seen you there for a couple weeks.” The woman gave him a McDreamy smile. “You work too hard. I was talking to Valerie, and she said you were up to Harlan’s this week. How is he?”
“Grouchy as ever, but he’s in good spirits—”
“Excuse me,” Savanna interrupted. “Can we do the chitchat another time and order our breakfast?”
Unruffled, Will sat back with a slow crooked grin.
Mindy’s mouth tightened. “Sure.”
“For my boy, toast with the crusts cut off, and peanut butter and orange juice.” Savanna almost laughed when Will’s eyebrows aviated at her possessive words. “Cereal and fruit for me.” She motioned across the table. “Will?”
He ordered the special: eggs over easy, sausages, sourdough toast, a rasher of hash browns and a triple decker of pancakes. After the waitress left, he remained relaxed in his chair. “My boy?”
Savanna sipped her coffee. “It’s easier than explaining the situation.”
Under the table his knee nudged hers, and they each shifted in their chairs. “Which is why we’re here,” he said. “Do you have the lawyer’s number and my brother’s will with you?”
She dug into her purse, drew out a business card. “I have a certified copy of the testament, yes. However, Mr. Silas will also send you a certified edition.”
“Huh. Typical lawyer to take his sweet-ass time about what’s important. Why didn’t he send me one up-front or, better yet, contact me himself?”
Savanna hoped her eyes conveyed her irritation. “First, I’d appreciate you don’t swear in front of Christopher. Second, Mr. Silas and I thought it best if I came and talked with you first.”
“And bring along your…charge.” His gaze took in Christopher, head bent low over Alaska. A blond lock grazed the tattered edge of the map.
“Yes.” She handed him the card. “That’s Mr. Silas’s office and cell number.” Next she slid the envelope across the table. “First page explains everything.”
She watched him file the card in his wallet, then remove the document. She knew its words blindfolded. In the event that both my wife, Elke, and I die, I appoint my brother William Faust Rubens of Starlight, Alaska, and owner/operator of Rubens Skylines and biological father of our son Christopher William Rubens (born March 4, 1997) as his own to rear and educate and parent until Christopher William Rubens reaches the age of maturity and self sufficiency.
A clear and concise request.
He laid the sheet on the table before reading the next paragraph, the one outlining Dennis’s instructions that if after every initiative had been taken and the transition between Christopher and Will still failed, she, Savanna Lee Stowe was to raise the child.
His eyes resembled the deep navy shadows along the glacial waters they had flown over yesterday. “Dennis should’ve warned me. This isn’t fair.”
“When is life fair? Do you think it’s fair to—” She cast a sideways glance in Christopher’s direction. Will’s silence spurred her on. “Your brother didn’t warn you, because he knew what your response would be.”
“If he knew, why put it in writing?”
“Because,” she said softly, “he never believed for one second this day would come.”
His eyes held hers. And she saw again the blue wash of grief. He looked at Christopher, oblivious to the life-altering events surrounding him.
“It won’t work,” Will muttered. “I’m not parental material.”
“I beg to differ. You’ve volunteered—”
“Key word. Volunteered.”
“Still. You’re familiar with how children behave. You’re good with them, even the toughest.” That much Shane had told her when he’d noticed Christopher’s restless hands down in the lobby.
Again a soft snort. “The toughest isn’t anything like…”
Like Christopher, unpredictable and attuned to his own world. Weird to those who did not understand the underlying genius of the autistic or the quicksilver mood changes, the panics, the rages.
“I’m sure,” she murmured. “But were they your own flesh and blood?”
Compact black lashes blinked. “What exactly are we talking about here, Ms. Stowe?”
A stain of warmth crept up her neck. “Elke mentioned the—” she peeked at Christopher “—procedure you undertook to help them eleven years ago.”
He sat back. His foot bumped hers, and she carefully slid it beneath her chair. “Seems my life’s been a regular open book.”
“Elke didn’t go into details. Just that Dennis was…” Sterile. “And about…your very generous…offering.”
“I was young and stupid.”
“You were a man who loved his brother,” she countered.
That caught him. He glanced away. “It was a long time ago.”
“And you’d think twice before doing it today.”
His eyes hardened. “Yes.”
“Why? Because of the result or because of the consequences?”
He toyed with his mug. “Both. And because of the life I live now.” He nodded toward the windows and Main Street with its one block of quaint Old West storefronts and mud-covered trucks parked along the curbs of a narrow strip of asphalt. “It’s not easy in Alaska.”
“And Central America is?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“I’m Christopher’s godmother. My responsibility is to him and to your brother and his wife. But most of all to you, Mr. Rubens.”
“Me.”
“Yes, you.” Common sense said to take Christopher and leave, but she could not refuse the last wish of her friends. It was up to her to follow through with their request—incongruous as it seemed, given this man’s goals and lifestyle. “Both Elke and Dennis wanted this. They gave me specific instructions—” in case “—to acquaint you with your nephew, and vice versa, to make sure you both have an equal chance.”
“It won’t work.”
She sighed. She was getting nowhere with him. “Will—”
“Savanna.” Elbows on the table’s edge, he leaned in close. She saw individual whiskers on his upper lip and along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved after rising from bed, and the male essence of that went through her like a streak of hot sunshine. “As soon as we’re done eating,” he continued, “I’m driving you both back
