A Mother's Claim Read online

  She looked askance at him. “Is that true?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He grinned. “Wait’ll you try it. Bet you get hooked.”

  Her eyes widened. So did Christian’s, who then stared an accusation at his uncle. No, honorary uncle, Nolan realized, disconcerted.

  He looked at Christian. “I’ll let you teach her. You’re good at it, patient. Just don’t drown her.”

  Dana’s chuckle was definitely weak.

  Christian maintained his sullen silence until they dropped her off, when Nolan did poke him with an elbow. Then, in response to her “Good night,” he mumbled, “Yeah.”

  Nolan waited until she’d let herself in the front door and he saw a light come on inside before he pulled away from the curb. “I wasn’t proud of you tonight,” he said.

  “So what?” Christian vibrated with fury. “You were such a suck-up I didn’t even have to be there.”

  Nolan’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel. His jaw muscles tight, he drove a couple blocks before he could speak. “Whether you like it or not—whether either of us likes it or not—Dana is important in your life. You wouldn’t exist without her.” Christian’s scoffing sound infuriated Nolan. He swerved to the curb and yanked on the emergency brake. “While you’re clinging to the memory of Marlee as your mother, remember that she did something terrible. Something that does not deserve forgiveness.”

  Christian went off like a rocket. “You said—”

  “That she could have gotten you from someone else.” He’d never wanted to do this, but now he had to. He continued grimly, “Marlee started talking about being pregnant a few months before you were born. Where do you think she imagined she’d get a baby?”

  Stunned silence.

  “She might not have had her eye on you yet—she probably didn’t. My guess is she slipped into a maternity ward somewhere and thought she’d just grab a baby. But security is damn good in hospitals these days.” His rage at himself drove this inexorable speech. How had he ever believed this bright, handsome boy who looked nothing like Marlee was hers? If he had been, his father would have been some street junkie. Their newborn baby would have had problems. “But she’d told Mom and Dad and me that she was having a baby, so she had to find one. No, more than that—she told us she’d had a boy. At some point, she saw you, fixated on you.”

  “I won’t listen!” Christian screamed, clapping his hands over his ears. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!”

  Throwing a Marlee-style tantrum only riled Nolan, who raised his voice. “She didn’t happen to peek in that bedroom window. No, she’d followed you and Dana home. She’d been watching you, waiting for her chance.”

  Christian was sobbing now, rocking back and forth.

  Heart breaking, Nolan pulled him into an embrace the boy fought at first. Nolan just held on until he sagged. His own cheeks were wet when he pressed a rough kiss to Christian’s head.

  He wanted to stop. Damn, but he wanted to. Yet some instinct drove him to finish it now, whatever the consequences.

  “She may have believed you were hers. She was crazy enough to have decided some woman pushing you in a baby stroller had stolen you. But she was also sane enough to plot, to stalk a mother and baby, to be patient. I wanted to think she wasn’t the one to take you, but I was fooling myself. She found a baby the right age, the right gender, and she took him. She claimed you and threw another woman into hell.” He swallowed. “Part of me is so goddamn mad at what she did to all of us—you, me, Dana, Grandma and Grandad if they’d lived—that I couldn’t have kept making allowances, kept loving her the same way. She was mentally ill. Some people would say she couldn’t help herself. But what she did wasn’t impulse. It was cruel and selfish.” He was the one to rock Christian now, as much to comfort himself as anything. “And, man, I never wanted to say this to you.”

  They stayed like they were for a long time. So long he started to get scared. Christian could come out of this hating him, choosing to hold on tight to his memories of his flawed mommy. Seeing Nolan as a traitor who wasn’t fighting for him the way he’d promised.

  But his own sense of honor demanded he give Dana Stewart a fair chance. She’d listened to his accusation of selfishness, his defense of the boy he loved, and done something extraordinary. Nolan had enough regrets. If the changes she’d made in her life really were permanent, they might be able to find a way through this they could all live with.

  If he were to egg on Christian, encourage his resentment—Nolan wasn’t sure he could live with that. He had to give this a fair chance, even if he ended up being the loser.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHRISTIAN DIDN’T SAY a word after Uncle Nolan was done, not during the short drive home, not once they were in the house. He couldn’t. Too much was boiling inside him. He ran straight to his room, leaving his uncle at the foot of the staircase watching him.

  He dived onto his bed and curled into a ball, his knees to his chest. Don’t let Uncle Nolan follow me in here. Please don’t let him. Nausea swelled until he wanted to puke, but tears threatened again, too, even though his eyes already burned and felt swollen. He’d been such a baby, crying like that.

  Baby. Even thinking the word had him close to hurling.

  He sucked in air through his nose, out through his mouth, over and over until the nausea subsided.

  He kept hearing things Uncle Nolan said.

  She found a baby the right age, the right gender, and she took him. She claimed you and threw another woman into hell.

  “Mom,” he whispered. “Mommy.”

  Cruel and selfish.

  The acid in his stomach felt like it was eating him. He held himself tighter to protect his middle.

  An admission crept into his head, one he didn’t want to hear. She was selfish. Sometimes. The way she’d just disappear and not come home for weeks or even, sometimes, months. Back when Uncle Nolan was still deployed, when Christian actually lived with her, every time he walked in the door after school, he would wonder if she’d be there. And if she wasn’t, whether she’d come home that day. Once he was seven or eight, he’d stay by himself for a day or two without telling anyone, in case his mom wasn’t really gone, because even though Grandma and Grandpa would come right away to pick him up if he called, they would get this look on their faces, pain and anger and disappointment. He could never count on Mom being there even when she knew he was really excited about pitching his first game or winning an award or being in a school play. After he didn’t have anyone in the audience a few times, he made sure to tell his grandparents, because they always came. Until they died.

  When the police arrived to tell him about the accident, he’d been so scared, thinking, But what will I do? His mom could die, too. And if she didn’t...what if she took off again? He could mostly take care of himself, but he didn’t have money to buy groceries. And people would notice. If that happened, Mom would get in trouble and they might take him away to live in a foster home. It might not even be in Lookout, where all his friends were.

  And then Uncle Nolan walked into the Dunbars’ house where he’d been staying, swept him into a hug and said, “I’m home for good.” Christian knew everything was okay then. He’d pretended to Mom that he minded not being able to live with her, but he didn’t really. He trusted Uncle Nolan.

  He used to trust Uncle Nolan.

  No, he still did, except... He felt sick again. Uncle Nolan sounded so hard, so angry, when he talked about Mom, and it made Christian remember how mad he’d been sometimes, only it wasn’t Mom’s fault. It wasn’t!

  While you’re clinging to the memory of Marlee as your mother, remember that she did something terrible. Something that does not deserve forgiveness.

  Christian didn’t know what to believe. Except he did. It just made him feel so guilty he wanted to pretend it couldn’t be true. If he beli
eved it, he’d have to be nice to that woman who claimed to be his mother. It might even mean he’d have to go live with her.

  It meant...he wasn’t really Christian Gregor at all. He was someone named Gabriel.

  His belly cramped and he stifled a moan against his knees.

  Tonight...he’d been mean to her, even when he could tell he was hurting her. Uncle Nolan had been ashamed of him.

  But I don’t want to be Gabriel, whoever he is. I don’t.

  * * *

  THE FIRST DAY of Dana’s job was a week away. The woman she was replacing had only finished her last day on Friday, just before Dana arrived in Lookout. Dana had offered to start right away, but her new boss insisted on giving her time to settle in. Time that she wasn’t so sure she wanted. Being busy would be better.

  Christian was in school anyway, and what was she going to do? Loiter at Wind & Waves from three o’clock on so she could greet her son with a beaming smile? She bet that would go over well.

  No, she would stay away for a few days, at least. She’d pretty much thrown herself on the road in front of them. Now she had to be a little patient. See if Nolan and/or Christian made any overtures.

  She laughed, a not very nice sound at all. Okay, see if Nolan made any overtures. The idea that he and Christian wanted to take her to dinner had been pure fiction. She could only imagine what he’d held over her son to make him agree to sit across the table from her. Too bad whatever it was hadn’t been better blackmail material; Christian might have had to be polite, too.

  Had the two of them exchanged high fives after they’d dropped her off? Because, wow, Christian had certainly managed to let her know how he really felt about her. Of course, he’d done that the first time they met. She’d been delusional to hope giving him time to know her might soften his instant rejection.

  Not so much.

  Well, news to them: she wasn’t defeated that easily. Fortunately, getting settled into the house gave her plenty to do for the next few days. The moving truck had arrived midday, the two men unloading her furniture and heaps of boxes with startling speed. She’d had to leap aside to avoid getting run over a couple of times.

  Now she had a sofa, a TV, a coffee table and a bed. A dining room table and chairs. She also had those mountains of boxes. Her next task was to find her linens, her socks and underwear, the multiple-device charger for her iPod, laptop and phone. She wanted her books on the shelves, her dishes in the cupboards.

  Sighing, she went back to work in the kitchen, where she’d begun this morning. Empty totes were piled next to the refrigerator. Finding her coffeemaker and toaster hadn’t been optional. Those, she’d dug out last night.

  She had unpacked every box labeled Kitchen and was wondering what to do with tablecloths and place mats and cloth napkins when her doorbell rang. Her stupid microwave didn’t have a clock. Maybe a neighbor had noticed someone new had moved in.

  In faded jeans, a Denver Broncos sweatshirt and sneakers, her hair straggling out of a ponytail, she didn’t look her best, but anyone would understand. Moving was hard work.

  She opened the door, a smile forming, and found her son on her doorstep. His bicycle lay on its side on her ragged front lawn. Her gaze went back to the boy with shaggy blond hair, jeans and a Wind & Waves hooded sweatshirt, a blue backpack slung over his shoulder. Nolan was nowhere in sight. Disbelieving, Dana looked both ways to be sure.

  She caught herself an instant before she said, “Gabriel.” However much she hated using the name given to him after his abduction, she had to for now, or alienate him further.

  “Christian. Does...your uncle know where you are?”

  “Not exactly.” He squirmed. “But he won’t worry about me or anything.”

  “Um...come in.” She backed up. “Why won’t he worry about you?”

  “’Cuz I said I was going to a friend’s house and I’d see him at home.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t care what I do after school.”

  She sincerely hoped that wasn’t true, even if this was a small, relatively safe town. She closed the front door and saw him gape at the mess.

  “How’d your stuff get here?”

  He was talking to her. Why? She didn’t dare get excited.

  “Moving truck.”

  “Oh. That’s a cool TV.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  He kept standing there. He twitched, he shuffled his feet, he opened his mouth and closed it. Dana wouldn’t have been surprised if he had bolted for the door without saying whatever he’d come to say.

  But at last he blurted, “Uncle Nolan was mad at me.”

  Kudos for courage, she thought. “Because you were rude yesterday.”

  Christian drew up his shoulders like a turtle. “Um, yeah.”

  “Why were you rude? Did you think I’d pack up and go back to Colorado?”

  He sneaked a desperate look at her with eyes the same shade as Craig’s. “I don’t know. I just...” His throat worked, but he didn’t finish.

  Taking pity on him, she said, “You wish everything could go back to the way it was before.”

  Now she was exulting. He was here. He hadn’t exactly apologized, but that was really what this was about.

  “I guess so.” He was mumbling, but that was okay.

  Dana leaned against the back of the sofa. “I don’t. Finding you, at least knowing you were alive and well, was everything to me. Maybe too much.” It could be this was a mistake, but she didn’t think so. “My husband—your dad—did a better job of moving on with his life. I’ve learned since then a lot of parents react the way I did when a child is abducted or lost. It’s as if...your life stops. How can you go on without knowing? As terrible as it sounds, being able to bury your child has to be better than never knowing. So I won’t apologize for anything I’ve said or done since I found out about you.”

  He’d watched her throughout this speech, his lips pinched.

  “What I am sorry for is that it’s been such a shock to you. I was so happy I didn’t let myself realize how you’d feel.”

  He lifted one shoulder.

  She wondered suddenly, painfully, whether he would smell like her Gabriel if he let her hug him. The thought stole her breath.

  Don’t blow this. She forced herself to smile. “So, do you like to read?”

  He looked at her like she was nuts.

  “Most of those boxes—” she waved toward one of the mountain peaks “—are full of books.”

  “Really?”

  Laughing at his incredulity, she said, “Really. I’m a huge reader, and I like to own books. I use the library, too—” Wait. “There is a library in town, isn’t there?”

  “Well, yeah. They have lots of computers. I think you can get books from other libraries, too, like Parkdale.”

  “So it’s a county-wide library system.”

  “I don’t know.” He cast what she took as a longing glance toward the front door. “I guess.”

  She had a flashback: her brother coming home from school and going straight to the refrigerator. He was always starving.

  Inspiration struck. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat or drink?”

  He hesitated, but her lure succeeded. Dana was able to offer soda, which she occasionally drank, and a selection of cookies as well as a sandwich. She was glad she’d found the bakery on River Street and let herself be tempted by the goodies.

  As Christian opened a cola, she wondered if she should have asked whether Nolan allowed him to have caffeine. Then he dived into the sandwich she made. While he was still wolfing that, she set out the cookies.

  Underhanded tactics, but if the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, the strategy had to work even better for a nearly teenage boy.

  Her phone rang while she was sitting acr
oss from him with a cup of coffee. If it had to do with work—No, her ex-husband was the caller. She tried not to let Christian see the tension that knotted muscles in her neck.

  Ignore or answer?

  It wasn’t fair that she was here, feeding their son, and Craig hadn’t even heard his voice. She couldn’t reconcile it with her conscience to not answer.

  “Craig.”

  “You promised to stay in touch.”

  How like him to go straight to an accusation. “I only arrived in Lookout yesterday,” she pointed out.

  “Well? Have you seen him?”

  Recognizing the strain in his voice, she closed her eyes on a wave of guilt. “Yes. The three of us had dinner last night.”

  “Just like that? Gregor isn’t trying to keep him away from you?”

  “No.” Oh, Lord—did she have to tell him she was with their son right now? Christian had set down the remnants of his sandwich and was watching her, renewed wariness in his expression. Could he hear both sides of the conversation? “I’m...actually with him right now.” Ignoring Craig’s exclamation, she pressed the phone against her thigh. “Christian, I’m talking to my ex-husband. Your father. Will you talk to him? I think he’d love it if you would say hello.”

  Panic flared, but after a second he swallowed and nodded.

  She lifted the phone to her ear again. “Would you like to talk to him?”

  There was a tiny pause. “You know I would,” he said.

  “Then here he is.”

  She handed over the phone and started to push back her chair. “If you’d like me to give you some privacy...”

  Christian shook his head frantically. Sandy hair flopped over his forehead.

  Dana heard the rumble of Craig’s voice but couldn’t make out words.

  “Uh, yeah,” was Christian’s first response, followed by, “I guess,” and her personal favorite, “I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t yet accurately read her own son’s rapidly shifting expressions. All she could do was wait tensely and hope Craig didn’t blow it by demanding too much, too soon.