“A walk around the hospital or across the street to the park?” Dylan asked as they exited the building.
“To the park.”
Wild Horse Junction’s park was an unusual one. The town had been named for the wild mustangs that used to roam the Painted Peaks but now mostly lived in the Big Horn Mountains about an hour away. Bronze sculptures of the beautiful animals had been added to the park since the early nineteen hundreds. Black wrought-iron benches were plentiful and every spring the city council made sure they were refurbished and kept in good shape for the residents come summer.
She could imagine bringing Timmy here, walking him in a stroller. When he grew older, she could see him playing on the swings at the south end of the park. During the past two days she’d purposely created pictures in her head of the future, believing they’d come true. The pictures eased her loss and kept her away from the truth that she’d never see Julia or Will Grayson again. Her eyes burned from the tears she’d shed and she almost wished she could go numb instead of having to deal with the depths of loss.
Traffic was sporadic as she and Dylan stood at an intersection to cross the street. They’d just stepped off the curb when an SUV suddenly rounded the corner and sped by them. Dylan reached for Shaye’s elbow, holding it protectively to let her know when it was safe to cross. Unlikely as the sensation was, she seemed to feel the heat from his long fingers and his large hand through the down of her jacket.
As if he sensed something, too, he looked at her, and even though the night was turning dark and shadowy, she caught an awareness on his face…some kind of current between them.
Flustered, she hurried with him across the street, his long strides making her quicken hers. As they entered the park’s winding stone-covered path, snow began to fall lightly. Shaye lifted her face and the feel of the flakes somehow seemed to cleanse her of the chaos of the past few days.
As Dylan stopped, he said huskily, “I wish I had my camera.”
“Why?”
“Because I never took a shot of a woman looking exactly like that—like you were with your face tipped up to the sky.”
Frissons of excitement shot through Shaye and she didn’t know how to respond. “Do you photograph people much? The shots in magazines Julia showed me were mostly of animals.”
“Most people like to have their picture taken. I’d rather have the challenge of capturing an animal unaware of me, photographing it in its real home, snapping interaction with the other animals. It’s all genuine and honest.”
“Unlike people?”
“People are much more complicated. Much of what they do is motivated by something.”
“Like?” she coaxed.
“Do you deal with foster families much?”
“I do.”
“Talk about motives. I know the system is overcrowded. I know there’s constantly a need for placing kids. But neither Julia nor I had pleasant experiences. The families we were placed in weren’t motivated by compassion.”
“Julia told me the foster father in the family she was placed in drank. And when he did, he became loud and abusive.”
“That’s right,” Dylan confirmed. “I had to get her out of there.”
“What about the family you were placed with?”
He shook his head as if his experience hadn’t mattered. “I wasn’t there that long.”
“Two years can feel like forever when you’re not happy.”
Stopping again, he said, “You’re perceptive.”
“I have to be, in my work. I have to use my intuition as much as my training.”
When he stared down at her, he admitted, “The family I was with just wanted the money they received every month. I was good for chores and work around the house, but there was no real caring there.”
“I’m sorry,” Shaye said, meaning it.
“That’s long ago and I’ve forgotten about it. But I saw firsthand that altruism isn’t part of what most people are about.”
“You weren’t thinking about yourself when you made a life for you and Julia.”
“She was my sister.”
Shaye could tell that was the only explanation he intended to give.
They walked for a few minutes under Russian olive trees catching the snow. Aspen branches waved in the breeze.
“Do you think she had a premonition?” Dylan asked suddenly. “Do you think that’s why she chose a guardian before the baby was born?”
“I don’t know. I do know Julia wouldn’t take any chances with a child, that she would have secured the baby’s future no matter what she had to do.”
Stopping again, he took Shaye by the arm and looked deeply into her eyes. “You’re a single woman. You have a career. Do you want to be a mother to Timmy?”
This was the moment where she had to make everything she said matter. Aware of Dylan’s hand on her arm and the magnetic pull of his gaze, her curiosity about him was growing. She tamped it down.
“I want to be Timmy’s mother with all my heart and soul. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure he grows up to be a man Julia would be proud of.”
Dylan’s jaw set as he studied her and analyzed her words. The white of his breath seemed to mingle with the puff of hers as a bond formed. It was a bond that she knew she didn’t want…yet couldn’t break.
With a slight nod, he broke eye contact and dropped his hand to his side. “Let’s go back.”
She knew there was no going back. And that truth scared her as much as her visceral reaction to Dylan Malloy.
“You need to go to your apartment and get some sleep,” Walter Ludlow warned Dylan later that night.
Dylan paced the lawyer’s home office. His friend was a widower now and lived in one of the brick row homes not far from the center of town.
“I’m going back to the hospital,” he said resolutely.
“You’re not going to do that baby any good if you run yourself into the ground.”
Dylan hadn’t even been back to his apartment yet, hadn’t been there for six months. His luggage, laptop and camera gear were still in the trunk of the rental car he’d secured at the airport so he could drive to the hospital in a hurry.
After his walk with Shaye, he’d spent an hour with her sitting by Timmy’s bed. She’d finally left to get something to eat and when she’d returned, he’d come to Walter’s.
“I’m used to sleeping on sofas or cots or on the ground. Camping out in a chair in a waiting room isn’t going to kill me.
