the hall in front of her while she plucked at the collar of her pajama shirt. She was decent enough. Someday, she should buy a robe.
She peeked through the sidelight, and almost stopped breathing.
Owen.
Haggard, unshaven, leaner than she remembered, but at least he hadn’t been drinking. She knew him well enough to be certain with one glance.
For a moment she couldn’t think. She just jerked back, out of sight.
She wished with all her heart she could magically transport her son and herself somewhere far away.
He was bound to find her someday. She hadn’t tried very hard to hide. She glanced at Ben, who was staring at her as if she’d grown an extra head.
“Mommy?” His voice restored her composure immediately.
“Company.” She tried to sound as if Owen Gage’s showing up at her door was no big deal. “I haven’t seen my friend in a long time. I didn’t expect him.”
Ben put one finger in his mouth and stared at her.
He would take his lead from her. If she panicked, he would be afraid, and she was smart enough to know that Owen would not just go away. Somehow, Ben’s father had discovered he had a son.
Forcing herself to smile at her little boy, she turned and opened the door. A firing squad would have looked less threatening than Owen. She’d wanted to give him a chance to be a good father, but he’d been too in love with the bottle. Still, she couldn’t blame him for the anger that turned his pale blue eyes to ice and thinned his already sharp features.
“What the...” he began, but Lilah stepped aside so that he’d see Ben.
So that the first words Ben heard from him wouldn’t be angry swearing.
Owen sputtered to a shocked halt. His gaze softened, warmed. “I can’t believe it.” He squatted, still outside the door. Snow glistened behind him on the trees, the sidewalk, the pond across the street and the granite-colored roof of his car.
He was leaning toward his son, and his eagerness made her feel uncomfortable. If she could have turned away, she would have, because the moment felt too personal, and his vulnerability hurt her.
“Hi,” Owen said, but then looked up at her, and the anger came back into his eyes.
He didn’t know his own son’s name. “Ben,” she said. “I called him Ben.”
“Hi, Ben.”
Lilah reached back for her boy, trying to find his shoulder with her trembling hand. Owen looked as if he half expected her to scoop up their child and run out the back door. “Ben’s having pancakes,” she said, trying to sound normal. She’d learned to act when she was five years old, and she’d tricked a pedophile, who’d taken her from a grocery-store aisle, into turning his back just long enough for her to escape. “Maybe you’d like to join us?”
“Join you?” Owen’s voice shook slightly. She read him like a book. How could she sound calm?
Five years ago he hadn’t understood why she’d demanded he get sober. He’d told her how much his own father loved alcohol, and she knew their child wouldn’t be safe with him as long as he loved liquor more than he could love a family.
She stared into his eyes, searching for telltale signs that he’d fortified himself to come to Vermont to find Ben. All she saw was shock and anger. Betrayal.
She had betrayed him. But his feelings didn’t matter. Ben mattered.
“We’re just going to have breakfast.”
Owen stood. “I am hungry.”
“Blueberry pancakes.” Ben waved his arm toward the kitchen, eagerly leading his guest. He’d never been shy, but even for Ben, this friendliness was unusual. “Let me show you. They’re purple. I like purple food. Grapes, yogurt with blueberries. Grape popsicles, but Mom won’t let me have those very often. Maybe once in five years.”
“You aren’t even five years old,” Lilah said, aware of the quiver in her voice.
“I remember last year and the last year and the next year.”
Owen laughed. “That’s the way I remember, too.”
They reached the kitchen, and Lilah managed to restrain herself from clutching Ben close to her side. He patted his stool. “You can sit here, big man.”
Owen laughed again. “Big man?”
Ben didn’t like being laughed at. “You’re big?”
Owen, who was taller than most men, nodded. “I guess I am.”
“And you’re a man?”
“Yeah.”
“We can’t say ‘yeah.’ Mommy says it’s the wrong word.”
Owen didn’t even glance her way. “Yes, then. I am a man.”
“Big. Man.” Ben scrambled onto the stool himself. “Maybe I better sit here because I can’t see if I don’t, and you’re big enough to see without a stool.”
Lilah slid the frying pan back on to the burner, but then remembered Owen’s allergy. “My friend Owen is allergic to blueberries. I’ll need to make more batter.”
“Don’t bother.”
She turned to look at him, but he was peering around the room, inspecting. She couldn’t tell if he approved of the cozy space, lined with baskets and painted pie plates and her embarrassing collection of kitten and cat figures. Ben had given each one of them a name.
“Have to eat breakfast,” Ben said, looking anxious. Why should he be concerned about Owen’s eating habits? She refused to believe a father-son tie could be so strong that Ben felt it without knowing about it.
She turned the heat back on beneath his breakfast and whipped up another batch of batter. Ben was halfway through his first stack of small pancakes by the time she set a plate and silverware in front of Owen, who looked from her to Ben as if they were playing a game he didn’t understand.
She served him normal-sized pancakes and made another small stack for Ben, who attacked his plate with gusto.
Owen ate every bite, and when he’d finished, Ben clambered down and took his plate. With supreme four-year-old concentration, he carried the dish to the sink. Then he came back and gave Owen a clumsy pat on the back.
“Good job, buddy,” he said.
Lilah laughed, but she couldn’t hide the nervous hitch in her voice.
“I’ll have two more,” Ben said, holding up three fingers.
“Are you really hungry?” Lilah asked him.
Ben looked down at his belly as if he could gauge how full he was. “I might not eat them,” he said.
