Finally a Mother

But the venom she hadn’t expected. Now she didn’t know why she hadn’t prepared herself for that. She didn’t question for a second that this was her baby. Her big boy now. He was standing right there in front of her, dirty, sure, but tall and handsome. She couldn’t get enough of seeing him. Eyes so like her mother’s...and her own. A face that looked like, well, his father.

Taking in all of him, she couldn’t help but notice that his arms were cuffed behind him or that he appeared to be in the custody of a uniformed police officer. One with the heavily lashed black-brown eyes and the short brown hair that showed off the kind of face that could have been—no, should have been—sculpted in marble. Shannon blinked, catching herself staring again. She’d had no business gawking at the handsome officer even before she’d recognized Blake. Now it was unforgivable. What kind of woman allowed a man to distract her at a time like this? Well, someone who’d allowed a guy to sidetrack her in the past from what really mattered. But not this time. She didn’t care about the trooper’s broad shoulders and strong-looking arms and chest dressed up that navy blue uniform with its silver tie and badge.

She pushed those unacceptable thoughts away and zeroed in on Blake. Why he’d chosen to come here today, how he’d gotten into trouble, even the officer who’d brought him here—none of that could matter. Nothing except that he was here now.

“Blake?” It was the first time she’d ever spoken his name aloud, and she could only manage a squeak. She cleared her throat. “It is Blake, right?”

He didn’t respond as he stood, shifting his feet, but he didn’t look away, either. It was something. She braced herself and accepted the accusation and conviction in his gaze the best she could. He deserved that much, and if he gave her the chance, she would make him understand.

“She had a baby?” someone said in a low voice. “A baby as old as him?”

“And he got arrested? That means...”

Whispered questions that escalated to frantic chatter invaded her senses, making her vaguely aware that they weren’t alone, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away from her son. Her son. Just the thought of it made her long to reach out to touch him. When she could no longer resist, she took a tentative step toward him, her hands lifting from her sides.

“Do...not...touch...me.”

His words were a wall of glass, keeping her from the only thing she’d ever wanted, the chasm between them suddenly huge and growing. She’d never expected to feel anguish again like the day the nurse had carried her blanketed baby from the birthing room and from her life, but here it was again, bitter and deep. If she could move at all, she would have collapsed into a heap of loss.

“Why don’t we take this conversation inside?”

She blinked at the sound of the officer’s voice, and her gaze flicked to him. Accusation filled his eyes. His expression was as hard as Blake’s was. What right did this stranger have to judge her when he didn’t know all the facts of the situation? He didn’t even know that the choice hadn’t really been hers. But then Shannon shivered as she became aware of the frigid air pouring in through the gaping front door. And that Blake’s sweatshirt was so thin.

“Oh. What was I thinking? Sorry.”

Backing away from the door, she bumped into Holly right behind her. She whirled to face the shock on so many of the girls’ faces. How betrayed they had to feel over learning about her secret this way. They would never understand that it was her shame and not a fear of trusting them with her story that had kept her from sharing it.

“Miss Shannon?”

So many questions were folded into Holly’s two words, and Shannon promised herself she would answer every one of them, but she owed her son an explanation first.

“Girls, could you just give me—”

“We’re going to need to speak privately with Mrs. Lyndon,” the trooper said, interrupting her.

“Miss,” she corrected.

His gaze flicked to the bare finger on her left hand. “Sorry. Miss.” Guiding Blake inside, he closed the door behind him. “Ladies, could you give us a few minutes?”

The teens paused, reluctant to leave her alone with the two males.

Chelsea, who had celebrated her fifteenth birthday at Hope Haven just last week, touched her arm. “You going to be okay?”

Shannon nodded, though she was as unsure as the girls appeared to be. “I’ll be fine. Just work on your lessons in the computer room. I’ll be in as soon as we’re finished.”

She didn’t bother telling them that everything would go back to normal when she returned, if she could call these lives they’d lived on a tangent at Hope Haven “normal.” For Shannon and for the girls she worked with every day, nothing would be the same.

Once the door to the computer room closed, she braced herself and faced the officer, the boy and the past that haunted her memories.

Trooper Shoffner guided Blake a few steps forward so that he was standing in front of her.

“I take it you and Mr. Wilson know each other?”

Shannon looked longingly at the boy who’d stared her down earlier but now refused to look her in the eye. “Well, not exactly, but—”

“You called him by name.”

“As I started to say, he is, he is...my son.” She was simply putting the truth into words as Blake had done, so she hated that her voice broke under the weight of it. She tried again. “I gave up a baby boy for adoption almost fifteen years ago. I met the adoptive parents once. They told me if the baby was a boy, they would name him Blake.” She lifted a hand to indicate the teen. “That’s him.”

“You’re certain of this?”

“Look at him. Don’t you see the resemblance?”

The officer didn’t look at either of them as he withdrew a notebook and pen from his pocket, but Blake sneaked a glance at her from beneath his shaggy hair.

“Obviously, maternity will have to be confirmed.” He tapped his pen on the paper. “But since you appear to have an interest in this boy, you should be aware that he was arrested this morning. You might be interested in knowing what type of items he was accused of shoplifting.”

“Um, okay.” Since Blake had turned to his side now, she couldn’t help staring at his cuffed hands.

“Food.” Trooper Shoffner spat the word as if it had soured in his mouth. “He was hungry.”

The officer’s censure stung, but not as much as the reality that the precious boy next to her had ever known hunger. How could that have happened? “Oh. You poor thing.”

“He also appears to be a runaway.”

The trooper’s stony expression told her he wasn’t kidding. If his first comment had been a stab, he’d twisted the knife with this one.

“Blake?”

His only answer was a shrug. She needed him to look at her, to tell her this was all a mistake, but he kept staring at the ground.

Catching herself this time as her hands lifted to touch him again, she stuffed them into her pockets. “What happened? Did you have an argument with your...parents?” She hated that the word caught in her throat. They were his parents after all. Under the law, she was his birth mother. Nothing more.

“If you give him something to eat, he might be able to answer your questions,” Mark said.

“You mean you didn’t feed him? You knew he was starving, and you couldn’t stop before coming here?”

He met her incredulous look with a steady one. “I started to, but he insisted on coming here first.”

Her righteous indignation fizzled. The blame was back on her, right where it belonged.

“Right. Well, take those cuffs off him and bring him in the kitchen.”

“I don’t think—”

“He can’t eat without his hands.” She didn’t care if she’d just given an order to a police officer, who was clearly more accustomed to giving them than receiving them. For whatever reason, her child was hungry. She might never have been able to do anything for him before, but she could feed him now and help free his hands so he could eat.

The trooper studied Blake for a few seconds and then withdrew a key from his pocket, stepped behind the boy and opened the handcuffs. Blake rubbed his wrists and spread his fingers to stretch them before jamming them in his sweatshirt pockets.

As Shannon led them down the hallway to the kitchen, questions ticked in her mind at the same pace as her tennis shoes on the worn wood floor. Why had Blake run away? How had he known her identity or how to locate her? Had his adoptive parents refused to let him search for her?

In the kitchen, she opened the huge, industrial refrigerator and stepped inside the chilly room to scan the contents. She grabbed a carton of eggs, a green pepper and a tomato and closed the door.

“Hope eggs are okay.”

Blake cleared his throat. “Anything’s fine. Except tomatoes.”

“You’d probably eat even those this morning,” Trooper Shoffner said with a chuckle.

“Probably.”

But Shannon wasn’t laughing, as irrational fear tightened her throat. She was about to make a first meal for her son, ever, and she knew nothing about him. What did he like to eat? Did he prefer video games or TV? Did he have food allergies? Worse than that, she didn’t know what type of life he’d led until now or what unfortunate events had landed him on her doorstep.

But she would find out. She would ask her questions and answer his. She would listen, no matter how painful his stories, no matter how much he blamed her. This was what she’d wanted: to be reunited with Blake and to have a chance to explain the past. Although this wasn’t the warm and tender reunion she’d imagined and prayed for, this was their story, and they would find a way to work through it. Her son had come looking for her. He was close enough to touch, if he would ever allow it. Having him with her was the most important thing. The only thing.

* * *

“Slow down or your breakfast is going to come back up,” Mark warned as Blake shoveled food into his mouth with barely a breath between bites.

He’d been right. The boy would have eaten even the dreaded tomatoes, and might have licked the plate afterward, if Shannon Lyndon had set those in front of him at the long table in the house’s cafeteria area. Although the boy didn’t appear to be malnourished overall, something told him that this wasn’t the first time Blake had ever been hungry. The same protective impulse he’d felt when he’d realized the boy was accused of stealing food rose in him again, but Mark tamped it down a second time. Becoming involved in this mess of a situation was the last thing he should do, even if he felt terrible for the boy who was the true victim in it.

Shannon sat across from them, staring in amazement at the boy as he wolfed down his food. She shouldn’t have been shocked. She’d known all along he was out there somewhere. Or at least some kid who was about Blake’s age. Mark shifted in his seat as the scent of Miss Lyndon’s perfume—something light and floral and too feminine for its own good—mingled with scents of Blake’s breakfast. Clearly, he was picking up on the wrong details in this case if he was mentally cataloging that one.

“You’re left-handed,” Shannon said to the boy.

Blake’s fork stilled. “So?”

“My dad’s a lefty.”

“Oh.”

As Blake scraped his plate, he met the woman’s gaze with those green-brown eyes. Instantly, Mark knew why he’d found Shannon’s eyes so familiar. They had to be related.

“Hey, any chance I could get some more?”

Setting his coffee aside, Mark patted Blake’s shoulder. “Give the food a few minutes to settle. If you’re still hungry after we talk, I’m sure, uh...Miss Lyndon would be happy to give you seconds.”

He wrapped his hands around his mug again, frustrated that he hadn’t been sure what to call her. He wouldn’t refer to this woman as Blake’s birth mother without proof, even if he suspected it was true. If she’d chosen to give up her parental rights, she had no claim to Blake, anyway.

“Sure. Whatever you want.” Shannon smiled across the table at the boy.

“Now, Blake, let’s start with you.” Mark picked up his notebook and pen. “I need your parents’ names and numbers so I can let them know where you are.”

Blake dropped his fork on his plate and pushed back from the table, crossing his arms. “Which ones? Birth parents? Adoptive parents? Foster parents?”

“Foster parents?” Shannon asked.

“And of the foster parents, which of those do you mean?” Blake continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’ve been a bunch. Some decent. Some not so much.”

Shannon drew her brows together, gripping the edge of the table so tightly that half-moons of white appeared beneath her nail beds. “Wait. How can that be?”

Blake looked up from his plate, trapping her in his gaze. “The state has this thing about parents who neglect their kids. Funny, they think that kids should have a few things. Food. Clothes. A place to sleep.”

Shannon shook her head. “No. The couple I met was so desperate to adopt a baby. They both had steady jobs. They could provide anything a child would need or want.”

“If not for the drugs.”

The anguished sound escaping from Shannon’s lips made something tighten inside Mark’s gut. He could understand some of the shots Blake had taken with his comments. The boy definitely deserved more compassion than the adults in this twisted situation did. But as this shot made a direct hit, the color slid from Shannon’s face like a snow cone once the flavoring was gone.

“You were temporarily removed from your adoptive parents’ home because of drug addiction?” Mark couldn’t help but watch Shannon as he asked it.

Blake made a flippant gesture with his hands. “The first few times. The state took away their parental rights when I was seven.”

“That can’t be. It can’t be,” Shannon said miserably, tears draining from the corners of her red-rimmed eyes. “I was supposed to be doing the right thing. That’s what they told me. The best thing.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Mark heard himself saying despite his intention not to weigh in.

Always uncomfortable with crying women, he scanned the room for tissues and crossed to a table near the door separating the dining area from the kitchen to grab some paper toweling instead. She nodded her thanks and dabbed her eyes, her lashes spiky and wet.

He would have reminded her that adoption was often the best choice for pregnant teens, something she had to know from working at Hope Haven, but she wouldn’t hear him now. This adoption hadn’t been the best thing for this child. For Blake. He reminded himself who was central to this situation. He couldn’t lose focus of that fact no matter how much the tears tracing down her cheeks threatened to soften him with their salt.

“Okay, I need names, an address and a contact number for your current foster parents. We’ll contact them and the Department of Human Services when we get back to the post.” He wrote down the information the boy provided. “You came all the way from Rochester Hills? That’s about seventy miles from here. Did you walk all that way?”

“Hitched some of it.”

From the look of him, Blake had crawled the rest. But no matter how he’d gotten there, the boy had come a long way for answers from the woman he believed to be his birth mother, and he would get them if Mark had anything to say about it.

“Miss Lyndon, you said you gave up a child for adoption born when and where?”

“Nearly fifteen years ago. On March 7. In Shelby Township.”

He turned back to Blake. “And your birthday is?”

“March 7.”

He wrote a check next to the date in his notes. “And you were how old when you gave birth?”

“Fifteen.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the towel. “I was sent away to stay with my grandma until he was born.”

“And the adoption was conducted through...?”

“A local attorney.” She coughed into her hand. “I wasn’t exactly given a choice.”

Doubt flashing through Blake’s gaze, he looked away. The boy was gripping his anger like a precious possession, and he wouldn’t give it up easily.

Mark tapped his pen on the pad. “The infant’s father?”

“MIA. From the beginning.”

Shannon Lyndon’s story was a cliché. As common as teen pregnancy. So the sudden rise of his anger at this unidentified deadbeat dad shocked him. He cleared his throat. “Now we have the basics, but, Blake, we need to know how you knew to come here. Adoption records are supposed to be sealed. How did you find out the identity of your...of Miss Lyndon?”

Shannon leaned forward, resting her arms on the table, curious, as well.

Blake pulled something out of the pocket of his filthy jeans and tossed it on the table. The crumpled piece of paper might have once been blue floral stationary, but now it bore only a faint blue hue.

“What is that?” Mark asked.

The boy didn’t answer, and Shannon only stared at the piece of paper as if she already knew what it was. Mark reached for it and unfolded it. His throat tightened as he read the smeared words written in a loopy script: “To my dearest baby boy...”

He skimmed the private message, its words those of a brokenhearted girl. At the bottom of the page, Shannon’s name and what must have been her parents’ Walled Lake address stared back at him, a confirmation in faded blue. He folded the note again and placed it on the table in front of him. Shannon and Blake only stared at each other, her pleading expression unable to breach the wall of the boy’s unbending one.

“They were supposed to give you that letter when you were old enough to understand,” she said in a small voice.

Her hands reached toward Blake, but then they froze, and she lowered them to the table, gripping them together.

“You trusted people who couldn’t even remember to feed a kid to keep a letter like that in a safe place?”

A strangled sound escaped Shannon’s throat. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, you should have.”

Shannon must have heard as much as she could bear because she buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved with the force of her sobs. Each shake echoed inside Mark’s chest, and he couldn’t make it stop. If that didn’t shame him enough, his hands itched to reach over and pat her arm. Where was his professional distance when he needed it? Hadn’t he already learned the hard way not to be a patsy for duplicitous women?

He pointedly turned his attention away from her and back to Blake. “How did you know to find Miss Lyndon here? The address on the letter says Walled Lake.”

“They allow the internet in foster homes, you know. Sometimes they even have wireless.”

“Right.” Mark chose not to address the wise-guy comment. This time.

When Blake leaned forward and reached for the letter, Mark closed his hand over it. “Sorry. I’m going to need to make a copy of that. I’ll give it back later. I promise.”

“Whatever.”

He shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or another, but Mark wasn’t buying it. That letter had traveled with the kid through several foster homes for at least seven years. It was probably his most precious possession.

Mark turned back to Shannon, who was wiping ineffectively at her eyes.

“Miss Lyndon, do you have someone you can call in to stay with the young ladies? I need you to come to the post with us to sort out this matter.”

“The other social worker, Katie, should be here soon.”

“Then until she arrives you might want to speak with your residents.” He gestured toward the kitchen door. “They’ll probably have a few questions.”

“Oh. Right.” Bracing her hands on the edge of the table, she pushed back and stood. She started for the door, and then, as if remembering, turned back to them. “Did you still want something more to eat?”

Blake shook his head. “No, I’m full.”

Mark doubted that, but after the conversation they’d just had, he couldn’t blame even a hungry kid for losing his appetite. He’d certainly lost his.

“I’ll be right back, then,” Shannon said.

She paused in front of the door and then straightened her shoulders and pulled it open. Outside, a group of disobedient girls stood like a jury waiting for the foreman to announce a guilty verdict. Shannon froze, her hands stiff at her sides. Clearly, the girls had heard at least part of the conversation because they wore a collective look of shell-shocked fury.

Again, that temptation to protect the woman rose, intense and unwelcome, and it was all Mark could do to stay seated instead of stepping between her and her accusers. It wouldn’t have helped for him to tell them that they didn’t have as much of a right to their anger as Blake did, anyway. They felt betrayed. It didn’t matter that Shannon had been under no obligation to share the truth of her own pregnancy and adoption with a group of teenagers she counseled.

This was a muddy mess, with more than enough smears of anger and blame to cover them all in muck. But in the chaos, one thing had become disconcertingly clear to him: Shannon Lyndon was standing all alone as she faced the mistakes of her past.

Chapter Three

“There’s good news and bad news.”

Shannon startled at the sound of Trooper Shoffner’s voice. She turned as he strode back into the interview room of the Brighton Post and took a seat at a long table against the wall. She had to be jumpy over the officer catching her staring at Blake again because it couldn’t be that the man himself unnerved her. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t stop looking at her son, even if Blake had no problem ignoring her. Sometimes she could almost feel the boy’s gaze on her, but when she would look over, Blake would be fidgeting or biting his nails.

“So what did you find out?” She craned her neck to look through the doorway to the open area of the squad room. The caseworker from the Department of Human Services was still at one of the desks, talking on her cell phone.

“Which first, good or bad?”

“I vote for good,” Shannon said, though the question hadn’t been for her.

Maybe some good news was just what Blake needed to help him forget about his anger for a while. She hated that he hadn’t spoken to her during the car ride, but she refused to give up hope of establishing a relationship with her son. They were together, and she could ride for a long time on the adrenaline of that answered prayer.

“Blake? What do you think?” Mark pressed again.

Whatever Mark had planned to say had him grinning at Blake, but when the boy didn’t look up, he turned that smile Shannon’s way. Her breath caught. Though she’d noticed the trooper’s straight white teeth when he’d spoken earlier, she couldn’t imagine now how she’d missed those dimples. And for that matter, how had she failed to notice those intense, dark eyes that seemed to see straight through a person? Even women like her, who’d sworn off men, and those with as much on their minds as she had today couldn’t avoid noticing such appealing scenery.

“The bad.”

It was Blake’s voice that startled her this time. Instantly, she was ashamed. After waiting so long to be reunited with her child, what kind of mother was she to allow her attention to be drawn away from him, even for a second? With her son blaming her for his life after the adoption and with her girls feeling betrayed that she’d kept her secret, she had no time for other distractions. Particularly a man.

“Why the bad first?” Mark wanted to know.

But Shannon suspected she knew why, and that only made the braid of ache inside of her stomach twist tighter. Someone who’d experienced as much bad news as Blake had couldn’t trust anything masquerading as good news.

Mark closed his notebook. “Okay, the bad news. Your foster parents reported you as a runaway, which adds to a pretty impressive juvenile record. And because you did run, they have refused to let you return there. You’ll be a bad example for their other foster children.”

“No big loss.”

“No big loss?” Mark repeated his words.

Blake lifted a bony shoulder but didn’t look up from his hands. “Is that it?”