“What were you thinking?” Nick said. “I told you to stay with Zander.”
“Saving your life?” Erica said. “Having your back? How dare the mighty Nick Henry let somebody care about him?”
She felt the words catch in her throat and something fierce flashed in her eyes almost like she was daring him to contradict her or to brush off the words. Instead, as she watched, something softened in his face. He swallowed hard.
“I know,” he said. “And I still care about you. Let’s go.”
She turned and ran into the first-class car and he followed, grabbing hold of the doors and pulling themselves forward, like they were trying to make their way to the top of a sinking ship. Ahead, she could see Tommy standing by the back door, holding Zander tightly in his strong arms. She smiled. Her brother had wrapped the bright yellow life jacket around Zander.
“Once it stops, how long does it take for him to start the train going forward again?” Nick shouted.
“A few minutes. We can wait until the train comes to a complete stop and then jump out.”
Hopefully they’d get a decent head start. But as they drew closer, they could hear Tommy shout.
“We got a problem!” Tommy shoved the door open. And as she stopped and looked out into the darkness, a deep roar filled her ears. Moose River. “We just crossed onto a bridge. We’re over the river. I can’t even see the tracks.”
Save us, Lord! Erica stood at the back of the train and took a breath. The train shook. Water buffeted them. They could still derail. “The water can’t be more than a few inches deep. If it was, the train wouldn’t run. We have to jump and trust the rails are there.”
“Mommy!” Zander reached out of her brother’s arms and squeezed her shoulder. “You saved Nick!”
She felt Nick’s hand reach for hers. She took it and let her fingers tighten in his.
“We saved each other,” she said. “Now, come on, Little Soldier. We’re going to jump.”
“Wait for me!” A female voice rose in the air behind her.
Erica turned back as Julie burst through the door of the sleeper cabin and ran for them, clutching the laptop to her chest.
“Welcome to the party,” Nick called. “I hope you can swim.”
The air cracked. Erica didn’t see where the bullet had come from, all she knew was that gunfire sounded.
Julie fell, barely having a chance to open her mouth let alone scream as the bullet flew through her chest. She fell lifeless to the floor, and Erica glanced back, thankful to see Tommy had shielded Zander’s eyes from the woman’s death. The laptop dropped, sliding across the floor, slipping out the door and falling into the night. In an instant it was swallowed up by the river and gone.
“Where did that shot come from?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know.” Fear rose in Erica’s throat. They had to jump. “I thought you got everyone.”
Another bullet flew. She pressed herself against the wall. Tommy shouted as his left leg collapsed like someone had swept it out from under him. Her brother fell, backward off the train, her son still tight in his arms.
“Zander!” Her son’s name slipped in a scream through her lips.
For a split second she watched as Tommy hit the water, blood seeping from his leg. She saw Zander’s eyes, full of fear, reaching for her. “Mommy!”
She jumped into the water after him. But it was too late. Her baby boy was ripped from his uncle’s arms, the river yanking him downstream. His cries filled the air.
Her son was gone.
TWELVE
It was like two bullets piercing Nick’s heart at once in a moment—the sight of his son disappearing in the dark black waters and the anguished cry of terror leaving Erica’s lips.
“Stay with your brother!” he shouted, leaping onto the train tracks. “I’ll get Zander!”
He dived off the bridge and into the water, feeling all the words he’d wished he’d said swirling around him.
I forgive you. I missed you. I loved you. I think maybe I still do.
Cold black depths swept around him, yanking him under in an instant. He fought forward and pressed his body through the cold, letting the current sweep him down the river, downstream toward his son.
Lord, I will give You anything. I will live any life You call me to. Just, please, let me save my son.
He surfaced and gasped for breath. Rain beat against him. His body swirled in circles. Behind him he could see the lights of the train sliding off the tracks. It hit the end of the bridge and toppled. The deafening screech of rock and metal filled the air as the train derailed on the opposite shore. Thank You, God. Hopefully no one on board was seriously hurt. He swam with the current.
“Zander!” He shouted his son’s name into the night. “Zander! Where are you?”
He heard nothing but the roar of the river and the beat of the rain. His chest ached like his heart was splitting open. Rain and tears lashed his face as he half swam and was swept helplessly downstream.
If only he’d been a better man. If only he’d figured out what he’d wanted sooner. If only he’d—
A light flickered. Small in the distance. A tiny little pinprick of light. On and off and on again.
SOS. SOS.
The life jacket’s emergency light! Hope surged like fire through his heart.
Zander!
“Hold on! I’m coming!” He pressed his body through the water, despite the rain, despite the wind, despite the weight of his boots dragging against his legs and the fatigue in his arms. He swam for his son, shouting Zander’s name into the storm.
Until he heard his faint voice, a faint voice floating back toward him. “Nick! Help! I’m here!”
A breath later Nick caught up to him. He reached for his son, wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into his chest. Relief exploded through his heart as he felt Zander’s arms latch around him and pull him in with a force that nearly stole Nick’s breath from his throat. For a second, father and son swirled in the water together.
“I’ve got you,” Nick said. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
He held the boy against him and pulled them toward to shore, kicking and swimming with one arm. He pushed against the current and through the water until he felt the dirt under his feet, then rocks smacking his shins and then the rough scrub of bushes and branches against his hands. He latched his hand around a thin tree and yanked himself and Zander out of the water and onto the shore. He collapsed on the ground, cradling Zander in his arm. For a moment they lay there, staring up at the rain. Darkness surrounded them, punctuated only by the flickering of Zander’s little SOS light.
“You...you...you saved me...” Tears stuttered through Zander’s voice. “You picked me out of the water just like Moses.”
“Of course I did.” Nick sat up slowly and helped Zander sit up, too. “I will always come for you. No matter where you go. Are you hurt?”
“No, but I’m wet.” Zander shook his head. “And I was really scared.”
“So was I,” Nick admitted.
Tears overtook Zander’s voice. He started to cry, throwing his arms back around Nick and holding him so tightly Nick felt tears fill his eyes.
“I will never lose you or give up on you,” Nick said. He ran his hand over the back of his son’s head. “You hear me? You are important. You are loved. No matter what you do or where you go, no matter how far away you get or how long we go between seeing each other, no matter what—I will always love you. I will always protect you. I will always have your back. And I will always be there for you. No matter what. I promise. Now, come on. We’ve got to go find your mommy.”
He pushed his exhausted limbs to stretch. They climbed the bank and started walking, the long, hard walk back toward the railway bridge, using the light of the lifejacket’s emergency flashlight to guide their steps.
“Zander!” Erica’s voice burst out at them from the distance.
“Mommy!” Zander cried.
Nick saw Erica running toward her son and then Zander running full tilt toward his mother. He hung back, watched and waited, as son and mother flung themselves into each other’s arms and tumbled to their knees together, where they hugged, laughed, cried and prayed.
Thank You, Lord. Please, whatever it takes, help me be there for them. May I never let either of them down ever again.
Then, eventually, he saw Tommy limp up behind them. He was leaning on a thick branch as a crutch. A makeshift tourniquet was wrapped around his leg for the bullet wound. But it looked like the blood had stopped and he could still put some pressure on it. Thankfully, it seemed the wound wasn’t too serious.
Erica eased her arms loose enough to let Zander hug his uncle.
“I’m sorry, Little Soldier,” Tommy gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Uncle Tommy!” Zander said. “Somebody shot you!”
Nick turned and walked off to give them privacy. But he felt Erica’s hand on his arm, pulling him back. He turned toward her.
“Thank you.” Two words slipped from her lips that somehow said more than a thousand ever could. “You saved my—our son...”
“Thank you for trusting me to save him,” Nick said. His eyes rose to the sky. But still he could feel her there, standing in front of him, as if the space between them had disappeared. “Look, I know I haven’t always been the most reliable, and I know you’ve had your reasons for not trusting me in the past. But when Zander’s life was on the line, you stayed on the bridge with your brother and trusted me to swim for him. That means everything to me.”
“I...” She swallowed hard. “Look, Nick, I...”
“Let me go first.” He felt for her hands in the darkness. “It’s your choice when and how to tell Zander that I’m his father. It’s your choice where you live and how you raise him. I get that I made a lot of mistakes and it might take some time to trust me again. You need to get to know me all over again, and I know that you and I have pretty much ruined any chance of being together like we used to be. But I need you to know that I will always love our son. I will support you both financially, emotionally and practically in any and every way you need me to. I will always have his back and your back as his mother. No matter what it takes.”
She didn’t answer for a minute. Instead they stood there in silence and let the rain beat around them. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. She let her head fall against him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me, too,” he said.
She slid her arms up around his neck and they held each other in the darkness. His lips met hers and he kissed her for one fleeting moment, until he felt the urge welling up inside him to ask her for more. He found himself wanting to hold her tightly in his arms and promise to never let her go. He wanted to ask her to try again, to wipe away the past, to restart the relationship he’d once taken for granted and tossed away.
But instead the knowledge of everything he’d done, everything she’d done, and how much they’d hurt each other seemed to rise up between his heart and his mind like a wall he didn’t know how to break. He let go of her and stepped away.
* * *
Rain pattered on the roof of the abandoned train station. A fire crackled softly in the front entranceway, just under the shelter of the wood-and-metal awning. Tommy sat by the fire, gun at his side, looking out into the night. Erica lay on her back and dozed softly, letting relief and fatigue fill her limbs. They hadn’t been able to get the satellite phone to work again and it might be a while before Nick’s brothers were able to reach them. But no one had followed them on the trek from the river to the abandoned railway station. The train had derailed on the other side, putting an entire river between them and the people who’d wanted to hurt them.
She thought of the laptop disappearing into the river, of Clark’s and Julie’s deaths, of the crew who’d been stranded at the side of the tracks in the rain and of the passengers who’d witnessed weapons being drawn and felt their lives being threatened. There was still so much she didn’t know. Like who’d hired Mr. Grand in the first place and how’d they had known about the whistle-blower and the laptop transfer. Who had thought the contents of the laptop was worth hijacking a train and killing a rising-star politician over? And why couldn’t Julie hack the data? Was there really nothing there? How had Nick missed a gun when they were searching the criminals and which one of them had somehow got through the door and shot Julie? Where had Bob gone when he’d got off the train?
There was still so much she didn’t know. But some things that thankfully she did. Rescue would arrive, the storm would break and the sun would rise. They’d be safe. They’d be found. Now all they could do was wait.
She looked over to the other side of the room where Nick lay asleep on his back with Zander curled up in the crook of his arm. She’d fallen asleep holding her son, while Nick and Tommy were still building the fire. She wasn’t even sure when Zander had crawled away from her and over to Nick. But now, there he was, curled up asleep against him.
His father.
Yes, that was something else she knew with absolute certainty. Despite how many times she’d told herself, in the face of Clark’s unwanted advances, that Zander didn’t need a father, now that she saw her little boy curled up against Nick she knew without the shadow of a doubt in her heart that Zander needed Nick, and Nick seemed to need Zander just as much in return.
Lord, I’m so thankful that You brought Nick into our lives. Thank You that he was there on that train today. Thank You that he rescued Zander. But I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know how this is going to impact our lives or how I tell Zander the truth about his father? How do I trust Nick and let him back into my life knowing he might run again? Knowing he might let me down again?
Suddenly she couldn’t let herself lie still any longer. This moment of peace and quiet wouldn’t last. Rescue would be arriving soon, then she and Zander would go home and Nick would return to base. She had to figure out her heart and mind by then. She had to figure out where she wanted things to go from here. She pushed herself to her feet and started to pace. The small abandoned station had a ticket booth in the front, two customer lounges on either side and a railway shed at the back. She turned toward the shed.
“You okay?” Tommy whispered.
She nodded but somehow her lips wouldn’t form the word yes. She waved to her brother, crossed through the second customer lounge and then down a long hallway to the train shed. The shed was empty. The smell of wet wood filled her senses. Her footsteps clacked on the worn wooden floor. She walked over to the wide railway doors and looked out across the wild and tree-filled landscape.
I loved him, Lord. I loved Nick with my whole heart. At one point I thought I would’ve given anything to build a life, a family and a future with him. But I can’t just ignore and forget everything that happened. I can’t pretend he didn’t make the mistakes he did. I can’t pretend I didn’t make the mistakes I made or the choices I made, either. How will we ever look at each other without seeing all that? How do we ever get past it and try again?
She stood there staring out at the rain. The storm was lightening. The clouds were turning gray and gold on the horizon. The floorboards creaked behind her.
“Hey, sis?”
She turned. Tommy was standing there behind her in the train shed. One pant leg was soaked dark red from where the bullet had grazed his leg. She’d had to practically drag him across the submerged railway bridge, clinging to the rails and battling the water until they’d finally reached the shore. Only then had she been able to check his wound, help him bandage it up as best they could with the first-aid kit Nick had left her and then break off a branch strong enough to use as a crutch. Even then�
��with first her, and then her and Nick helping to support Tommy’s weight—it had been a long slow trek up the bank and eventually to the abandoned station.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” she said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Her brother nodded like he hadn’t heard her. He reached into his jacket pocket. “This isn’t exactly easy, but I’ve got to tell you I’m sorry...”
“Stop it!” She raised her hand. “Nobody blames you for what happened. You were shot. You didn’t mean to drop Zander. He knows it. I know it. Everyone knows it. You’re the one who stuck that life vest on him. If it weren’t for you, he’d have drowned. And don’t even start on the fact you accepted Clark’s invitation to join him in the first-class cabin. Yes, you knew he had something up his sleeve, but you had no idea how any of this was going to go down.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about Nick coming to see you!” Tommy’s voice rose. “Stop thinking you know what everyone’s thinking, sis, and let me talk!
“I’m sorry that I thought I knew better than you! I’m sorry that when you were pregnant, and Nick came to talk to you, I lied to him and then lied to you about our conversation. I’m not sorry I didn’t tell him about Zander, because it wasn’t my place to tell him that he was a father. I’m not sorry for trying to protect you and I still don’t think he was good enough for you. But I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that he came to see you and that I didn’t give you the choice. Okay? Because I was wrong. You’re plenty strong and smart enough to decide who you want to love. Even if I don’t like them.”
She blinked. His voice had risen but it was more like he was yelling at himself that her.
“Also, I’m sorry I never gave you this,” he said. That was when she realized he was holding his wallet in his hand. He opened his wallet, reached into a plastic side compartment and pulled out a folded piece of paper from behind his driver’s license and insurance.
“Nick had this letter for you. I didn’t know what to do with it when he gave it to me. I wasn’t going to give it to you because he had no right to ask anything of you. It didn’t seem right to throw it out, because you were pregnant with his kid and all, and it seemed like the kind of thing you might want to have one day. But I wasn’t gonna just stick it somewhere where it might get lost. So I shoved it in my wallet. It got kinda damp, mostly at the edges. But hopefully you can still read it, or some of it anyway.”
Rescuing His Secret Child Page 15