A Mother's Claim. Janice Kay Johnson

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?