A Mother's Claim. Janice Kay Johnson

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