She always knew this day would come

When her former boyfriend shows up at her Vermont home, Lilah Bantry is terrified that Owen Gage will take her child away. Four years ago, she sent him packing, dead certain that Owen couldn’t be the father their unborn baby needed. Now he’s stirring up powerful emotions and vowing he’ll never leave the son he’s determined to get to know. Lilah spent decades trying to overcome her own traumatic past. Is Owen’s warmly welcoming Tennessee hometown a place where she can finally stop running? First, she needs to be convinced that people really can change…

“You have the life you stole from me.”

Lilah squeezed the towel in her hands. “I don’t know you anymore, Owen, but I don’t want you near Ben. He’d be afraid of you if he saw you the way you used to get.”

He turned around to face her.

Suddenly she felt as if she were vibrating. Was this shock? She couldn’t control her reaction to seeing Owen again. He was still handsome, rugged.

She saw shadows of the younger man she’d loved.

She didn’t want to see him, or remember how she’d cared for him. Loved him as much as she was able. She must not have loved him the way she’d thought if she’d managed to excise him from her life.

She couldn’t let him back in.

Dear Reader,

Owen Gage and Lilah Bantry knew each other at a time when they were both trying to live down the secrets that ruled their lives. When Lilah discovered she was pregnant, she decided the baby was one more secret she had to keep because Owen had problems he didn’t want to fix, and she was determined their child would never suffer the fear both she and Owen knew as children.

When Owen discovers Ben was born, he wants only revenge—and a chance to get to know the son he would never harm. Except his revenge can’t bring Ben happiness, and he finds himself beginning to understand why Lilah made the decision he hates. It’s only when Lilah and Owen give up the defenses that kept them safe before and learn to be generous with each other that they also learn to love. They begin to wonder if they can be a family…

I hope their story brings you the joy they find in each other.

All the best,

Anna

Owen’s Best Intentions
Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ANNA ADAMS wrote her first romance on the beach in wet sand with a stick. These days she uses pens, software or napkins and a crayon to write the kinds of stories she loves best—romance that involves everyone in the family and often the whole community. Love, like a stone tossed into a lake, causes ripples to spread and contract, bringing conflict and well-meaning “help” from the people who care most.

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

“HERE, BUDDY. THIS is the place.” Owen Gage had to concentrate to make the words sound normal as he raised his hand awkwardly to tap on the taxi’s back passenger window.

“You sure?” The driver pulled to the curb in front of Lilah Bantry’s apartment building on one of Manhattan’s long, narrow, building-bound streets. “This your place? Do you want me to wait?”

“No, why?”

“It’s none of my business, but I’m not sure you belong here, and I feel bad just dropping a drunk guy on the street.”

“A cabbie with a conscience. Thanks.” The interior light almost blinded Owen. He might not have been in the best shape to see straight. “But I’m not drunk.” He shoved money at the driver and then fumbled with the door handle. He was in control. He just needed to concentrate.

The handle gave way, and he all but fell out of the car, onto the rain-splattered curb.

After the month he’d spent in a rehab center in the mountains, just being in this city cut through the friendly warmth of his buzz. Only a buzz. He could handle his liquor.

He headed toward the uniformed doorman who stood sentry beneath a wide awning that was green by day, but looked dark and damp tonight.

“Kevin,” Owen said, “how you doing, buddy?” There. He’d strung those words together like a champ.

“I’m better than you. What are you doing here like this, Mr. Gage?” Kevin had stood his post for as long as Owen had known Lilah and her family. Since the first time Lilah had taken one of Owen’s carved wooden sculptures for her fancy gallery. He’d thought his work was too rustic for the Bantry Galleries, but she’d refused to give up on his sculptures, or him, for the past two years.

“I want to see Lilah. Is she home? I have news for her.” Not good news, but information he was sick to death of hiding. He was tired of trying to be a different man because he loved her. Time she found out who he was.

Kevin reached for Owen as he tried to open the doors. “Wait.”

He shook the guy off, looking at him with an unspoken promise to make his point more plainly if he needed to.

“Mr. Gage, she doesn’t want to see you like this. Come into my office. Have a cup of coffee.”

“Yeah.” Coffee. “Why do people act like caffeine defuses vodka?” Owen pushed through the door.

The foyer’s tiles, white marble threaded with gold, looked wet and slick. He was careful about where he placed his feet. At the elevator, he grabbed the edges of the silver doors and stepped inside. It took a couple of jabs to get Lilah’s floor number, and then he backed into the wall behind him.

Kevin was on the phone at his desk, no doubt alerting Lilah.

Maybe coming here had been a mistake.

He’d climbed a fence at the world-renowned rehab center in upstate New York, hiked through the woods and found a liquor store before he located the bus line back to civilization. After all that effort, Lilah deserved to see the man she claimed to love.

The doors opened at her floor. He pushed himself off the wall and left the car, veering to the right.

She didn’t answer at first. He banged on the heavy wood with his fist, noting pain, but from a distance. It didn’t really hurt.

She finally opened the door, clinging to it, her face pale. “You have another month.”

“Kevin did call.” He had an urge to touch her sallow skin. She didn’t look right. “Are you sick?”

“You have another month in rehab.”

“They tell you it won’t work unless you’re honest, and I’m tired of lying.” He reached for the door. She held on to it and, oddly, didn’t invite him inside.

“Why did you come here when you’re like this?” She looked him up and down. “You couldn’t think I’d be glad to see you.” Her eyes were almost bruised with exhaustion.

“I asked are you sick?”

“You quit, didn’t you? You walked away from rehab.”

Even in his head, the big, honest announcement he’d come here to make sounded like the load of bull it was, except Lilah had to know the truth. “I don’t want rehab.” That wasn’t it. “I’ve tried. You don’t know how many times I’ve tried.”

Over and over. Sometimes for a week. Sometimes for a few hours. Sometimes for a month or more, like after that first morning—at thirteen—when he’d passed out in the tree fort he and his brother had built. He’d woken with a cotton mouth and a head like a gong, and guilt that had become his oldest, most loyal friend.

Telling her about that would only make him weak. She looked away, pain pinching her face. Shame squeezed his warm buzz into a hazy memory.

“I like to drink, Lilah. So do you. We’ve had a good time.”

“I’m not having a good time anymore.” She sounded as if she might cry.

“Because you’ve changed?” But why? He couldn’t understand what had made her different all of a sudden.

“I have changed.” She pressed her hand to her mouth.

He stared at her, waiting. “Explain.”

“My work suffers every time you’re in town. I spend so much time watching you, waiting for you to get ready to leave this bar, or that pub.” She covered her mouth again.

“Do you have the flu or something? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“I wanted us to have a chance.”

“A chance for what? You act as if you don’t remember how many times we’ve headed back here at daylight. Together, and we weren’t always trashed.”

She laughed, but the sound cut like a piece of glass. “I wasn’t,” she said. “Because I can stop.”

“I can stop, too.” Even to him, that sounded idiotic after he’d staggered, drunk, into her home on the fumes of a fifth of vodka.

She lifted her face. Her whole body stiffened as if she were bracing for a blow. “I have stopped. I liked having fun. I liked the way alcohol made me feel different, but I was playing around. I guess I’m tired of playing, and I can’t be with someone who needs to be drunk all the time.”

“I can quit anytime I want.”

“Like your dad.”

Those three words were a shot to the gut. She was one of the few people outside of his brothers and sister and mother who knew what growing up in his house had been like. She’d compared him to the slob who’d made his family a bunch of victims. “You throw him in my face the first time you get mad at me?”

“Your father hurt you because he drank, Owen. He drank like you do. You told me yourself, he couldn’t stop.”

“Maybe he had his reasons.” He closed his eyes for the briefest second. “I’m not my father.”

“You don’t want to be. I believe that.” She came to him, taking his face between her hands with patience and sadness that was more painful than accusations.

She was saying goodbye. He knew it even as her touch eased the pain in his head.

“I just wanted to see you tonight.” He tried to put his arms around her, but she slipped beyond his reach. Over her shoulder, he spied the silver tray that held vodka and scotch and whiskey so expensive a guy from Bliss, Tennessee, had never tasted its like before she’d first offered it.

His mouth watered. He wanted it. He couldn’t help it. The thirst was a furnace inside him, a fire that had to burn. Fires burned.

Drinkers drank.

“You’ve seen me.” She walked away from him, her mouth tight, her eyes wounded. Pale blond hair fell over her face. “Now you can go back to the center,” she said. “I’ll drive you. Let me change.”

“I’m not going back. I tried because I care about you, and you wanted it, but I don’t want it.”

“What if I can’t be with you if you drink?”

He moved in front of her, jostling a small parquet table he’d given her as a thank-you for his first show at her family’s gallery. “What are you talking about?” He tried again to decipher her expression. “Why are you looking at me as if I’ve cheated on you?”

“Because that’s how I feel. Every time you show me you prefer vodka to me, you cheat on me.”

“You showed me the best clubs in Manhattan. You’ve matched me drink for drink and laugh for laugh. We’ve had a good time. Maybe it was just fun at first, but you matter more than...”

“You are vital to me, Owen, so I’m begging you...” He’d never heard this tone before, so earnest, so broken. Where was the woman who’d survived a childhood kidnapping to step bravely out in the world as a successful gallery owner? “I am literally begging you to promise you can stop drinking. That you will stop drinking.”

“I can’t.” Every last moment in that place had been like marching through a desert, his mind always fixed on a glass of the only relief for the thirst that owned him. It was painful to acknowledge, but he’d needed that drink more than he’d wanted Lilah.

“I came back because I missed you.” He could barely look at her as he said the words. “Why can’t that be enough? Maybe it’s time we stopped doing this long-distance relationship. I could move here.”

At least then he could lose the title of town drunk, transferred from his father’s head to his.

“No.” She turned her face away, and strands of her hair stuck to the tears on her cheeks, making this whole mess worse. “I need you to commit to being sober.”

He was sober now. The vodka he’d sipped all the way from rehab on a bus that had smelled like unwashed humans had long since vanished from his system.

He licked his lips. What he’d give for another fifth.

“I will not lie to you,” he said.

“I don’t want you to lie. I want you to be the decent man I believe in, not a man who terrorizes his family and wastes his life.”

He laughed as if that were funny, but he headed for her door. “You don’t believe I’m decent.” He didn’t believe it. “I’ve made my choice. When you get bored with being reformed, give me a call.”

CHAPTER ONE

SOMETHING PRODDED Lilah Bantry’s face. Something small and pointy and insistent. She woke, felt the smooth weave of the couch beneath her and peered through the tangle of her hair. Her son’s tiny index finger poked gently at her arm this time as he leaned over her.

“Mommy?”

“Ben.” She gathered him close. “Morning, buddy.” She’d doubted her ability to be a good mother until she’d seen his red, scrunched-up face in the delivery room four years ago and realized she would do everything she could for this little guy. “Hey, buddy.”

“Are you awake?”

“I fell asleep waiting for the ball to drop.” She hugged him tight and relished the grip of his little arms around her. “Happy New Year, baby. Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Blueberry pancakes?”

“Perfect, from the blueberries we picked last summer.”

“I can stir.” He tugged at the quilt.

She stood, pushing it off her legs until it fell to the floor. Her son grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. Solemn and intent, he pushed the stool he usually sat on while she did the prep work for their meals, until it bumped into the granite island.

“Flour, Mommy.”

First, she took the blueberries out of the freezer. Then she carried the baking powder, sugar, milk and an egg to the island. She ran the blueberries under water to thaw them slightly and then mixed up the batter. When she added the blueberries, and the batter turned purple, Ben clapped his hands. She’d never been a big fan of purple food, but her boy was.

“Blueberry pancakes. Yummmm.”

She’d broken their griddle at Thanksgiving, and she hadn’t found time to replace it yet, so she heated a frying pan and poured small pools of batter, just the size Ben liked best.

“I can eat more than three.”

“I’ll make you more.” She grinned at him over her shoulder. His dad was allergic to blueberries. She hadn’t remembered that the first time she’d given them to Ben, and she’d followed her son around for an hour before she realized he was going to survive her mistake. “Want to make a snowman on the green in town after we eat?”

“Why do they call it green, Mommy? It’s white, and when the snow melts, it’s brown.”

“Excellent work on your colors, buddy, and I don’t have a clue. I’ll have to look that up for you.”

“You said you know everything.”

She probably had. She did that sometimes. “I will know after I look it up.”

Their doorbell rang. She glanced at the frying pan. Her pancakes were puffing a little steam just around their purple, bubbling edges. She flipped them, moved them off the heat and turned off the stove.

Ben had already hopped off his stool. He hurtled down 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. “Do I have to take a shower now?”

“You could play in your room for a little while if you want.”

He nodded so hard his chin must have hit his chest. Then he tilted his head to grin at Owen, who laughed. A husky laugh that made Lilah shiver. She remembered it far too well, and she could already tell Ben was going to have the same laugh when he grew up.

“Go to your room and play, then, but don’t turn on the water until I come up.”

“Okay, Mommy.” He slid off the stool again, but offered his hand to Owen. “See you later, Mommy’s friend.”

“You can call me Owen.”

“Own.”

Ben turned and ran for the stairs, growling car engine sounds as he climbed.

Owen seemed to topple forward onto his elbow, which was braced on the counter.

“My son,” he said. “And such a sweet kid. So friendly. He doesn’t even know me.”

He didn’t move for several seconds. Lilah’s worry spiked. He was either trying to hide his feelings, or planning revenge.

When he looked up, redness rimmed his eyes. “Get this through your head. I am never leaving him.”

CHAPTER TWO

WEREN’T THOSE THE WORDS she’d hoped to hear? Just after he promised, “I’ll never drink again.” She would have told him about her pregnancy, and in her dreams he would have promised, “I won’t put our child at risk.”

She’d stopped dreaming when he’d admitted with heartbreaking honesty that he couldn’t stop drinking. After that, there had been no room for Owen Gage in her life. He’d missed his chance with their son, and she’d heard from her brother, Tim, that Owen still had problems with alcohol. Wanting to do the right thing and actually managing it were miles apart for Owen.

“Lilah.” He made no effort now to hide his anger.

Startled, she jumped. Almost deafened by the silence after Owen barked her name, she didn’t answer. Ben’s voice came down the stairs as he talked to his trains or his army of action figures, who were hampered by the fact that he’d broken so many of their body parts.

In the sink, the faucet dripped with annoying regularity. Lilah’s own breathing sounded like someone hissing.

She had to run. Hide her son. Why hadn’t she done that four years ago—made herself and her baby invisible to the one man on earth who could destroy her life?

“How did you find us?”

He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a large gift tag the size of a postcard. He passed it across, and Lilah read the Christmas-red text that wrapped around a photo of her and her parents and her brother. And Ben. They were sprawled or standing or slouched on the porch of the beach house at Fire Island.

“From our family to yours,” the gift tag read. And her family had told Owen about his son.

She knew immediately what had happened. Her parents had arranged to send an alcoholic a bottle of good wine with this gift tag around its neck.

“I knew the second I saw the photo,” Owen said. “But I got out an old picture of myself to compare Ben and me at the same age. You understand I’m not leaving him with you, right?”

“You don’t have custody.” She had kept his son from him. If he didn’t have a reputation as an alcoholic, he might have a leg to stand on. “You can’t come up here and walk off with my son. First, I won’t let you, and, second, you don’t know him.”

“What can you do?”

“Ask anyone who knows you to testify in court that you couldn’t possibly be a good parent because you’re an alcoholic.”

“That won’t work. I’ve changed.”

“You mean you’ve changed again?” she asked. “I talk to Tim. He knows you’ve tried to quit drinking, and you can’t stop. All I have to do is ask your family and friends what you’re like at home. No court would consider me the less fit choice.”

He looked at her as if she were a stranger. “Why did you do it? You weren’t a heartless woman. You robbed our son of his father. For four years.”

She avoided that knowledge as often as she could. She’d made the best choice for Ben. “You told me you were afraid you were like your father. You told me he beat you and your brothers and sister. If you were like him, you had no place around my child.”

He stared at her, his lips thin, his gaze practically expressionless. She wrestled silently with panic. What did he plan to do next? Lilah’s best gift was thinking on her feet. She’d done it even when she was five, just a little older than Ben, and escaped her kidnapper.

She had the same sense of being threatened now.

And all the while, water splatted rhythmically on the steel bottom of the sink.

“I understand you’re angry, but I don’t know what you mean by saying you’re never leaving Ben again.”

“My son.” He lowered his voice, coming to stand right next to her. He was too tall, too intense, his frustration whipping up bad energy between them. “Ben is my boy, whom you’ve hidden from me. You didn’t dump me because I drank. That was an excuse to give you control. You didn’t stop drinking because you suddenly wanted to be healthier. You quit because you were pregnant with Ben, and if you’d told me about our baby, I would have quit, too.” He thought she was the bad guy? “You left because you decided I wasn’t worthy of making a life with him.”

“Tell me I was wrong. You still drink. The damage is all over you. You’re twenty-eight, but you look years older. You think you can bully me with a raised voice and anger.” She turned her back to him, putting the counter between them.

“You’ve had him for four years. Four years, and every day you passed up the chance to tell me the truth.”

“I asked you to quit drinking. You said you liked it too much. You’d told me about your father. How could I take the chance that you’d be like him?”

“How could you refuse to let Ben know me or me know him?”

His eyes were troubled. He was angry, but deep inside those haunted eyes, she saw remnants of the man she’d known. When he was hurt, he fought back, instead of admitting he was in pain.

“I gave you as much of a chance as I could,” she said. “I never told my family you were Ben’s father. I never asked them to keep Ben a secret, and I didn’t ask them to help me hide from you.” Big mistake. “I wasn’t naive.” She shook her head. “Maybe I thought that if you wanted to find me, it would be some kind of proof that I mattered to you. That Ben could matter to you. But after a few months passed with no call from you, I knew you weren’t interested.”

He shook his head. Slightly, as if the effort hurt. “After you told me I was a lush you couldn’t trust? How was I supposed to guess you were pregnant?”

“I had Ben to think of.”

“And that’s why you changed?”

“Changed?” She put her hands over her eyes. They burned as if she’d been crying.

“You were paranoid. You assumed the worst would happen, just like you always do. Instead of telling me why you wanted a different relationship, you went from being my—”

“Designated driver. I got you from bar to bar and back to my place every time you came to New York. I couldn’t be that woman anymore when a child depended on me. I had to do the right thing for Ben, and you told me plainly that you couldn’t.”

Owen froze, but his gaze cut her. “You knew everything about me, and all the while you kept your own secrets. You asked me to change because I wasn’t good enough to be a father to my own child.”

He was right that she only let people see the parts of her she wanted them to see. “You won’t believe this, but I didn’t hurt you on purpose.”

He laughed, but he clearly found nothing about her funny. “You thought denying me my son—denying him his father—was the right thing for all of us?”

“I hoped there was a chance you’d understand if you ever found out.” She scooped a dish towel off the counter and folded it, creasing each corner. “You saw my brother just before Thanksgiving. He said you were still drinking. Excessively.”

He chose to ignore the comment about his drinking. “Did you really think I’d find out about Ben and think—well that’s a mistake anyone could make? What’s four years to a father and son?” His despair was a living thing that snaked around her as he pushed his fists into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t even understand the way you think.” He straightened, seeming to reach a decision. “You forget I know how much you hate reporters bringing up the subject of ‘Little Lost Lilah.’ Either give me time with my son, or I’ll deliver that secret of yours to every news station.”

He had her weakness in his hip pocket. The media had loved her story when she was five. Little Lost Lilah. Abducted from her parents in broad daylight but brave and smart enough to run away from her kidnapper. Reporters had hounded her at regular intervals when she’d started high school and gone away to college— checking in on Little Lost Lilah to see if she’d let that man scar her for life. The thing she wanted most for Ben was to save him from the horror of microphones in his face and strident voices asking for his feelings—because his mom was taken by a stranger when she was not much older than he was now.

“How can you suggest you’d set those monsters on me?” Owen had never been cruel.

“Lilah, did you think I’d be grateful? Ask how I could thank you enough for taking four years of being a father to Ben away from me? Because I drank?”

“Because you drink. I thought I was doing what was best for Ben. I don’t believe you’ll hurt him now to get back at me.”

“That’s exactly the kind of man you think I am.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if he could see through the floor to Ben playing above.

Blood rushed in Lilah’s ears, and she considered calling the police. They’d never helped her when she was kidnapped. She’d had to count on herself.

But Owen could prove he was Ben’s father. He’d never given up custody. If he chose to fight for parental rights, he’d win visitation.

On the other hand, if she played along, she’d find a way out of this. There’d come a moment when he’d make a mistake, take a drink. Prove even to himself that she’d been right to protect their son from a man whose worst fear was turning into the monstrous man who’d terrorized his own family.

“Visit Ben here, Owen. Let me keep him in familiar surroundings.”

He seemed to hesitate. Fighting a battle of conscience? His fists came out of the tops of his pockets, and he flexed his fingers, and his jaw tightened. At last, he shook his head. “I can’t. I have a job at home that’s life and death to my career. I have to finish it.”

“Your career? Who cares about a career?” Not the Owen she’d known.

“It matters to my reputation,” he said. “I didn’t stop drinking when you asked me to. You’re right about me, except for one thing. I’m not violent, and I would never harm another human being.” His eyes narrowed until they were chips of ice that cut straight through her. “But I will do everything I can to see my son.”

If she were in his shoes, if he’d kept Ben from her, would she be as angry? Absolutely. But she faced him down. “Do your worst.”

“I will if I have to,” he said, his voice contained, his breathing even. “I’m desperate. You’ve proven I can’t trust you to give me a chance with my son.”

“I could not hand him over to a man who told me he preferred alcohol to me.”

“I said that without knowing all the facts, Lilah. I want a chance with my boy, and he’ll have to come to Tennessee. I wish it could be different, and I don’t want to frighten him. But I’ve made some mistakes, and this job may be my last chance at getting enough work to make a living.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m not being dramatic,” he said, but then he shrugged, as if her opinion didn’t matter enough for him to explain. “When you pack, add some of Ben’s toys, so he’ll have familiar things around him and his favorite books. Whatever will make him comfortable while he’s with me.”

“This is crazy, Owen. No way will I send my son off with a stranger.” She didn’t trust Owen any more now than she had four years ago.

“I won’t be a stranger for long,” he said.

“You’re not taking him, Owen. I’ll fight you on this. Besides, he and I haven’t spent a night apart since he was born.”

“Then pack your stuff, too.” He paced out of the kitchen, across the living room to the bay window that looked out on her snow-drifted backyard. “If you come along, that solves the problem.”

“If you really care about him, you’d just leave him alone. Ben is a happy child. We have a life here.”

“You have a life you stole from me.” His voice sliced through the air.

Lilah squeezed the towel in her hands. “You said yourself you’re still drinking. You have to stay away from Ben. He’d be afraid of you if he saw you the way you used to get.”

He turned back to her, and his pain was hers for a single moment. She froze, but she felt as if she were vibrating. She couldn’t control her body’s reaction to seeing Owen again.

She didn’t want to remember how much she’d cared for him. Loved him. She couldn’t let him back in.

“I will not frighten my own child,” he said, his voice low, controlled. “Stop dreaming up excuses to keep Ben and me apart.”

“I don’t need excuses. My mother loved me. She was responsible. She only looked away for a few seconds, and see what happened? I was kidnapped by a stranger.” Lilah never talked about the past. She’d dealt with it and moved on, but he needed to know exactly why she’d rejected him as Ben’s father. “I will never turn my back on Ben, especially to leave him with an alcoholic like you.”

Owen barely glanced at her. “Give me a break, and stop comparing me to my father and a kidnapper.”

A switch had turned on when she found out she was pregnant. All the years of healing had disappeared the second she’d read that positive pregnancy test. She’d become a little girl again, running for her life. How easily that man had lured her with his story of a lost kitten that needed her help. “I vowed what happened to me would never happen to my child.”

“Our child. So, you let your own paranoia keep your son from his father? What kind of mother does that?”

“You told me you wouldn’t stop drinking, and I told you I couldn’t live with that. I wasn’t going to let Ben grow up the way you did, Owen.”

“I won’t drink around Ben.” Owen straightened with a pride she’d never seen in him before, not even when he was the star attraction at his exhibitions in her family’s galleries. “I will be a good father to my son.”

“Ben doesn’t know you’re his father.”

“My name is on the birth certificate.”

She clenched her fists to keep from going for his throat. “How did you get your hands on his birth certificate?”

“After I saw Ben’s photo on that gift tag, I took a chance and requested a copy of my son’s birth certificate. I found the announcement your parents put in the paper, and that gave me all the information I needed. I started looking for you.”

“You’ve been stalking us?” She knew she was being ridiculous, but she was angry with herself. She’d left him a string of clues. Made it too easy for him to find them.

“Ask yourself what you would have done in the same situation. I didn’t stalk you, Lilah.”

“What do you call it?”

“Making sure my son knows he has a father.”

“You’re sober now, but you look as if you’ve been on a bender.”

“You didn’t bother to tell me the real reason I should have made sobriety stick four years ago And what about your own issues? I’m not the one who abandoned college after college because everyone I saw looked threatening. And I didn’t move out of my apartment overnight because I thought a woman in my building was following me. Turns out she commuted the same way you did. We both have problems, Lilah, but we’re both Ben’s parents.”

Her skin seemed to be on fire. She knew her face had turned bright red, but she wasn’t so embarrassed about the truth that she couldn’t fight back. “You told me you liked to drink, that you chose to drink.”

He ignored the accusation. “So once again you packed up and walked away from yet another place, without warning, without notice, without reason. Just because of your fear.”

“Ben was my reason.”

“Go to Bliss with Ben and me, or I’ll go to the courts and fight for custody on the grounds you’re not a fit mother.”

This was not the Owen she’d known. “You wouldn’t bring up my past and use it against me.”

“I’m asking again, how cruel would you be if I’d stolen Ben from you?”

The papers, the reporters. She’d been five years old, swarmed by curious faces and camera flashes and questions that only put her back into the bad place.

If Owen took revenge, it would be hard to keep her past a secret. It would be all over social media, complete with photos and old newspaper articles. There’d be commentary on blogs. She felt sick. She’d tried with all her might to keep Ben safe from the notoriety of her past.

She moved closer to him. “You can’t. You won’t. You may not know him, but you must instinctively care about Ben, or you wouldn’t have come here. Making him an object for people to gawk at would hurt him.”

“So, now you’re using him to keep me in check?”

She’d still do anything to protect her son.

“Go ahead and push me,” Owen said, with no hint of the gentleness that had once drawn her to him despite the drinking.

And he’d helped her at first. Pushed her to overcome her fears. But over time she’d grown to loathe his drinking, and hers. Daring anything to prove she wasn’t afraid quickly lost its appeal as she’d pulled and pushed Owen into a taxi or through her apartment door, or dragged him out of a fight in a bar.

But at least when he was under the influence, Owen had never hurt anyone except himself.

“Show some compassion,” she said.

“Like you did?”

She wanted to yell. His warm breath fanned her face. She reassessed her chances of getting Ben out of the house and making a run for it.

But that would be a ridiculously reckless decision. Whatever she had to do to keep Owen from taking Ben, she would. He could threaten her all he wanted, but she would make him see things her way. What was best for Ben would be best for all of them. “Let’s calm down for a minute.”

“I’m not an idiot, Lilah, and I’ve been played by bigger and better cons than you.”

They shared one trait, a survivor’s sensitivity to undercurrents.

“We both care about Ben,” she said, “and you don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you about him.” That was true. If he’d been a different person, she would have told him. “I made a bargain with myself. If you showed up, I’d be honest.”

“I showed up today.” He stepped away from her. “We need to make plans.”

Panic tightened her throat. “How can you be serious?”

“At least in Bliss I can make sure you’ll have a harder time taking him away again.”

“You want him to stay in that little cabin of yours?”

“Plenty big enough for one man and one small boy.”

And no woman. She didn’t figure into his plan. “What are you talking about? You don’t think I’m letting him live with you.”

“I’m not playing with you. I am desperate, and I don’t trust you. You can take a room at my mom’s inn, but Ben stays with me until we create a legally binding custody agreement. See him whenever you want, but until we have an understanding, I won’t believe you’d suddenly consider I have rights at all.”

She went to the sink, her mind racing. “You think legal papers will stop me?”

“Yes.” Owen came around the counter, too. Stopping inches away, he touched her face with the back of his hand. Gently, to get and keep her attention. “Because you don’t want Ben’s name or pictures in headlines.”

“You don’t care about Ben. You’re angry at me.” She wished that were true. How else could she believe that this man she’d once loved would take away her son? She was the one who’d kept Ben safe all his life. She made the decisions about how he was raised.

“I only care about Ben. He deserves to be with his father. Your judgment is flawed, and Ben deserves better. If you’d stopped to think first, if you’d been honest with yourself, you would have known I’d love him. I’d never hurt him. I am not my father.”

“You have no idea what it takes to be a parent. You’ve only had yourself to think about. Wait until the work starts, staying up all night when Ben’s sick, listening to the stories about other kids at school who hurt his feelings, worrying about the countless things that might go wrong.”

“What could be more wrong than never knowing my son?”

CHAPTER THREE

OWEN SWALLOWED, THE HEAT of anger drying his mouth. Now that she understood his intentions, he’d back off. “You’re right about one thing. We both need to calm down.” He could hardly suggest Ben needed his father but not his mother. “I might consider coming here for a while if I weren’t in the middle of a work project. I can’t get away from Tennessee.”

“You never wanted to leave those mountains, but you should for Ben’s sake if you want to spend time with him.”

His temper snapped, but he wasn’t his father. He seriously wanted revenge, but four years had given him time to realize he’d been honest and yet made a choice that had driven Lilah to break up with him. He didn’t for a second believe that excused her decision to keep his son from him, but he also didn’t need to hurt a woman.

He just didn’t intend to let her make all the decisions from now on. “This time we do things my way.”

Her laughter was like brittle cracking glass. “This time,” she said in a mocking tone. “Unlike when you first started selling your furniture and sculpture to my gallery, and you insisted on working under an assumed name.”

“You should understand I wanted privacy.” Crowds of people made him want a drink. Happiness could increase the thirst that never let up. Anger, loss, like the loss of his son’s babyhood, made it a dull, insistent urge that gripped him. “You don’t want anyone asking you about Little Lost Lilah.”

She eased a deep breath between her lips. He had to make her believe he’d expose her past. She was a caged animal, pacing around the small kitchen, but she wouldn’t run away with Ben again if she thought he’d use everything in his power to find them.

When she reached the coffeemaker, she picked up the pot. “Do you want a cup?”

Was she giving in? “Please.”

“I don’t remember how you take it.” She poured the coffee into a mug and then got sugar from a cabinet. “There’s cream in the fridge.”

He went to the large, stainless-steel refrigerator, playing for time and space. Inside, he reached between organic peanut butter and several jars of homemade jam to get the cream. The Lilah he’d known was barely on speaking terms with her stove. “Did you make these?”

She stepped in front of him, her scent a distracting delight to his senses. He closed his eyes and backed away, making sure to look normal by the time she turned around.

“I’ve done everything I could to keep my son healthy,” she said.

He ignored the unspoken “including keeping you out of his life” and shut the refrigerator door. “I never picked you as a home canner.”

“Thanks. And while we’re discussing my abilities, you obviously haven’t considered that I run the gallery I opened up here. I can’t leave my job.”

“You don’t have any staff? You did in New York. At least you talked about them. I think I remember you talking about them.”

“I’m surprised you remember anything.” She caught her breath. “Sorry, that was ugly. We both drank too much. I worried about Ben at first because I didn’t stop drinking until I knew I was pregnant.”

“You could always take it or leave it,” he said. “I did notice that you looked after me those nights we went out.”

“No. I was reckless. If you dared me—if someone implied I was afraid to do something, I most often took the dare.”

Even though he was angry at what she’d done to him and Ben, he couldn’t pretend she’d matched him vice for vice. “It wasn’t all drinking,” he said, his tone dry. “Sometimes we watched movies.”

Her head came up. She looked into his eyes as if she were searching for a softness he couldn’t feel for her. “Think about what you’re asking, Owen. Ben has never met your family. He doesn’t know you.”

Because she’d turned her back on him. “Maybe I would have kept drinking even if I’d known you were pregnant, but you didn’t give me the chance to try for Ben’s sake.” Even to him, that sounded weak—but maybe, with Ben as motivation, he might have found the strength to ignore the urge that never left him. “Come to Tennessee with us, or Ben and I will go alone.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t know you. He’d be afraid.”

“Not if you come with him.”

She shrugged, and her hair splashed across her back like a silky, blond wave that made him want to feel its softness against his fingers again. She called herself reckless when they were together, but she’d been laughing and loving, and she’d shown him the city’s hidden treasures. Small parks and museums where no one looked at him with doubt that a drunk from the remotest mountains of Tennessee could appreciate art or beauty. Restaurants where the chefs made them Lilah’s favorite meals, which they’d shared with love, confiding the secrets they could only trust with each other.

Deep inside, a part of him wanted to believe the woman he’d known back then was still a real part of this Lilah, who seemed to think the only way Ben could be safe was apart from his father. “I’ll go with you.” She didn’t explain. He didn’t push his luck by asking what changed her mind.

“Fine. I believe you can work from Bliss. I’ll introduce you to some of the other local artisans. There are plenty of antiques stores in the mountains, and many artists produce the primitive pieces you like.”

“Why are you so accepting of all this?”

Her suspicions about him only matched his own toward her. “For Ben. So that he knows he can count on both his parents to put him first.” He added a parting jab. “And work keeps you happy.”

“Ben makes me happy.” She yanked her hair into a coil and wrapped one of those elastic things women used around it. “I’m not sure I trust you.”

“You have to.”

She exhaled, and he saw the first sign of guilt in the gaze she averted. “I’d be out of my mind if you kept him from me.”

Anger ground through him. “Then you understand?”

She shook her head, and he remembered her young face in the faded headlines of newspapers she’d kept as reminders of her own strength. The same stubborn refusal to give in to her fear. The same determination not to let the experience break her.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked. “None of this had to happen.”

“For the same reason I don’t believe in you now. Alcoholics want to change. Surviving depends on change, but you will always be an alcoholic.”

“I’m trying to want other things more.” But he couldn’t deny that vodka, cold as ice, would have eased him through this day.

She looked rattled, and he learned at once to admit nothing more about his own flaws.

“Give me time,” Lilah said. “A week to speak to my family and prepare Ben. My assistant will need information about the books and deliveries. I’ll need to give her instructions before I can leave her with the shop.”

“I can’t wait around here for a week.”

“I’m not asking you to, and I won’t take Ben away. There was always a chance you’d find us. I’m not trying to keep him from you. You’re the one who’s trying to take him from me.”

“You kept him all these years.”

“But I didn’t hide. That’s proof I won’t take Ben from you now.”

“We tell him now, before I go back to Tennessee. If you’re lying about coming, or if you run, I’ll find you, no matter where you go or how hard you try to hide.”

He sounded like his father. If you leave me, I’ll find you. No one will hide you well enough. No one can keep you away from me. That was what Odell Gage had said. So many times, Owen’s mother had believed.

So had he and his brothers and sister.

“I know I can’t keep you apart any longer,” Lilah said.

“Before I go back to Tennessee, we’ll tell him who I am,” Owen said again.

She seemed to think it over, as if she had the right. “What if you change your mind?”

Incredible.

“Look at me.” He didn’t try to hide anything. “I’m stunned to find I’m anyone’s father, and I want revenge for what you did, but most of all, I want to do the right thing for Ben.” He needed to rebuild his reputation, so he could make a decent living, but he didn’t want to lose any more time with his son. It had to be this way. “I won’t change my mind. I want to know my son.”

“O-kay,” she said, with doubtful emphasis on both syllables.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Owen bought a booster seat for Ben. Afterward, he stopped at the first fire station on his way to Lilah’s. A uniformed man came out as Owen parked in the wide driveway.

“What’s up?” the man asked, his breath forming a wreath around his head.

“I bought this seat for my son.” Had he said that word out loud before? It made him proud. He’d like to say it again.

He popped the trunk open with his key fob and pulled out the huge box. “They told me at the store that you’d install it for me.”

“You’ve never installed your kid’s car seats?”

“My child is new to me,” Owen admitted. “I don’t mind explaining the situation to you, but do you need me to?”

The firefighter shook his head. “Sorry, man. You want to watch?”

“Yeah. This is a rental car. When we get home to Tennessee, I’ll have to do it myself.”

The fireman installed the seat, instructing Owen as he did. “You’re sure you got the right one?”

He’d called Lilah from the hotel the night before. After making arrangements to pick up Ben and take him out today, he’d gotten his son’s measurements. “I asked a salesperson at the baby store. She assured me this was right for my boy’s weight and height.”

“Then you should be good.” The other man stepped back and folded his arms. “If you can do it on your own.”

Owen had trouble the first time, but then installed the seat correctly twice.

At last they both stepped back, Owen with a sense of accomplishment. The words “I’m a dad,” repeated inside his head, but he kept silent as he dug a few bills out of his wallet. “In my town, the fire service sponsors a burn charity. I don’t know if you do that up here?”

“We have a brother in ICU at the hospital right now. We’ve started a fund for his family. If you’d rather give the money to a different charity, I will, but his wife and children could use this.”

Owen added another bill. “Thanks for your help.”

He walked back to his car, ducking the fireman’s gratitude. It was crazy the money his simple furniture brought him. Might as well put it to good use.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE REACHED BEN and Lilah’s just as they were coming down the wooden steps of their small Cape Cod house. Lilah must have been waiting for him before she left for work. She stood on the narrow sidewalk, holding Ben’s hand. They were both dressed to fight off the snowy wind in parkas and scarves and gloves.

Owen grinned at his son, who resembled the figure in one of those commercials where the spokesman is a stack of tires that look like marshmallows.

“I hadn’t thought about climbing Mount Washington, but we could do that today,” Owen said.

“What is that?” Ben asked. “Mommy, can I go that far?”

“Not today, baby,” she said, grimacing over his head. “Owen made a lot of plans for you. He’s going to take you by your day-care center to pick up your art project.”

She’d agreed to let him meet Ben’s teachers. “I heard you painted a poster of you and your mom, but it was still too wet to bring home last week,” Owen said. “Ready to go, buddy?”

Now that the moment had come, the little guy looked up at his mother for reassurance, which made Owen resent Lilah more. But, if Lilah had been the one who couldn’t stop drinking, would he have wanted to risk letting their son spend time alone with her? No. He’d have to accept that Lilah hadn’t been entirely wrong.

She’d judged him and stolen the most precious gift from him, but he had to let it go. Every time he looked at her he got angry all over again, but deep inside, a voice accused him.

You aren’t fit.

He would change.

“Have fun.” Lilah leaned down and hugged Ben so long the boy began to struggle. “Mo-om.”

She straightened, but Ben had picked up on her reluctance, clearly unsure what was supposed to happen next or if he wanted to be part of it.

“We’ll have a great time.” Owen took Ben’s hand and led him to the rental car. “Have you eaten breakfast?”

“Mommy made me toast and milk, but she said you wanted to have breakfast with me.”

“Great. Do you have a favorite place?”

“The eggs-and-potato place.”

Their first roadblock. Owen turned back, calling her name. “Lilah?”

She was standing where they’d left her, staring as if she were afraid this was her last glimpse of their son.

“What’s the egg-and-potato place?” he asked.

“The Scholar’s Lady. Your nav system will take you there, but I can text you the address if you like.”

“No, thanks. We’ll be fine.”

Owen helped Ben into the booster seat. It looked a little tight to him.

“How does that feel, Ben?”

The boy was already inspecting every inch of the car within his reach. The cup holders fascinated him.

“Feels exactly like my other one. I can’t move much.”

“Perfect. Careful of that cup holder. I think it might break if you tug it hard enough.”

“I need a cup,” Ben said.

“If you like it that much, I’ll have to get one like it for my car at home.”

Ben sat back. “Where do you live, Own?”

The name made him smile.

“Tennessee. I live next to a big barn. On a farm with a stream and cows and goats and chickens.”

Ben rubbed his nose and mouth, looking wary. “I never seen a goat. And chickens run so fast. On TV they have sharp teeth.”

“Beaks,” Owen said absently. Vermont had goats and chickens, but he’d bet Ben had never been near anything as fraught with danger as a petting zoo.

He backed himself up. He couldn’t second-guess the way Lilah was raising their son. Lots of kids Ben’s age didn’t associate regularly with farm animals.

“Don’t know if I like ’em,” Ben said.

“We’ll cross that farm when we come to it. Hold on a sec.” He got into the car and started the engine. On the screen in the console, he found the navigation system. He hit the icon for voice commands. “Scholar’s Lady, Barnesville, Vermont,” he said.

A male voice with a New Zealand accent responded. “I will navigate you to the Scholar’s Lady in Barnesville, Vermont,” the man said.

Owen laughed, and Ben giggled.

“That man talks funny,” Ben said. “Why did you pick him?”

“I didn’t. The man or woman who rented this car before us chose him,” Owen said. “He startled me.”

“Me, too. Our car has a lady’s voice, but the lady gets mad a lot. Mommy tries out different voices.”

“The lady on my car gets mad at me, too. Maybe I’ll switch to New Zealand guy.”

“What’s New Zealand?”

“A country way far from here, where people talk like this guy.”

Ben just giggled. Owen pulled away from the curb. Lilah was still glued to the last step on her porch.

He ignored a pang of guilt. For a moment, he saw himself through her eyes, and the self-awareness was unpleasant.

“What do you want to do after we eat?” Owen asked his son, as if he got to hang out with his child all the time.

“Duck bowling.”

“Duck bowling?” He made a wild guess. “There’s a place called Duckpins across from my hotel. I walked in there last night.” And out again when the beer taps began to sing his name.

“Did you practice?” Ben asked.

“I didn’t know you’d want to play. I got a hamburger to go.”

“I love duck bowling.” Kicking his feet, Ben lifted an ecstatic gaze upward and pumped both fists. Then he drooped a little. “Sometimes, the ball goes too far.”

“Too far?”

“When I throw the ball, it flies away and hits other people’s balls. Or the floor. Really hard.”

“Good tip, buddy. Thanks. Maybe we should stop for helmets.”

Ben laughed. “Mommy says that, too.”

* * *

BEN WAS AIMING in the wrong direction, so Owen sprang to catch the ball. Fortunately, his boy always missed to the left, so he’d moved them to the last lane on the end. So far, Ben’s throws hadn’t been strong enough to bust out the wall.

“You’re good at catching,” Ben said. “I hit Mommy in the head once. She didn’t even cry.”

“I might have.” Owen could imagine Lilah pretending everything was okay. “These balls are heavy and fast.”

“If I practice, they’ll go toward the little pins,” Ben said. “Mommy knows things like that.”

“Mommy’s pretty smart.”

“Smartest ever.” Ben threw one fist in the air.

His four-year-old pride got to Owen. The little boy clearly considered his mom heroic, and his attachment to her touched Owen. He had to make sure Lilah didn’t change her mind about coming to Tennessee because how could he tear these two apart?

“Ben, would you like to visit me at my house?”

“All by myself?” Anxiety pinched his small nose. “Like today?”

“No. Your mom would come with you.”

The little boy tossed another ball that veered unexpectedly to the right, but landed in a chair without injuring anyone.

“Do you have toys?” Ben scrambled over a bench to grab the ball back and tried again. It went straight this time and didn’t gouge a hole in the floor, despite landing with a heavy thud.

“We could take your toys,” Owen said. “And maybe pick up a few more for you to play with while you’re there.”

“You got those chickens and goats, too?”

“And cows. They’re fun to hang out with. But you can only visit the animals when an adult is with you.”

“Adults are big people.”

“And a lot of them live near my house. My mom. My sister and one of my brothers. His name is Chad, and he can play football with you.”

“Football?” Ben’s eyes gleamed as he whispered the word. He looked so happy, he didn’t have to say what he was thinking; but then he looked down, clenching his hands together.

“Do you play football, Ben?”

“Mommy doesn’t let me.”

Owen found it hard to imagine how Lilah could risk her life with Duckpins, and be afraid Ben might get hurt at football.

“If you come visit me with your mom, I can talk to her about football.”

“Football,” Ben said in another reverent whisper.

There it was. The key to Ben’s heart.

Owen scooped the next ball off the return and sent it down the lane, but he wasn’t a whole lot better at Duckpins than his boy, and the ball slid off into the gutter. Ben, clearly a fighter, waited no time to make his next competitive throw. Three more tries, and they’d both managed to head a ball and their scores in the right direction.

“Own, can we have a hot dog to celebrate?”

“A hot dog?”

“They’d make us bowl better. I know.”

He looked so wise, Owen laughed and gave in. Maybe not the most nutritious lunch, but a celebration indeed. The Duckpins kitchen made great hot dogs.

After they ate, they headed to the day care Ben usually attended while his mom worked. The little boy seemed more comfortable with Owen. He said he wanted to introduce him to everyone, and Owen was even more eager to meet the people who’d be caring for his son during working hours when he was back here with Lilah. Because Owen had to face facts. Ben would spend substantial parts of his life back here with Lilah.

They parked in front of a small Federal-style house, but Owen had to ring a doorbell before a woman in a dark blue dress came to let them in. Smiling at Ben, she held the door.

“Ms. Bantry mentioned you’d be dropping by,” she said. “Ben, will you introduce me to your friend?”

“This is Own. He knows my mommy. Own, this lady is in charge of my school.”

“Thanks, little buddy.” She planted her hands on Ben’s shoulders. “I’m Tina Matthews. I run the day care. You’d like to see Ben’s class?”

“Owen Gage.” He shook the woman’s hand. “If you don’t mind.”

“Ms. Bantry explained.” She started down the hall, pulling a set of keys from her pocket. “This house belonged to my great-grandparents. My mother started a school here when I was a child. Sort of homeschooling to an extreme. She had small classes, from K to eighth grade. You know, restrictions and rules are tighter than they used to be, and we’ve had an influx of families with young children, so I reorganized several years ago and turned the school into a day-care center.”

Each room had a half wall of plaster and a half wall of glass, giving a view into the classroom. Lilah would have been drawn to that openness.

“You’ve no doubt noticed Ben has a wide vocabulary for his age.”

“I didn’t actually know that,” Owen said.

“He’s extremely intelligent. This room is his class.” She opened the door. “The children have gone outside to play. You can go out to see them if you want, Ben.”

“You won’t leave, Own?”

“Not without you, buddy.” He zipped Ben’s coat all the way up and tugged his knit cap over his ears.

Grinning, the boy shot through the door at the back of the classroom. Owen undid his own coat.

“Thank you for seeing me, Tina.”

“Not a problem. I understand a parent wants to be sure of his son’s care. Let me tell you about him. Ben can handle some books for young readers. He writes his own name and some basic words. He’s learning addition.”

Owen looked at her. “At four?”

“Nearly five, but we don’t push him. We offer him the opportunity to learn at his own pace.”

“He’s pretty amazing.” The surge of pride surprised him, as if he’d had anything to do with Ben’s bright curiosity. Genetically, yes, but so far, Ben was a product of Lilah’s nurturing.

“He’s a lovable child, and he’s eager to learn. I hope you’ll be able to find a similar type of school for him when he visits your home.”

“So do I.” But he was doubtful. His brother had just dragged the town’s council into the current century long enough to squeeze permission to build a medical clinic. A new day care? Probably not, and he’d never heard of anything this progressive in Bliss.

His conviction to keep Ben in Tennessee wavered. He didn’t want his son to have an inferior education just so they could be together.

* * *

LILAH HAD SPENT most of the day trying to pretend she wasn’t worried Owen would run away with Ben just to make her suffer through an equal amount of time without him. She came home early, hoping they would, as well.

No such luck.

After she wandered through the empty rooms of her home for an hour, she started Ben’s favorite spaghetti sauce for dinner. It was Owen’s favorite, too, but she wouldn’t be admitting she remembered that.

The second they opened the front door, she heard Ben’s exaggerated sniffing.

“Spaghetti,” he said, then, “No, Own. Let me go.”

Her pulse beat a little faster, but she refused to rush out to see what was going on. Fear for her son was part of loving him. Maybe it wouldn’t have been if she’d had a different childhood, but she couldn’t help being the mom her life had made her. She knew all too well how easily a child could get hurt, despite a careful parent’s best intentions. But she didn’t want Ben to learn her kind of fear.

“Can I help you with your coat first?” she heard Owen ask her son.

Lilah went to the hall in time to see Owen on his knees, peeling Ben out of his coat and mitts and hat. He barely got the coat off before Ben hurtled toward the kitchen, brandishing a thick piece of drawing paper.

“Mommy, this is my painting. Miss Katie put it on the wall, but she took it off so Owen could help me bring it home.”

Lilah swung Ben onto her hip and took the paper from him. Ben had drawn the two of them in front of their house. The house had big windows, like wide, happy eyes. She and Ben were both smiling stick figures with clothing.

The psychologist who’d cared for her would have described it as a happy drawing by a well-adjusted child. Lilah smiled to herself as she looked it over, until she noticed the large brown long-haired dog with huge eyes and sharp teeth.

“A pup,” she said. Ben believed if he kept inserting a dog into his life, she’d give in and let him have one.

“He’s hungry.” Ben tapped the paper twice as Lilah hugged him, walking toward the kitchen. “I would feed him,” he said. “All by myself.”

She didn’t look back at Owen. She didn’t want him to see how the day had unsettled her.

“Your pretend dog can sit at the table with us.” She kissed the top of Ben’s head, breathing in his scent because she’d been starved for the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the feel of his wriggling body in her arms. She was almost tempted to give in on the dog front.

Anything to make sure he loved her best.

She wasn’t going to be good at sharing her son. Down the hall, the closet door closed. Owen finally followed them into the kitchen, brushing his own hair with both hands. The static made his longish curls both stand up and cling to his face.

“He really wants a dog,” he said.

“For a long time.” She cuddled Ben, who stopped struggling and folded his arms between his body and hers, and buried his head beneath her chin. He always leaned into her like that. She wanted to hug him even harder.

“Own’s eating with us?”

“I think so.” Owen obviously hadn’t managed to tell Ben he was his father today.

“I’d like to,” Owen said, and his face, pleading despite the fact he had the whip hand, startled Lilah with his resemblance to her son. “Spaghetti. Smells amazing, Lilah.”

“It’s Ben’s favorite,” she said, defensive because she still didn’t want him to know she’d remembered.

“Can we help you with anything?” Owen asked.

She wanted to just sit and hold her son. Instead, she set him down and went back to the kitchen. “Nothing left to do,” she said. “I’ve set the table and made the salad and bread. We’re ready to eat. You and Ben should wash up.”

“Aww, Mom.” But Ben looked at Owen and led the way to the bathroom. Their splashing and laughter unsettled Lilah even more. Her boy had missed having a man in his life. He was already bonding with Owen, and she dreaded the day she’d have to leave them together at the airport, or even just at Owen’s car, and come home without her son for days or weeks.

The thought sent her back to the kitchen, where she added pasta to the pot of boiling water on the stove. She poured ice water in glasses, set the pitcher in the center of the table and tried to look self-assured.

“You didn’t dry those hands,” Owen was saying as he danced Ben back into the kitchen with a towel. He drew Ben to the sink and dried his little fingers and dripping-wet palms.

“Thanks.” Ben scrambled into his seat at the table.

Lilah made his salad plate and added a slice of garlic bread and served it to him. To her surprise, Owen dished out salad for her and put some on his own plate, and then set them both on the table.

“The pasta isn’t ready yet,” she said as he peered into the pot of boiling water.

He came back to join them at the table. Ben waited until Owen lifted his fork. They chewed as one man. Lilah closed her eyes, not wanting to see them together.

“You like me, Own.”

Lilah jerked in her chair at the head of the table. He’d also inherited his father’s habit of speaking bluntly.

“I do like you, Ben. You know why?”

Ben had created the most natural opening for Owen to tell him about himself. Lilah dropped her fork and slid her hands beneath the table, twisting them together.

“Because I’m lovable.” Ben gripped his fork like a spear. “Right, Mom?”

“Extremely right,” she said, her insides shattering. Her son was about to gain a second loyalty that would last a lifetime.

“You are lovable,” Owen said, “but I’d care for you, no matter what, because you’re my little boy.”

The fork stopped in midair, pointing across the table at Owen’s face. “Huh?”

Owen’s confidence didn’t waver. It had to be an act, but it was convincing. He looked happy, not anxious about how Ben was going to react. She felt sick.

“You are my son,” Owen said. “I’m your dad.”

“I don’t have a daddy. Mommy says so.”

Owen still didn’t falter. He gazed at Ben’s face with a loving expression of reassurance. “Just this once your mom made a mistake. I am your dad, and I always will be.”

“But I’m a big boy now. I didn’t see you when I was a baby.”

Lilah’s eyes burned as her son seemed to panic. She reached for his hand, trying to make it seem as if this situation only rated a little bit of comfort, and she wasn’t scared. She couldn’t help feeling guilty.

She’d love to believe she hadn’t set up this well of pain for her child the moment Owen walked away from rehab.

“Where’s he been, Mommy?”

“Owen’s been at his house. He didn’t know about you.”

“If I had known, I would have been with you,” Owen said, and Lilah’s guilt increased.

She hadn’t been wrong. She refused to consider the possibility. Owen reached for Ben’s hand, but Ben pulled away from both of them. He threaded his fingers together in his lap, looking down.

“We had a nice time today, didn’t we?” Owen asked.

Ben nodded, looking up with suspicion in the ice-blue eyes he’d inherited from his father. Owen had told her once that his father and all his siblings shared the same color.

“Well, we’ll get to have fun together from now on. We’ll have good times and bad times, but we’ll learn more about each other with every day that passes, and I can’t wait, Ben.”

“Do I have to call you Daddy?”

Lilah bit her lower lip and leaned forward. Trying to save her son, she’d given him grief and confusion. And she still didn’t know if Owen was capable of being a good father to Ben. “I thought you wanted a daddy like your friends,” she said.

“How do I know he’s my daddy?”

“I can help you with that.” Owen pulled two small photos out of his shirt pocket, along with the gift tag her parents’ assistant had draped around the neck of every wine bottle he’d sent to the gallery’s artists. Owen set down the tag, folded to display only Ben’s photo. Beside it, he lined up two pictures of himself, one at a beach, holding up a bright yellow bucket, the other of him perched on a dirty white picket fence, his face more solemn. “Daddies and sons sometimes look alike,” Owen said. “Those two pictures are me when I was your age, and you and I look almost exactly the same.”

Ben looked even more confused. He turned toward Lilah. “I don’t get it, Mommy.”

“You know when people say I look like my mother?”

“Yeah.”

“Owen is saying you look like him, and you really do.”

“But I don’t want to call him Daddy. I’ll call him his name. Own.”

“Sounds perfect,” Owen said, sounding relieved. He must have thought Ben didn’t want a dad, or if he did, he didn’t want this stranger who’d shown up on his doorstep.

“We’re going to Tennessee,” Lilah said, startling herself, as well as Owen and Ben.

“That place where Own lives?”

She nodded. “He wants you to meet his family because they’re also your family. I want to go with you because I’ll miss you too much if you go on your own.”

Water bubbled over the pasta saucepan to sizzle on the stovetop. Lilah sprang to her feet. “I may have to start this over.”

“It’ll be fine.” Owen appeared beside her. “Looks good.”

She had a feeling he was thanking her for making this sojourn in Tennessee look like her idea. She didn’t want his thanks. She looped a piece of pasta on a fork and tasted. “It is good. Ready, Ben?”

“I’m done with my salad.”

Owen collected the salad plates from the table and took them to the sink. He picked up the top plate on a stack of three for the pasta. His frozen gaze had melted a little when he looked into hers.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Fighting you is pointless.” She couldn’t pretend she’d been wrong, and if she let him see she had any awareness she’d cheated him of these years with Ben, he’d grab back all the time he could. “We’re not moving to Tennessee.”

Owen glanced at Ben, but answered with a smile. “We’ll work out a custody schedule. I don’t mind flying to pick him up and bring him back.”

She resented him all over again for acting as if he were being perfectly amenable. “You are not human.”

He laughed, but the sound lifted all the hairs on her arms, while Ben watched them, his mouth open.

“You might have a point,” Owen said in a tone only she could hear. “And I still can’t believe you took Ben from me. But I’m going to make sure I make things different for him.”

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