and now you hate me, too, and you'll go away.”
“Little jerk.” On a flood of emotion, Nathaniel yanked the boy to his knees and shook him. “You pulled this stunt because I got a few bruises? Do I look like I can't take care of myself? Those other two wimps had to crawl away.”
“Really?” Kevin sniffed and rubbed at his eyes. “But still-”
“Still, hell. You didn't have anything to do with it, and I ought to shake you until your teeth fall out for worrying us all this way.”
“He's my father,” Kevin said, tilting his chin up. “So that means—”
“That means nothing. My father was a drunk who used to kick my butt for the pleasure of it, six days out of seven. Does that make me like him?”
“No.” Tears began to roll more freely now. “But I thought you wouldn't like me anymore, and you'd never stay and be my father now, like Holt is with Alex and Jenny.”
Nathaniel's hands gentled as he drew the sobbing boy into his arms. “You thought wrong.” He rubbed his lips over Kevin's hair, absorbed the jolt of love. “I ought to hang you from the yardarm, sailor.”
“What's that?”
“I'll show you later.” He tightened his grip. “Did you stop and think that I might be hoping you'd be my son? That I want you and your mom to be mine?”
“Honest?” Kevin's voice was muffled against Nathaniel's chest.
“Do you figure I've been training you to take the helm just to have you walk off?”
“I don't know. I guess not.”
“I've been looking for you, Kevin, longer than just today.”
With a sigh, Kevin let his head rest in the curve of Nathaniel's shoulder. “I was awful scared. But then the bird came.”
“Bird?” Remembering, Nathaniel glanced around. But the rocks were empty.
“Then I wasn't so scared. She stayed all night. She was there whenever I woke up. She flew away with the other one, but then you came. Is Mom mad at me?”
“Probably.”
Kevin sighed again—a long-suffering sound that made Nathaniel smile. “I guess I'm in trouble.”
“Well, let's get your things and go back and face the music.”
Kevin picked up his knapsack and put his hand trustingly in Nathaniel's. “Does it hurt?” he asked, studying Nathaniel's face.
“You bet.”
“Later, can I see all your bruises?” “Sure. I've got some beauts.”
Nathaniel felt every one of them as they climbed back up to the cliff path and started down the rocky slope toward home. It was worth it, worth every jar and wince, to see the look on Megan's face.
“Kevin!” She flew across the lawn, hair blowing, cheeks tracked with tears. “Go on,” Nathaniel murmured to the boy. “She'll want to hug you first.” With a nod, Kevin dropped his knapsack and raced into his mother's arms.
“Oh, Kevin...” She couldn't hold him tight enough, even kneeling on the grass, pressing him close, rocking and weeping in terrible relief.
“Wher
e'd you find him?” Trent asked Nathaniel quietly. “Up on the cliffs, holed up in a crevice in the rocks.”
“Good God.” C.C. shuddered. “Did he spend the night up there?” “Looked that way. I had this feeling, I can't explain it. And there he was.”
“A feeling?” Trent exchanged a look with his wife. “Remind me to tell you sometime how I found Fred when he was a puppy.”
Max gave Nathaniel a pat on the back. “I'll go call the police, let them know we've found him.”
“He'll be hungry.” Coco swallowed fresh tears and burrowed closer to Dutch. “We'll go fix him something to eat.”
“You bring 'em in when she's finished slobbering over him—” Dutch camouflaged the break in his voice with a cough. “Women. Always making a fuss.”
“Come on, let's go in.” Suzanna tugged on Alex and Jenny's hands. “But I want to ask if he saw the ghosts,” Alex complained.
“Later.” Holt solved the problem by hoisting Alex onto his shoulders.
With a shuddering sigh, Megan drew back, ran her hands over Kevin's face. “You're all right? You're not hurt?”
“Nuh-uh.” It embarrassed him that he'd cried is front of his brother and sister. After all, he was nearly nine. “I'm okay.”
“Don't you ever do that again.” The swift change from weeping mother to fierce parent had Nathaniel's brows rising. “You had us all worried sick, young man. We've been looking for you for hours, even Aunt Colleen. We've called the police.”
“I'm sorry.” But the thrill of knowing the police had been alerted overpowered the guilt.
“Sorry isn't enough, Kevin Michael O'Riley.”
Kevin's gaze hit the ground. It was big-time trouble when she used all his names. “I won't ever do it again. I promise.”
“You had no business doing it this time. I'm supposed to be able to trust you, and now— Oh.” On another hitching sob, she pressed his head to her breast. “I was so scared, baby. I love you so much. Where were you going?”
“I don't know. Maybe Grandma's.”
“Grandma's.” She sat back on her heels and sighed. “Don't you like it here?”