The Return of Cord Navarro

“I just want you to know,” Elizabeth continued. “I’m sure you’ve heard this already-but I’m so glad it’s you up there. Cord, there’s no doubt? You’re sure it’s my grandson you’re tracking?”

He told her he had no doubt, then waited for what else she needed to say. Last Christmas when he’d come by to pick up Matt, he’d felt awkward being in the same room with Shannon’s parents while Matt unwrapped his presents. Christmas was family time and he wasn’t part of their family anymore. Since the divorce, he’d kept his contact with Matt’s grandparents to a minimum, assuming that was what they wanted.

Tonight none of that mattered.

“I know I shouldn’t allow myself to think about everything that can go wrong,” Elizabeth was saying. “Everyone tells me to think positive. And I do-but…”

He didn’t need further explanation. Wasn’t his own mind full of thoughts of what might happen if Matt had an accident or the poachers mistook his son for some animal? “Elizabeth, just before it got dark, Shannon and I placed our hands over the mark Matt made sleeping last night. What I’ve seen this afternoon convinces me he’s in good shape physically.” Except that he’s limping. “We’ll find him.” If a bullet doesn’t first.

“You promise me?”

Not once in his career had he allowed himself to be backed into making a commitment beyond his control. But it was different this time. Elizabeth was asking her former son-in-law, the man who’d gotten her teenage daughter pregnant, to take responsibility for the result of that pregnancy in a way far more important than any that had gone before.

“I promise,” he said when he knew he might not be able to make good on his words.

“Oh…Cord? It helps to hear you say that. I can’t tell you how much.”

He didn’t have to be told; he heard it in her voice. Careful to keep emotion out of his voice, he said that from what he’d been able to tell, Matt wasn’t frightened. Lost but not scared. “You should be proud of him. I am. A lot of children in his position frighten themselves. Their fear works against them.”

“If he’s not afraid, it’s because of what you’ve taught him.”

I haven’t taught him enough. “I hope so,” he told her honestly. In the few minutes they’d been talking, her voice had lost its taut tone. I’m sorry, he wanted to tell her. Sorry I robbed your daughter of the last of her girlhood and made her a woman too soon. Sorry I didn’t turn out to be what she needed.

“Cord? Just bring him back to me, please. Holding him is the only thing I want in life. Shannon, too-I’m sure of that.”

The only thing she wants in life. Of course. Nothing else mattered.

In the half hour since they’d pulled out of each other’s arms, he had busied himself with tending to their boots and taking mental pictures of their surroundings in an effort to determine where Matt was most likely to be. He’d told Shannon what he was doing because he knew she needed to hear that, but he’d barely been able to put the words together. Too much energy bad gone into trying to make his body forget what holding her had done to his self-control. She’d wanted and needed the embrace as much as he did; he’d never doubt that. They’d been like birds about to take flight, testing the wind, eager for that incredible sense of freedom. But they’d both seen the danger in time.

He acknowledged what remained of his need for her and again cast it off. That time in each other’s arms had been insanity, the result of too much tension and isolation.

Maybe not insanity. Maybe echoes of something they’d once had but had died long ago.

An ache behind his right temple served as the distraction he needed. This wasn’t the time for letting the past overtake him. He had to concentrate on his surroundings, and learn who might be sharing it with them.

And when he had that information, he would have to tell Shannon. Somehow.

Shannon could only guess at Cord’s reaction to what her mother had said to him. Obviously something had hit a nerve with him. Nothing else would have made him walk out into the dark until, if it hadn’t been for the moon, he would have disappeared completely.

Earlier tonight she hadn’t been able to look at him without remembering the seemingly endless dance of their lovemaking, wanting back what had brought them together all those years ago. She’d always accepted his silence in bed. What had she needed with words back then when his body spoke for him? Only, time and wisdom and experience had taught her that a body wasn’t enough. The holes in him, his incomplete heart, his inability to see into her and understand that she needed more than sex-needed compassion and emotional honesty, those were the things that had torn them apart. And what had taken him from her side tonight.

Unmindful of her bare feet, she stood and started toward him. She wasn’t sure why, just that she sensed that something precious was in danger of fading into the night and if she didn’t reach out for it, she might spend the rest of her life regretting it. Talking about Summer, learning that he carried their daughter’s picture, had caused some of her melancholy. As for the rest-She tried to walk silently the way Cord had done several times today when observing some wild creature. It seemed to her that she didn’t make any sound, but if Cord could sense the presence of fox kits hidden beneath the ground, surely he sensed her.

Still, he didn’t turn. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe… Knowing she might be risking a return to what bad been so hard to break free from earlier, she touched his back. He didn’t move and yet she sensed something change deep within him. “My mother said something that’s bothering you, didn’t she? I wish you’d talk to me about it,” she whispered. There was just the two of them in this world of night and wilderness sounds. Just this man who had embraced and been embraced by that wilderness.

He remained still, not speaking for so long that she began to break inside. Then, “She said that having Matt back is the only thing she wants in life. You, too.”

Her mother’s words hit her with the force of a blow. They must have done the same to Cord, and that’s why he’d let darkness absorb him. “It’s the truth.”

“I know.”

“But… didn’t you expect that from her?”

Through her fingers, she felt him draw in a deep breath. “I didn’t expect her to be that honest with me.”

Why? Oh, Cord, what does it feel like to be set apart from others this way? “My mother believes in keeping her opinions to herself, not that I have to tell you that. It took this for her to break through all those polite layers.”

She thought that might turn him around, but he continued to stare off at nothing. Only the night wasn’t nothing for him. He knew which creatures embraced it, who hunted and who was hunted. Lost in thoughts of his place in a mountain night, she ran his shirt fabric between her fingers. He shifted his weight so that he now angled himself toward her slightly. “Why did you come back here?” he asked.

“To Summit County?” Is this what we’re going to talk about? Decisions from the past?

“You were so eager to leave it. When we got married, you told me you needed to move away so you could get an education and make use of it.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, she winced. After everything they’d shared in the past few days, she didn’t want to skirt around his question. “I don’t know why I returned. At least, I didn’t know what I was going to do when I packed my bags and… and-”

“When you walked out of the apartment we were living in.”

We? He’d hardly ever been there. Although she now felt petty saying it, she reminded him that she’d paid the utilities and rent before leaving, even stocked the refrigerator for him.

“I never spent another night in it.”

She hadn’t known that. “Why not?”

“The memories.”

Memories. “I should have-I didn’t know how to handle any of that.”

He nodded. “Neither did I.”

“Oh. Oh.”

He turned fully around, presenting himself to her, taking over everything. “Did your parents want you to live near them?”

“They…had nothing to do with my decision.” She didn’t dare acknowledge his gaze; she might forget what she