Prince Charming Can Wait (Ever After)

by Stephanie Rowe

  Astrid hesitated. "They wouldn't change their mind just because you ask them—"

  "No?" Emma sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted, just completely drained. "What if I asked, and they said no? You think I should give up Mattie to keep a man who left me?"

  "I just think you should have fought for him. You didn't, did you? You just said yes. You're mad because Harlan hasn't shown up on your doorstep to fight for you, but you didn't fight for him either."

  Emma wanted to scream with frustration. "Don't you get it? I did fight for him. I wore his damn ring! I waited for him. I cried for him. And he left—"

  "He loves you!"

  "Well, it's not enough!"

  "It should be!" Rosie woke up suddenly and began to cry. Cradling the baby to her chest, Astrid whirled around and stormed out the door. It slammed shut behind her with a bang.

  Emma looked helplessly at Clare, who was still sitting on the couch. "What am I supposed to do?"

  Clare stood up. "The first thing you have to do is move your paintings out of your studio. I'll help." She started to walk across the floor, and Emma gawked at her. "I didn't mean about that. I meant about Harlan."

  Her hand on the door handle, Clare turned to face her. "Do you love him?"

  Emma's heart constricted. "I can't afford to love him. I can't put myself out there again, Clare. I just can't."

  "That's not what I asked. I asked if you loved him."

  "I can't choose him over Mattie." Her chest hurt. Her throat hurt. Everything hurt. "I won't risk her."

  "Then you'll have to divorce him, won't you?" Clare raised one eyebrow. "Unless you have a problem with that?"

  Emma stared at her, and had no answer.

  Finally, Clare smiled. "Don't let a man ruin the day," she said gently. "Your daughter is coming home. It's a beautiful, beautiful day, isn't it?"

  "My daughter?" she whispered. My daughter. "I have a daughter. Mattie's going to be my daughter."

  "Your daughter," Clare agreed, holding out her hand and gesturing Emma into the studio. "Come on, Emma. Mattie needs her mama. Don't let her down."

  "You're right." But as Emma hurried across the small living room toward the studio, her heart aching with joy and love for Mattie, a part of her soul was slowly fragmenting. It hurt so much it was almost unbearable, and as she'd done so many times over the years, she started to will away the pain and close herself down. To harden herself so it couldn't hurt her.

  Then she stepped into the studio and saw the roses that Harlan had given her. They were dried and brittle, sitting on her bookshelf, but the sight of them made her heart ache. And suddenly, she was tired of being the woman who hid from pain and hurt, who was afraid to trust. She'd gotten Mattie by deciding to truly live. How could she go backwards and shrivel into a shell just because Harlan hadn't fought for her?

  She walked over to the roses, and picked them up. The leaves crumbled in her hand, falling in withered fragments on the floor. She held them to her chest, and let herself mourn for him, for the loss of what she'd wanted from him. "I can't do it," she said.

  "Do what?" Clare asked.

  "Let him go."

  Clare smiled. "You love him. I knew you did."

  Emma looked at her friend. "For Mattie, I will let him go, if I have to. I made a promise to her, and I'll keep it."

  Clare winked. "You have six months before you have to be divorced. He might surprise you. Men sometimes do that, you know?"

  "They don't surprise me." But as she put the roses down, she couldn't stop the flash of hope, of desperate hope, that he would be the man she didn't expect anymore, that he would surprise her.

  But if he didn't, divorce it would be.

  ***

  Harlan stopped outside the long-abandoned apartment building. The brick was cracked and broken. Most of the windowpanes lay in fragments along the sidewalk, and the plywood that had once blocked the front door lay in splinters on the crumbling front steps. The stench was strong, odors of death, rot, and mildew.

  "This is it, huh?" Blue eased up beside him, studying the building. "If I ever get married, I think I'll honeymoon here."

  Harlan snorted. "You'll never get married. You're too damned ugly."

  "Ugly? My mug's my best selling point." Blue ran his hand down the faded scar that bisected the right side of his face. "Most people consider me pretty, you know."

  "Prettiest damn sight most of our victims have seen in their lives," Harlan agreed, "when you show up to drag them out of there."

  Blue said nothing, and Harlan glanced over at him. His partner's face was grim, as it had been more and more often lately. "You with me?"

  Blue's gaze flicked toward him, and he flashed a grin that Harlan wasn't so sure he believed anymore. "Yeah. We going in or what?"

  "Yeah." Harlan turned back to inspect their target. They were both on alert, knowing all too well the trouble that could come fast and unexpected in this part of Los Angeles. Needles and bullet casings littered the ground, and shadows moved too quickly in the corners. People. Animals. Nothing good.

  It was dark out, almost three in the morning, and they'd been searching all night. For three weeks, they'd been searching, following false leads, coming up with nothing. Sleep had become a distant memory, tossed aside in favor of their relentless hunt.

  "Tonight's our last night," Blue said. "Renée can't wait anymore. She needs us in the morning."

  Five hours left until this shit was over? Five hours. A rising sense of desperation flooded him. It couldn't end like this. He couldn’t fucking let it. With a low growl, he surged forward. "Come on." Not waiting to see if Blue followed, he carefully made his way up the decrepit steps, his adrenaline on high alert. They'd walked into too many bad situations in the last three weeks, and in Los Angeles, they didn't have the freedom to do whatever it took to ensure their safety, unlike when they were on some of their missions in other countries.

  There had been close calls, and he had a bad feeling about this one. The building was too quiet, as if it were watching them approach. But at the same time, there was something about it that would not let him go. He had to see what was inside.

  Blue caught up almost instantly, covering the rear as Harlan nudged aside the remains of the front door with his boot.

  No movement from inside. No sound.

  "I'm going in," he said. He eased into the entry and the boards creaked beneath his feet. The front room was empty, and there were massive holes in the floorboards, revealing dark pits beneath that would plummet him into a basement of hell.

  "There's no way across that," Blue said. "No wonder the place is empty."

  Harlan scanned the room, his eyes settling on a dark shadow in the far back corner. The shadow seemed too unnatural to be simply from the half-broken streetlights outside. Something was back there. "Check the corner," he said, easing a foot onto the nearest solid piece.

  "The corner? Yeah, there's something there…" Blue swore as the floor shifted slightly. "Don't go out there."

  "I have to." Harlan tested the board, and it creaked, but held. "Call for help if I go down."

  "No help is going to come out here." Blue moved back to the doorway, out of range if the floor gave out. "Try not to die."

  Harlan's mind flashed to Emma. I will not cry for you, she'd said. He'd replayed those words a thousand times in his head over the last three weeks, and every single time it felt like someone had hollowed out his chest. Worse and worse it had gotten, and the only thing keeping him going was his mission. A board cracked beneath his foot, and he jerked his foot off a split second before it thundered into the depths with a loud clatter that sounded deeper than a shallow death. If he fell, he knew it would be his grave.

  "It's a bottomless pit down there," joked Blue. "I'll never find you if you go down."

  "Good. Searching for me will keep you out of trouble then," Harlan replied as he edged forward again. Every board creaked and groaned, and two more broke beneath his weight. But still he edged closer to
the corner, where the shadow still hung in silence.

  He and Blue fell silent as he worked his way forward. He needed to feel the vibrations of the boards, to hear the creaks, to predict where it was safe to step and where it wasn't. Agonizingly slow progress taunted him, but he kept his gaze on his target.

  Finally, he was almost there, and then his eyes were able to finally see into the shadows. It was a person. Adrenaline raced through him as his eyes adjusted, and he was able to discern that it was a teen boy huddled in a ball, with thin shoulders and ragged cornrows in his dark hair. His arms were wrapped around his legs, and his head was tucked against his knees. His white tee shirt was stained with dried blood, and his body was shaking. For a brief moment, Harlan was catapulted back into his past, to the countless hours and days where he'd been in that exact pose, hidden in the barn, hiding from his father, struggling to hold back tears and to be the man he was too young to be.

  Outrage flooded Harlan, and he knew that this kid, unlike so many others, was not going to be left behind tonight. Even if he wasn't the kid Harlan was looking for, he was taking the youth out of there. Testing his footing, he crouched near the boy, not close enough to spook him, but close enough to grab him if he bolted. "Robbie," he said quietly, hoping that this time, after so many tries, he was right. "Mattie sent me to find you."

  The boy's head jerked upright, his eyes wide. "I'm not going back!"

  Holy crap. This was really the youth he'd been searching for? Harlan's adrenaline spiked, and victory raced through him. "You don't have to go back," he said, masking his sudden surge of energy behind a calm, casual voice.

  Robbie stared at him. "Who are you?"

  Harlan eased down beside him. "My name is Harlan Shea," he said conversationally. "I came to find you on my own, which means I don't have to take you back to your foster home. I break rules all the time."

  Robbie turned his head to look at him, and Harlan swore at the haggardness of the kid's features. "What do you want?"

  "I want to save your life. It's what I do." It was what he did. Go in. Rescue. Deliver to safety. Repeat. "You'll die out here, and then who will Mattie have to look out for her? She needs you, Robbie. Fuck the social workers and the foster homes. Who cares what they think? They don't matter. They really don't."

  Robbie's brow furrowed. "You don't sound like them."

  "Because I'm not them." As he said the words, he realized he spoke the truth. The complete truth. He was not a man who could play by the rules, or live a domestic little life. He belonged out here, doing shit that no one else wanted to do. "But I have a little sister that I wasn't around to take care of when she was growing up, and I wish I had been."

  Robbie shook his head. "I can't help her." He held out his hand, and Harlan saw a small round burn on his palm, as if some bastard had shoved a lit cigarette into his flesh.

  White-hot anger surged through Harlan, and he had to fist his hands to keep from erupting. Who the fuck hurt innocents like Robbie? But he knew who did. People like his father.

  "If I go back to my foster home, I'll kill them," Robbie said quietly, his voice amazingly steady. "I'll kill them if they hurt my sister. I'll kill them if they hurt me again." His eyes were too burdened and too wise for a kid of fourteen. "Before my mom died, she told me I had to take care of Mattie. She said it would be hard, but I had to do it." He looked at Harlan, so much anguish in his young face. "If I go to jail, I can't help her."

  Harlan tried to unclench his fists. "You won't kill them."

  "Fuck you—" Robbie spat. "How do you know? No one believes me! No one believes what's inside me—"

  "I do." Son of a bitch, it was like looking at himself again. The kid was exactly like he had once been. "I know exactly what's inside you because I killed my own dad."

  Robbie's mouth dropped open. "What? Don't lie to me—"

  "No lie." Harlan met his gaze. "I was fifteen. I didn't mean to do it, not really, but yeah, I did."

  Robbie stared at him in awed silence.

  "But you won't kill them because you're smarter than I was. I'll help you," Harlan said quietly. "But while you're hiding out here, your sister is suffering. You can't run away from her, from that."

  "But I have to. I—" He looked at Harlan. "I'm really afraid of what's inside me," he whispered. "How do I make it go away?"

  Well, hell, he didn't have an answer to that one. For a long moment, silence stretched between them as Harlan struggled to find an answer that he'd never been able to give himself. "You have to face it," he said finally. "Otherwise you'll be running from it your whole life. It'll never be safe to go back to Mattie, and you'll miss out on a whole lifetime with her."

  Robbie was still staring at him. "Are you still running?"

  Harlan looked down at the tattoo on his wrist, at the "E" nestled among the yellow roses. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I am."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emma shifted nervously, her hands actually sweating as she waited by her car for Chloe to retrieve Mattie from her foster home. It had been two entire days since Chloe had called, two agonizingly long days in which Chloe had made her promise not to contact Mattie until all the details were confirmed. But today, today was the day. Today Mattie would know.

  After what felt like an interminable wait, she saw Mattie and Chloe emerge from the front door. The moment Emma saw them, her throat tightened up, and a great sob caught in her chest.

  Mattie let out a cry of delight and raced down the sidewalk.

  Emma fell to her knees and scooped up the little girl, hugging her tightly, so tightly. "My dear, sweet Mattie," she whispered.

  "Emma!" Mattie pulled back, her face heart-wrenchingly serious. "I missed you. Where have you been? What did they decide? No one will tell me!"

  Her heart seemed to expand to fill her entire chest. "I'll tell you."

  "You will?" Mattie stepped back, hugging her arms across her chest, withdrawing defensively into herself, already preparing herself for the bad news she was accustomed to receiving.

  "They said it was okay," Emma said quickly, not wanting to make her wait. "They're going to let me adopt you. I'm going to be your mom."

  Mattie's mouth dropped open in stunned silence, and she didn't move. Her dark brown eyes were wide, and she went utterly still, staring at Emma as if she expected her to vanish from sight and take the miracle with her.

  Emma swallowed back the tears swimming in her eyes. "They're finishing the paperwork, but you can come live with me starting tomorrow. But I couldn't wait until then to tell you."

  "Forever?" Mattie whispered.

  "Forever," Emma agreed.

  Mattie let out a shriek of jubilation and threw herself into Emma's arms. Emma laughed through her tears, hugging her tightly. "I love you, Mattie."

  "Wait." Mattie suddenly pulled back, her eyes huge with worry. "What if you die, too? Then what happens to me?"

  Emma's throat constricted at the question no five-year-old should ever have to think about. "I won't die."

  "Mama said she wouldn't die either, but she did." Fear was thick in her voice, and she glanced over her shoulder at the foster home, as if it were a monster trying to sneak up on her.

  Emma took her hands. "Mattie—"

  A door slammed, and Chloe let out a gasp. "Oh, my God."

  Mattie looked past Emma, and her whole face lit up with joy so vivid that there were no words to describe it. Emma spun around to see what had caught their attention, and saw a thin teenage boy climbing out of a black pickup truck.

  "Robbie!" Mattie screamed, rushing past Emma and throwing herself into the boy's arms.

  Robbie. Emma stared in stunned disbelief as Robbie scooped her up, hugging her tightly. Her chest ached with emotion as Mattie and her brother embraced, holding each other so tightly it was as if they would never let go.

  Mattie was screaming excitedly, and Emma finally became aware of what she was shouting to her brother. "And we have a new mama," Mattie declared. "Emma is taking us home to
morrow!"

  Them? Taking them home tomorrow? Both of them? Emma looked helplessly at Chloe, who lifted one shoulder. "I'll make a call," she said. "Be right back."

  As Emma slowly stood up, a deep foreboding began to travel through her. A five-year-old girl, she could handle. But a fourteen-year-old boy, who had already run away? She'd never even met him before. How could she manage to give him what he needed? And would the judge even let her—

  Then she froze as the driver got out of the truck. Her breath caught in her chest, and she suddenly went cold. "Harlan?" she whispered. He was unshaven and his hair was long. He looked worn out and exhausted, far worse than he'd been even after the time he'd almost died.

  He leaned against the truck and met her gaze. "Found him," he said simply.

  Emma's heart was pounding, her feet rooted to the sidewalk. He looked so drained that she wanted to rush into his arms, to hug him, to tell him how much she had missed him. Her entire soul screamed for him, but instead of rushing over to him, she folded her arms over her chest. "I thought you were gone." Her voice was shaky with emotion, trembling with the shock of seeing him, of realizing that he was the one who had gone to find Robbie and bring him home. How had that happened? Why had he done that? How did he even know about Robbie?

  "I had to find him." He still made no attempt to close the gap between them. He just leaned against the hood of his truck, as if he was too tired to move even an inch.

  Emma took a step toward him, as Mattie continued to talk excitedly to her brother. "How did you find him?"

  He shrugged. "It's what I do. Search and rescue, right?"

  He looked so forlorn, so weary, that her heart cried for him. "Are you okay?"

  "No," he said, looking at her. "I'm not."

  "Are you..." She could barely ask the words. "Are you staying? Or leaving?"

  His eyes were dull and drained. "Renée has an assignment for me. I need to be on a flight in two hours."

  "Oh." She closed her eyes against the pain, against the bitter assault of loneliness. In that moment, when he'd stepped out of the truck, she'd had a sudden, desperate hope for so many things. Of holding him again. Of waking up in his arms. Of Mattie growing up with a father who was so brave he risked his life to save others. Of being able to stop fighting so hard on her own and being able to finally, completely, put her trust in him. But it was not to be. Nothing had changed. "Okay."