A Mother's Claim

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?”