right,” Blade replied. “Do you remember my old buddy Tyler?”
She nodded.
“I helped him catch the leader of a meth gang in Missouri recently. He’s a sheriff there. It’s a long story, but a national news station came to interview me about it. When I got back to North Carolina, there was an email waiting for me from Archie. He’d recognized my name and gotten my email address from the news station.” He smiled. “He’s a smart kid.”
“Yes, he is,” Josie said. “But why didn’t you contact me when he sent you the email? Surely that would have been the best option. And then I could’ve been better prepared for this moment.”
“I tried,” Blade replied. “But your number isn’t listed, and Archie wouldn’t tell me what it was. He thought you might try to stop me from coming. He said you were in trouble and needed somebody to protect you. I just had to get here right away, so I hopped in my truck and drove through the night.” Every moment that passed was another moment without his son. “Please, Josie, can I meet Archie now? I’m dying here.”
“Of course,” she said, extending her hand toward him. “Can I help you out of the chair?”
He briefly hung his head and sighed. So his most important question had now been answered. Josie did see him as a weaker man. And he was bitterly disappointed.
“No, thanks,” he said, standing with ease. “I’m good.”
She walked briskly to the doorway and closed her fingers around the handle. “Are you ready?”
Blade’s heart began to hammer. Would he ever be ready for this moment? “Absolutely.”
With that, Josie opened the door. “Archie, your dad is here to see you.”
* * *
Josie’s emotions ran rampant as she watched Blade kneel to the floor and hug his son for the first time. She saw a tear fall down Blade’s stubbly face, and she fought hard to suppress tears of her own. The instant love that her ex-fiancé felt for his son was clear to see, and his embrace was fierce yet gentle. It made her think of a father bear cradling a cub. But at the same time, Blade’s presence here caused her chest to ache with regret and pain. Could she ever forgive this man for abandoning her when she needed him most?
Archie, meanwhile, took this profound moment in stride.
“Hi, Dad,” he said, as if it were an everyday occurrence to hug his father. “I knew you would come.”
Blade pulled back. “Thank you for finding me, Archie.”
Archie smiled broadly, his freckled face a picture of innocence. “Which one of your legs was chopped off?” He glanced between the right and left. “They both look the same.”
Blade laughed heartily, throwing back his head the way he always used to. His mop of curly hair was as unruly as ever, just like his son’s, and his rugged face had gotten even more handsome over the years. His strong and chiseled jawline was hidden by beard growth, but his Roman nose was still his most prominent feature, the high bridge settled between his piercing blue eyes.
“I’ll show you if you like,” Blade replied, pulling up the left leg of his jeans. He knocked on the pink plastic beneath, making a hard clunking sound.
“Wow!” Archie said with genuine admiration. “Just like a superhero.”
Blade winked. “I keep my cape in the truck.”
Josie saw her father hanging back nervously. She coughed. “Edward... I mean, Blade, you remember my dad, right?”
“Sure I do,” Blade replied, holding his hand out to shake Tim’s. “It’s good to see you again, Tim.” He glanced around. “So where’s Martha?”
Tim looked at his feet.
“Mom died five years ago,” Josie said, saving her father the difficulty of answering. “Cancer.”
A look of pain swept over Blade’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“You have a lot of catching up to do,” Josie said. “An awful lot.”
“So,” Blade said, pulling a chair from the table and sitting on it. “Let’s start from the beginning.” He put two strong hands in his son’s armpits and pulled the child onto his lap. “I’m all ears.”
But as Josie reached for the coffeepot, a series of shots rang out, seeming to come from her front lawn. She screamed and rushed to take Archie from Blade’s lap.
“It’s the bad man,” Archie said, curling his arms around his mother’s neck as she lifted him up.
Blade’s demeanor changed to one of total control, rushing down the hallway to the front door. “I have a gun in my truck,” he said. “Stay here and keep out of sight. I’ll be back soon.”
“Blade, no,” Josie said, watching him peer through the glass panel in the door as the shots ceased. “It’s too dangerous for you. Let the police take care of it.”
But he didn’t answer. He silently slipped through the door and closed it behind him, leaving Josie and her father staring at each other in silence, neither believing that somebody was firing a gun outside their home.
“Dad can save us now,” Archie said. “He’ll get his cape from his truck.”
“He’s not really a superhero, honey,” Josie said. “He’s just a man.”
She sat on a chair, waiting for the danger to pass, wondering how she could keep her family safe from this escalating level of threat. She must try to shield Archie. But how? The only thing she could do was close her eyes and pray.
* * *
“There’s a shooter across the street,” the officer called to Blade from his protected position behind his cruiser. “He’s reloading. I’ve radioed for backup. Go inside, sir.”
Then the officer began firing at a black sedan parked just a few feet away, giving Blade the perfect cover to run to his truck at the curb.
“My son is in this home,” Blade called back, opening the door to his truck and reaching into the glove compartment for his weapon. “There’s no way I’m staying inside.”
He lifted his head over the hood of the truck to see the barrel of a gun poking through the window of the black car. The officer’s firing was opening up a series of holes along the metal, but Blade couldn’t see a person inside. The attacker must have been well shielded from the bullets because he seemed unharmed as his gun burst into action again, aimed squarely at Josie’s home. Windows shattered, tree bark spit onto the lawn and holes appeared in the yellow front door.
Blade thought of Josie inside, cradling Archie in her arms, and he began to see red. This was the family he never knew he had, and something primal stirred deep within him. He knew he had to protect them at all costs. He had no idea how he would fit into their lives, but he had arrived just in the nick of time. While he suspected that Josie might have doubts about his ability to take care of them, he had none.
