The Soldier's Secret Child

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “Mrs. Hill’s husband has a F-350 pickup with a supercab so Dylan’s booster seat fits and we can ride with Mr. Hill in the back seat. And he has a tow truck. That’s what he does, tows cars and fixes them.”

  Owen’s words made Rhys wince. “Sounds like a man I should get to know.”

  “Yeah, you’d like Mr. Hill,” Owen said. “Maybe you can be friends.”

  Renee followed Rhys’s gaze across the parking lot to a compact pickup with faded red paint and a missing hubcap, and understood the meaning of his comment.

  “Ms. Delacroix, Mrs. Hill said I had to ride with you, but couldn’t I go with my dad? I can show him where we’re going, or you can drive first and we’ll follow.”

  “No, son,” Rhys answered for her. “We have to follow the rules, so we can all live together again. I’ll follow Ms. Delacroix.”

  His words shouted control, which she read as another indication he’d do whatever he had to do to have his boys. Again, she was thankful she’d be done with her internship with Social Services soon, and that this would be the extent of her getting between him and his sons. It might be a flashback to her experience in Haiti, but Rhys Maddox struck her as a complex man—a man whom, despite the draw of his obvious love and devotion to his sons, she might not want to get on the wrong side of.

  * * *

  The truck didn’t start with his first two turns of the key and he could see Ms. Delacroix sitting in her car in the driving lane in front of him, chalking up more demerits against him. No job. No reliable transportation. No good for Owen and Dylan. He snorted a laugh. He’d been hearing the no-good part his whole life, from everyone but Gwen and the praise ministry and his Bible study group at Dannemora. He rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment before trying a third time. The engine rattled into action.

  He’d get something better once he started working and could afford payments. He was trying to spend as little as possible of the money from Gwen’s life insurance policy through the school district where she’d worked. That money was for Owen and Dylan’s future. The first and last month’s rent and security deposit on the three-bedroom house he’d rented on Hazard Cove Road had taken a sizable chunk. The house was a financial stretch, but it reminded him of the house he and Gwen had had in Albany. Their home. Another casualty of his rash actions.

  Ms. Delacroix tooted her car horn to signal she was taking off. He followed close behind for the thirty-mile trip to Paradox Lake and then to the opposite side of the lake from his rental house. She pulled into a rustic, old-fashioned, ice-cream stand. A red-and-white candy-striped awning shielded the order window from the hot midafternoon sun. Several picnic tables sported matching umbrellas.

  Owen was out of Ms. Delacroix’s car and over to his truck almost before he’d shut it off—with the cooperation of the engine.

  “Is vanilla still your favorite, Dad? Mine’s still chocolate. Can I have my cone dipped in chocolate, too?”

  “Anything you want.” This time. He’d have to watch himself to avoid indulging the boys to make up for lost time. It was a recommendation Ms. Delacroix had made that he couldn’t argue with, even though he wanted to give them the best of everything.

  He stepped up to the window. “We’ll have a large chocolate-dipped.”

  Owen grinned at him, warming his heart in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Too long.

  “A large vanilla-dipped and...” Rhys turned to Renee.

  “You don’t have to pay for mine,” she said. “I’ll get my own.”

  “No, I’m treating.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I can’t accept. It’s a CPS rule. We can’t take gifts.” She placed her order.

  Another rule. He fingered the bills in his hand. He could accept it. The past five years had made him a master at accepting rules.

  “Hey, Dad,” Owen said as they started toward an empty picnic table, “that’s my friend Alex and his dad. Can we sit with them?”

  Rhys’s eyes followed Owen’s outstretched arm to a table where a dark-haired man and a boy about his son’s age sat eating burgers. He fought back a frown. This was supposed to be his time with his boys. Dylan had refused to come and now Owen wanted to be with his friend.

  He took the easy out. “Ms. Delacroix?”

  “It’s up to you.”

  If it was up to him, he wouldn’t be here now at all. Owen and Dylan would both be living with him already.

  Owen looked at him expectantly, with his mother’s eyes.

  “Sure,” Rhys said.

  Ms. Delacroix’s smile of approval lifted the gray mantle settling on him as much as Owen’s did.

  He was pathetic, waiting for validation of everything he did.

  Let go and let God. He’ll make everything right. Except Rhys’s faith was so new, he wasn’t sure he knew how to let go yet.

  “Hey, Owen,” his friend Alex called.

  “Hi,” Owen called back, tugging Rhys toward the table. “This is my dad,” he said as they approached the table.

  Rhys’s insides went mushy at the pride in his son’s voice. He certainly hadn’t done much to make him proud in the past. But that was behind him. He wouldn’t let Owen or Dylan down again.

  “Rhys Maddox.” He extended his hand over the table to Alex’s father.

  “Neal Hazard.” He stood and shook hands. “Hi, Renee,” Neal said before sitting again. “Looks like you two are joining us.” He motioned to the bench beside him, where Owen was already seated next to Alex.

  “Hi.” She stepped around Rhys to sit on the bench across from Neal.

  Ms. Delacroix and Neal seemed friendly, even though Neal had to be ten or fifteen years older than her. Not that it mattered to him.

  Rhys sat on the opposite end of the bench across from Owen.

  “Just you and Alex today?” Renee glanced toward the stand.

  “Yep. Anne and Sophia are having a girls’ day shopping for school clothes and Ian’s at soccer camp. I took the afternoon off so Alex wouldn’t have to go shopping with his mother and sister.”

  “A fate worse than death, for sure,” Renee said.

  Neal laughed in agreement, making Rhys wish he could pull off the easy manner Neal had with her.

  “Maddox,” Neal said mid-laugh, as if he’d suddenly realized who Rhys was.

  Rhys tensed, waiting for the other man to make the connection between him and the CPS worker.

  “I should have put it together.”

  Anger started to simmer in the pit of Rhys’s stomach. Hazard had better not say anything bad about him in front of Owen.

  “You’re the guy who rented one of the old summer houses from my dad.”

  Rhys squirmed on the bench. He wouldn’t be doing his boys any good if he was always on the defensive, expecting the worst from everyone.

  “Yes, if your father is Ted Hazard.” Rhys could see a resemblance.

  “Sure is. I don’t know why I didn’t think of Owen when Dad told me. We’re neighbors. Our house is right around the corner off Hazard Cove Road. Alex and Owen are almost inseparable. It’ll save us a lot of driving if they’re within walking distance of each other.”

  Rhys looked at his son, who was in deep conversation with his friend. “Owen will like that. I hope to have him and Dylan with me soon.”

  Neal nodded without asking for any further explanation.

  He knows. Of course, he knows. Neal’s kid was Owen’s best friend.

  Rhys’s stomach muscles clenched. Neal seemed to know Ms. Delacroix well enough to know she worked for the county CPS. And when he’d rented the house, Rhys had given Neal’s father full disclosure about his conviction and early release after new evidence had exonerated him of involvement in an earlier bank robbery—a robbery during which a bank guard had be
en shot. He wiped a drop of ice cream from his hand. How many other people knew of his background? What would that do to his job prospects? He didn’t want to move the boys. Not right away. Gwen had said Paradox Lake was a good place, and he didn’t want to disrupt Owen and Dylan’s lives any more than necessary.

  “I’m going to get some water,” Renee said.

  Rhys ran his tongue along the inside of dry lips. He could use one, too.

  “Dad, can I get Coke?” Owen asked.

  “Yes.” Rhys reached in his jeans’ pocket for his wallet. “And I’ll have a water, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” She took his money. “Do you want anything, Neal?”

  “We’re good, but you’ll need some help carrying the drinks.”

  “We’ll help.” Owen and Alex hopped off the bench.

  “Good men,” Neal said before focusing his attention on Rhys. “Dad said you’re looking for work. You’re an electrician?”

  “I did most of an apprenticeship with the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.” Rhys bit back the “before” he’d been about to add. There was no need to bring up his past. “Do you have a lead on a job?”

  “I’m looking for someone. I’m an electrical contractor. We do mostly solar installations and other work for my wife’s company, GreenSpaces.”

  GreenSpaces, a big, international corporation, was on his list of places to check out. Rhys eyed Neal questioningly.

  “Yeah.” Neal laughed. “You look the same way I did when I first learned Anne was a bigwig corporate executive. She teaches engineering at North Country Community College, too.”

  “Your wife owns GreenSpaces?”

  Neal nodded. “Anne and her first husband started the company, and she inherited his stock to add to her own when he died.”

  Rhys shifted on the hard wooden bench. “I’m not licensed or part of a union or anything,” he said, wanting to be honest about his qualifications.

  “The job I have is for a more general laborer, but your electrical knowledge is a plus. Interested?”

  “I sure am.” He saw no reason to hide his enthusiasm.

  Neal reached in his wallet and pulled out his business card. “Does eight o’clock tomorrow morning work for you for an interview?”

  “Eight’s fine.”

  Rhys fingered the card. His roller-coaster life was heading up again. He prayed that it stayed there as he watched Owen walk back with Renee and thought about Dylan. CPS seemed to be more into keeping them apart than in reuniting them. He’d talk with Pastor Connor about the Building Bridges thing at the Hazardtown Community Church. Rhys had shrugged off the pastor’s recommendation that he get involved to help him and his boys reconnect. But now he thought it just might help him reach Dylan—and keep the uphill momentum.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jean Chelikowsky Gordon

  ISBN-13: 9781488018596

  The Soldier’s Secret Child

  Copyright © 2017 by Lee Tobin McClain

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