If Nolan would send pictures, copies of report cards—
The stab of pain was so acute Dana curled forward until her head almost touched her knees.
Was seeing something you wanted so desperately but couldn’t have better than doing without?
How awful would those visits be? The awkward phone calls he participated in because he wasn’t given a choice? It could only get worse when the hormones kicked in. And what if she gave in but Craig didn’t? Would that mean he loved their son more than she did? Or that his selfishness was greater than hers? Oh, she could imagine that so easily. Craig and his parents would feel the need to see his lineage carried on through a son. She had read between the lines when he’d let her know his first daughter was born. The disappointment had been there, because he didn’t have the son to replace his firstborn.
Still curled over, she asked herself whether she was any better.
Crushing disappointment and hurt had her ready to drive straight to Portland and get on an airplane, go home where she could come to terms with the hard truth—she would never have her son back.
* * *
WHEN CHRISTIAN BURST through the door, face wet with tears, Nolan excused himself to the couple who’d come in thinking about buying their own equipment instead of continuing to rent.
He followed his nephew into the office. “What happened?”
Christian swiped his face with his forearm. “She said I’d have to live with her and I told her I wouldn’t.”
Anger set in Nolan’s chest, like fresh concrete hardening. “You have to go live with her. That’s what she said?”
Skin blotchy, nose running, eyes puffy and still wet, Christian didn’t look any better than he had at Marlee’s funeral. “I asked, and she said yes!”
“She wanted you to pack up and go with her right away.”
His face contorted. “She just said yes! But you said I didn’t have to.”
If he had, Nolan was beginning to think he’d made a promise he might not be able to keep. “I said I’d fight for you.”
Christian just snuffled.
Nolan stepped into the doorway so he could see his customers. The man caught his eye and waved reassuringly. “We’re good on our own for a while,” he called, obviously sympathetic.
Nolan nodded his thanks and half sat on his desk, gazing down at the boy, who looked smaller and younger than he had in a long while.
“Did you talk at all?”
Christian lifted his head in outrage. “I told you!”
“I meant before.”
“Oh.” He pulled the hem of his T-shirt from beneath the hoodie and blew his nose on it, which made Nolan wince. “She talked. She told me about, you know, her parents and her brother and...and the guy who is supposed to be my father and all his family. Like I care,” he said sulkily.
“It is kind of interesting, don’t you think?” Nolan asked. “I used to wonder a lot about your dad. What he looked like, what qualities he passed on to you.”
“Like?”
“You’re proving to be pretty gifted at math. I can handle the books for the business, but that was never a strength of mine, and I seem to remember your m—” he cleared his throat “—Marlee flunking freshman algebra.”
“She did?”
“Oh, yeah.” He might have smiled if there hadn’t been so many painful losses since that long-ago day. “Not sure if she stunk at it or just refused to do the work.”
“She dropped out, didn’t she?”
Christian knew the answer, but what he really wanted was the reassuring repetition of family history—good, bad, courageous, silly. “To my parents’ disappointment, she did.” Nolan heard himself say my parents instead of Grandma and Grandpa and hoped Christian hadn’t noticed. “They kept thinking once she was stabilized on medications, she’d go back to school or get her GED, but it never happened.”
They talked some more, with Christian gradually coming down from the emotional storm and Nolan wondering what had happened to Dana. He’d have expected her to follow Christian back here, if only to give Nolan a piece of her mind.
He kept seeing her face, luminous with hope one minute, stark white with pain the next. In turn fierce, despairing, wounded and resolute. If she’d gone back to her room at the inn, did she have anyone she could call? She hadn’t worn a ring, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t living with a guy or at least seeing one. It sounded as if she had parents, although that was no guarantee she could talk to them. Nolan knew he’d been lucky that way. Dana would have girlfriends, surely.
Except she’d seemed so alone. If a man in her life had let her make this trip on her own, he should be shot. Family should be here for her, too. They seemed to be MIA, which enraged Nolan when he should have been glad she was vulnerable to a knockout punch. He didn’t like these mixed feelings. His first and only loyalty was to Christian. How stupid was it to sympathize with the woman who wanted to take away the boy he loved?
He was frowning at a poster on the wall when Christian said, “Can I go home?”
Nolan ran his palm over his jaw as he glanced at the clock. He’d be closing in an hour.
“Yeah,” he decided, “that’s okay. But call me when you get there, lock the door and don’t answer if anyone rings the bell. Okay?”
The rolled eyes made him smile.
“You always say that.”
Nolan scooped him into a hard hug. “I won’t be long.”
After locking up an hour later, he jogged to his SUV. He unlocked and opened the door but didn’t get in. Shit. What kind of idiot was he, to worry about his adversary? But, damn it, that was what he was doing, and he couldn’t go home without finding out how devastated she was or how determined to fight with all the resources she could summon.
Which, he reminded himself, were substantial. Oregon state social services didn’t even know about the situation, but Dana could change that with a single phone call. Once she filed for custody, law enforcement might get involved to ensure Nolan didn’t flee with her son. Or someone might decree that until custody was determined, Christian should be placed in foster care.
Find out, he told himself, then look for a good lawyer.
In the lobby of the inn, he tried to appear casual when he approached the desk clerk, an occasional customer.
“Hey, can you tell me what room Dana Stewart is in? I forgot to ask her.”
Only twenty-five or so, Dylan Adams said, “Third floor, but let me check.” He glanced at his computer. “Three-fifteen.”
“Thanks.” Nolan lifted a hand and headed for the stairs before the kid could ask what he wanted from Dana or remember he wasn’t supposed to
