His first word had been no, his first phone call had been a transatlantic one, and his first excursion had taken place at the Prudential Center, when he had climbed out of his stroller and disappeared for almost an hour. Never before in her life had she felt so much fear, and she still had trouble breathing whenever she thought of the horrible helplessness she had experienced when he was gone. Even though she’d sworn to herself that she would spank him for the awful fear he had caused her, she had instead burst into tears with relief when a security guard had found him in a candy store and returned him to her shaking arms. She had hugged him tightly and had sworn never to let him out of her sight again as she cried and cried.
Brady was an adventurous boy, and of course it wasn’t possible to watch over him all the time, but even today, Thorne got really nervous when he wasn’t with her for more than a few hours. Dana was probably right and she was a real mother hen, but the thought of losing him drove her absolutely crazy.
She was a single mother and had always been on her own with Brady. There had never been anyone who might have given her support or taken some of the work and responsibility on their own shoulders. She had long ago come to terms with her role as a single mom, but there were moments when she felt utterly alone, when she longed for someone at her side, someone to share her worries with. While other women could count on their husbands, or at least on their kids’ fathers, she hadn’t had any of that.
Her son’s father had disappeared.
Until the day before yesterday.
Thorne shook off the confusing thought of Detective Shane Fitzpatrick and went into her bedroom to change clothes. She was glad to take off the uncomfortable pants and preppy blouse she had worn at work. She slipped into jogging pants and a faded t-shirt instead, and then went back into the kitchen to prepare dinner. While the chicken was broiling in the oven, she switched on the tiny kitchen TV and watched the news. Then the doorbell rang.
Thinking that Brady was surprisingly early, she opened the door, not expecting to see the person that had the same light brown eyes and dark hair as her son.
But Shane was not as welcome as her son.
“What do you want?”
“I need to speak with you, Thorne.”
She licked her lips nervously and hoped Brady would be a few minutes late, as he usually was, despite all promises and admonishments. “Didn’t I tell you I’m not going to talk to you, Detective Fitzpatrick?”
“Stop with the ‘Detective Fitzpatrick’ crap already, will you?” Shane frowned and gave her an impatient nod. “It’s about Aidan. Let me in for a moment, okay?”
She remained in the doorway, not wanting to step back and let him enter her apartment. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She could not allow him to stay here and run the risk of him meeting Brady, under no circumstances. She simply was not ready for it.
Her pulse raced as she looked into his resolute face and realized with a slightly hysterical feeling where Brady got his tendency to wrinkle his nose.
“Is everything alright with Aidan?”
“Of course; that’s not it,” he replied quickly. “I feel as awkward as you do, Thorne, and I don’t want to force you into anything—”
“Then don’t,” she cut him short and went to slam the door in his face again, but this time, he put his foot forward in time. “Hey!” she complained loudly. “Why won’t you just go away?”
He shook his head in grim determination. “Our surprise encounter two days ago went as badly as could be expected. If you let me in, I can explain it all.”
She wanted to give him the finger and tell him how phony he sounded, but she felt panic rising within her with every passing second. Brady was due to come bolting down the stairs any minute now, so she decided to shut up and forgo starting an argument with the policeman at her door. He seemed to have come straight from work, for he was wearing a navy suit, and his hollowed cheeks showed the dark stubble of a long day.
Seeing him in a suit was strange, considering the man she had been in love with seven years ago had never worn anything but faded denim and casual sweaters. Only the stubble was familiar. No matter how thoroughly he’d shaved in the mornings, by nighttime his cheeks had been shadowed in that dark stubble.
She shook off that thought, and the others it might lead to, and stared back at him just as grimly. “I’m not interested.”
“Thorne, will you at least let me apologize to you?”
For a brief moment, that left her speechless. She opened her mouth, incredulous. “If you’ve come to play mind games, you can just stop and go to hell now! I’m not falling for your act a second time—”
“I’m serious,” he interrupted, taking a step toward her. “I mean it.” He was now standing right in front of her.
Thorne tried to close the door, but that didn’t work when a tall man seemed intent on pushing his way into your apartment.
“Listen, Liam, I—” She stopped herself and inhaled slowly. “Listen, Shane. For me, this chapter is closed, and therefore I don’t want you to come in, nor do I want to talk. I’m asking you to just leave and let it be.”
“It isn’t that simple,” he admitted, more or less contritely. “There are some high-brass people in the police force that want to extend an offer of collaboration—”
She cut him off with a devastating glare. “If you want to discuss anything with Aidan, I merely ask that you go see him and leave me alone. And as for pretending that you came to apologize to me, you should really mean it, not use it as a pretext so I’d listen to your crap!” Her anger made her breathe heavily as his expression turned back into a dark frown. Again, he had managed to throw her completely off balance in mere minutes.
“If you let me into your apartment, I wouldn’t have to talk to you like a salesman with a weak pitch,” he shot back. “How can I say what I want to say if you keep slamming the door in my face, Thorne?”
His voice had risen in volume, so she swallowed her anger and struggled for composure. It was hard not to give in to her pent-up frustration and just kick him in the shin … or where it hurt even more. But her anger didn’t matter now. The only important thing was to get rid of him quickly.
“I really have no idea what the purpose of your visit is, but I don’t want to talk to you. There is nothing left to say, Shane. Leave me alone!”
“Why did you take your mother’s maiden name?” He raised his chin, behaving as if this were an interrogation. “Were you trying to make sure you wouldn’t be found?”
She briefly closed her eyes in frustration before looking straight into his. “Have you ever searched for me?” she asked, her voice husky.
His silence spoke for itself.
She snorted derisively.
“I’m serious, Thorne.”
“Me too,” she snapped, flaring up. “After Aidan was arrested, I lost my job, and whenever I said my name, people looked at me as if I were the criminal. Boston isn’t that far from Quincy, so I thought it would offer me some relief if I took my mother’s name. Happy now?”
“Not completely, no. I really need to speak with you, Thorne.”
Just then, she thought she heard the sound of a door opening upstairs and strained her ears to be sure. But Shane opened his mouth again, so she couldn’t distinguish whether she had imagined the noise or Brady would be coming down the stairs the next moment.
Her heart beat in her throat as she opened the door a crack wider, peering over the shoulder of her unwelcome guest, as he protested. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. The whole thing went too far—”
“Okay, okay. It’s in the past,” she interrupted hastily. “No problem. If you could leave now …”
He crossed his arms with mounting irritation. “Is everything okay with you? You seem so nervous all of a sudden.”
“Of course, everything’s fine,” she hastened to assure him, struggling to maintain a firm and grim expression as her hands began to feel clammy. “I’m just angry with you for
showing up here and bothering me, that’s all.”
“I’m not bothering you.” His brow furrowed, and he cocked his head to the side. “You’re not having problems with Aidan’s old friends, are you?”
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, dismissing his attempt to make sense of her nervousness. “I’ve been living in Boston for over six years now. So I would like to know why you’re pretending to be concerned all of a sudden. I don’t buy it for a second.”
“Since when did you become this bitchy?”
Thorne could now clearly hear steps and noises in the apartment above. She expected Brady to storm down the stairs any moment, and her throat went dry at the thought of her son meeting his dad like this. And how was she supposed to inform Detective Shane Fitzpatrick that he had fathered a baby in the performance of his duty? Her whirling thoughts made her want to scream. “I am not bitchy! Now go!”
“Thorne …”
She balled her hands into fists to stop the panic from taking over. All she could think of was getting rid of him. “Speak with Aidan if you want, but leave me alone!”
“But it’s not just about your brother.”
Picturing Brady putting on his shoes and leaving his friend’s apartment made her answer hastily. “Alright then! We can meet somewhere else if you won’t take no for an answer.”
“Why can’t we just go inside and—”
“No!” Her refusal came with a little too much panicked force, so she cleared her throat and added in a slightly calmer tone, “If you want to talk to me, you can meet me tomorrow at five in the café at the end of the block.”
Shane rolled his eyes and groaned. “But we could just talk now, in your apartment.”
“Either you come to the café tomorrow, or we’ll forget any further conversation.”
He stared at her with an inscrutable expression, while Thorne was close to a nervous breakdown. At least that’s what it felt like. If Brady managed to be on time for dinner, today of all days, she would be convinced fate was playing a mean prank on her just to drive her insane.
And of course Shane took his sweet time to answer, making her listen for sounds from upstairs again, drenched in a cold sweat.
“And you will really be there tomorrow?” he finally asked.
“Please go now!”
“Answer my question first.”
“Don’t play the cop, Shane,” she reprimanded him haughtily, unable to stop herself from following it up with a sarcastic snort. “Are you afraid I might vanish into thin air as payback?”
His expression became shuttered, though she didn’t see why he thought he had the right to be the affronted one. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Thorne didn’t reply. She merely watched the tall man turn and leave the building. Her knees began to buckle, so she leaned against the doorframe, feeling her heartbeat pound through her body, the throbbing all the way in the soles of her feet. She was still standing there, breathing deeply, when Brady came pounding down the stairs like an entire herd of elephants half a minute later. When she told him that dinner was chicken, not spaghetti, his frown was very much like that of his father.
***
Thorne didn’t know exactly what had made her agree to another meeting with Shane, but she chalked it up to temporary insanity, total exhaustion, and full-blown panic. As she sat in the café, waiting, he stepped into the room and looked around, causing her to tense up immediately.
Why was she doing this at all, she asked herself dully, watching him recognize and greet her with a curt nod. He made his way to the small table where she was sitting, clutching her coffee mug with shaking hands. Thorne didn’t want to speak with him, but yesterday she had seen no other way out. She had panicked at the thought of him and Brady meeting, recognizing each other. How could she have explained that the six-year-old, who looked so much like him, was, indeed, his son? And how could she have kept Brady from asking probing questions when confronted with his unknown father?
For years, she had never been forced to ponder an eventual meeting of father and son, or her part in negotiating such a meeting, because there had been no contact at all.
And now …
Shane.
She studied his handsome face with those light brown eyes that could be unbelievably soft and let her gaze travel over his features. In her memory and thoughts, his name had been Liam. Liam had been her fiancé and the father of her son. Shane, on the other hand, was a stranger. How could a stranger be Brady’s father?
She had lain awake last night, asking herself how to handle this weird situation. During her pregnancy she had tried to find him, so she could tell him that she was having his baby. She had wanted her son to meet his father because, in her eyes, a relationship to both parents would have been best for her child. When it had turned out that Liam was untraceable, Thorne had been disconsolate. But now, almost seven years later, as she finally had the chance to introduce the two men in her life to each other, she hesitated. And her hesitation had nothing to do with wanting to get even with Shane. She was only concerned about Brady. The way things seemed to stand, she couldn’t imagine that Shane would be interested in Brady at all.
Detective Shane Fitzpatrick, the man who had suddenly appeared on her doorstep three days ago, seemed to be a completely different man than the Liam she’d known and loved. She and Liam Gallagher had had a lot of fun together. She had been on cloud nine with him, laughing all the time. She had come to know him as an affable, affectionate man, and true as a die. He had proven his affection by giving her his undivided attention and simply being there for her. Three days ago, she had met a different man. He didn’t seem to have the slightest problem with having lied to her, abusing her trust. He seemed cold, distant, and unfeeling—so she had to conclude that he didn’t care he’d used her for his job.
And, therefore, she asked herself whether she should tell him about Brady at all. Maybe he wasn’t interested in his child and would see it as an accident. Collateral damage.
The thought hurt her more than she could have expressed in words.
And yet, this morning, before driving Brady to school and going to work, she had put a few photos of her son in her handbag. The question of whether to tell Shane had haunted her all morning, though she had a lot of work, going through a heap of files and typed reports. On her lunch break she’d been unable to eat, instead staring at the pictures with a growing lump in her throat.
The lump was still there. It prevented her from greeting the man who sat down opposite her. He nodded at the waitress so he could order a cup of coffee, too.
“You’re here.” He leaned back and studied her briefly. “To be honest, I didn’t expect you to come.”
“What could I have done?” she asked acidly, looking into his face again. “If I hadn’t shown up, you’d have come by my place a third time. I can’t even spray Mace in your eyes because you’re a cop.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “And if I wasn’t a cop?”
“I’d have already hit you over the head with my baseball bat.”
His chuckle reminded her for a moment of the many times they’d laughed together in the past. At the same time, she felt annoyed by his obvious good mood. He was relaxed, and she could even see the laugh lines form around his eyes.
He had not changed much in the preceding years, apart from the fact that his nose was bent a little to the right, his face had lost some of its boyishness, and he dressed like an adult now. But Thorne could still see why she had fallen head over heels in love with him. Shane Fitzpatrick was absolutely eye-catching and no doubt capable of getting a woman to behave like a total dweeb in the hopes of a little smile from Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome.
Right now, however, the fluttering feeling in her stomach had nothing to do with the butterflies of falling in love. She was simply extremely nervous to be sitting here with him, not knowing what to say.
He, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be bothered at all. He pointed to her blouse and th
e dark blazer on top of it. “Did you dress up like that for me?”
Thorne snorted. “No need to get any ideas. I came straight from work.”
The tone of his voice betrayed mild curiosity as he asked, “Where do you work?”
“I work for a lawyer.” Thorne cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes. She swore she wouldn’t let him sweet-talk her. “So what did you want to talk about?”
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh, one arm nonchalantly thrown across the back. “Alright, Thorne. I know I’m on your shit list, but I’m asking you to have a conversation with me that doesn’t involve you scratching my eyes out.”
His face betrayed no tension, but she wasn’t ready to be peaceable. “I can try,” she said in a bristly voice, “but I won’t promise anything.”
He clucked his tongue. “That doesn’t sound very obliging.”
Thorne frowned. “Did you really expect me to be?”
“No,” he admitted with a grumpy face. “But I did think you might have recovered from the shock enough that we could have a calm, rational conversation.”
“If you think two days is enough to recover from the shock of learning that the man who saw me naked, the man who knows my great-grandmother’s secret recipe for apple pie, the man who even shared the same razor as me, is nothing but an undercover cop, then you are sadly mistaken,” she blurted out with increasing heat.
He replied with a genuine smile. “I never gave anyone the recipe. Not even my mom.”
“Do you really think that’s funny?”
“You mentioned the apple pie first.”
She drew a slow breath. “Well then, let me tell you that I’m not interested in the recipe. What bothers me a lot more are all the other things I told you, I entrusted you with. I didn’t know you were really a cop.”
Blast From The Past (The Boston Five Series #2) Page 5
