Who has the best claim on the child?

It’s been more than ten years since exhausted new mother Dana Stewart took a nap while her baby was sleeping and woke up to find him gone. The loss devastated her—and her marriage—and she’s never given up hope of finding Gabriel. She never expected that when she finally did, he’d be almost a teen, his name would be Christian...and he and his uncle Nolan Gregor would want nothing to do with her.

Nolan, a former army ranger, proves as possessive of her son as Dana is. It’s like King Solomon’s worst nightmare: she can’t rip her child away from the only parent he’s ever known. But she’s his mom, and she’ll never lose him again.

The resemblance between this woman and Christian was too obvious.

He watched her as she approached the counter. Tall and yet slight to the point of appearing fragile, Dana Stewart wore her honey-blond hair in some kind of twist on the back of her head. Her bone structure echoed her son’s—no, it was the other way around. Her cheekbones were almost too sharply defined, leaving hollows beneath. There was a tension to the way she carried herself, shoulders squared, head high, as if she wouldn’t let herself relax in any way. The hand not clutching a purse was curled into a fist.

She was a beautiful woman now, but he wondered how much more beautiful she’d been before her son’s disappearance damaged her in ways both visible and invisible.

Needing to be battle-ready, Nolan slid off the stool and stood before she reached him.

“Ms. Stewart.”

“You’re guessing,” she said, in a distinctively throaty voice.

“No.” He made a sound even he couldn’t decipher. “You look like him.”

Pleasure showed on her face. “I do, don’t I? Thank you for emailing the pictures. I know you were annoyed at me—”

“I’m not that petty,” he broke in.

Her teeth sank into her full lower lip. “I...would have understood.”

Nolan had to momentarily close his eyes to recover his resolve. I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. Of course it would come to that.

No, he might not be petty, but inevitably he would hurt this woman.

Dear Reader,

If you’re a longtime reader of mine, you’ll know that A Mother’s Claim isn’t the first book I’ve written about an abducted child. An earlier Harlequin Superromance novel, The Family Next Door, began after the heroine’s daughter had been restored to her, too. I think that story must have been at the back of my mind when I started plotting this one. In it, the daughter was young and hadn’t been gone nearly as long as is the case in A Mother’s Claim. Long after writing that book, I began to wonder what would happen if so long had passed that the very young child was nearly a teenager and had no memory whatsoever of his real mother and father. Who is this woman, asking him to betray the only mother he remembers?

Dana has dreamed for eleven long years that a miracle could happen. Sure enough, it does, with a phone call letting her know her son is alive and well. After the miracle, though...well, that’s when the real story begins. As always, I love wrestling with the aftermath of trauma. What more confusing time could there be to fall in love? Plus, as a fiercely protective parent, I identified powerfully with Dana.

I hope you’re as moved by her journey as I was.

Janice

A Mother’s Claim

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An author of more than ninety books for children and adults, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. An eight-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008 for her Harlequin Superromance novel Snowbound. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

To my dearly loved daughters, Sarah and Katie.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IDIOT BOYS.

Having gotten Christian to the emergency room, Nolan Gregor was trying hard to be mad instead of sick to his stomach and scared out of his skull.

As a former army ranger, Nolan would have felt concern if he’d seen this much blood in the field. Panic—no. But this was Nolan’s eleven-year-old nephew with the ugly ax wound to the shoulder, which made everything different.

Yeah, he’d done his share of idiot things when he was a kid and later put his life at risk for his country. But even with a bullet wound he had never bled like this. Christian’s shirt was saturated by the time the EMT cut it off. Blood continued to flow despite the efforts to stanch it.

It took everything Nolan had to pretend nonchalance, to keep his posture confident and reassuring. A big man, he had retreated to a corner to be out of the way of the medical personnel clustered around Christian. He braced a shoulder against a wall of the emergency room cubicle. Nothing and nobody could have made him leave.

Face taut with pain, Christian kept his gaze fixed on Nolan, who was the closest thing to a father he’d ever had.

The doctor straightened, his eyes sharp above the mask. “Mr. Gregor, do you know Christian’s blood type?”

The question ramped up Nolan’s tension.

He frowned. “No. His mother is AB, but I have no idea about his father.” Or who Christian’s father was, for that matter. Nobody but Marlee knew, and she wasn’t saying.

To one of the nurses, the doctor said, “Let’s go with universal, but type him, too.”

Christian tried to rear up, restrained by the team working on him. “Am I bleeding to death?”

“No, I’m just being cautious.” The doctor laid a gloved hand on the boy’s uninjured shoulder and squeezed. “You’ve learned a good lesson. Chop yourself open, and you might end up needing a transfusion.”

A nurse was already pulling blood to check its type. Someone else was on the phone just outside the room requesting a unit of O neg.

Christian knew the rules: he used an ax only under the direct supervision of his uncle or, on occasion, a friend’s parent. Today, after overhearing Nolan grumble about the cold and whether he’d split enough wood to last until spring, Christian and his buddy Jason had decided to surprise Nolan. They got cocky and did some roughhousing. Somehow, Jason swung an ax that dug into Christian’s shoulder. Blood spurted. Jason ran screaming to the house.

Nolan wouldn’t soon forget his first sight of Christian, crumpled to his knees, his thin shoulder sliced to the bone, blood gushing. He hadn’t felt sickening terror like that since an IED had killed two men in his squad and left three others missing body parts. As he had then, he’d forced himself to calm down and done his damnedest to stop the bleeding while he waited for help.

Now, watching the doctor and nurses work on Christian, he saw that they were finally having success. The strain gradually leached from his muscles.

Sure enough, by the time the unit of O-neg blood arrived, the doc waved it off. He did decide to keep Christian for the night to recover from the blood he’d lost.

Eventually, Nolan and his nephew were left alone while overnight arrangements were being made.

“It wasn’t Jason’s fault,” Christian said in a desperate voice. “Don’t blame him.”

“Safe to say, we’ll let you share the blame,” Nolan said drily. He felt sure Jason had already caught hell from his dad.

Christian seemed reassured. His eyelids sank, but he mumbled, “We were dumb, weren’t we?”

“Yep.” Now standing right beside the bed, smoothing the boy’s dark blond hair back from his forehead, Nolan said, “We’ll talk about it once you’re in fighting form again.”

Christian made a fist with one hand and managed to raise it a few inches.

Nolan chuckled. “Oh, I’m scared.”

The small smile on the boy’s face caused relief and something sharper to squeeze his heart. Nolan didn’t have much family: his sister, Marlee, and her son. And Marlee... He loved her, but she was a constant worry and aggravation he had inherited when their parents were killed by a drunk driver. Medication gave her stretches of stability, but more and more often she refused to take it, which meant her mental illness dominated all their lives. Nolan could deal with the ups and downs, but watching her put her son through so much enraged him.

After their parents’ deaths, he’d given up his military career to take care of his sister and her kid. When he came home to Lookout to stay, he told Marlee that, from here on out, Christian would be living with him. She was welcome, as well, or they’d arrange occasional overnights. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but the boy he loved had to come first. He’d made sure she knew that if she didn’t agree to his conditions, including her signature on papers giving him the right to make decisions for Christian, he’d challenge her in court for guardianship. Neither had any doubt he’d win.

So they’d made an uneasy peace, with her coming and going but Christian gaining in confidence now that he had a stable home and someone he could count on.

Thank God for that agreement. Today was typical. Nobody had been able to reach Marlee. Nolan hadn’t seen her in a couple of days. She might be holed up in the apartment she maintained with disability payments, or she might have hitchhiked to Portland or somewhere else. In the grip of her schizophrenia, she tended to wander. If she could get her hands on drugs, she took them. He knew she spent weeks and months at a time living on the streets in one city or another, vulnerable to predators. It was almost inevitable that someday she would disappear for good. His parents had tried to gain guardianship so that she could be committed to an institution when she was at her worst, but they had failed. Nolan wasn’t sure he loved that idea, anyway.

When an orderly appeared to take Christian upstairs, the boy was sound asleep.

Not liking his pallor, Nolan decided to stay behind and corner the doctor again. Maybe the boy should have received that unit of blood.

He hadn’t caught the doctor’s name but spotted him in the nurses’ station scrutinizing something on a computer monitor.

He looked up as Nolan approached. “Mr. Gregor. I’m glad you’re still here.”

Ice trickled down Nolan’s spine. “Something’s wrong.”

The doctor’s expression cleared. “Not with Christian’s condition. He should be fine. He’s going to hurt for a while, though.”

Relaxing a little, Nolan shook his head. “Hell of a lesson.” He glanced at the badge pinned to the other man’s scrub top. Dr. Karl Soderberg. “You must have a concern.”

“Not at all. Just wanted to let you know that Christian’s blood type is O positive.”

“Must have gotten that from his father,” Nolan said slowly, although something tugged at his memory.

“He might have. It does mean his mother isn’t AB, though.”

“What?” Nolan said, almost soundlessly.

“A parent with blood type AB can have children that are A, B or AB, but not O, even if the other parent has type O. It’s just not possible. You might want to ask your sister again for her blood type.”

Nolan was too stunned to speak. He’d taken leave and flown home after the car accident that killed their parents and left Marlee injured. He’d always known they had the same blood type as their mother, a fact confirmed when Marlee received a transfusion.

All he said was, “Thanks. Will you print that off so I can keep it with Christian’s vaccination records?”

“You bet.” A moment later, Soderberg handed over the piece of printer paper. Summoned by a nurse in the door of another cubicle, he walked away.

Nolan was left to stare at a couple of lines of basic information that carried the force of a grenade capable of wiping out his small family. He wanted to believe the lab had made a mistake, mixed up two samples of blood. He would, of course, take Christian to his own doctor for verification. But Marlee wasn’t your average, everyday mom. A part of him knew.

Christian could not be her biological son.

* * *

ONE MONTH LATER, almost to the day, Nolan buried his sister.

When their parents died two years ago, he had acted on intuition—or had it only been fear?—and purchased not two cemetery plots but three. Now he laid Marlee to rest beside her mother.

He’d seen too much death and devastation himself to gain any comfort from that—he’d ceased to believe in an afterlife or the rosy fiction that Mom had met Marlee with outstretched arms. But Christian seemed to find it some consolation, which was all that mattered.

Christian had insisted on staying to watch as earth was shoveled atop the casket. Only two cemetery workers in rain gear remained with them. Friends and the minister who’d said a few words over the grave had all given the man and boy kind, pitying glances and walked away, sheltered by black umbrellas. Nolan held the same kind of umbrella and kept Christian close to him with an arm around his shoulders. Cold rain dripped from the bare branches of the maples that lined the paved cemetery lane. The heap of soil beside the grave had been protected by a tarp.

As the first shovelful pattered down, Christian’s body jerked.

“That’s enough,” Nolan said harshly and turned him away.

To his relief, Christian didn’t protest.

They walked across the squishy ground to Nolan’s SUV, decorated on each side with the logo of his business and the name: Wind & Waves.

Shivers racked his nephew’s thin body. “I can’t believe...” he mumbled.

That his mother was dead? Nolan had no trouble believing that. What he struggled with was the knowledge of how she died. Marlee committed suicide after Nolan insisted she tell him the truth about Christian. He, who had vowed to care for her, had killed her.

When he first confronted her, she screamed, “That’s a lie! That’s a lie! That’s a lie!” and covered her ears with her hands. He had insisted she stay with them so she couldn’t run from questions she didn’t want to answer. He’d also figured that with Christian out of school recuperating, she could be there to help while Nolan was at work. Nolan had grown grimmer, Marlee more hysterical. He had become reluctantly convinced that she truly believed she had carried Christian for nine months and borne him with the help of a midwife rather than in a hospital.

Did that mean Christian had no birth certificate? Hadn’t Marlee or their parents needed one to enroll him in school?

Nolan would forever be thankful that he—not Christian—had found her dead from an overdose. The law had required an autopsy, and Nolan had asked if the pathologist could tell if she had ever borne a child.

The pathologist’s report had left no doubt, detailing changes childbirth made to a woman’s body. Marlee Gregor had never birthed a baby.

And she’d taken to her grave any answers about who Christian’s biological parents were and how she had come to claim him.

She had also left Nolan with a shattering emotional and moral dilemma.

He loved Christian like a son. Any effort to trace those parents, to find out whether his sister, in the grip of her madness, had stolen a baby boy, could result in Nolan losing Christian.

Reason said he should keep what he knew to himself. Christian had experienced too much turmoil already in his life. As it was, he could cling to the belief that, despite everything, his mom had loved him, that the grandparents he still missed had been his, that he was safe with his uncle Nolan.

And Nolan couldn’t imagine his life without the boy who was his only family.

And yet...what if somewhere were parents who still mourned their lost child? He didn’t want to think his sister had been capable of snatching a baby from a loving family, but he couldn’t be sure.

Christian’s DNA might have been entered in databases of missing children and been waiting all these years for a match.

Perhaps the boy’s biological mother had been a teenager living on the street, unable to care for him. Marlee might even have found him abandoned.

God, how Nolan wanted to believe in that as an explanation.

In the weeks that followed, he had trouble thinking about anything else. His heart and his conscience engaged in silent warfare.

It’s the right thing to do.

I could lose him.

If his parents pop up and want him back...what will that do to Christian?

He told himself constantly that he could take his time, think about the consequences of every conceivable choice. That baby boy had become Christian Josiah Gregor a very long time ago, which meant there was no hurry for Nolan to make a decision. A few weeks, months, at this point, what difference did it make?

* * *

FLOATING ON A cloud of well-being, Dana Stewart didn’t want to open her eyes. The aftereffects of a dream lingered. She could feel the precious weight of her son in her arms, smell baby powder and his natural sweetness. The sensation of happiness was so rare she would have given anything to hold on to it.

But, inevitably, she woke up and the glow succumbed to crushing pain and guilt.

Still she lay there, refusing to open her eyes. If she did, she’d have to see her empty, lonely bedroom, the one she’d once shared with her husband. She and Craig had divorced a year after Gabriel’s disappearance.

Too awake now to hold on to the dream, she opened her eyes at last to see her bedroom door open to the hall, as always. She never closed her door or the one into Gabe’s room, not anymore. Dana knew how irrational she was being, but she couldn’t fight a desperate need to...hear.

She followed her usual routine: check her phone to be absolutely sure she hadn’t somehow missed a call or text, get out of bed, choose something to wear, shower, force down some toast or a bagel with peanut butter.

It had taken her years to do more than snatch a few hours of interrupted sleep. Even now, she didn’t sleep deeply.

She didn’t enjoy eating anymore, either. It had always puzzled her that she hadn’t gone the other way; she’d loved food, once upon a time, loved to cook and had been just a little plump. Now...she ate to sustain life. She doubted Craig would recognize her. Occasionally, she encountered an old friend and saw shock.

Really, she was healthier than she’d ever been. She ran up to five miles a day, usually when she got home from work. Her diet consisted of whole grains, vegetables, fruit and nuts. She had a runner’s thin body but didn’t care how she looked.

On the surface, she lived—had friends, spent time with her family, held a fulfilling job. But she would sacrifice every other relationship to find Gabriel. That hole inside her, the search, secretly consumed her.

She haunted websites devoted to missing children, posting reminders of her lost son wherever she could. Once a year, she called the detective who had investigated fruitlessly, even though he was now a district commander in the Aurora, Colorado, police department. He was always polite and sympathetic; yes, he would do some follow-up. He always called a few days later to say that nothing new had come up. Although she knew he was thinking it, he didn’t say, Lady, your son is dead. You need to deal with reality.

If she had believed, truly believed, that Gabe was dead, she wasn’t sure she’d have reason to live. But if Gabriel ever was found, he would need her. She couldn’t surrender entirely to despair.

She would go to work, immerse herself in other people’s problems, try to find them help, soften their burdens. She’d come home, run until her body ached, eat what she must, read or watch some meaningless television show and finally go to bed, where she would only allow herself to sleep lightly, listening for the faintest of sounds.

She would keep doing it.

But every hour, every day, every week and month and year, scoured her out until less and less of the old Dana survived.

* * *

UNCLE NOLAN HAD been really quiet since Christian got home from school. Well, not home home—most days, if he wasn’t hanging with friends, he rode his bike to his uncle’s business, which had a private beach on the Columbia River. Uncle Nolan had bought the business when he came back from Afghanistan for good, and immediately made a deal with a really cool small inn to take over an old boathouse and expand it on land leased from them. Then he’d sold the original building on the main street.

It wasn’t like he’d been busy today; hardly anybody wanted to rent windsurfing gear or a sailboat or kayak in late January, when the weather was this cold and wet. Usually Uncle Nolan didn’t seem to mind slow stretches; he said the busy seasons more than made up for them.

But today he’d been sitting behind a computer and barely looked up when Christian walked in. All he said was, “Homework.”

Uncle Nolan used as few words as possible, listening more than he talked. This was kind of different, though. Usually he at least said hi and asked about Christian’s day. He’d been more withdrawn since Mom died. He brooded a lot, which was okay. Christian did, too, going up to his room to lie on his bed, stare up at the ceiling and wonder how Mom could have done that. Hadn’t she worried about him at all? He knew she was sick, but hadn’t she loved him? What if she had changed her mind at the last second but it was too late?

Was dying like they said, following a white light? In killing herself, had she committed such a sin she was condemned to a horrible eternity? Or was she just...gone? Erased? Uncle Nolan had talked with him about what different people believed and had shaken his head when Christian asked what he thought.

“I wish I could tell you.” He’d stared into the distance, but not as if he was seeing anything. “You know what I did in the military.”

Christian nodded.

“I saw a lot of men killed.”

Christian knew his uncle had probably killed a bunch of those men. Sometimes he thought that’s why Uncle Nolan was so quiet. Maybe those dead men haunted him.

But what he’d said then was, “I’ve never seen a ghost. Never had a hint of one of my buddies coming back to let me know he’s okay on the other side. Not sure I believe it when someone claims Grandma appeared the day after the funeral to say goodbye. But I can’t discount the possibility that there is an afterlife. Any minister will tell you there is, and most people believe it.”

“I wish—” Christian wasn’t even sure what he’d meant to say. He wished Mom hadn’t done it? Or that she was watching over him, like people had claimed she was? Or that she hadn’t been crazy to start with?

But Uncle Nolan had pulled him into a tight hug and said, in his deep voice, “I do, too, son.”

And Christian knew he really did understand. That he had all the same wishes, never sure which one to go for, because he had loved Christian’s mom even though he got really mad at her, too.

They had sat there long enough Christian should have been embarrassed, but he wasn’t, because Uncle Nolan wasn’t. Nobody could say Uncle Nolan wasn’t a really tough guy. If he thought it was okay to hug, then it was.

Today Christian didn’t argue. He had a bunch of homework. He was in a pullout program to take an advanced math class, and they were doing some algebra and geometry, which he really liked. Today’s problems were hard, and he was still working on them when Uncle Nolan said, “Closing time.”

He threw Christian’s bike in the back of his Suburban, then said, “I ordered a pizza.”

“Cool!”

They picked up an extralarge with practically everything on it. Uncle Nolan cooked broccoli, too. They always had a vegetable with dinner, no matter what else they were eating. Then they sat down and gorged.

Uncle Nolan did finally ask about his day and grimaced when Christian asked if he’d done any business at all.

“Sold a couple of Naish sails because I have them discounted. Harness lines, a vest, some little stuff.” Then he grinned. “Couple of cocky young guys rented a Hobie Cat.” That was a kind of small sailboat. Uncle Nolan thought they were ideal for rentals. “Came back an hour later with blue lips and chattering teeth, real sorry they hadn’t accepted my recommendation and rented wet suits, too.”

Christian laughed.

Like always, they cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher together; Uncle Nolan didn’t like anything left lying around, especially not dirty dishes.

Christian headed for the stairs. “I’ve still got homework to finish.”

Uncle Nolan said, “I need to talk to you first.” The way he said that scared Christian. It was kind of like when he’d had to tell Christian Mom was dead.

He went back to the table and sat down.

Uncle Nolan pulled out a chair, too. He sighed, rubbed his neck and sighed some more. Finally, he met Christian’s eyes. “I don’t know any way to soften this, so here goes. When Jason whacked you with that ax, I found out your blood type.”

Christian nodded.

“You have O positive. That’s pretty common.” He obviously didn’t want to say the rest. “It shook me up, because it meant my sister couldn’t be your biological mother.”

On an explosion of fear, Christian shoved his chair back. “That’s not true!”

Lines that weren’t usually there creased Uncle Nolan’s forehead. “I’m afraid it is. You know I had Dr. Santos draw your blood the week after you were hurt.”

Still not having risen to his feet, Christian went very still. He’d kind of wondered why, when he was seeing their family doctor to make sure the wound hadn’t gotten infected or anything like that, he’d had to give blood. Especially after he’d lost so much.

“The lab he sent the sample to verified the result. I requested your mom’s medical records to be sure I wasn’t misremembering.”

He lectured then, about blood types and why someone with AB blood couldn’t have a child with O blood, even if the other parent had it. He said he’d tried to get Marlee to tell him how she’d come to adopt Christian but she wouldn’t. Christian had heard enough to know they were arguing, but not what it was about. Now he did.

Scared like he’d never been, even when he was bleeding so much he thought he would die, Christian whispered, “But if she adopted me, it’s legal, right?”

“I can’t find any paperwork.” Worry and sadness made Uncle Nolan look different than usual. “I can see her not bothering to go to court for a decree. She had trouble following a bunch of steps or conforming to what people expected of her.”

“But...if she didn’t...where did she get me?”

“You know she lived on the streets sometimes. Your biological mother could have been a teenager or an addict she met there, unable to take care of you. Marlee would have known that Grandma and Grandpa and I would help if she brought you home.”

He swallowed and made himself say, “Does that mean I can’t stay with you?”

“No.” Uncle Nolan’s jaw muscles bulged. “I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. And if there’s one thing I learned at Fort Bragg and overseas, it’s how to fight dirty.”

Christian let himself breathe out and nod.

“Here’s the thing, though.” Uncle Nolan squeezed the back of his neck, like it hurt. “There’s one other possibility we have to think about.”

Christian got scared again. Really scared.

“You know when your mom was off her meds, she didn’t always know what she was doing. She’d think things were true that weren’t.”

He nodded numbly.

Uncle Nolan had these bright blue eyes. Right now they were really dark, and Christian saw that he did hurt.

“I need to make sure she didn’t steal you.”

“She wouldn’t!”

Uncle Nolan didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Mom had gotten arrested a few times for shoplifting. Confused, she forgot she had to pay for things she wanted.

So...she did steal sometimes.

“I’ve wrestled with myself about this. A big part of me doesn’t want to do anything about what we know. You’re mine, and I want to keep it that way.”

Christian waited, fire scorching his stomach.

“But then I imagine how I’d feel if you disappeared and I never knew what had happened to you. What if you had parents who loved you deeply and you were taken from them? How can we go on the way we are and leave them suffering?”

Christian didn’t care about anybody else, so long as he could stay with Uncle Nolan.

“I’m not asking your permission.” His uncle’s blue eyes were regretful now. “I can’t live with myself if I don’t do this.”

He shrank back. “What’s...this?”

“We need to take a DNA sample—which we can get from some spit, so it’s no big deal—and have someone at the sheriff’s department list it in a couple of databases.”

“So...somebody can find me.” He was shaking.

“So if your DNA is already in one of those databases, a match will come up.”

“You’ll let them take me, won’t you?” Suddenly he was on his feet shouting. “You can’t say no if they come! They’ll just take me.” He backed away. “You lied. You’re just like Mom. You’re both liars!”

And he ran, not caring that it was dark and cold and raining outside. He didn’t slow down even to slam the back door behind him. He just kept running.

CHAPTER TWO

“PHOENIX HAS BEEN ACCEPTED.” Dana smiled at the very young woman across from her. “His enrollment starts at the beginning of the quarter. The child-care facility is right off campus, which makes drop-off and pickup easy for students. It won’t cost you a cent, as long as you stay in school full-time and receive passing grades.”

This was the best part of her job working at a nonprofit focused on helping single women with children find opportunities. Lucy Evans had been considerably easier to help than many of Dana’s clients. Not quite twenty, she had a two-year-old boy. Her mother lived at a subsistence level and was unable to help except for babysitting evenings when Lucy worked at a bar. Lucy and her little boy drifted from shelters to cheap by-the-week motels back to shelters. Her income gave her no hope of anything better. So far, she had avoided the trap of going from man to man, smart enough to recognize that the men she met in those bars and run-down motels couldn’t offer economic and emotional stability. What she had over many of Dana’s clients, besides common sense, was a high school diploma and grades that would have won her admission to a four-year college had she not become pregnant her senior year.

After struggling since her son’s birth, she had finally come to A Woman’s Lifeline and begged for help. Since Dana had first talked to her, Lucy had been accepted into the local community college nursing program, starting summer quarter. Scholarships would cover the cost of tuition and books. She could continue her evening job, taking advantage of her mother’s willingness to babysit. Because of the child-care program Dana had secured for them, Lucy could devote breaks between classes to studying. Dana had also found her subsidized housing at a cost she thought Lucy could handle.

This was one young woman, Dana believed, who would make it and emerge strong and capable.

Dana was intensely grateful that A Woman’s Lifeline provided free on-site child care while its clients met with their caseworkers. She had seen Phoenix when she first talked with Lucy, and the sight of him had been like a stiletto to her heart. His brown eyes, blond hair and grin couldn’t possibly look as much like Gabriel’s as her first reaction suggested. Even so, it was far safer to avoid seeing him at all.

Lucy jumped to her feet as Dana stood and threw her arms around her. “Thank you!” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “You’ve done so much for us. It’s like a miracle.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said. “Watching you succeed is going to give me more satisfaction than you can imagine. And, just so you know, I have no doubt whatsoever that you will succeed.”

Lucy was still wiping her eyes when she exited. Dana was surprised to find she had to blow her nose, too.

Fifteen minutes before her next appointment gave her time to have a cup of coffee. She was leaving her office when her mobile phone rang, the sound muffled because her purse was in a desk drawer. Knowing she was most often with clients during the day, friends and family rarely called during working hours. Heart pounding, she went back to her desk, fumbled the drawer open and delved into her handbag until she came up with the phone. She hated the hope that rose every single time the damn thing rang. Eleven years of painful, useless hope. It would be a neighbor letting her know she had a package UPS dropped off, or her dentist’s office urging her to schedule a cleaning.

She didn’t recognize the number, but it was local. She answered with a simple “Hello.”

“Ms. Stewart?”

The familiar voice made her dizzy enough to grope for the arm of her desk chair and then sink into it.

“This is Commander Knapp from the Aurora PD.”

As if she wouldn’t know who he was. Dana could not summon a single word.

“I’m happier than I can say to tell you we’ve had a hit on NamUs.” He knew he didn’t have to explain anything about the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, not to her. “Your son is alive and well in a small town in Oregon.”

Something that should have been happiness but felt more like anguish swelled in her, pressing against her rib cage, rising in her throat, burning in her sinuses. She tried to speak, but she seemed to burst open at that moment, sobbing as she had never sobbed before. She couldn’t stop herself. She sat there, gripping the phone, and cried without even trying to check the deluge.

“Ms. Stewart?” Commander Knapp’s tinny voice rose from the phone. “I’ll give you a few minutes to process the news and then I’ll call back.”

She couldn’t even say thank you. The phone slipped from her fingers and dropped to the desk blotter. Tears kept gushing. Snot ran down her upper lip. A box of tissues kept for clients sat on the corner of her desk, but she couldn’t so much as reach for it.

Why did this feel so much like grief? Or was she letting go of an overload of grief that had built, day by day and year by year, until it was too much to contain?

Someone knocked. When she didn’t answer, the door cracked open. Jillian Markham, who had the next office, took one look and then rushed in.

“Oh, my God! Dana, what’s wrong?”

Dana’s face contorted and she cried harder.

Jillian saw the phone. “Bad news?”

Dana managed to shake her head.

“Oh, honey.” Jillian bent to hug her, deftly swiping her nose and cheeks with a tissue at the same time. “Just let it out.”

Dana couldn’t have said why that struck her as funny, but suddenly she was laughing and crying at the same time. Her body shook even as she soaked her coworker’s blouse, but Jillian only held her tighter.

Slowly, slowly, the storm abated. Maybe she’d run out of tears. Exhaustion swept through her, and she sagged. She felt as if she could slither to the floor, becoming a puddle.

“Honey?” Jillian pulled back a little, her face worried. “Let me get a wet washcloth and we’ll clean you up a little.”

She couldn’t have been gone a minute. The slightly rough cloth, wet with cold water, felt astonishingly good. Dana couldn’t remember the last time anyone had babied her like this—and that included her mother. She wouldn’t have permitted it. Yet here she sat, docilely accepting it.

Finally, Jillian patted her face dry, then perched on the edge of Dana’s desk. In her thirties, too, she was a curvaceous brunette whose husband was a physics professor at the University of Colorado. Dana always tried not to look at the framed photos of Jillian’s husband and two children on her desk.

“Can you tell me about it?” she asked.

Could she? Dana scrunched up her face and worked her mouth. The muscles were still obedient, if oddly numb.

“My son was abducted when he was a baby. Eight months old.” She could talk after all. Until now she’d only ever spoken of Gabriel to other parents who had lost a child. None of her coworkers knew, not even the ones like Jillian she considered to be friends. If they had, they might have worried about her. Pity, sympathy, might have broken her. “He was stolen from his crib. Police never found a trace. Nobody noticed anyone around the house.” Her mouth was dry. She finished, “That was eleven years ago.”

“I wish I’d known,” Jillian whispered. Suddenly tears glittered on her lashes. “I’m so sorry.”

“The phone call. It was the police detective who investigated.” Pressure built in her chest again. “They’ve found him, Jillian. Gabriel is alive. I don’t even know why I cried.” The words were so stunning, so beautiful, she had to say them again. “He’s alive!”

And, just like that, the pressure became a radiance that was surely visible through walls.

“He’s alive.” She smiled, she laughed and she cried again, Jillian doing the same. “I’ve waited eleven years to say this. My Gabriel is coming home.”

* * *

A MAN WHO’D once melted into the shadows and waited without moving for hours on end when he’d been hunting bad guys, Nolan couldn’t make himself sit down. He prowled the downstairs, wound so tight he expected to snap. Why hadn’t the woman called?

“Crap.” He rolled his shoulders. Maybe she’d never call. Maybe she’d had five more children by now and written off her firstborn. He could hope.

Christian was huddled upstairs in his bedroom. He’d promised to come down when he heard the phone ring, but he hadn’t promised to speak to Dana Stewart. His mother.

Nolan reached the living room wall and spun to continue his restless pacing.

The news had come a lot faster than he’d expected and could not have been worse. Either Marlee herself had stolen Christian—whose name had been Gabriel Angus Stewart—or she’d gotten him from someone who’d done the stealing. Either way, Christian had parents. Parents who had searched desperately for him, who had loved him, mourned him. Parents who had never given up.

Or, at least, a mother who hadn’t given up. Evidently, Gabriel’s parents had split up after his disappearance. Nolan knew that a tragedy often led to that outcome. People didn’t grieve the same way or at the same pace. They turned inward. They had to focus their rage on someone, and who was more available than a spouse?

It was the mother who was supposed to call any minute. Nolan had no idea what to say to her. He remembered his promise to Christian.

I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. And if there’s one thing I learned at Fort Bragg and overseas, it’s how to fight dirty.

But panic stalked him. How was he supposed to fight a woman who’d done nothing wrong? Who only wanted her little boy back?

His phone rang.

He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself, before answering. No sound came from upstairs. No eager or even reluctant feet thudded down the staircase.

“Nolan here.”

There was a small silence. Then a soft woman’s voice said, “Mr. Gregor?”

“That’s right.” It wasn’t in him to help her.

“I’m Dana Stewart. Gabriel’s mother.”

“He’s been Christian for a long time, Mrs. Stewart.”

“Ms.,” she said, almost sharply. “I’ve been divorced for a long time, too.”

“Why did you keep your husband’s name, then?” He threw it out, a challenge.

“Because it’s Gabriel’s.”

The simple truth in a tremulous voice made his head bow, his face twist.

“I understand.”

“Will you tell me more?” She sounded humble. “I mean, about how you ended up with my son?”

He couldn’t deny her this much.

“I’m former military. I was overseas when my sister emailed to let me know she was pregnant and expecting anytime. She was living in Denver.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “My parents and I weren’t thrilled. Marlee was mentally ill. At the time, she seemed stable. She responded well to medication but wouldn’t always stay on it.” He paused. “She returned to the West Coast about the same time I came home on leave, her little boy eight months old.”

“She planned to steal a baby.” This voice wasn’t tremulous. It was lent resonance by rage.

“It...would appear so. When I confronted her after finding out Christian’s blood type, though, she denied anything like that. I think she really believed that Christian was hers. That she’d gone through a pregnancy and had him the usual way. She told me how many hours she’d been in labor.”

“She lied.”

“Her truths weren’t the same as most people’s.”

“You’re excusing her.”

Suddenly angry, he said, “I’m explaining her. Do you want to hear it or not?”

In the silence that followed, he felt her grabbing for calm. He wondered what she looked like. Had Christian’s blond hair come from her or his father? Christian was a strikingly handsome boy, embarrassed because girls liked him. Did his looks come from her? His height?

“You’re right,” she said, with what he suspected was hard-won poise. “I know this can’t be easy for you. She’s your sister.”

“She was my sister. Marlee died a month ago.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Christian has lived with me for a couple of years anyway, and I spent as much time as possible with him before that.” He might as well lay it all out there, he decided. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s my son.”

“And yet he’s not.”

“He’s a good kid. He loves me.”

“That doesn’t make him yours.”

The fear of losing Christian would crush him if he let it. “He’s not your baby anymore, Ms. Stewart. You have to understand. He’s five foot six. Doing advanced math. Summers, he teaches windsailing and kayaking classes. He’s damn near a teenager.”

“Why did you put his DNA online if you feel this way?”

The question rocked him. Because it was the right thing to do.

“Because I understood that you might be out there, clinging to hope, fearing he was dead. I couldn’t let you keep hurting.”

“Thank you.” The softness was back, the undertone that spoke of devastation, of an unexpected miracle. “You can’t imagine what it felt like to get that call.”

As an opponent, she’d be hard to knock down. She had too much on her side.

“Have you let Christian’s father know?”

“Yes.” Constraint could be heard. “He’s as thrilled as I am. Needless to say, he’s eager to see Gabriel, too.”

“I assume you want to talk to Christian,” Nolan said abruptly.

“Yes. Oh, yes. Please.”

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

“Hold on.” He went to the foot of the stairs, covered the phone and called for Christian.

After a minute, a door opened and the boy appeared. He took the stairs slowly, shoulders hunched, expression mulish but his eyes showing how scared he was.

“Your mother,” Nolan said, and held out the phone.

* * *

DANA WAITED, ALL of her focused, hungry, listening for a voice she’d feared never to hear.

“Uh...hi.” The uh was deep, the hi a squeak. Damn near a teenager.

Her breath came faster. He wasn’t her baby, hadn’t been for a long time. He was almost twelve years old. How could that be?

“Hello—” she made herself say it “—Christian. I’m your mother.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“Accepting what you do know can be hard.”

His “I have a mom!” sounded angry, almost violent. Then he went quiet for a moment before saying more softly, “Had a mom.”

“I have missed you every day since you were taken.”

“Mom wouldn’t have done that.”

“Somebody did.” Dana knew she’d said it too sharply, but how could she not let him know how angry she was. “You were asleep in your crib in your bedroom. It was spring. The weather was nice. Your window had a screen, so I...left it open.” Craig had never let her forget that by doing so, she had left their child vulnerable. He didn’t quite say, It was your fault, but he didn’t have to. “You’d had a restless night, so I took a nap, too. When I woke up and went into your bedroom, your crib was empty and the screen on the window had been removed.”

Not only removed: stomped on, twisted. In unwary moments, she still saw the window screen lying mangled on the lawn. It had epitomized the worst of her fears. What kind of person had taken the time to destroy the window screen only because it had briefly gotten in the way?

Gabriel didn’t say anything. Even in her turmoil, she knew how torn his loyalties had to be. How could he accept that the woman he’d believed was his mother had committed a crime so awful?

“May I speak to Mr. Gregor again?” she said politely.

Her son didn’t even say goodbye. He probably felt a rush of relief as he handed off the phone.

The slow, rumbly voice was back. “If you’ll give me your email address, I’ll send you some pictures.”

She trembled. To see his face!

“If you would—” more that was hard to say “—I’d be grateful.” She gave him her email address.

“Consider it done.”

His kindness was reluctant but real, she thought.

She steeled herself. “Mr. Gregor, I have already bought an airline ticket. I will be arriving tomorrow. Can you recommend a place to stay?”

“Don’t you think you should give this longer before you get pushy?”

“I can’t read him when we’re on the phone.”

“Our computer has a camera. You could Skype.”

Anger punched through all the other emotions. “If you were me, would that satisfy you?”

Silence. He didn’t want to say no. Admitting as much would give the advantage to her.

“The Lookout Inn,” he said abruptly. “It’s a nice place. With this being out of season, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a room.”

“Thank you,” she said. She didn’t care if she had a nice place. Eleven years of longing had coalesced into one driving need: to see Gabriel. “Then you can expect me tomorrow.”

“Doesn’t sound like we have any choice,” he said.

She looked at her phone suspiciously and saw that her guess had been right; he’d ended the call.

Would he still email the photos? Her heart drummed. Please, oh, please.

With a shaky hand, she dialed Craig’s number. She’d promised to let him know once she’d talked to Gabriel and what her plans were.

Dana desperately did not want him to insist on coming to Lookout, too. She had no desire to see him, but it was more than that. He had gone on with his life so quickly. He had two other children. Losing his son? Hardly a blip in his life.

She rarely wasted thought on her ex-husband, but bitterness seared her now. Craig had given up on Gabriel. So who was he to pretend to care now?

* * *

UNFORTUNATELY, THE MORNING dawned sunny. Nobody would be going out on the river without a wet suit, but that didn’t stop most ardent wind-or kitesurfers. A powerful wind that funneled between banks of the Columbia River Gorge was the draw. It wouldn’t be like summer, but a sparkling spring day would have Nolan busy from the minute he opened. If not for the business, he’d have been tempted to go out on the water himself.

He wished he’d thought to ask when Ms. Stewart expected to arrive.

Christian had exploded the minute he learned his biological mother was coming.

“You said you wouldn’t let her take me!” he had yelled.

“I said I’d fight her,” Nolan responded, weary and, yeah, freakin’ terrified he would lose. “And she isn’t here to take you away. What she wants is to see you. Talk to you.”

“I don’t have to talk to her if I don’t want.”

Shit. Nolan had pressed the heel of his hand to his breastbone to suppress the pain beneath. “Christian, this is a woman who has hurt for a very long time because she loved you so much. Think about how you want to treat her.”

Too many confused emotions crossed the boy’s face before he bolted upstairs. Nolan had let him go.

Wind & Waves didn’t offer lessons until mid-April. There wasn’t enough call for them. He rented a lot of windsailing packages and Hobie Cats as the morning went on, though, and sold a bunch of accessories, too.

Midafternoon, he had a lull. Over the winter and early spring, he covered the store with minimal additional staff. At the moment, Amir was out helping a couple launch a small catamaran-style Hobie Cat, leaving Nolan alone inside. The growl of his stomach reminded him he hadn’t had a chance to take lunch. Since he’d been so tied in knots this morning, he hadn’t managed to swallow much of his breakfast, either.

Nolan was reaching for his phone to order delivery from a local deli when the bell on the door rang and a woman walked in. He froze, hand outstretched, and watched her look around as she approached the counter. She might be a customer...but he was betting not.

No—he knew she wasn’t. The resemblance between this woman and Christian was too obvious.

Tall and yet slight to the point of appearing fragile, Dana Stewart wore honey-blond hair in some kind of twist on the back of her head. Her bone structure echoed her son’s—no, he supposed it was the other way around. Her cheekbones were almost too sharply defined, leaving hollows beneath. There was a tension to the way she carried herself, shoulders squared, head high, as if she wouldn’t let herself relax in any way. The hand not clutching a purse was curled into a fist.

She was beautiful, but he wondered how much more beautiful she’d been before her son’s disappearance damaged her in ways both visible and invisible.

Needing to be battle ready, Nolan slid off the stool and stood before she reached him.

He met wary gray eyes, which she hadn’t bequeathed to Christian. His were a warm brown.

“Ms. Stewart.”

“You’re guessing,” she said, in a distinctively throaty voice.

“No.” He made a sound even he couldn’t decipher. “You look like him.”

Pleasure showed on her face. “I do, don’t I? Thank you for emailing the pictures. I know you were annoyed at me—”

“I’m not that petty,” he broke in.

Her teeth sank into a full lower lip. “I...would have understood.”

Nolan had to momentarily close his eyes to recover his resolve. I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. Of course it would come to that. No, he might not be petty, but inevitably, he would hurt this woman.

“Christian is still in school.”

“I assumed he would be. Someone at the inn—” she gestured behind her “—told me where to find you.”

Nolan waited.

“You don’t want me here.”

“He’s not ready.”

The pain in those eyes could rip him in two. “Mr. Gregor, do you know how long I’ve waited to see my son?”

His jaw tightened. “Are your needs more important than his?”

As if he’d struck her, she fell back a step, making him feel like an asshole. But then she squared her shoulders again and lifted her chin. “Do you have any concept of the connection a woman feels with her unborn child? And then when she sees him, holds him, nurses him? What happens to both of them when that connection is snapped?”

His gaze lowered to her breasts, full despite her overall thinness. He saw her, a breast bared to a blond baby who had latched on. Her head was bent, her hair falling forward, her tenderness palpable.

When his eyes met hers again, he wondered what his face betrayed.

“If I hadn’t understood, I wouldn’t have put his DNA online,” he said roughly. “What you have to understand is the power of the bond he and I have. I’ve been his father in every meaningful way.”

“Every meaningful way?” Dana Stewart’s voice could have cut glass. “You are not his father either biologically or legally.”

He hadn’t meant to issue threats, not yet, but heard himself say, “The legal part is...still a possibility.”

Temper glinted in her eyes. “We’ll fight you tooth and nail.”

“We? I thought there was no longer any ‘we’?”

“Divorced doesn’t mean we aren’t united as Gabriel’s parents. And I should warn you that Craig is a wealthy man.” She flicked a glance around the store, a suggestion of disdain putting his back up. “He can afford the best legal team.”

That possibility had been worrying him, but Nolan still had investments he could tap into. During his years in the military, he hadn’t had much reason to spend. That didn’t mean he was rich, however.

So fight dirty. “Has it occurred to you,” he said softly, “that if he wins, you lose? Is that what you want? Your son going home with your ex-husband? You don’t really think he’s going to spend his money for you, do you?”

She flinched before regaining control. Knowing his aim had been dead-on made him once again feel like shit, but the devastating truth was that he would lose Christian if he was nice.

“You’re wrong.” Her voice gained strength. “We loved each other. Craig wouldn’t hurt me that way.”

Nolan shrugged. “Your risk.”

As if his insolence had been a trigger, her eyes narrowed and she said fiercely, “Gabriel is my son. If you help me, I’ll allow you to maintain a relationship with him. If you don’t...?” Her turn to shrug, after which she whirled around and walked away from him.

His gaze followed her until the door closed behind her, the bell tinkling cheerfully. And then he went to the front window and kept watching as she followed the path to the inn, a hundred yards away.

That tall, slim body might look fragile, but he had a bad feeling her backbone and will both were steel. She had suffered for a very long time, but now the future that had been only a dream was within her reach.

He didn’t have any doubt that she had meant her threat. Both her threats.

Nolan stayed where he was long after she vanished inside the Lookout Inn.

CHAPTER THREE

THE HOSTILITIES HAD blown up so quickly Dana hadn’t had a chance to ask whether Gabriel would go straight home after school or to Mr. Gregor’s business. Or whether, knowing she would be here, they’d arranged for him to hide out at a friend’s.

Nolan Gregor had said, “I’m not that petty,” but as she paced her room at the inn, her stomach still ached from his vicious reminder that her interests and Craig’s were not the same. It was painfully true that they weren’t a family anymore. He had backed off enough to allow her to make this trip alone, but Gabriel was his only son. He might insist on custody.

And what if Gabriel would be best off with him? He was most attached now to a man he saw as a father. If the woman who had stolen him really had been mentally ill, he might never have had a relationship with her that he could depend on. And, face it, however desperate Dana was to have her son, she knew she didn’t have the faintest idea what a preteen boy needed, how he thought and felt. Look how poorly they’d communicated on the phone!

Yes, she would fight tooth and nail—she’d meant that—but unless she was willing to alienate her son, she needed Nolan Gregor’s cooperation. There had to be a way to use his love for Gabriel to help her. First and foremost, they both wanted Gabriel happy.

But honesty compelled her to admit that her urgent need to hold her son again, to have him turning to her with love and trust, drove her so powerfully that separating that need from what was best for Gabriel would be difficult. She had no doubt the same was true for Nolan. And circumstances made it easier for him to convince himself that what he wanted was also what Gabriel wanted.

Christian.

She might have to force herself to use that name at first, but she would never, could never, think of her son as Christian. Her little boy was Gabriel, the name she’d loved, the name she’d chosen.

Nerves jumping, Dana checked her watch. Elementary school students were released at three thirty, according to the inn’s front-desk clerk. It was now three forty. She had driven by the school after her confrontation with Nolan Gregor. It was barely half a mile away, so she thought Gabriel would walk or ride a bike rather than take a bus. How long would it take him? Would he come straight here, or was he so reluctant to meet her he’d dawdle as long as he could?

She pressed a hand to her stomach, churning enough that she was grateful she hadn’t eaten lunch.

How petty would Nolan Gregor be?

Picturing the man who went with the deep voice didn’t do anything to calm her. His sheer size had intimidated her. At five foot ten, she was tall for a woman. Her father and brother were well over six feet; Craig was, too. But they all had long, lanky builds. In contrast, Nolan Gregor’s shoulders would fill a doorway. His chest was broad, his legs powerful. She didn’t make the mistake of thinking he’d be lumbering and slow, like a football linebacker. In fact, instinct insisted she keep distance between them to give herself time to react, because she somehow knew if he did move, he’d be lightning fast. Remembering his mention of a military career, she wondered exactly what he’d done to develop that kind of muscle.

It didn’t help that his face was...well, not handsome, exactly, but appealing, with prominent bones and a square jaw. Vivid blue eyes were a surprise considering his shaggy dark hair and dark stubble. She’d disconcerted herself by noticing his mouth and feeling a flicker of warmth she hardly recognized.

No, no, no. The man mattered only because he was her adversary at the very least. She couldn’t afford to soften toward him in any way at all.

She closed her eyes, dismissing him as she refocused on what mattered: Gabriel. A few deep breaths almost calmed her. It would take her five minutes to lock her room and make her way to the windsurfing shop next door.

She left her handbag this time, tucking her key in her pocket. She walked with a deliberate speed, forcing herself to exchange a pleasant smile with a couple in the elevator and then the desk clerk. Out the door, turn left and follow the path across the lawn.

Bright sails bloomed on the broad Columbia River. It took her a moment to see that while some were on boats, most sent single figures in wet suits skimming the choppy water on boards.

More deep breaths, and Dana resumed her walk. When she saw the bike leaning against the side of the driftwood-gray clapboard building, her heart leaped, the beats so light and fast she imagined herself flying across the water.

He’s here.

Suddenly shaking, she literally ached, the hunger to feel her baby in her arms almost unbearable.

She wasn’t thirty feet from the door. It seemed impossible, unreal, that this was happening, that he was so close. Alive. Good at math, athletic. Every dream that had sustained her for all these years was about to come true.

What she had somehow never imagined was what would happen after that magical moment when she first set eyes on him, wrapped him in her arms. In her dreams, he always said, “Mom?” in a voice of wonder. Instead, during their call he’d been angry, shouting, “I have a mom!” In her fantasies, he never refused to believe the woman he’d called Mother had stolen him from his real mother.

Her mood shifting abruptly, she almost laughed. She had her miracle, and she was standing out here, terrified and despairing in advance?

So it wouldn’t be as easy as she’d imagined. Of course it wouldn’t. He wasn’t the baby she remembered; he didn’t remember her at all. He was a whole person, shaped by strangers, including a mentally ill woman who’d claimed to be his mother. She ought to be grateful to Nolan, who had apparently given him stability and a home.

Ultimately, however hostile he was now, he would have to work with her. She’d give him time, and he would recognize how little choice he had.

Dana started forward again, feeling buoyed, lighthearted, as bright as all those sails.

He’s here.

* * *

“WHY DO I have to see her?” Christian whined, even though he knew the answer. Because this woman was his actual, real mother.

Even thinking that made him feel disloyal.

Uncle Nolan didn’t bother to answer. “Brace yourself,” he said instead. “She’ll be here any second.”

Uncle Nolan said she’d come by earlier and that she looked like Christian, which freaked him out. It was like if he couldn’t see any resemblance, he didn’t have to believe any of this was true.

The bell on the door tinkled, and his fingers bit into his palms.

Uncle Nolan’s gaze went past Christian, but his expression didn’t change. He had on what Christian thought of as his soldier face, emotionless, hard to read.

“Ms. Stewart,” Uncle Nolan said, not exactly politely but not rudely, either.

“Mr. Gregor.” The woman’s voice was husky, like the women on the radio.

Shoulders stiff, Christian kept his back to her.

“Gabe—Christian,” the woman said more quietly. “Please, let me see you.”

Uncle Nolan’s look said, Do it.

Taking a deep breath, Christian turned around. Seeing her felt like the shock he got sometimes touching the metal door of the freezer case in the grocery store. She did look like him, or like his mom should look. He’d never wondered why he didn’t look anything like Mom, because he’d thought he must look like his father. But now—

He breathed too fast, in the grip of a panicky sense of guilt. Mom wasn’t here to tell anyone what really happened! Maybe she’d rescued him. Maybe he hadn’t been safe with his real parents. Just because this total, complete stranger said he’d been stolen—

“You’re so tall,” she whispered. Until now she hadn’t even seemed to breathe, only stared with clear gray eyes, her lips slightly parted.

Nobody had ever looked at him like this. He squirmed.

Uncle Nolan’s hand closed on his shoulder. One squeeze, and Christian settled.

“He’s already in a size-nine shoe,” Uncle Nolan said. “I’ve been thinking he won’t stop growing until he’s my height or taller.”

“I—” Her breath sounded funny. “My father is six foot three, and my ex-husband—your father—” she added, not taking her eyes from Christian, “is about the same. He played guard for the Kansas Jayhawks—that’s the University of Kansas.”

She was trying to outdo his real family. No way he was going to let her.

“So?” He shrugged. “Uncle Nolan played football for Cal Berkeley. He even got drafted by the Cowboys, only he went in the army instead.”

Her gaze strayed to his uncle. “Berkeley, huh?” A tiny smile might have been teasing. “Doesn’t seem to go with a military career.”

Uncle Nolan said calmly, “If you’ve read Thucydides, you know that ‘the society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.’ I subscribe to that belief.”

He was always quoting from Thucydides, an old Greek guy.

“A historian,” the woman murmured. Her eyes went back to Christian. “Could we sit down somewhere? Or go for a walk together?”

The scared feeling expanded in his chest. He looked at Uncle Nolan, who nodded. Christian saw Ms. Stewart’s eyes narrow a little, but she didn’t say anything.

“I guess a walk.” He didn’t want to be, like, face-to-face with her.

Again he felt the reassuring weight of his uncle’s big hand on his shoulder as he passed. He was trailing her to the front of the store when Uncle Nolan called, “Wait.”

They both turned. Uncle Nolan wadded up Christian’s hooded sweatshirt and tossed it.

“It’s cold out there.”

He shrugged into it, thinking if he pulled up the hood, she wouldn’t be able to see his face.

“It looks like there’s a trail along the river,” she said.

“Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a minute. He was more shambling; he really hoped none of his friends saw him. So far, nobody in town but him and Uncle Nolan knew about all this. Well, except for Dr. Santos, their family doctor, and whatever police officer had put Christian’s DNA online.

He felt a spurt of anger because Uncle Nolan had done it even though he knew Christian didn’t want him to.

“Why don’t I tell you about your father and me?” Ms. Stewart suggested. “You have two half sisters, too. And grandparents on both sides, a couple of aunts and uncles as well as—” she seemed to have to count “—six first cousins.”

Christian ignored the flash of surprise and...interest. Were any of the cousins boys close to his age?

“I had a grandma and grandpa,” he said sullenly. “And I have Uncle Nolan.”

“I know you did. Do. Still. More family never hurts.” She paused, as if waiting for him to comment. When he didn’t, she went on to tell him about growing up in Colorado Springs, where her father had been a teacher and then principal of the high school. “A couple of years ago, he became superintendent of the whole district.” Her mother had stayed home when Ms. Stewart and her brother were little kids, then had gone back to work at a plant nursery. “Mom loves to garden,” she said softly. “I think she might like to live somewhere without such a challenging climate, but the mountains are so beautiful they make up for a lot.”

Her brother liked the mountains so much he owned his own business providing guides for climbers. “Not that different from what your uncle Nolan does,” she added.

Ms. Stewart did some kind of social work with women who were having a hard time making it on their own. Kind of like Mom, he couldn’t help thinking. Except Mom had been able to come home for help. She didn’t need anyone but family.

“Your father is a businessman. He has an MBA—a master’s degree in business administration—from Harvard. He was always good with numbers, and he seems to have a gift for guessing what people will do before they do it. He has remarried and has two daughters, so you have half sisters.”

She went on talking about his father’s family—his parents and a sister who was married to a guy on the Olympic luge team, that little sled that left you hanging out there when you hurtled down the icy curves. Christian remembered watching the Sochi Games with Uncle Nolan, who said those guys had to be nuts.

“Of course, he’s not a blood relative, but you have plenty of talented athletes in your family tree.”

He’d always thought he was like Uncle Nolan, who could do any sport and make it look easy. I am, he told himself now, fiercely. He didn’t even know these other people.

“Will you...tell me more about yourself?” she asked hesitantly.

She had to be kidding. What was he supposed to say?

“I know you’re in sixth grade.” She seemed to be trying to get him started. “Are you excited about starting middle school in the fall?”

He hunched deeper in his sweatshirt. “I guess.”

“And what about high school? Do you plan to play any sports?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“Do you have any hobbies? Collecting rocks or building a go-kart or learning to work on car engines or...” Sounded like she was running out of ideas.

Building a go-kart? Really?

Christian stopped and looked out at the river. Man, he wanted to be out there on a board instead of standing here with this woman who thought he should be her little boy when he wasn’t.

“I windsurf. And I give lessons for Uncle Nolan.”

“That’s pretty amazing at your age.” If she’d had pom-poms, she’d probably have waved them.

“Can we go back now?” he asked.

Without looking at her, he couldn’t tell whether the long silence meant she was surprised, mad or hurt, but he didn’t care. It was only because Uncle Nolan would be disappointed in him that he didn’t leave her and run back to the shop.

“All right,” she said at last.

They were halfway back when she asked, “Do you have any questions for me?”

As if a dam had broken, all of his confusion and fears rushed out, like a river current when the water was running high. He lifted his eyes to hers. “Do you think I’m going to go live with you?”

The wind had whipped color into her pale face, but her expression made him remember Uncle Nolan’s when he’d first seen all the blood that day.

“Yes,” she said.

“Because I’m not! I want to stay here, with Uncle Nolan. And you can’t make me go!”

He ran, sobbing, not letting himself look back.

* * *

THE AGONY WAS so great it was all she could do not to crumple to the paved path.

Dana stood stricken, watching Gabriel run from her. No, not Gabriel—Christian. The boy who was a stranger. Who loved his uncle and wanted to hate her.

No, she thought drearily, not wanted. Did. And could she really blame him? She’d turned everything he had believed about his family on end. That had to be damaging his sense of self.

His mother was no longer his mother; his uncle wasn’t his uncle. He wasn’t even really Christian Gregor.

Dana spotted a bench twenty feet ahead. She made it that far, grateful to sink down and bend forward, squeezing her arms around herself for warmth and protection. Thank goodness no one else was approaching. She doubted she was capable of assuming a facade.

She was bewildered, with no idea what to do. Was it even possible to get through to him? Did she batter her head against a brick wall? Or hang around in the hopes that she had aroused enough curiosity he’d come to her?

Her earlier determination and even optimism had evaporated. For the moment, Nolan Gregor had won. Adversary? More like enemy.

She hurt so much right now she wasn’t sure she was better off than she’d been before Commander Knapp’s call.

No, that wasn’t true—at least she’d seen Gabriel with her own eyes. She knew her baby was alive, safe, loved. Couldn’t that be enough? For the first time, she let herself wonder whether planning to tear him away from the life he knew was right. Or would it be an entirely selfish act?

Maybe, if she let him stay, he’d be okay with occasional visits and phone calls. If Nolan would send pictures, copies of report cards—

The stab of pain was so acute Dana curled forward until her head almost touched her knees.

Was seeing something you wanted so desperately but couldn’t have better than doing without?

How awful would those visits be? The awkward phone calls he participated in because he wasn’t given a choice? It could only get worse when the hormones kicked in. And what if she gave in but Craig didn’t? Would that mean he loved their son more than she did? Or that his selfishness was greater than hers? Oh, she could imagine that so easily. Craig and his parents would feel the need to see his lineage carried on through a son. She had read between the lines when he’d let her know his first daughter was born. The disappointment had been there, because he didn’t have the son to replace his firstborn.

Still curled over, she asked herself whether she was any better.

Crushing disappointment and hurt had her ready to drive straight to Portland and get on an airplane, go home where she could come to terms with the hard truth—she would never have her son back.

* * *

WHEN CHRISTIAN BURST through the door, face wet with tears, Nolan excused himself to the couple who’d come in thinking about buying their own equipment instead of continuing to rent.

He followed his nephew into the office. “What happened?”

Christian swiped his face with his forearm. “She said I’d have to live with her and I told her I wouldn’t.”

Anger set in Nolan’s chest, like fresh concrete hardening. “You have to go live with her. That’s what she said?”

Skin blotchy, nose running, eyes puffy and still wet, Christian didn’t look any better than he had at Marlee’s funeral. “I asked, and she said yes!”

“She wanted you to pack up and go with her right away.”

His face contorted. “She just said yes! But you said I didn’t have to.”

If he had, Nolan was beginning to think he’d made a promise he might not be able to keep. “I said I’d fight for you.”

Christian just snuffled.

Nolan stepped into the doorway so he could see his customers. The man caught his eye and waved reassuringly. “We’re good on our own for a while,” he called, obviously sympathetic.

Nolan nodded his thanks and half sat on his desk, gazing down at the boy, who looked smaller and younger than he had in a long while.

“Did you talk at all?”

Christian lifted his head in outrage. “I told you!”

“I meant before.”

“Oh.” He pulled the hem of his T-shirt from beneath the hoodie and blew his nose on it, which made Nolan wince. “She talked. She told me about, you know, her parents and her brother and...and the guy who is supposed to be my father and all his family. Like I care,” he said sulkily.

“It is kind of interesting, don’t you think?” Nolan asked. “I used to wonder a lot about your dad. What he looked like, what qualities he passed on to you.”

“Like?”

“You’re proving to be pretty gifted at math. I can handle the books for the business, but that was never a strength of mine, and I seem to remember your m—” he cleared his throat “—Marlee flunking freshman algebra.”

“She did?”

“Oh, yeah.” He might have smiled if there hadn’t been so many painful losses since that long-ago day. “Not sure if she stunk at it or just refused to do the work.”

“She dropped out, didn’t she?”

Christian knew the answer, but what he really wanted was the reassuring repetition of family history—good, bad, courageous, silly. “To my parents’ disappointment, she did.” Nolan heard himself say my parents instead of Grandma and Grandpa and hoped Christian hadn’t noticed. “They kept thinking once she was stabilized on medications, she’d go back to school or get her GED, but it never happened.”

They talked some more, with Christian gradually coming down from the emotional storm and Nolan wondering what had happened to Dana. He’d have expected her to follow Christian back here, if only to give Nolan a piece of her mind.

He kept seeing her face, luminous with hope one minute, stark white with pain the next. In turn fierce, despairing, wounded and resolute. If she’d gone back to her room at the inn, did she have anyone she could call? She hadn’t worn a ring, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t living with a guy or at least seeing one. It sounded as if she had parents, although that was no guarantee she could talk to them. Nolan knew he’d been lucky that way. Dana would have girlfriends, surely.

Except she’d seemed so alone. If a man in her life had let her make this trip on her own, he should be shot. Family should be here for her, too. They seemed to be MIA, which enraged Nolan when he should have been glad she was vulnerable to a knockout punch. He didn’t like these mixed feelings. His first and only loyalty was to Christian. How stupid was it to sympathize with the woman who wanted to take away the boy he loved?

He was frowning at a poster on the wall when Christian said, “Can I go home?”

Nolan ran his palm over his jaw as he glanced at the clock. He’d be closing in an hour.

“Yeah,” he decided, “that’s okay. But call me when you get there, lock the door and don’t answer if anyone rings the bell. Okay?”

The rolled eyes made him smile.

“You always say that.”

Nolan scooped him into a hard hug. “I won’t be long.”

After locking up an hour later, he jogged to his SUV. He unlocked and opened the door but didn’t get in. Shit. What kind of idiot was he, to worry about his adversary? But, damn it, that was what he was doing, and he couldn’t go home without finding out how devastated she was or how determined to fight with all the resources she could summon.

Which, he reminded himself, were substantial. Oregon state social services didn’t even know about the situation, but Dana could change that with a single phone call. Once she filed for custody, law enforcement might get involved to ensure Nolan didn’t flee with her son. Or someone might decree that until custody was determined, Christian should be placed in foster care.

Find out, he told himself, then look for a good lawyer.

In the lobby of the inn, he tried to appear casual when he approached the desk clerk, an occasional customer.

“Hey, can you tell me what room Dana Stewart is in? I forgot to ask her.”

Only twenty-five or so, Dylan Adams said, “Third floor, but let me check.” He glanced at his computer. “Three-fifteen.”

“Thanks.” Nolan lifted a hand and headed for the stairs before the kid could ask what he wanted from Dana or remember he wasn’t supposed to give out room numbers.

But he didn’t hear a peep and she sure didn’t open the door. She either wasn’t there or was disinclined to talk to anyone, especially him. Uneasy, he went back down.

“Did you see her going out?” he asked Dylan.

“No, sir.”

If she’d checked out, the computer would have told Dylan. All Nolan could do was thank him and jog back across the lawn to the smaller parking lot beside his own business.

What if she’d gone to his house to talk to Christian again? he asked himself during the short drive. But Christian knew better than to defy a direct order from Nolan and let anyone in.

She’d probably gone out for something to eat. Keeping track of guests was not Dylan’s primary function. He must go in the back or use the john once in a while.

Nolan wished he could convince himself that was what she’d done but had trouble believing it. Dana had been so hopeful. The note in her voice when she’d asked Christian to turn around so she could see his face for the first time in eleven years had gotten to Nolan.

He had a really bad feeling she was crying her eyes out back in that hotel room.

He shook his head. Face it: everyone involved could not come out of this happy. And if he had to choose—she’d be the one who ended up disappointed.

Or was that crushed? Destroyed?

Nolan groaned. A minute later, he pulled into his own driveway and turned off the engine but didn’t get out. He sat there for a long time, his guts tied in a knot, his chest tight.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHAT, YOU’RE JUST going to let this son of a bitch win?” Craig snapped.

Dana’s fingers tightened on her phone. Curled up at one end of the hotel room sofa, she wished she hadn’t felt obligated to call him. “I didn’t say—”

He cut her off as if she weren’t speaking. “A kid isn’t capable of making this kind of decision. He’ll have to adjust, sure. No way in hell I’m leaving him with some guy who makes his living renting surfboards.”

Dana didn’t recognize this cutting contempt. Was it age and financial success that had turned him into an arrogant stranger?

She knew one thing—she needed to keep him away from Gabriel, at least for now.

“The business Nolan Gregor owns is a lot more sophisticated than you’re implying. Waterfront real estate right on the banks of the Columbia River has to be pricey to start with.” She couldn’t imagine why she was defending her enemy, but she despised Craig’s withering dismissal of anyone whose income fell below—what?—half a million a year? A million? Dana had no idea, only that she was one of those little people, too. “He carries and rents equipment for windsurfing, kayaking and sailing. That’s a big business here.”

He snorted. “I’ll fly out there and take care of this, since you won’t or can’t.”

“No.” Her anger lent power to the single word. Now the furthest thing from relaxed, she straightened and put her feet on the floor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oh, he was infuriated because she’d defied him. His poor wife, Dana thought.

“It means I don’t have to listen to you belittling me. It means you can’t ride roughshod over everyone.” He said something, but it was her turn to talk right over him. “You gave up on Gabriel a long time ago. I’m the one who has spent a lifetime searching. I’m the one who actually cares, instead of thinking of him as some kind of prized possession.” Oh, God—she was taking a leaf from her ex-husband’s book, her tone scathing enough to etch metal. With an effort, she moderated it. “I didn’t say I was giving up. I said there’s a better way to handle this than making Gabe hate us.”

“You’re going to baby him along until he’s fourteen? Fifteen? Ready to graduate from high school? Guess we can count on him expecting me to pay for his college education.”

Nolan Gregor was a deeply conflicted man who loved her son and yet had had the compassion to risk losing him by posting his DNA online. It was Craig Stewart who was the asshole, she saw with sudden clarity.

“If you take the legal route and a judge of any decency hears that tone of voice, he or she will rule in favor of the good man Gabe loves.” A female judge, please—give us a woman. “You’ve changed, Craig, and not for the better.”

As the silence stretched, Dana couldn’t be sure what lay behind it. Had she enraged Craig so much he would go after Gabriel with a fleet of high-paid attorneys, and to hell with her? Or did some remnant remain of the man who had blamed her, yes, but also cried with her, held her?

“I’ll give you some time,” he said abruptly. “I expect to be kept informed.”

She swallowed back everything hateful she wanted to say and settled for a too-calm “Of course I will. Goodbye, Craig.” She ended the call without waiting for any addenda. After which she tossed her phone to the coffee table hard enough to make it skid across the glass surface and fall to the carpeted floor.

Then she moaned and remembered everything she’d said.

The good man? Was that the one who’d said, “As far as I’m concerned, he’s my son?” Oh, and accused her of being selfish, of putting her needs ahead of her child’s?

But honesty compelled her to remember the expressions she’d seen cross that craggy face, too, the shades of emotion in his deep voice. He’d been more decent than she probably deserved. The awful thing was, she wouldn’t have wanted Gabriel to be raised by a man who was now perfectly fine about handing him over. Because of Nolan, Gabe—Christian—knew he was loved. Nolan had been a rock for her son.

And she had no idea how to defeat a man like him without making her son hate her.

* * *

CHRISTIAN GAZED BESEECHINGLY across the breakfast table. “So, if she just went away, does that mean she won’t try to take me?” Of course, he’d inhaled his cereal and banana before opening his mouth.

And why not? In the two days since Dana Stewart had checked out of the inn without leaving any word, Christian had asked the same damn question so many times and in so many ways that Nolan’s head was about to explode.

“No,” he said, going for blunt this time. He held his nephew’s gaze to make sure he listened. That he really heard. Because Nolan had seen the way the woman looked at Christian. She’d gone home wounded, stymied, but they hadn’t heard the last from her.

He had done some research. Dana had stayed all these years in the house from which her baby son had been abducted. It had to be too big for her. It had to hold more painful memories than good. But leaving would have meant letting go of some of those memories, and she had refused to do that.

He had no doubt her marriage had splintered over her absolute refusal to let go of one iota of her pain. Nolan could almost sympathize with the ex-husband, whose wife didn’t have enough left over to love him. Almost being the operative word, because Nolan knew himself well enough to be sure he wouldn’t have moved on any better than she had. He would have held on to the pain and his wife.

He knew a lot of synonyms for stubborn, because they’d all been thrown at him. Even in a unit of men not inclined to back down—ever—he’d been famous for his pigheadedness...to use one of the kinder descriptions.

That Dana had kept her ex-husband’s last name because it was also her son’s said it all.

“I’m expecting to hear from her attorney any day,” he told Christian now. “Maybe Child Protective Services. She’d be within her rights to have my parenting skills and this home evaluated with a microscope. It would be really good for her case if they decide I’ve screwed up in some way or other.”

“But you haven’t!” Milk sloshed over the rim of Christian’s bowl when he gave it a shove. Eyes sparking, he thrust out his chin. “I’ll tell them. Everyone will tell them!”

Touched by the fierce defense even though he knew it was rooted in the boy’s deep-seated fear of being yanked away from everything familiar, Nolan smiled. “Thank you. And you’re right. I don’t think a social worker will find anything to use against me. But having them look...that’s a logical step in Ms. Stewart’s campaign.”

“If she cares about me, why hasn’t she called or something?”

Studying the way those thin shoulders had hunched, Nolan felt a burst of rage. This was a kid who’d lived with enough uncertainty. Did she have a clue what she was doing to him?

But, God help him, his fury was balanced by empathy he’d rather not be feeling. No, that wasn’t true; he didn’t want to be the kind of man who couldn’t see both sides, couldn’t feel for a woman as wounded as Dana Stewart. And he didn’t want the boy he considered his son to grow into that kind of man, either.

He replaced his coffee cup. “You shut her down pretty hard,” he said, keeping the judgment out of his voice but saying what he needed to. “I know you’re scared. I understand, and I think she does, too. But we have to recognize that she has suffered for a lot of years. She came out here filled with hope, to find out her kid doesn’t want anything to do with her.” He let that sink in, then said, “None of this is her fault, any more than it’s yours or mine.”

“You’re saying it’s Mom’s.”

Yeah, he was. But he softened it some. “I don’t know whether she stole you or not. I’d like to think not, but if she got confused enough, it’s possible. Either way, she told plenty of lies.”

Instead of blowing up, as Nolan had half expected, Christian sat very still and said in a small voice, “You said she really believed I was hers.”

“I’m sure she did some of the time. When she was on her meds, though...” He shook his head. “Did she really believe in her manufactured reality? I don’t know.”

Christian’s face crumpled. “She’s my mom.”

Oh, hell. Nolan shoved back his chair and circled the table to wrap an arm around his nephew. “It’s okay to keep loving her,” he said roughly. “She’ll always be your mom, in some ways.”

“Why do I have to have another mom?” He was back to pleading. “It’s not fair! I just want you.”

Nolan squeezed his eyes shut before they could start leaking. “Here’s something to think about. Right now it’s just you and me.” Throat clogged, he could not freakin’ believe he was about to say this. Cut his own throat, why didn’t he? But he said it anyway, because it was the truth. “Having more people to love you could be a good thing.”

Christian wrenched away so quick his head whacked Nolan’s jaw. Betrayal darkened his eyes. “You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? You’re going to let her take me.”

Tasting blood, Nolan shook his head. “No. I said I’d fight for you, and I will. But who are we fighting against, Christian? This is your mother.”

“I hate her!” he spat, and raced out of the room. An instant later, the front door slammed.

“Fabulous,” Nolan mumbled, swallowing the salty taste. He hoped Christian had at least taken his book bag—and was on his way to school.

* * *

DANA SAT IN front of her computer, looking through the slide show of photographs Nolan Gregor had shared before her visit. With a bottomless hunger, she started over, and over again. There he was, a toddler wearing tough-guy overalls and a red-and-white-striped shirt, his grin huge even though he seemed on the verge of falling back on his well-padded rear end. A smartly groomed boy, hair slicked down, one front tooth missing. The first day of kindergarten? Or was that too young for him to have lost a tooth?

An ache flavored with bitterness gripped her stomach. A mother should know things like that. She should have soothed her teething baby, been there to slip money under his pillow in exchange for each precious tooth lost. Other mothers knew whether their sons said Dada or Mama first. They remembered the first step, the first day of school. The first time their son stepped up to the plate and swung a bat, the first book he read all by himself.

A thousand firsts she would only hear about secondhand, if at all. So much she’d missed.

But he was alive.

Gazing at the photo taken most recently, at the tall, thin, tanned boy windsurfing, his hair sun streaked, his laughter beautiful as he soared over the water, Dana thought, I don’t have to miss another moment.

Her eyes lost focus. Maybe she was too softhearted to tear her son from the man who was his security, but there was no way she would stay halfway across the country from Gabe, contenting herself with emailed photos, visits, phone calls.

Mind racing, she closed her laptop and walked slowly through her house, ending up at last in the bedroom unchanged from the day Gabriel had been stolen. Her son was no longer that baby; the knowledge felt like truth now. Would she want to bring Gabe home to this house, where everything had gone wrong?

Maybe it’s time to let it go. All of it.

If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.

She had spent eleven years fighting for her son. Of course he was afraid. Of course he loved Nolan. Of course wrenching him away wasn’t the right thing to do. But that didn’t mean she would give up.

So she would go to him. It wouldn’t work without Nolan Gregor’s cooperation—but if threats were what it took, she’d channel her jerk of an ex-husband and issue some.

Dana loved her job, but she could find a new one. She would be farther from family, but they would understand. There was hardly even any furniture she’d want to take with her. Friends, she would miss, but she’d stay in touch. Looking around, she felt odd. So light she could float away.

Laughing, she flung her arms wide and spun in place. Lookout, Oregon, here I come.

* * *

THREE WEEKS LATER, Nolan tracked down his ringing phone a second before it went quiet. He checked the name, then, as he waited to see if Dana would leave a message, wondered why she’d call at this time of day. She had to know Christian was in school.

As he’d anticipated, she hadn’t given up. Every few days, she’d called and politely asked to speak to Christian. The conversations were brief. Christian mumbled a few replies to questions and listened when she talked. She hadn’t said much to Nolan, who didn’t like not having a clue what her plan was.

When Nolan asked what she was telling him, Christian looked at him without comprehension.

“I don’t know. Stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“About her family.” He shrugged. “She said she fell out of a tree when she was, I don’t remember, seven or eight and broke both her arms.” He sounded impressed. His own traumatic wound had been to his left shoulder, which made his teacher less sympathetic to his claim not to be able to keep up with his schoolwork while he was home recuperating. Christian had gone so far as to wish Jason had had the foresight to chop his right shoulder instead. “She couldn’t write or use a computer or anything, so she got out of practically all her schoolwork.”

“Dumb way to fall.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you ever fall—from a horse, a cliff, even just trip—you relax and roll with it. You don’t hold both hands out to try to stop yourself.”

Christian frowned. “Oh. Maybe I should practice.”

Nolan lifted his eyebrows. “Throw yourself out of a few trees?”

Christian thought that was hilarious.

Increasingly wary, Nolan had begun to see Dana Stewart as a shrewd opponent, smart enough to have guessed—or possibly researched—what would appeal to an eleven-year-old boy.

But no way would a gradually softening long-distance relationship satisfy her. His worry was that she was only filling the time while the legal team she’d retained drew up the papers to sue for custody.

No message. He bounced the phone in his hand, feeling a sharp stab of anxiety. He knew he shouldn’t have taken so long to find an attorney capable of standing up to a team backed by Craig Stewart’s money. Nolan had asked around but not reached a decision. He didn’t like putting that much trust in the hands of someone motivated by the paycheck, but he’d been a fool to give her a head start.

Wearing board shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt that said Got Wind?, Trevor Bailey had just arrived. Trev was one of Nolan’s part-timers, a student at Portland State who would be full-time for the summer. Only nineteen, he was young but had a good head on his shoulders and a passion for windsurfing.

“I need to make a call,” Nolan said. “Can you take over? The guy over there is looking for a new harness.”

With a nod, Trev headed that way.

Nolan didn’t move from behind the counter for a minute. Then he groaned, muttered, “Crap,” and went to his office. As he called her back, he rolled his shoulders.

On the second ring, she picked up. “Mr. Gregor?”

“Ms. Stewart.”

“I know you must be at work, but I hoped to talk to you when Gabe—Christian—isn’t around. Is this a bad time?”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “This is okay, if we can keep it quick.”

The silence was brief. Apparently undaunted, she said, “You must realize I want to build a relationship with my son.”

Nolan stiffened at the way she said my son. “Yeah, I figured that out.”

“Doing so long-distance is impossible.”

Oh, shit. Oh—

“I have made the decision to move to Lookout.”

Nolan blinked. Rarely struck dumb, he struggled to absorb what she’d just said. Move to Lookout. Not file a lawsuit. Move to his town. Become a neighbor? Or—good God—she couldn’t envision moving in with him and Christian, could she?

“You make that sound easy,” he said after a minute.

“Easy? No. I’ve had to give notice at work, will need to put my house up for sale, pack, find a new job and a new place to live in a town I’ve only visited once.” Her tone was dry, but beneath it was pure steel. “I’ve concluded that you’re right. Forcing Gabriel to come live with me in Colorado would be traumatic for him. But I won’t quit, either. If I’m there, I can see him regularly. Attend school conferences, watch him play sports, chauffeur him to friends’ houses.”

He almost opened his mouth to tell her chauffeuring was rarely needed, given the size of Lookout, but stopped himself in time.

“And if he doesn’t want to see you often?” he asked. “If the school balks at including a strange woman in conferences when they know me as Christian’s guardian?”

“Then I prove I’m his mother and that you are not, in fact, his legal guardian.” No disguise for the steel this time. “Or even related to him.”

His jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. Thanks to the DNA matching, she had him dead in her sights.

“So we’re back to a court battle.” He felt as grim as he sounded. “Those take a while, you know. Don’t you think this move is a little premature? Not going to help if I refuse you any contact with him.”

Dana hesitated. He thought he could hear her breathing.

“I don’t want a court battle,” she said, voice softer. “Christian’s father is eager to go that route.”

Was she sincere? Or was she trying to fake him out with a kind of good-cop/bad-cop thing?

“I want to become his mother without an ugly fight that will hurt Christian. I can...preempt any attempt Craig might make to sue for custody.”

How altruistic of her. Despite his inner sneer, Nolan closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. He didn’t like what she was suggesting—it meant making concessions that could do damage to his side if they did end up in court—but he also knew she was right. This woman wasn’t going away. She might not love Christian...but she did love Gabriel.

And, yes, he might win in court, but he could just as easily lose, a result that would devastate both Christian and him. His winning would do the same to Dana—and, maybe in the long run, not be so good for Christian, either.

The only true win-win was to find a way to share the boy they both wanted to call son, but how was he supposed to trust her? What if Christian did warm to her, become curious about his extended family and agree to return to Colorado with her?

He pinched the bridge of his nose until cartilage creaked. If that happened... Christian would always know Nolan was here. He’d have a solid base to jump from. And wasn’t that what parenting was all about, building your kid’s confidence so that when the day came, he had the self-assurance to leave home?

It just might happen a lot sooner than Nolan had ever imagined. He wasn’t ready—but neither was Christian. Ms. Stewart was looking at a long haul.

“You’re selling your house.” She’d said that, hadn’t she?

“I am.” Her composure held despite the slightest tremor.

“You’re burning some bridges there.”

“I’m well aware.”

He gusted a sigh. “You’re asking me to help you.” Or was it more accurate to say she was blackmailing him into helping her become Christian’s mother?

“Yes,” she said, so quietly he just heard her.

He did some silent swearing, but there was only one possible answer.

“Have you looked into jobs?”

This “yes” was stronger. “I’ve actually found a really great one I’m well qualified for. I have a Skype interview scheduled for Friday. I have my fingers crossed because I’d prefer not to commute to Portland, but I will if necessary.”

“Are you looking to buy a house or rent?”

“I’ll rent initially.” No hesitation, so she hadn’t suffered the delusion she’d take the bedroom across the hall from Christian’s. “I...was actually hoping you might be willing to look at a few places that are possibilities.”

Ballsy woman. Nolan gave a short laugh. “Yes, Ms. Stewart, I can do that. Email me the list.”

“Then...you’re okay with this?” The sudden display of nerves made it apparent she’d girded herself for war and was now standing on the empty field looking around in bewilderment.

“What I’d like best is for you to get on with your life and leave Christian and me to ours,” he said brutally—although he wasn’t so sure anymore that he meant what he was saying. “What you’ve suggested is second best. You hold off your ex, I’ll meet you halfway, unless I find out this plan of yours amounts to a Trojan horse.”

“I’m not given to subterfuge, Mr. Gregor,” she said, regaining some starch. “What I’ve said is what I mean. I want to be part of Christian’s life. I hope that, with time, he’ll accept me as his mother.”

“What’s your ex-husband have to say about this?”

“I’ve asked him to back off, and he’s agreed, at least for now. He does plan a visit in the not-too-distant future. You can hardly blame him.”

No, Nolan couldn’t. It might even be good for Christian to have parents who made plain they wanted him. Right now he’d like to go back to the way it had been, before that damn blood-typing, but long term...it wouldn’t feel so great to know either of your biological parents had written you off and couldn’t be bothered to connect with you.

“I hope he won’t rush it. Christian already has a lot to deal with.”

“That’s what I told him,” she agreed.

They talked for a few more minutes. He’d be the one to break the news to Christian. Then tomorrow night she would call. She was eager to send him the list of possible rentals. It occurred to him that involving Christian in the hunt for a home for his mom wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“How soon are you thinking?” he asked finally.

“I should be there by the first of May.”

Blown away, he said, “That’s barely two weeks.”

“I’ve already worked out a good part of my notice to my current employer. I’ve been packing for some time. This isn’t a sudden idea. I needed to have my ducks in a row.”

Discovering he was pissed, Nolan said, “You mean my cooperation was optional.”

“No. You know that isn’t true. I just wanted a little time for Christian—Gabriel—to become more comfortable with me.”

“A piece of advice.” His temper was in hand, but he didn’t feel as friendly as he had a few minutes ago. “You might want to decide what name you’re going to call him before you show up in person again.”

Except, he thought with a jolt of surprise, throughout the conversation she had been calling her son Christian. Had she even noticed?

“I’ll discuss that with him,” she said with dignity. “Goodbye, Mr. Gregor.”

He said goodbye as formally, shaking his head. Forget Gabriel versus Christian. The whole plan wouldn’t make it off the launchpad if the two of them couldn’t bring themselves to use first names.

Instead of going right back to work, Nolan stayed where he was for a minute, half sitting on his desk. Man, he felt a boatload of emotions that weren’t what you’d call harmonious. The anger, he understood. The relief that she wasn’t taking the legal route. The trepidation about telling Christian and the fear of losing him, Nolan got all that, too. The whisper of anticipation...now, that was an unwelcome surprise.

CHAPTER FIVE

AGAINST HER PARENTS’ OPPOSITION, Dana decided to drive.

“A lot of empty country,” her father said. “I don’t like the idea of you breaking down out there.”

Glad he couldn’t see her rolling her eyes, she retorted, “It makes no sense to sell a two-year-old car I’m really happy with. I’d lose bucko bucks replacing it with a new one.”

The surprise came when she called Nolan and Christian to let them know she was on her way.

“You’re driving?” Nolan said, not hiding disapproval. “Alone?”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“About what?” He sounded clueless.

“You sound like my father.”

“You won’t be on interstates most of the way. Just two-lane highways through some of the most unpopulated country in the lower forty-eight, and then there are the mountain passes.”

She explained again that she had a four-wheel-drive Subaru with barely twenty thousand miles on it and plenty of experience driving in snow. Which she was unlikely to need at the tail end of April. “You’re being sexist.”

“As a woman, you’re more vulnerable if you have to depend on help from a random passing motorist.”

“This isn’t open to discussion. I’m leaving in the morning.”

He wanted to know her route and grudgingly approved it. Like her father, he also extracted a promise that she would call each evening and at any time she ran into difficulties.

It would be nice to think his deep concern was personal, but she suspected he tended to be protective and controlling. Christian had bragged enough that Dana now knew Nolan had been in a specialized military unit. Yet he had given up that career because he believed his sister and nephew needed him.

Believed? They had needed him. After the death of Nolan’s parents, she could only be grateful Gabriel hadn’t been consigned to the foster-care system or left to live with a mentally ill woman. One Dana hated with every fiber of her being, a fact she would do her best to hide if and when Gabe said anything about Marlee besides a furious “I have a mother!”

She didn’t tell anyone how much she was looking forward to the several-day drive. Alone, driving through spectacular mountain country, she could let go of the stress she’d lived with since that miraculous, life-changing phone call. The amount she’d had to accomplish these past few weeks, working full-time and spending her evenings and weekends going through everything she owned, packing and cleaning, had left her drained.

Never mind the emotional swings, exacerbated by having to say goodbye to coworkers, friends, her parents and her brother. She’d see her family again, at least, but not as often.

All that vast and, yes, empty country proved soothing. North into Wyoming, then west from Cheyenne, the names she saw on road signs and markers spoke of the Oregon Trail and cattle ranching in the Old West. Past Medicine Bow, she crossed the famously muddy Platte River. She stopped for lunch in Lookout, Wyoming, just so she could say she had. Especially since she was headed to Lookout, Oregon. There was a certain resonance.

And every night, after checking into a hotel, she dutifully called first home, then Nolan and Christian. She kind of got the feeling Christian envied her the trip. He occasionally went so far as to ask a question or two.

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