He had just unlocked the car doors when a clap of thunder shook the air. Jeffrey had been in the middle of an oration on the excitement of sliding, but the rumble rattling the sky caused him to freeze and gasp.
“Get in the car,” Michael urged him, swinging the door open as the first fat drops of rain splattered onto the ground. He helped Jeffrey into his seat, strapped the seat belt on and then slipped in behind the wheel less than a second before the skies opened up. “Wow,” he said as the windshield turned into a sheet of water. “That was good timing.”
Jeffrey said nothing.
Michael ignited the engine and flipped on the headlights. Their white beams cut through the downpour, illuminating the rain so it looked like dense silver threads. As he navigated through the crowded lot to the street, a flash of lightning lit the sky, followed by another rumble of thunder.
“Lucky this didn’t start during the game,” Michael observed, switching the windshield wipers onto their highest speed. “They would have had a rain delay. Do you know what that means?”
Not a word from the backseat.
Stopped at a red light, he peered over his shoulder. Jeffrey’s eyes were as round as they’d been at the stadium, but this time they glowed with unadulterated terror. He was afraid of lightning, Emmie had told Michael.
“Lightning used to scare me when I was your age,” Michael said.
Jeffrey didn’t speak.
“I used to run into the bedroom I shared with my brother and hide under the covers.”
The wipers clacked rapidly back and forth.
“I didn’t want to come out until the lightning stopped. It really scared me.”
Finally, in a tiny voice, Jeffrey asked, “Was your brother scared, too?”
Michael felt something pierce his heart, as sharp and hot as a needle, locating the most tender spot and stabbing it clear through. “My brother wasn’t scared of anything,” he admitted. “And that wasn’t good. Sometimes being scared is the right thing to be.”
“It’s good to be scared of lightning, isn’t it?” Jeffrey asked, barely audible beneath the drumming of the raindrops on the roof of the car.
“It’s better to be scared of lightning than not to be scared of anything,” Michael assured him.
“Yeah,” Jeffrey agreed. He said it in less than a whisper, but Michael heard. The next time he had to stop for traffic, he glanced back again. Jeffrey no longer appeared aghast. A few minutes later, another glance informed Michael that Jeffrey had fallen asleep.
Hours of baseball hadn’t accomplished as much as a single bolt of lightning, Michael realized. But that bolt of lightning had accomplished everything he’d hoped for and more.
Teaching your son that it was all right to be afraid sometimes—that was what fatherhood was all about.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“MAX GALLARD IS IN TOWN.”
Michael tossed this news out so casually Emmie wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. He and Jeffrey were seated at the dining-room table, hard at work solving a seventy-five-piece jigsaw puzzle. Actually, Jeffrey was hard at work. Michael seemed to have limited his contribution to handing Jeffrey piece after piece.
When completed, the puzzle would depict a scene of two dinosaurs drinking from a pond edged in palm trees and ferns. Right now, the puzzle was a jumble of color—a bit of leg here, an arching neck there, a bright-green frond in the corner—interrupted by amoeba-shaped gaps where the polished maple surface of the table showed through.
Emmie stood in the kitchen doorway, having just finished grading a stack of math tests. She was grateful to Michael for occupying Jeffrey after dinner so she could get her work done. Without him, she would have played with Jeffrey until his bedtime, and only then—too late for her own well-being-would she have gotten to the folder of test papers.
But now she was done and ready to rescue Michael from his child-care responsibilities. Except that he’d just dropped this bombshell. “Max Gallard?” she repeated.
“He’s in Boston.”
She took a deep breath. Why on earth had the bounty hunter who’d brought such grief to her and Michael come to Boston? And if he had, why did Michael know about it? Why did he even care?
Her memories of Max Gallard were surprisingly vivid. After all this time, she would probably recognize him if she passed him on a busy street. She remembered keenly the Sunday afternoon she’d met him in San Pablo. He’d been drinking a cerveza at the tavern overlooking the plaza, and he’d looked tough and brawny and dangerous. She hadn’t realized how dangerous he was at the time, but his appearance had provoked her.
His being in Boston, and Michael’s knowledge of it, provoked her again. She pressed her hand against the doorjamb to keep from storming into the dining area and demanding an explanation from Michael. Her emotions churned, but she held them inside, hoping he’d mentioned the man only in passing, one of those “small world” coincidences.
“He’d like to see you,” Michael said, shattering any hopes she’d had that Max’s presence in the area didn’t mean anything.
She and Michael had been doing so well, she thought disconsolately. Three weeks had passed since he’d moved in, and she could scarcely remember what life had been like without him. He fit into her life so perfectly. He made everything sweeter, richer, more intense. He gave her support when she needed it, privacy when she wanted it, and love, so much love she actually believed in it. Her doubts had thawed like ice beneath a hot sun. She’d finally come to terms with the fact that, just as he’d promised, this was going to work.
He’d made progress with Jeffrey, too. He’d learned how to relax around the boy, how to accept the relationship on Jeffrey’s terms. Only about half their conversations dealt with baseball now. Emmie had even begun to contemplate a time in the not-too-distant future when she and Michael might get married and Jeffrey. might learn that Michael was his father.
The future looked auspicious—but suddenly Max Gallard was in Boston, a nasty bit of the past chasing after them, twisting in on them like a snake, its fangs bared.
“I need a head,” Jeffrey announced, nudging Michael’s hand away from the puzzle pieces spread across the table. “Where’s the head, Michael? It’s a growly head, with big teeth.”
“A growly head,” Michael said thoughtfully, scanning the pieces.
Emmie used the distraction to retreat into the kitchen. Maybe if she pretended Michael had never brought up Max Gallard’s name, he would let the matter rest.
She crossed to the kitchen table, gathered up the math tests and stashed them in her tote bag. In just two weeks the school year would be over. Perhaps she and Michael could take Jeffrey on a real vacation trip, something more exciting than a day at the beach in Rockport. They could drive up to Maine and explore the islands, or they could head west into the Berkshires and go to a concert at Tanglewood. Or take a four-day weekend on Cape Cod. They could bond as a family, all three of them, without the distractions of work and preschool.
If only Max Gallard would go away...
She glanced at the wall clock and turned back toward the dining room. “Jeffrey, it’s bath time,” she called from the safety of the kitchen. If she went into the dining room, Michael might mention that man’s name again.
“I’m not finished yet,” Jeffrey complained. “We gotta finish this puzzle. I need the growly head.”
She planted her hands on her hips, as if that would lend her voice more authority. “You can finish it tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to get you into the bath.”
“You mean, I don’t gotta clean up the table?”
“Don’t have to. You can leave the puzzle out overnight.”
“Okay,” he said, so delighted to be spared the chore of cleaning up that he skipped through the kitchen, whirling past Emmie on his way to his room to get undressed.
The nightly rituals of bath time and story time consumed the next hour. Michael had indicated no interest in participating in either activity, and Emmie was g
lad. No matter that he had become a deeply ingrained part of their lives—bathing her son and reading to him were special activities for her and Jeffrey, and she didn’t want to share them with anyone, not even Jeffrey’s father.
But eventually the bath was over and Jeffrey was dried off and in his pajamas, his teeth brushed and his bladder empty. Eventually Emmie finished a chapter in The House on Pooh Corner, tucked him in, kissed him on the cheek and whispered that she loved him. Eventually she ran out of ways to avoid Michael.
After clicking on the night-light, she left Jeffrey’s room. She found Michael in the living room, reading the sports section of the newspaper, several stuffed animals keeping him company on the sofa. He glanced up at her entrance, then stood and smiled. “Hey, there,” he said in a low, sexy voice. His smile carried a hint of astonishment, as if he couldn’t believe his good luck in having worked his way back into her life.
Sometimes she couldn’t believe her good luck, either. But at the moment she wasn’t feeling terribly lucky.
He tossed down the newspaper, stood and came to her, his arms outstretched. She moved into his. embrace, wishing she could find comfort in it. They’d started the day so gloriously, she reminded herself. She’d awakened before him, eased out of his arms and propped herself up so she could study his face. In his sleep he’d been smiling, the same astonished smile he’d given her just now. She’d wondered if he’d been dreaming about their lovemaking. Recalling it made her smile, too—and left her astonished. Her memories of him hadn’t been exaggerated. They were as good together now as she’d remembered them being then. Even better than she’d remembered.
They’d had cereal and fruit for breakfast, and then she’d left the house with Jeffrey to drop him off at Sunny Skies before she drove to the Oak Hill School. Her students had been well behaved today. Even Josh, Will and Tommy had been relatively calm, a minor miracle considering how summery the day had been. At four o’clock, she’d picked up Jeffrey, and they’d stopped at the bakery on the way . home, just because it had been such a perfect day and she wanted to celebrate. She’d intended to buy a cake, but Jeffrey had insisted on cupcakes, three of them. “For me, you and Michael,” he’d said simply, as if there was no question in his mind that Michael was a part of their family.
Dinner had been leisurely. Michael had had a productive day, he’d told her. Jeffrey had described the thing he’d made at preschool: “It’s clay and it’s suppose‘ta be a baseball bat, only it looks kinda like a hotdog. I don’t like hotdogs, so I’ll prob’ly give it to Adam.”
Why couldn’t the day continue being perfect? Was that really so much to ask for?
“Can we talk about it?” Michael asked, his lips half-buried in her hair.
“Talk about what?” Anything but Max Gallard, she pleaded silently.
“Max Gallard.” Michael loosened his embrace so he could lean back and peer into her face. “He wants to see you, Emmie.”
“I don’t want to see him,” she said bluntly.
Michael nodded, then led her to the sofa and nudged her to sit. He pushed away Mr. Rabbit and Elmo, then lowered himself onto the cushion next to her and arched an arm around her. “I know you don’t,” he said. “I could read your expression, loud and clear. But think about it, Emmie, okay? He flew all the way to Boston to see you.”
That startled her. She had assumed he was in town for some other reason and simply thought he’d drop by. “To see me? How did he even know I was here?”
“I’ve kept in touch with him over the years.”
“You have? Why?”
Her question surprised him. “Why shouldn’t I have kept in touch with him? We went through something significant together, Emmie,. Something traumatic. He thinks I saved his life—”
“I think you did, too. I’m not sure what he did to yours, though.”
“He gave me the chance to settle accounts for my brother,” Michael said. His voice was even, but she had learned that when he appeared at his calmest on the surface was when his emotions were churning most violently inside, out of sight.
He twirled his fingers through her hair, collecting his thoughts before he spoke. “I told him when I began my search for you. He knew about my attempt to find you on my own, and about my hiring Maggie Tyrell at Finders, Keepers when I couldn’t get anywhere with the search myself. I e-mailed him once I realized things were going to work out between us, because I knew he would want to know. And he decided to come.”
What Michael had said made sense, up until the last sentence. “Why would he decide to come here?”
Michael shrugged. “I think he wants to apologize. He felt it was his fault we got separated in San Pablo—”
“It was,” she interjected.
“And he wants to tell you he’s sorry things went wrong then. He wants you to know how glad he is that we’ve gotten past it.” His fingers continued to wander in her hair, twining through the strands. “We have gotten past it, haven’t we?”
She was ready to say yes. Yet if she’d gotten past it, why would she be so resistant to a visit from Max Gallard?
Michael seemed to understand her hesitation. “Emmie?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she forced herself to say. She loved him. She’d come to depend on him, to need him and want him and enjoy him. She thought of him as her family, and she wanted nothing to threaten the peace she’d found with him in the past few weeks.
If she honestly feared that letting Max see her could threaten that peace, how strong could her faith possibly be?
“All right,” she said, then sighed and closed her eyes, resolving not to let the idea of a visit from Max bother her. “He can come and say he’s sorry.”
Michael pulled her snugly against him. “I love you, Emmie,” he whispered.
He loved her. That alone gave her the confidence to face anything: her past, her loss, her rediscovery of Michael, of love, of the ability to trust. She supposed she could even face Max Gallard if she had to.
TWO DAYS LATER, Michael picked Max up at the commuter rail station a town away from Wilborough. Michael had seen Max a few times back in California, although Max had remained in Los Angeles, while Michael had moved north to the Bay Area. Max was no longer the husky, well-muscled . iron man he’d been when Michael had known him five years ago. His wound had taken a toll on him. He was thinner, a bit more haggard, but also calmer and more reflective. His hair was longer and generously streaked with gray, and he’d grown a stylish goatee, also well seasoned with gray.
They shook hands on the station platform, and then Max pulled Michael into an awkward hug. “You look better than I’ve ever seen you before,” he said. “This thing is going well, huh?”
“It’s going well,” Michael confirmed. He could have said it was going splendidly, magnificently—he could have shouted to the skies that he and Emmie belonged together and destiny had been kind to bring them to this point after so many years. But talking about his feelings would trivialize them, so he kept it simple. “It’s going real well.”
“How about the kid?” Max asked as they descended the stairs to the parking lot. “What does he think of having you as his father?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Michael told him. He’d mentioned Jeffrey to Max in his e-mails. Max had been sympathetic when Michael had admitted that fatherhood didn’t exactly come naturally to him. “We’re getting along better. It’s a slow process, but it’s coming. I really want to tell him the truth.” Michael unlocked the car and sighed. “I want him to know, but Emmie isn’t ready yet.”
“Why not?”
Michael sighed again. “We screwed up bad, Max. She’s skittish.” He got in behind the wheel and contemplated the idea that had been lurking in his mind: that if tonight went well, if a reunion between Emmie and Max put the past to rest once and for all, she would be willing to let Michael tell Jeffrey he was his father. But if tonight didn’t go well, if she took one look at Max and remembered all the bad things, all the grief and resentment
of Michael’s deception, she might not let him get close to her son.
Their son, he reminded himself. This was about his son as much as hers.
During the drive to Wilborough, Max talked about the private security work he was doing, and his flight to Boston, and his utter lack of jet lag. “There’s a technique to avoid jet lag,” he insisted. “You can train yourself out of it.” Even thirty pounds thinner and significantly more weathered, Max still enjoyed pretending he was impervious to the kinds of physical challenges that felled mere mortals.
“This is a nice town,” Max observed as Michael steered into Emmie’s neighborhood. “Nothing like what we’re used to, huh? Look at all the greenery.”
Michael smiled. California’s climate was semidesert dry. The sprawling emerald lawns and foliage-dense trees of New England were rarities back home.
But this was his home now, not California. This was where he’d thrown his lot; this was where the woman he loved had set down roots, and this was where he was going to stay.
He wondered if he should warn Max that Emmie wasn’t looking forward to his visit. Max wouldn’t be scared off, but he might become defensive, prickly, as likely to pick a fight as to make amends.
He kept his mouth shut except to say, “Remember not to let anything slip out with Jeffrey.”
“Don’t worry.”
Michael turned onto Cullen Drive and steered up Emmie’s driveway. The evening would go well, he assured himself. He and Emmie had come so far; a few hours with Max wasn’t going to undo what they’d accomplished.
She was waiting for them, watching through the screen door as they strolled up the walk to the front porch. She had on the simple cotton jumper and white T-shirt she’d been wearing that morning when she’d left for school. Michael was always amazed by how fresh she managed to look after hours cooped up in a classroom with her pupils. He usually wound up rumpled and weary after a few minutes in the company of just one small boy. Obviously she was a professional when it came to dealing with kids.
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