A return text came quickly:
Do not let her in the house. Do not let Gabe see her. Coming ASAP.
Lani decided she would keep Gabe distracted in his playroom after his nap. She’d feed him a snack there too, tell him it was a picnic for just the two of them. Already the effort to protect him had begun.
Dawson drove home from the job site in his pickup as fast as he dared. After he had brought Gabe home as a newborn, he’d wondered if this day would come. Now it had. After Sloan left Windemere, he’d created scenarios in his head about her begging to return. For months he’d written and rewritten what he’d say and do. He’d reject her, refuse to let her see their son. Then he’d think of Gabe growing up without a mother, and he’d change the scenario and relent. After the first six months of Gabe’s life, once Dawson mastered the skill set of tending to a baby’s basic needs, and with Paulie’s grandmother’s help, he overcame his fear of raising this baby on his own. That was also when he’d shoved vengeful thoughts of Sloan into the far corners of his mind. Her choice to leave. Her loss. So why in the hell was she back? What did she want?
He turned into his driveway, pulled alongside the black Mustang. Jarred’s car. It cleared up the mystery as to how she’d disappeared. He checked the car to make sure Jarred wasn’t sitting in it because if that a-hole got near him or Gabe…Sloan rose from the chair. He took his time exiting the truck and going onto the porch, all the while measuring her with his eyes, balancing his anger and his fears. Her hair was shorter, she was thinner, her cheekbones more angular. A small stud embedded on the side of her nose caught a spark of sunlight. She looked wary and worn out but held his gaze. “Hello, Dawson.” Her voice, barely a whisper.
In the few years since she’d seen him, Dawson’s body had filled out. He was tanned and well muscled, his black hair shaggy, his dark eyes as cold as black ice.
“Why are you here, Sloan?”
He stood like a stone wall and she shrank against the force of him. Her lips quivered, but she gave him her honest answer. “I need help.”
He glanced to the black car. “Boyfriend dump you?”
She winced, knowing there was too much to explain just now. “Long story.” She realized she must first reassure him. “I haven’t come to cause trouble for you. I swear. I tried to go back to the trailer, but it seems my mother no longer lives there.”
He grunted. “Good thing. She put us through hell after Gabe came home from the hospital.”
Sloan’s heart seized. “What did she do?”
“Long story.” He tossed her words back to her. “And now’s not the time to tell it.”
Sloan closed her eyes and felt her body weave, and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day, not even breakfast at Sy’s. “Can we sit?”
She sat again. He did not. She looked pale, but he refused to feel sorry for her. She’d made her choices.
Dawson’s body language screamed obscenities at her. Maybe she deserved it. Resigned, she prepared to scale the wall that separated them and shifted in the chair. “How’s Gabriel?”
“I’m surprised you remember his name.”
She bristled, went hard inside. “F you. I thought of him every day, Dawson, until I couldn’t think about him anymore and not go crazy.”
“As proof from all the times you called to check on him.” And me, he thought, but didn’t say.
“I knew he’d be all right with you and Franklin. I knew he wouldn’t be all right with me. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know how to be his mother.”
“I didn’t know much about being a parent either. He didn’t come with instructions.”
“You had Franklin. I had LaDonna. You’ve already told me she caused trouble.” She fired back a volley that stopped him cold. “And he has you. He has a home, a babysitter—”
“She’s his caregiver. Lani’s a third-year nursing student and works at the hospital.”
The message was ominous. “He’s sick? He isn’t well?”
“Well enough.”
Maddingly enigmatic. She wouldn’t beg for details. Not yet.
“Since you’re not here to cause trouble, and you’re not interested in being Gabe’s mother, what do you want from me, Sloan?”
Her nerves were so frayed she wasn’t sure she could continue. Why had she thought he would ever forgive her? “Mercy” was all she managed to say.
Dawson lowered himself into the chair across from hers, leaned forward, rested his forearms on his thighs. The day of hard work was nothing to the emotional exhaustion he felt. The air was hot, stagnant, and he longed to be inside the house drinking a big glass of sweet tea and listening to Lani talk about Gabe’s day and watching Gabe playing with his race cars on the kitchen floor. He glanced up, studied Sloan’s face. She looked truly frightened. Something bad had happened to her, something that had driven her back to a place she hated and to him because there was nowhere else she could go, no one else she could turn to. He’d been so intent on making her pay for her past, her desertion of him and Gabe, he hadn’t heard her out. He felt no satisfaction in the way he’d been treating her and blew out a breath. “Tell me what you need.”
His voice was gentler this time, so Sloan began her story about their years apart, about the band, the career that almost was and now wasn’t. And she told him about Jarred, breaking down when she told of him dying. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, ashamed of not holding up. “I…I just need a place to stay until I get on my feet. I’ll get a job, save up money until I can afford to move out on my own. I won’t be in your way. I’ll do whatever you say. Will you…help me? Please, Dawson.”
The news about Jarred was jarring, but Dawson had no way to comfort her. He couldn’t be vindictive. He couldn’t dismiss her. Sloan—a girl he once wanted and loved. Gabe’s mother. “I…I need a little time. Give me some time to think this through.”
“Okay.” She rose, legs unsteady, anxious to retreat from this emotional firestorm inside her. “Will a couple of hours be long enough? I’ll go get something to eat.” At the edge of the porch, without turning, she asked, “Should I just call you?”
“I’ll call you. What’s your number?” He took out his cell, waited for her answer.
She shrugged. “The same as when we were in high school. I should have changed it while I lived in Nashville, but I never did.”
Somehow her admission undid him. She had always been a phone call away, but because he’d been nursing his own anger and hurt, he had never once attempted to reach her. Once she drove off, Dawson sat in a wicker chair, brooding. What would his father do? No-brainer. Franklin was a doctor who lived by the credo First do no harm. But he wasn’t his father. He wanted to protect Gabe, but he couldn’t ignore Sloan’s plea for help. Could he trust Sloan to keep her word? He straightened, realized that he had an ally inside the house. Lani. She was dedicated to Gabe, and extremely fond of him. She could be his safety net…if he could urge her to stay on until Sloan moved out. Making up his mind about what to do, Dawson rose and went into the house.
CHAPTER 33
Dawson found Lani and Gabe in the basement putting puzzles together. Seeing his dad, Gabe’s face lit up. “Daddy!”
“Hey, buddy.” He picked Gabe up, tossed him in the air, and caught him while Gabe squealed with delight. “Is there a TV show he can watch now?” This to Lani.
“I’ll find one.” She located the remote.
“I’m going upstairs with Lani, Gabe. Yell if you need us.”
Gabe grabbed a baggie full of goldfish snack crackers and scampered to his beanbag in front of the television.
Lani followed Dawson upstairs and into the den. He took Franklin’s old recliner and she took the sofa. She easily saw the strain of his meeting with Sloan on his face.
“Sloan’s bottomed out and needs a place to stay until she can get back on her feet.”
Lani felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
Since he’d started at the finis
h line of the story, he now backtracked. Just the facts, none of my emotional baggage. He saw Lani flinch when he recounted Jarred’s death. Of course. They’d all been in the same senior class. Everyone knew everyone else in Windemere, or at least something about everyone else.
In her mind’s eye, Lani pictured Jarred with his long hair and cocky attitude onstage with his band, Sloan at his side. “I’m sorry about Jarred. He and Sloan were a couple…for a time,” she amended.
“Did you ever hang with them in school?”
“No. We ran in different circles.”
“I only spent a year at WHS, so I didn’t pay much attention to who was who, and what mattered or didn’t matter. All I wanted was to graduate and get out of there.” He shook his head. “Then homecoming happened.”
Lani saw how the memories of those days still haunted him, so she jumped to the present. Her mouth felt dry as cotton as she asked, “Now that she’s returned, do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Much as I’d like to, Lani, I can’t turn her out. Her mother’s disappeared, left no forwarding address, and she has no place else to go.”
Lani’s heart nosedived. He wasn’t going to send Sloan away. Lani wanted to crawl into a shell and pull it around her for safety. Shells were hard and strong and protective. “What can I do to help?” A safe question, and the only one she thought she should ask.
“I want you to take care of Gabe, like always. If that’s still okay with Sloan staying here.” He wanted to ask her to remain throughout Sloan’s stay but quickly decided to not overload Lani, so he saved that part for another time.
“I won’t leave Gabe.” Or you.
He slid her a smile. “And you don’t have to put up with any crap from her either. I’ll make that clear. She can sleep in Gabe’s playroom on the pull-out sofa. Maybe she can land a job quickly and leave quickly.”
“Gabe’s not going to know what to think when she moves into his playroom.”
“I’ll come up with a story for him. I’m supposed to call her to come back, and I’d like you here when she does. I want Gabe to meet her with you here. Do you mind?”
Dawson was establishing a hierarchy and Lani quickly understood her order in it—Dawson, Lani, Sloan—and felt giddy about it. “I don’t mind. It’s all about Gabe. He’s number one.”
Dawson nodded. “For you and me, yes. But it’s a message I want to make sure she gets loud and clear.”
Sloan returned to the house with Dawson’s words on the phone rattling in her head. Two things, set in stone. One, she must not tell Gabe she was his mother. She didn’t mind. Perhaps one day he would learn it, but she sure didn’t want him to know it now. Too many things to explain, to confess, when he was too young to understand. Two, whenever Dawson wasn’t home, Lani was in charge. Sloan didn’t like that as much, the thought of maybe this Lani ordering her around, but she agreed to it.
Dawson was alone on the porch waiting when Sloan returned, where he restated his ground rules. Once she agreed to his face, he called to Lani, who stepped out the front door holding the hand of a small dark-haired boy, his head down, reluctant and shy about meeting this stranger. Sloan’s heart banged in her chest.
“Gabe, this is a friend of mine and Lani’s from when we were in school. Sloan is going to be staying in your playroom for a while. She’ll be spending nights there.” Dawson took Gabe’s other hand. “Can you say hi to Sloan?”
Sloan’s eyes grew moist remembering the dark-haired baby with IV lines and an oxygen mask, a baby that at the time she didn’t think would survive. The child said nothing, refused to look up. Sloan didn’t know what to say, how to act. Her gaze flew to Dawson’s. Lani dropped to her knees, lifted Gabe’s chin, and looked him in the eyes. “Gabe, remember your manners. It’s polite to say hello.”
The child shyly raised his head. Sloan felt her breath catch, and she blurted, “He…he has blue eyes like…I…I mean…I thought—”
“That his eyes would be dark,” Dawson finished for her, a cautionary note in his voice. “DNA’s funny that way. Never know where it’s going to show up.”
Gabe glanced at his dad, confused, but did say, “Hi, Daddy’s friend.”
“Hi.” Sloan couldn’t stop looking at him, a blend of her and Dawson, melded to create a most beautiful child. Words stuck in her throat.
The awkwardness of the moment spurred Lani to action. “We should go inside, get Gabe into the air-conditioning.”
“Your things in the car?” Dawson’s question zapped Sloan into the moment.
“In the trunk. It’s not locked.”
Sloan followed Lani and Gabe inside and Dawson went to retrieve her few belongings, while another day echoed in his memory of her coming into this house with the child, yet unseen.
“Are you crying, Lani?” Melody came through the front door of their apartment to the sight of Lani on the sofa and a pile of tissues on the coffee table.
Lani quickly wiped her eyes. Once she’d left Dawson’s and come home, she’d crashed onto the sofa. “Just throwing myself a pity party.” No use trying to hide the reason for her crying jag from her sister. Mel could wring truth out of the most accomplished liar.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Maybe later.”
“Maybe now.” Melody was firm. “I’ll fix us some tea.”
“Don’t want tea,” Lani called to her sister’s back. Resigned, Lani pulled another tissue from the box in her lap and blew her nose. The rays of the setting sun slanting through the windows gave the room a warm glow that couldn’t reach inside her heart.
Melody returned, forced a glass of tea into Lani’s hand, and settled in a cushy chair beside the couch. “Please tell me.” Her voice sounded gentler, less demanding. “You look so sad.”
“Sloan Quentin showed up at Dawson’s house today. She’s Gabe’s mother.”
Melody’s forehead furrowed. “Ouch. The mother who deserted him? What does she want?”
“Refuge.” Lani detailed what was going to happen, what was expected of Lani. “Seems her life’s falling apart and she needs a place to live for a time. Dawson…he told her she could crash in the basement. That’s Gabe’s playroom.”
“I don’t think running interference between these two adults is fair to you. Is that what Dawson expects of you?”
“He’s asking me to do my job, to protect Gabe and keep watch over him.”
“Protect him? From his own mother? Why would he even let the woman into his home after what she did? Do you think she’s expecting to waltz in and start fresh?”
The same questions had buzzed Lani’s brain. She had no answers. “Please, Mel. I don’t know! Dawson thinks he should help her, but only until she can get on her feet.”
Melody shook her head. “Bogus. Maybe he wants to get back together with her, have her take up the slack and step into her mommy role.” Lani flinched, and seeing it, Melody stopped her angry speculation. “I’m sorry, Sis. I didn’t mean to fall into lawyer mode. It’s just that you’re hurting. I hate seeing you hurt.”
“It isn’t the only hard thing that happened today.” She sucked in a breath while Melody stayed quiet and waited for Lani’s other news. “Ben and I broke up. He…um…he sent me a text—”
“He texted a breakup message? The coward! He couldn’t tell you to your face?”
Lani motioned for her sister to calm down. “I won’t say it’s unexpected. Some of my friends from school…nursing students, have let me know that he’s been flirty with a couple of the girls who come around the pool when he’s on duty. That’s how I met him. Remember?” She glanced at Melody, saw her dark expression. “It’s all right, Mel. I…I haven’t felt like we were a couple for…well, for a while now.”
“Because your job comes first.” Mel’s voice was flat but loaded with implications.
“Gabe means a lot to me. I can’t help it. Every time he wheezes, I know how to help him breathe. Can Sloan do that? Will she do it?”
Th
e sun had set and shadows had crept across the carpet and up the far wall. Neither of them reached to turn on the lamp. Melody set her glass on the floor and took her sister’s hands in hers. “Look at me.” Lani raised her eyes. “This isn’t just about the little boy, is it? It’s about the father too. Ben’s just been a distraction. Correct?”
“Yes.” Lani’s voice was barely audible.
“Losing Ben isn’t the tragedy here. The tragedy would be losing Gabriel and his father.”
Her lawyer sister had made a perfect summation. Lani turned pleading eyes on Melody. “What should I do? I can’t quit. I can’t leave Gabe. And I…I can’t face Dawson and Sloan getting back together.”
Melody steepled her fingers, leaned back, and asked, “Lani, do you know the difference between emergency workers and regular people?” Mel’s voice came through her gloom with a question that felt so far out in left field that Lani simply stared at her. “What? What kind of question is that?”
Melody repeated it, adding, “Humor me. Tell me the difference and maybe you’ll see the point I want to make.”
“I don’t know! Uniforms?”
“That’s not the answer I’m thinking of.”
“Well you’ll have to tell me because I’m lost here.”
Melody straightened up and looked into Lani’s eyes. “Whenever there’s a disaster, regular people run away from it while emergency workers run toward it.”
“So?”
Melody stood up. “You’re smart….Figure it out, little sister. Which one are you?”
Feeling completely confused, Lani watched Melody turn on the lamp to chase the darkness as she left the room.
CHAPTER 34
Sloan felt warm breath on her face, plus the smell of Cheerios. She struggled through a layer of sleep, forced open one eyelid, and saw blue eyes peering at her from the side of the sleeper sofa. Both her eyelids snapped wide open. Gabe was propped on elbows, leaning into her face, in a serious stare-down. “Gabe!” She scooted back on her pillow, bringing him into better focus. He wore Spider-Man pajamas and clutched a stuffed toy dog under one arm. She had no idea what time it was, only that it seemed like she’d just gone to bed. Still she offered a smile, pushing away cobwebs in her brain. “Good morning. You’re up early.”