employees and the children for whom they cared during business hours. For the safety of the children.
She and Johnny would have to return after hours if they wanted a tour. She’d already known that and they wanted a tour.
His hand on her elbow drew her attention, and he pointed to the window where a woman stood, smiling expectantly.
She’d opened the window.
“Ms. Jones?” The woman’s shoulder-length brown hair was trimmed stylishly around her slender face. Dressed in a brightly colored tie-dyed short-sleeved shirt, she could’ve been at a beach fashion shoot. Her name badge, complete with a dotted rendition of a bouncing ball, read Mallory.
The owner! Good.
“Yes.” Tabitha stepped forward. She’d called to say they were stopping by. To make sure it was okay. “This is Johnny,” she said, gesturing at the man beside her. She was there under false pretenses, but wasn’t going to out-and-out lie any more than she had to. And no more than an undercover officer or PI would have done to rescue a little boy from a man who had mental and emotional issues.
Clearly issues that went far, far beyond what she’d known or she’d never have let him take Jackson to visit his sick mother.
“I emailed you about looking at The Bouncing Ball as a possible spot for our daughter?”
She was the one who’d come up with the idea of making their imaginary child a little girl. She needed to do that to keep her emotional distance. Talking about a boy would’ve been much harder without revealing anything.
Forcing herself to look the woman in the eye, she left it to Johnny to see as much of the inside of the place as he could, not that there was much. According to The Bouncing Ball website, part of the allure was that the privately owned daycare facility took great measures to protect the security of their children. Which was why they’d have to take their tour after hours. But there could be pictures on the wall beyond the receptionist window, maybe. She’d have her chance to check it out, later, if all went well, but she had to do this right.
She had to be ready to see her son without giving herself away or she’d risk looking like an emotionally disturbed woman who might need a restraining order against her. Or something. Johnny had described all the legal pitfalls over and over as they’d started to discuss her desperate idea a month or so after they’d met.
“Yes. She’s two, right?” Mallory Harris asked with another smile and a nod as she left the window and came out through the door, handing Tabitha a packet of daycare information. Just a glance showed Tabitha the plethora of material she’d be poring over with Johnny, from permits to payment plans, application guidelines, company policies, schedules...everything. They’d be looking for anything that could help them catch a man who’d probably changed his name—and that of his child.
Through his work at the children’s hospital, Mark, Jackson’s father, would’ve known more about birth certificates than a lot of people. He’d had access to medical records. The police thought it most likely that he’d changed Jackson’s name and had a fake birth certificate made to support the change.
“Her name’s Chrissy,” Johnny supplied. They’d named their fake child after an old doll Tabitha had had as a kid; it had been her mother’s and it was a doll she still had. You could grow the doll’s hair by pushing a button on her belly—a seeming miracle to a very young Tabitha. It was also an effort to keep her mother, who’d been killed in a car accident when Tabitha was in college, a part of the search. Like having a very special angel working with them every step of the way.
“We’d love to take you up on your offer of a tour,” Tabitha said now. “We’re just stopping in to pick up the materials.” She raised the packet she held, afraid she was coming across as a nervous ninny. Jackson could be in this very building. Her precious baby boy...
Johnny’s hand lightly touching her spine brought her back to the present task—almost as though he’d known she was having a rougher time this go-round.
“We own a food truck,” he said. “We’re parked at Mission Beach and plan to close by seven. Would eight o’clock be okay?”
Jackson would be gone by then. But they could find out about any upcoming open houses or recitals or programs The Bouncing Ball might be hosting by checking out posters and signs and leading the conversation casually to that point.
“Eight would be fine. I’m usually here until then, anyway,” Mallory said in her easy, open manner. “I get twice the work done when I have the place to myself...”
Tabitha wondered about the woman’s family, how they felt about her working six days a week from morning until late at night—and then reminded herself that just because Mallory was there that morning didn’t mean she was in early every morning. Or even that she worked every day.
Tabitha was surprised by how much she liked Mallory on first meeting. And felt guilty for deceiving her.
It was because this woman might have—please, God—Jackson in her care, Tabitha told herself. Trembling from the inside out, she thanked Mallory Harris, tried to convey with her smile what she couldn’t say in words and silently begged Mallory to love her son until she could find a way to get him back.
Thankful for the food truck that provided frenetic distraction and took a lot of physical and mental energy, Tabitha worked hard beside Johnny all day Monday, barely taking time to nibble on the contents of a bowl with everything. Sitting in the driver’s seat as she ate, she watched Johnny take orders and then make the bowls, joking with customers, talking to them from inside the truck as he worked, never missing a beat.
He was drop-dead gorgeous. She’d seen him shirtless on the beach. His baby blues and ready grin didn’t hurt, either.
Stepping sideways from the window to his prep board, he grabbed a knife that had cost as much as her monthly car payment and began chopping with expert precision.
You’d think he’d been born a chef rather than the only son of a prominent California family who’d groomed him from birth to take a top legal position within his father’s enormous holdings.
The way he played acoustic guitar on the beach, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d been born to become an entertainer, too.
But Johnny loved to play and sing; he just had no passion for performing. No desire at all to enter the cutthroat world of the music business. No real need for fans or accolades, either.
No need for her accolades...not that she offered them.
A female voice ordered a veggie bowl with extra dressing. Johnny’s comment, something about the dressing, made the woman laugh.
Tabitha had grown to crave the laughter he brought to her life. Just as she’d grown to love putting on her light purple polo shirt with the Angel’s Food Bowls logo on it and climbing up into his food truck with him. She’d helped him create the logo. And choose the shirts.
His sabbatical was three-quarters through, which meant that in another three months he’d be leaving “normal” life to resume his place in the society of the elite. She had to shudder even thinking about it. To have people watching
