“It’s my life.”
“They’ll be coming for you.”
“Let ’em try.”
She blew out an exasperated breath. Had talking to Kieran always been like talking to a wall of steel? She squared her shoulders. “If you want my help, you’re going to have to open up a little more.”
“I think you’re the one who needs to open up.”
Her belly flip-flopped and she shot a glance at Michael still sleeping on the love seat. Had Kieran figured it out?
“I’m an open book. What do you want to know about your life?”
“We knew each other in high school.”
Hadn’t they already gone over this? Her pounding heart shifted into a lower gear and she could breathe again. “Yes, but we didn’t date until later. Like I said before, we’d both come back to Coral Cove-I was going into nursing school and you’d just finished at the language institute and had enlisted with the Green Berets.”
“But that wasn’t my first mission, the one where I was captured.”
“No. We were together through a few of your missions.”
As they chatted, Kieran’s body seemed to relax, one muscle group at a time, until he sank into a chair, his back to the window and the darkening sky. His lean frame, thinner than she’d remembered, slumped against the cushions of the chair.
“Do you recall more now that you’re here in Coral Cove? In this house?”
He steepled his fingers and peered at her over the top of the juncture. “I do. The memories come slowly. That’s why I made my way back here after I escaped…from the hospital. I wanted to remember slowly, gradually.”
“I want to help you remember.”
Kieran seemed to sink farther into the chair, the dusk creeping over his shoulder, masking his face.
“You have your own problems right now. You don’t need me to burden you with more.”
His return had already constituted a problem for her. Something close to anger percolated in her belly. Then she pressed a hand against her stomach. She never in a million years thought she’d consider the return of Kieran- her fiance, her love, the father of her child-a problem.
She eyed the dark man across from her, his face still, unreadable. If he wouldn’t stay for her help, for her, would he stay for his son?
Flinging her hands in front of her, she tried to dissipate the heavy air between them. “It wouldn’t be a burden, Kieran. You’re halfway to remembering almost everything…halfway to knowing everything about your life.”
“I can’t pick up where we left off.”
His words twisted the knife in her heart, the knife he’d plunged there when he didn’t recognize her on the beach. At this point, would he even want to know he’s a father?
“I’m not expecting us to pick up where we left off, Kieran. It’s been over four years. You’ve changed. I’ve changed.”
“You’ve moved on with your life. You thought I was dead.”
She nodded, afraid to blink and dislodge the tears burning behind her lids. In truth, she hadn’t moved on with her life. She lived and breathed Kieran every day through his son. She hadn’t slept with another man in the entire time after Kieran’s disappearance. She could hardly drag herself out on a date.
“We all thought you were dead. I-I’m relieved and so happy that you survived.”
His lips twisted. “Did I?”
“You’re alive.”
“I am.” He shifted in the chair as if to remind himself. “And you have your whole life ahead of you with your son. Are you married? Divorced?”
“No.”
Kieran’s hands curled around the arms of the chair. “You never married Michael’s father?”
“No.”
His body stiffened, the relaxed slouch replaced by planes and angles. “Where is he, Michael’s father?”
“Don’t you know, Kieran?”
“No.” He shot to the edge of his seat, his muscles coiled and ready for flight.
“He’s sitting across from me. You’re Michael’s father.”
Chapter Four
Her words sucked the air out of Kieran’s lungs. He’d seen it coming at him like a runaway train, at first far away on the horizon, a faint light, a wisp of a dream. Then as the reality drew closer and closer, he’d tried to dodge it until he decided to turn and face it head-on.
He sipped in a short breath to test the pain. He gulped in another. He slipped a glance at his…son, now stirring from the makeshift bed where Kieran had placed him with a gentleness he could’ve sworn he’d forgotten. A gentleness borne from the fact that the boy belonged to her…and now him.
“I’m sorry, Kieran. I didn’t mean to break it to you like that.”
He trained his eye on Devon, her blond hair gathering the light from the single lamp. Her eyes sparkled with tears. She’d tried to hide her emotion from him all day, but he could see that his reappearance had thrown her into turmoil.
“Sorry?”
“Mommy?” Michael rolled from the love seat and padded toward Devon on bare feet. He crawled into the chair next to her and stared at Kieran.
His son.
Did the boy fear him? He had every right to fear him-a stranger more scarred on the inside than the outside.
“Are you hungry, Michael?” Devon ruffled her son’s dark hair, so like his own.
He’d seen the resemblance almost immediately. How could he not? He’d pushed it away, denied it, almost hoped Devon would lie to him and send him on his way.
But Devon didn’t lie. He knew that about her. He could always trust Devon.
And now? Could he trust her to do the right thing for her son and keep him away from a damaged man so filled with rage he had no room for love? A man whose civility had been ripped out of him, tortured out of him?
“Yeah, I’m hungry.”
She spread her hands. “I suppose Colin didn’t leave any food in the house, and I don’t think it would be edible after a month, anyway.”
Kieran cleared his throat. “You don’t have a car.”
“Do you?”
He shook his head. You needed a credit card to rent a car, and all he had were a few pieces of ID from the army. You also needed your full vision.
“How’d you get to Coral Cove?”
“Planes, buses.” He held up his thumb. “Car.”
“What have you been eating? Because I know Columbella doesn’t have any electricity or gas.”
“Fruit, beef jerky, energy bars.” He shrugged. “It’s a feast compared to what I’m used to.”
The air between them sizzled with unasked questions and unspoken words, but Michael’s intelligent dark eyes switched from his face to his mother’s while they talked.
The boy didn’t need any more traumas.
Devon dragged her cell phone out of her pocket and waved it. “We’ll call for pizza. I already have the number for Vinnie’s on speed dial.”
“Does pizza sound good to you, Michael?” Hunching forward, Kieran gripped his knees.
Michael snuggled in close to Devon’s body but nodded his head.
