Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  That’s why she was back at the church basement within twenty minutes of having left it.

  As she opened the door, she heard her son’s voice raised in his favorite chant: “No! No! No!”

  Daniel was crouched down, eye to eye with the face so like his own, while a blonde-haired boy named Jason stood nearby with tears sparkling on his lashes and his thumb stuck securely in his mouth.

  Matthew defined defiance, from the tilt of his chin to his rigid stance to the truck clutched in a fist held behind his back.

  “Matthew, give Jason back the truck.”

  “No! Mine!”

  “It’s not yours. It’s to be shared, and Jason had it.”

  “Mine! Mine!”

  “Matthew –”

  But even as Kendra stepped forward to intervene, Daniel reached around and took the truck from his fist.

  “NO!” he shrieked. “Mine!”

  At that moment Matthew spotted his mother, and hurtled across the room. Automatically, she bent and opened her arms to him, feeling the wetness of his tears and the shudders of his sobs.

  “Mommy” was the only totally coherent word she caught amid his sobs – that was enough. She straightened with her son in her arms, cuddling him close.

  “You can’t jerk things out of his hand like that, Daniel.”

  Part of her knew her tone had been too harsh, but the part of her holding her sobbing child – no matter what the cause – didn’t care.

  Still half crouched, Daniel regarded her with no expression and gave no answer.

  “Kendra, I’d like to see you and Daniel in my office in five minutes,” Fran Sinclair ordered briskly. “For now, why don’t you take Matthew outside until he’s calmed down.”

  The words were framed as a suggestion; that didn’t fool Kendra.

  As she started out with Matthew, she caught a look between Fran and Marti that left her oddly uneasy about this impending meeting in Fran’s office.

  Matthew calmed quickly. In fact, he soon requested a return to playing with “Ja’on,” apparently his new best friend, truck or no truck. And that left her with no reason to delay going to Fran’s office.

  Daniel was already there, half slouched in a chair.

  “Kendra, you know better,” Fran said without preamble. “You can’t undermine the authority of another co-op adult supervising play like that or we’ll have bedlam. It’s especially important for the parents of a child to provide a united front. Otherwise any child – and especially one as bright as Matthew – will start working one against the other. Turning to Mommy when Daddy gives an order and vice versa. That might not be so bad when he’s little and cute, but believe me, you and Daniel don’t want to be the parents of a thirteen-year-old doing that.”

  At one level Kendra had known Daniel’s relationship to Matthew would become common knowledge. Someone considerably less astute than Fran Sinclair could spot the connection. Yet to hear it acknowledged so openly and so off-handedly disconcerted her.

  Had all of Far Hills recognized the major points of her folly on Santa Estella?

  “He’s not used to me giving him orders,” Daniel offered, filling in a growing silence.

  “Then he better get used to it. He needs to obey his father as well as his mother.” Fran accompanied those frank words with a stern look aimed at each of them in turn.

  “Matthew doesn’t know Daniel,” Kendra said stiffly. “It’s natural he’d be upset, so I –”

  “That’s easy enough to fix.”

  “– tried to calm – What?”

  “I said, it’s easy enough to fix. Let Matthew get to know Daniel better. Give the two of them time alone together. That’ll do it.”

  “Alone?” she repeated numbly. How could she protect Matthew from getting too attached to Daniel if she left the two of them alone? How could she make sure Daniel didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep? How could she make sure Matthew didn’t get his heart broken?

  “Sure alone. Matthew will learn he can’t use you as a court of appeals over what Daniel says.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s a fine idea. Daniel’s real good with the boy – when you’re not around,” Fran added darkly. “And it’s not like Matthew’s not used to being with other people now, so it won’t rattle his cage. How about some time next week.”

  “No. Fran, I –”

  But the other woman didn’t read her signals to drop this topic. Or, if she read them, she ignored them.

  “Then the week after. Hey, I’ve got it. Marti told me you’re having trouble finding a babysitter for the night of the country club honors dinner. The regulars are all taken, Ellyn’s promised Meg a girl’s night-out for her birthday, and Marti and I are going to Billings that weekend. That’s ideal!”

  “But –”

  “Is that okay with you, Daniel? That’s a week from Saturday.”

  From the corner of her eye, Kendra saw Daniel’s nod.

  “So, it’s all set. Now, don’t you need to get back to your office, Kendra?”

  Kendra opened her mouth to deny anything was set.

  Then closed it.

  To stop Fran’s runaway train at this point would require going into issues of false identities, masquerades and lies that she had no intention of exposing. Whether she meant to protect Matthew or herself or even Daniel, she couldn’t have said.

  And so she found herself driving back to the Banner, with the animal cracker tote deposited where it belonged and the tote with the notes on the seat beside her. Leaving behind her son, his father, and a plan to leave the two of them entirely on their own less than two weeks in the future.

  * * *

  The day didn’t improve.

  None of the sources she called was available. She felt as if she’d left messages at phones machines from the Montana border to Casper. And none of them seemed in any hurry to call her back.

  Then Larry Orrin, editor/publisher/owner of the Far Hills Banner, not only nixed her suggestion that someone else cover the country club reception and dinner a week from Saturday, but gave her a news release to fashion into a passable brief about the event.

  Her phone rang as she reached her desk. Instead of it being any of the return calls she’d hoped for, it was Marti.

  “Are you okay?”

  From the tone of those first words, Kendra knew Marti had reverted to “aunt” mode instead of “equal” mode.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You seemed upset when you left the co-op.”

  She’d thought she’d seen Marti watching from the side door, but she hadn’t made eye contact because she hadn’t wanted to talk then. She didn’t particularly want to talk now, either.

  “Just frazzled. It’s a busy day.”

  “Kendra, Fran told me about her plan to have Matthew spend time alone with Daniel. She says Daniel’s made great strides, and I must say, in fairness, he’s quite good with the children.”

  Of course. Taumaturgio was always a favorite with kids.

  “Fine. Let Fran arrange for him to take care of some of those kids alone.”

  “If it’s good for Matthew –”

  “It’s not. It would be the worst thing for Matthew. He’d get used to having a father around, and when Daniel takes off it’ll be all the harder for him. And I’ll be left trying to patch up his heartache.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the expression that it’s better to love and lose than never to love at all.” Marti didn’t quite pull off her attempted teasing tone.

  “Yes, I’ve heard it, and I’ve always thought it incredibly stupid.”

  Marti said with no attempt at humor, “Oh, I don’t know. You came through it okay.”

  “Me?” It had hurt plenty when she’d discovered Paulo Ayudor. didn’t exist. Not that she’d really loved him. “It’s Matthew we’re talking about, not me. A child, and –”

  “I know. A child who could get a lot out of spending time alone with his – or her – father. And
even if that father can no longer be in the child’s life for some reason, that time alone together remains special. Just like your time alone with your father was special.”

  “I don’t remember my father, much less spending time alone with him.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. So apparently it wasn’t as special as you and Fran think time alone for Matthew and Daniel would be – and I was four when my father left.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t remember that time with your father, because you loved it so much as a little girl, but the fact you don’t remember it argues that having Matthew and Daniel spend time alone together can’t do any harm.”

  Kendra exhaled through her teeth. She wasn’t going to leave her son’s heart to something as paltry as logic. She knew Daniel would break his heart.

  “I don’t care what Fran says, or you say or anyone else says. I am not going to leave Matthew solely in Daniel’s care. Not a week from Saturday night, not ever.”

  “I didn’t –”

  “Marti, I have to go. It’s busy today.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want you to think –”

  “Bye, Marti.”

  She hung up, determined to concentrate completely on rewriting the news release into the required brief, leaving no attention to spare for anything else.

  It took longer than it should have. She’d put the final touches on it and was storing the item into the editor’s computer basket when the computer system burped over a power surge. When she called the item back up to check, it contained one line.

  She had to start all over.

  What else could go wrong today?

  * * *

  Kendra hadn’t seen him angry before – not as Tompkins, not as Paulo and not as Daniel Benton Delligatti.

  She had only a fraction of a second’s doubt of his emotional state when she looked up from her computer at the Banner shortly after noon and saw him striding toward her.

  Matthew.

  That had been her first heart-in-her-mouth fear when she glimpsed Daniel, whose morning shift at the co-op should have ended shortly before. But as soon as she saw his face, she knew anger drove him, not worry or fear.

  His face was grim, his posture tense, his mouth narrow, the glint that frequently lurked in his eyes nowhere in sight.

  Even as her muscles prepared to bring her out of the chair, to meet him half way, to ask him what was wrong, the whisper of memory echoed in her head.

  What’s wrong? Tell me what I did wrong? Please, just tell me – I’ll do better. Please, don’t leave. Please....

  But her mother’s pleas never worked. The men always left, one way or the other. And her mother always fell apart.

  She left her young daughter to deal with the practicalities. Until, after a period that seemed to grow a little longer with each incident, Wendy Susland Jenner pulled together the pieces of herself that remained and went searching for the next man who would leave.

  Kendra turned only her head toward Daniel as he came to a halt beside the desk.

  “We have to talk, Kendra.”

  “I’m working. It will have to wait. Tomorrow afternoon –”

  “Now. Outside.”

  “I can’t leave in the middle of work, Daniel. And I don’t appreciate this Neanderthal act. If you’ve got something to say to me, say it here or wait until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “This isn’t the place –”

  “Then wait –”

  “I’m not waiting, dammit.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his vehemence drew stares from Margo, taking classified ads, and the delivery guy who had stopped in for his check. “Why the hell does it say father unknown on Matthew’s birth certificate?”

  An odd prickling in her cheeks and throat might have been the blood draining from her face, but cold calm followed. Without a word, she rose and headed to the small back room employees used for breaks. She had no doubts about Daniel following.

  Grateful to find the room empty, she closed the door and faced him.

  “How do you know what’s on Matthew’s birth certificate?”

  “I saw the copy at the co-op, the one in Fran’s files.”

  “She shouldn’t have shown you that. Even if she thinks –”

  His flat words cut across hers. “She didn’t show it to me.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said with some bite, “I forgot your skills.”

  “Right,” he sneered, “when in doubt I revert to the thieving, scheming street kid the Delligattis picked up out of the gutter.”

  “That wasn’t –” But she saw it wouldn’t matter to him right now that she’d meant his government training and experiences at subterfuge as Taumaturgio, not his childhood.

  She sat in the chair nearest the door, while he remained standing, so tense he seemed coiled.

  “What would you have suggested I put on the birth certificate when Matthew was born? Paulo Ayudor? That would have been a lie, since I knew by then he didn’t exist. Father unknown was the absolute truth.”

  Before he pivoted away, she glimpsed a raw pain she’d never seen on his face. Even when he’d spoken of his terrible childhood, the pain had been hidden behind a veneer of self-mockery, of practiced phrases lightly delivered. Maybe he hadn’t had time to learn to hide this pain.

  The rigidity drained from his stance as his shoulders slumped as if under a new weight. And his voice sounded heavy.

  “All right. I deserve that. But now I want to make it right. I called the state offices, and there’s some form we can get from the state – an affidavit of paternity. We both sign it and then they change the birth certificate.”

  After a moment he must have recognized the particular quality of her silence, because he looked over his shoulder. Then he slowly turned.

  “Kendra – ?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? I’m his father – you can’t deny that.”

  “I don’t intend to deny it. And I don’t intend to keep you two apart as long as you’re interested in acting as his father. But...”

  A ripple seemed to pass over his tight face at her words, but his voice remained even. “But what?”

  “I won’t keep you apart, but I won’t stop protecting Matthew, either.”

  “Protecting him? Protecting him from me?”

  “Yes, from you. Don’t sound so amazed. You’re the one who can hurt him more than anyone else in the world. You show up, win his heart, make him learn to say Daddy, and then you fly off and never come back! How do you think he’ll feel then?”

  “Then? You’re assuming that’s what will happen.”

  “Look at your life, Daniel, and tell me you can promise it won’t happen.”

  “You know I can’t. No one –”

  “We’re not talking about anyone else. We’re talking about you. Your job – with the government.” She put sarcastic quotes around the word. “A job you can’t even talk about.”

  “Kendra, I can swear to you right here and now that I would do my best to make every flight as safe as humanly possible while still doing my job, because that’s exactly how I’ve always flown.”

  “That won’t be any consolation to Matthew when he has to grow up without a father after you’ve gotten him to love you. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect Matthew.”

  He studied her. “Are you so sure this is all about Matthew?”

  “Of course it’s about Matthew.”

  “Or is it about you?” he continued.

  “Wha – ? It has nothing to do with me.”

  He didn’t appear to hear her. “Is this about you not wanting to turn into your mother, the way you said on Santa Estella? You were hard enough on her, but I’m beginning to wonder. Hell, I wonder if it’s even about me, and the chance I might not come back some day.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Or is it really about your father never coming back to you? Maybe you need to make peace w
ith him for getting killed – and with your mother – before you can make peace with me being Matthew’s father or with yourself.”

  Goaded, she fought back. “And what about you, Daniel? I don’t see you having such a fine relationship with your family. Have you even told your parents – your adoptive parents – that you have a son?”

  “Not yet. Because –”

  “Because you haven’t let them love you, much less let yourself love them. For all your fine talk about family, you know nothing about accepting love, Daniel. You hold yourself back.”

  “I don’t want them to know about their grandson,” he went on relentlessly, “unless I can also tell them they can see him and get to know him. And after this, I’ve got to wonder how much your fine promises that you’ll never come between Matthew and me are worth.”

  She sat straight in the chair, her hands pressed together in her lap. “If you don’t trust me, then maybe none of this will work.”

  “Trust? You’re lecturing me about trust, when you’ve put every word I’ve said from Day One to every test known to man? I’m not saying to take my words as gospel, but – dammit!”

  He broke off with a string of muttered curses, pivoting away.

  For the first time, something slipped past her determination to not be fooled by a man who might not be telling the truth. For the first time, she considered how her wary distrust might feel to a man who was telling the truth.

  But before she could do more than glimpse that possibility, he faced her again.

  “Dammit, Kendra, you’re such an expert about growing up with your father gone. But, I’ll tell you something – I know what it’s like not knowing who your father was. Matthew deserves better than that. He needs better than father unknown. I can’t give him much. I can’t guarantee nothing will ever happen to me – or to you, Or anyone else in his life. But by God, I can give him the knowledge – the certainty – of who his father is.”

  She looked away. “It’s more complicated than you’re making it.”

  “Complicated? The state’s sending me the forms. It’s only complicated if I contest paternity – which I’m not. Or you took state aid – which you don’t. The woman said fill out the form, send it back in and sixty days later the birth certificate is amended. That doesn’t sound complicated to me.”