Читать книгу When Love Comes Home - Arlene James, Arlene James - Страница 9

Paige sighed with pure delight and settled comfortably onto the leather seat of the Mercedes. She couldn’t stop smiling. She suspected, in fact, that she’d smiled in her sleep, what little of it she’d managed to get.

Matthias had insisted that she retire to her bed immediately after dinner, and she had done so simply to humor him. Surprisingly, she’d actually slept a few hours. When the alarm had gone off in the dead of night, she’d awakened instantly to dress in a tailored, olive-green knit pantsuit, her excitement quietly but steadily building.

Her parting with Matthias, who had insisted on getting up to see her off, had been predictably unemotional. He, more than anyone else, knew what this meant to her, but his pride didn’t allow for overt displays. Paige understood completely. For a man with nothing and no one, pride was a valuable thing, a last, dear possession.

When they’d heard the vehicle pull up in the yard, Matthias had practically shoved her out the door, rasping that she’d better call if she was going to be returning later than expected. After almost falling over Howler, Paige had climbed into Grady’s sumptuous car, where a welcome warmth blew gently from the air vents.

Excitement percolating in her veins, Paige unbuttoned her yellow-gold wool coat and removed her polyester scarf before securing her seat belt. Grady Jones had been right to insist that she not drive herself to his office. She was much too anxious to manage it safely.

“Coffee?” Grady offered as he got them moving. He nodded toward a tall foam cup in the drink holder nearest her.

His voice and manner were gruff, but she didn’t mind. Even if it had been a decent hour and she hadn’t been on her way—at last!—to her son, Matthias had taught her that gruff was often just a protective mannerism. Besides, it had been thoughtful of Grady to provide the coffee, so even though she rarely drank the stuff, she put on her sweetest smile and thanked him.

“There’s sugar and cream in the bag,” he said, indicating the white paper sack between them.

“Black’s fine,” she assured him, unwilling to risk trying to add anything to a cup of hot coffee in a moving vehicle. Saluting him with the drink, she bade him a happy Thanksgiving.

He inclined his head but said nothing, concentrating on his driving. She noticed that his drink holder contained a metal travel cup emblazoned with the logo of a Texas hockey team. She’d seen the same logo on a framed pennant in Dan Jones’s office. The brothers apparently shared an interest in the game. They seemed to share little else, other than their occupation.

Besides the obvious physical differences, Dan was friendly and chatty with a quick, open smile, while Grady struck her as the strong, silent type. She felt oddly comfortable with him, safe, though she sensed that he did not feel the same ease in her company. Perhaps he was a loner, then, but a capable one judging by the way he handled the car, and a thoughtful one, too. He’d brought her coffee, after all.

Smiling, she sipped carefully from her cup and found that the beverage was much less bitter than Matthias’s brew. Then again, what could possibly be bitter on this most thankful of Thanksgivings?

They traveled for some time in silence while she nursed her coffee and stared out the window. Unsurprisingly, she looked fresh and eager, her big, tilted eyes glowing. That just made Grady feel even more worn and rumpled than usual and did nothing to improve his mood. He knew he ought to say something, but as usual he couldn’t think of anything that seemed to make sense.

Somewhere along the turnpike southwest of Siloam Springs, she pointed out across the dark hills and valleys, exclaiming, “Oh, look! Christmas lights.”

Grady turned his head and saw a two-story house outlined in brilliant red. “Little early,” he rumbled without thinking.

“It is,” she agreed, “but aren’t they pretty?”

He didn’t say anything. Red lights were red lights, so far as he was concerned. He suggested that she might want to get some sleep. “It’s still an hour or more to Tulsa.”

“I’ll sleep once my son’s tucked in his own bed again,” she commented softly, and they fell back into silence.

After a few minutes, he reached for his coffee and was surprised when she said, “So you’re a hockey fan?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s on your travel mug.”

He glanced at the item in question, drank and set the travel cup aside. “Right. Yeah, I like most sports.”

“Me, too.”

That surprised him. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh, I’m really hopeful about the Hogs’s basketball season, aren’t you?”

Surprised again. “Football’s more my thing.”

“Oh, that’s right. You played corner for the Hogs football team, didn’t you?”

Surprised didn’t cover it this time. “How did you know?”

“I looked you up on the computer right after my first appointment with your brother.”

“You looked me—” His gaping mouth must have appeared comical, for she laughed, and the sound of it brightened the interior of the night-darkened car.

“I have a propensity for trivia, sports trivia in particular. The name sounded familiar to me, so I looked it up.”

Grady worked at shutting his mouth before he could mutter, “I don’t think that’s ever happened before.”

“Oh, you might be surprised,” she told him. “There are some big sports fans around. My father was one of them, you see, and having only daughters, he literally pined for someone to discuss statistics with. My older sister, Carol, wasn’t interested. She lives in Colorado now.”

“And you were? Interested, I mean.”

“Very. I much preferred sitting in the living room with Dad discussing RBIs and pass completion rates to washing dishes with Mom in the kitchen.” She laughed again.

“So it was more an attempt to get out of your chores than a real interest in sports,” he surmised.

She shook her head. “No one got out of chores in our household. I just like knowing things. Information is powerful, don’t you think?”

Did he ever. “Key to my success as an attorney,” he heard himself say, and then when she asked him to explain that, he did. She asked a question, which he answered, and before he knew what was happening they were in Tulsa.

He quickly became consumed with finding a parking spot in the crowded terminal lot. As a consequence, it didn’t hit him until he was dragging his briefcase out of the backseat of his car that he’d just spent over an hour in conversation with a woman talking mostly about himself—and he had enjoyed it!

The thought literally froze him in place for a moment. Then Paige Ellis tossed her plaid scarf around her neck and tucked the ends into the front of her bright gold, three-quarter-length coat, looking more polished and lovely than a woman in cheap clothes ought to. Grady shook himself, recalling that she was in an emotional stew at the moment and probably wouldn’t remember a word that had been said between them. Her distraction had no doubt led to his own.

Feeling somewhat deflated, he trudged toward the terminal. She fell into step beside him. It had apparently rained in Tulsa the evening before, and little glossy patches of damp remained along the pavement. Paige failed to see one, and the slick sole of her brown flat skidded, so naturally Grady reached out to prevent her from falling. Somehow, she wound up in his arms. She beamed a smile at him, stopping the breath in his lungs. After that he couldn’t seem to find a way to let go of her, keeping one hand clamped firmly around her arm until they were safely inside the building.

Thirty minutes later as they moved from check-in to the passenger screening line he began to worry that arriving a mere hour ahead of their departure time had been foolishly shortsighted. Thanksgiving, after all, was the busiest travel day of the entire year.

Paige chattered about first one thing and then another. His fear that they might not make their flight was reason enough not to interrupt her ongoing one-sided conversation about… He lost track of what it was about. But it allowed him to worry for them both, then to be relieved when they walked onto the plane and into their seats with minutes to spare.

When she reached for the in-flight magazine, he knew a moment of mingled relief and disappointment. Apparently, she thought he would be interested in an article, for she began a running commentary on a piece about the latest in computer technology.

Grady remembered his brother saying that because he lived with four women he heard at least 100,000 words per day. At that moment, Grady didn’t doubt Dan’s assessment. But surprisingly Grady found himself interested. Afterward, they found themselves discussing her work.

Paige Ellis, it turned out, was a marvel of ingenuity and self-discipline. Not only was she a self-taught medical transcriptionist, she had her own cottage industry. By means of a small business loan, she had supplied state-of-the-art computer transcription equipment to four other women, all of whom worked out of their homes and were paid by the hour. By concentrating on doctors in the smaller communities around Fayetteville, Paige had garnered the lion’s share of the transcription contracts in the area. Due to the lower costs of her business format, she was able to undercut her competition substantially.

“Thank the good Lord,” she declared happily, “I will have the time I’ve been dreaming about to spend with my son before it’s too late.” She laughed, and then, to Grady’s shock and dismay, she suddenly began to cry.

For Grady it was like being pulled out of a comfortable chair and thrust on to a torture rack. He didn’t know what to do or say, so he just sat there like a deer frozen in the headlights and listened to her.

“He’s eleven now. Eleven! I’ve missed four birthdays!”

Grady already knew from reading the case file that Nolan Ellis had ostensibly taken the boy for a two-week camping trip at the end of June, three-and-a-half years earlier. It was to have been Vaughn’s birthday gift from his dad, and they were to have returned before the boy’s actual birth date of July 1. The camping trip, of course, had been a ruse meant to give Nolan a two-week head start to disappear, and it had worked like a charm. Only as she’d sat alone hour after hour, she told him, waiting to light the candles on Vaughn’s birthday cake, had Paige begun to realize that the two weeks of her son’s absence might well turn into a lifetime.

The particulars of the divorce were likewise already known to Grady, though the Jones firm had not handled it. That, in his opinion, was most unfortunate, something she matter-of-factly confirmed as the story spilled out of her.

High school sweethearts, she and Nolan had married young. By the time their son had reached the age of four, Nolan had decided that he didn’t want to be married, after all. Resentful over his “lost youth” and the burden of family responsibilities, he had simply walked out.

Even more shocking, the divorce papers had alleged that Nolan might not be Vaughn’s father. Angry and hurt, Paige had signed without even consulting an attorney. Only later did she realize what Grady, or any other halfway competent attorney, could have told her: she had, in effect, signed away her and Vaughn’s right to financial support.

She’d realized her mistake when she’d transcribed notes concerning a case in which one of her clients, a medical lab, had been called upon to verify paternity so that child support could be levied. After hearing Paige’s story, a helpful lab technician had arranged for Vaughn to be tested and had also recommended an attorney who dealt with paternity cases. When Nolan predictably resurfaced several months before Vaughn’s eighth birthday, Paige had been ready. She’d hit Nolan with a court order, proved that he was Vaughn’s father and been awarded substantial monthly child support. Nolan had been livid, but he’d seemed to calm down fairly quickly.

“I did think he might disappear again after the court decision went against him,” she said, sniffing, “but after he stuck around for a while, I started to believe that he really wanted to be a father to Vaughn. That’s what my little boy wanted, and who could blame him? Every little boy wants a daddy. I never dreamed Nolan would take Vaughn and disappear.”

“It’s not your fault,” Grady said, wondering when his arm had come to be draped about her shoulders.

“I can’t help wondering if he’s missed me,” she whispered.

“Little boys want their moms, too,” Grady assured her.

“Do you really think so?”

Grady realized suddenly that all this chatter was a product of her emotional state, so when she turned that hopeful, tear-stained face up to him, what else could he do but tell her about his own experiences?

“I know so. I was six when my mom died, and nothing’s been quite right in my world since.”

How on earth they got from talking about losing his mom to talking about his divorce, he would never know. At some point he started telling her how his marriage had fallen apart.

“So, she left you to marry your boss,” Paige clarified sharply, both surprising and puzzling him.

Embarrassment and pain roiled in his gut, but he’d come so far already that he didn’t see any point in pulling back now. “Technically he was her boss, too, since we both worked for the same Little Rock law firm.”

“And how did that come about?” Paige wanted to know.

Grady shrugged. “I asked them to hire her.”

Paige folded her arms at this. “So let me get this straight. First she refused to stay in Fayetteville and join your family’s practice.”

“There aren’t any opportunities for advancement in a small family partnership,” he explained.

“Then, the firm in Little Rock hired you, and wanted you bad enough to take her in the bargain. Right?”

Eventually he nodded. “Right.”

“So she used you to get into a firm she couldn’t have gotten into on her own, then she left you for someone with more power and prestige.” Paige threw up her hands, exclaiming, “Well, at least she stayed true to form!”

“T-true to form?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? She manipulated you, and when she found someone else who could offer her more, she traded up.”

He was so taken aback by the idea that for a moment he couldn’t even give it proper thought. Paige must have taken his silence for censure, for she suddenly wrinkled her pert little nose, sighed and muttered, “Okay, I shouldn’t be judging, but such selfishness gets to me.”

His family had hinted at the same thing, that Robin had left him for his boss not just because the man was elegant, affable and downright loquacious but because she was greedy. It hadn’t made sense at the time. His bank account was hefty enough, after all. Since then he’d avoided thinking about it because it was too painful.

Now, after several years, he could see things from a different perspective. Robin had used him. That didn’t make the hurtful and numerous accusations she’d thrown at him any less true. Did it?

He shook his head. Robin was correct about him being inept with women. Had she not pursued him, he doubted that they’d have ever gotten together. One-on-one with a woman, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his mind went completely blank. The more attractive he found her, the worse it was.

Usually, he amended silently, glancing sideways at Paige.

It was nuts to think that he might be any different with Paige. If his poor communication skills and emotional ineptness were not enough, there was his clumsiness. Okay, maybe once he’d been fleet of foot and a force to be reckoned with on the athletic field, but those days were long gone. That he’d been able to discuss them, even briefly, with Paige Ellis had been terribly flattering, which had led to hours of conversation. The fact that he’d enjoyed those hours so much suddenly made him seem especially pathetic.

None of this meant anything to Paige, after all. She was an admitted sports freak; he’d allowed her interest in the fact that he’d once played college football to become more personal than it was surely intended to be.

Disturbed, Grady let his seat back, mumbling that they had a long day ahead of them, and closed his eyes. She agreed with him and curled up in her seat, but she did not sleep. He knew this because he didn’t sleep, either.

They changed planes in Atlanta, and on that last, short leg of the trip, he avoided personal conversation by discussing business, beginning with a particular form that she needed to sign. He’d mentioned it before, but she’d been in too much shock to really understand at that time.

“In other words,” she said, after he’d gone over the whole thing once again, “if I sign this, we’ll be pressing charges against Nolan in South Carolina as well as Arkansas. Is that correct?”

Pleased that she’d grasped the concept this time, he reached for an ink pen. “Exactly.”

“But I’m not sure that’s what I ought to do.”

His hand stopped with the slim, gold-plated barrel of the ink pen still lodged within the leather loop provided for it. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not sure I want to prosecute Nolan.”

Grady’s tongue seemed to run away with him. “Why on earth not?” he demanded. “The man kidnapped your son!”

The spike-haired lady across the aisle turned a curious gaze on them, and Grady realized he’d raised his voice.

“You think I don’t know that?” Paige said with some asperity. “Believe you me, I know what it’s like to miss your child with every fiber of your being, minute by minute, hour after hour, day after day after week after month…. And I realize that I’m about to do the same thing to Nolan that he did to me. The pain of that may be punishment enough.”

“That’s not the point,” Grady told her urgently, doing his best to keep his voice down. “This is about protecting you and Vaughn.”

“That is the point,” she insisted, sliding into the far corner of her seat and folding her arms. “I can’t let this be about retribution, and right now, for me, it is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t expect you to. Suffice it to say that I’ve been seeing a counselor for some time now, and she, along with my Christian ethics, warn me against seeking any sort of vengeance.”

“What about what’s best for your son?”

“I think this is what’s best for my son,” she stated firmly. “Nolan is his father. Do you think he wants his father punished? I don’t think so.”

“I would,” Grady insisted. “Knowing he kept me away from my mother, I surely would.”

Paige shook her head. “You only say that because you can’t see the other side. You haven’t been a parent. You don’t know what it means to put the welfare of your child first. I’m sure Dan would understand what I’m trying to say.”

That stung, far, far more than it should have. She was correct, but that didn’t keep Grady from feeling great alarm on her behalf. As far as he was concerned, allowing Nolan Ellis to walk around free was a reckless and frightful thing for this woman and her son. His every instinct screamed for prosecution on every possible level, but all he could do was point out the legal loopholes that she would be leaving open if she failed to follow his advice.

She listened, but he could tell that he wasn’t convincing her. Frustrated, he searched for a way to compel her to accept his reasoning.

“No one would blame you if you locked him up and threw away the key!”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“Doing the right thing.”

For a moment he could only stare at her, wondering if she was for real. “This is the right thing.”

She stared back and finally said, “I’ll pray about it.” With that she turned away from him.

Confounded, Grady watched her bow her head and retreat into herself. He’d made his best case, giving her good, solid legal advice, but he might as well have saved his breath. Obviously they didn’t communicate as well as he’d thought.

This wasn’t the first time his legal advice had been rejected, after all, not by a long shot, but he’d never been more disturbed about it.

Popping his seat back again, he folded his arms and shut his eyes, determined to finally catch a few minutes of rest or at least some peace.

Both would prove to be in very short supply.

They touched down at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport at a quarter past eleven that morning. After renting a car, they drove to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department where Vaughn waited, having spent the previous night in a group foster care facility. Grady had not pressed Paige for a decision about prosecuting Nolan, which was good since she truly didn’t know what she was going to do.

Now that the moment to see her son again—after three years, six months and one day—had finally arrived, Paige was so nervous she felt ill. Pressing a hand to her abdomen and surreptitiously gulping down air in an effort to settle her stomach, she walked through the heavy glass door that Grady held open for her. They met briefly with a polite, efficient uniformed officer who checked their paperwork and led them through a narrow hallway to a private conference room.

Her heartbeat grew louder and the knots in her stomach pulled tighter and tighter with every step that she took, so that by the time Grady paused with his hand on the plain, brushed steel doorknob, she could barely breathe.

“Ready?” he asked softly.

Reminding herself that Vaughn might be ambivalent at first, she pulled her spine straight and nodded. As that heavy, metal door swung inward, she began to tremble. Grady pushed into the small, crowded room. She practically ran over him, suddenly so eager that she could not contain herself.

Everything registered at once: pale walls, pale floor, pale, rectangular table flanked by lightweight metal chairs with blue, molded vinyl seats. A green-and-white bag with some team logo printed in red sat in the center of the table, stuffed so full of clothing that it couldn’t be zipped. Two women—one young, white and plump with a brown ponytail, the other African-American, slender and slightly older—occupied two of the chairs on the near side of the table.

Across from them sat a boy, a stranger, who shot abruptly to his feet.

Paige’s first thought was that they’d made a mistake. This could not be her son. He stood at least as tall as her own five feet, with no trace of the bright copper-blond hair that had crowned her baby boy. Instead, the thick, fine locks falling haphazardly over his brows, tangling with the thick lashes rimming his warm brown eyes, was a rich auburn. Then he tossed his head defiantly, and she caught a glimpse of a jagged scar just above his right eyebrow, the scar he’d gotten tumbling headlong off the porch into the shrubbery.

“Vaughn!”

How she got around the table she didn’t know, but when she threw out her arms, he flinched and backed away. She’d been told to expect this, and yet disappointment seared her trembling heart. Sucking in a deep breath, she forced her feet to slow.

It was like approaching a feral animal, once domesticated but now wild. He seemed uncertain, but she sensed that he definitely recognized her. Carefully, her lips quivering, she slipped her arms around him. Perhaps it wasn’t wise, but she had to, had to, hold him, if only for a moment.

“Mom,” he whispered in a voice she would never have recognized and yet somehow knew.

Only with great effort did she manage not to sob, but stopping the tears completely was impossible. She smiled through them, cupped his slender, oval face in her hands, pulled it gently forward and laid her forehead to his as she had so often in the past.

“Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You.”