A Mother's Claim. Janice Kay Johnson

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      “WHAT, YOU’RE JUST going to let this son of a bitch win?” Craig snapped.

      Dana’s fingers tightened on her phone. Curled up at one end of the hotel room sofa, she wished she hadn’t felt obligated to call him. “I didn’t say—”

      He cut her off as if she weren’t speaking. “A kid isn’t capable of making this kind of decision. He’ll have to adjust, sure. No way in hell I’m leaving him with some guy who makes his living renting surfboards.”

      Dana didn’t recognize this cutting contempt. Was it age and financial success that had turned him into an arrogant stranger?

      She knew one thing—she needed to keep him away from Gabriel, at least for now.

      “The business Nolan Gregor owns is a lot more sophisticated than you’re implying. Waterfront real estate right on the banks of the Columbia River has to be pricey to start with.” She couldn’t imagine why she was defending her enemy, but she despised Craig’s withering dismissal of anyone whose income fell below—what?—half a million a year? A million? Dana had no idea, only that she was one of those little people, too. “He carries and rents equipment for windsurfing, kayaking and sailing. That’s a big business here.”

      He snorted. “I’ll fly out there and take care of this, since you won’t or can’t.”

      “No.” Her anger lent power to the single word. Now the furthest thing from relaxed, she straightened and put her feet on the floor.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” Oh, he was infuriated because she’d defied him. His poor wife, Dana thought.

      “It means I don’t have to listen to you belittling me. It means you can’t ride roughshod over everyone.” He said something, but it was her turn to talk right over him. “You gave up on Gabriel a long time ago. I’m the one who has spent a lifetime searching. I’m the one who actually cares, instead of thinking of him as some kind of prized possession.” Oh, God—she was taking a leaf from her ex-husband’s book, her tone scathing enough to etch metal. With an effort, she moderated it. “I didn’t say I was giving up. I said there’s a better way to handle this than making Gabe hate us.”

      “You’re going to baby him along until he’s fourteen? Fifteen? Ready to graduate from high school? Guess we can count on him expecting me to pay for his college education.”

      Nolan Gregor was a deeply conflicted man who loved her son and yet had had the compassion to risk losing him by posting his DNA online. It was Craig Stewart who was the asshole, she saw with sudden clarity.

      “If you take the legal route and a judge of any decency hears that tone of voice, he or she will rule in favor of the good man Gabe loves.” A female judge, please—give us a woman. “You’ve changed, Craig, and not for the better.”

      As the silence stretched, Dana couldn’t be sure what lay behind it. Had she enraged Craig so much he would go after Gabriel with a fleet of high-paid attorneys, and to hell with her? Or did some remnant remain of the man who had blamed her, yes, but also cried with her, held her?

      “I’ll give you some time,” he said abruptly. “I expect to be kept informed.”

      She swallowed back everything hateful she wanted to say and settled for a too-calm “Of course I will. Goodbye, Craig.” She ended the call without waiting for any addenda. After which she tossed her phone to the coffee table hard enough to make it skid across the glass surface and fall to the carpeted floor.

      Then she moaned and remembered everything she’d said.

      The good man? Was that the one who’d said, “As far as I’m concerned, he’s my son?” Oh, and accused her of being selfish, of putting her needs ahead of her child’s?

      But honesty compelled her to remember the expressions she’d seen cross that craggy face, too, the shades of emotion in his deep voice. He’d been more decent than she probably deserved. The awful thing was, she wouldn’t have wanted Gabriel to be raised by a man who was now perfectly fine about handing him over. Because of Nolan, Gabe—Christian—knew he was loved. Nolan had been a rock for her son.

      And she had no idea how to defeat a man like him without making her son hate her.

      * * *

      CHRISTIAN GAZED BESEECHINGLY across the breakfast table. “So, if she just went away, does that mean she won’t try to take me?” Of course, he’d inhaled his cereal and banana before opening his mouth.

      And why not? In the two days since Dana Stewart had checked out of the inn without leaving any word, Christian had asked the same damn question so many times and in so many ways that Nolan’s head was about to explode.

      “No,” he said, going for blunt this time. He held his nephew’s gaze to make sure he listened. That he really heard. Because Nolan had seen the way the woman looked at Christian. She’d gone home wounded, stymied, but they hadn’t heard the last from her.

      He had done some research. Dana had stayed all these years in the house from which her baby son had been abducted. It had to be too big for her. It had to hold more painful memories than good. But leaving would have meant letting go of some of those memories, and she had refused to do that.

      He had no doubt her marriage had splintered over her absolute refusal to let go of one iota of her pain. Nolan could almost sympathize with the ex-husband, whose wife didn’t have enough left over to love him. Almost being the operative word, because Nolan knew himself well enough to be sure he wouldn’t have moved on any better than she had. He would have held on to the pain and his wife.

      He СКАЧАТЬ