The Return of Cord Navarro

so -”

“Mommy?”

Matt hadn’t called her “Mommy” since he’d started school. Wise in the way of growing boys, she’d learned to respond to a casual “Mom.” Now he was taking her back to when a little boy needed his mother’s loving reassurance.

That’s what she’d think about-not the bullets that had nearly ended his life.

“What, honey?”

“You’ve been looking a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She ran her hand over his small, wiry shoulders, down his straight back. His shirt was torn and filthy. The warmth beneath the ruined fabric made it possible for her heart to go on beating.

“Just you and Dad?”

“Yes.”

Matt lifted his head off his father’s chest to look at her. His face was wind-chapped and sunburned, and she wasn’t sure any shampoo would repair the damage to his hair. He had a few mosquito bites and two parallel scratches near his right eye.

This wasn’t the ten-year-old boy she’d been going to make pizza for a few days ago. Dirt and tangled hair and chapped skin made him look older.

Only, it wasn’t the outward signs of his ordeal that had matured him. His eyes-Cord’s dark eyes-were different somehow. Wiser. Experienced.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered when he did nothing except stare at her with those newly mature eyes that so reminded her of the man she’d made love to last night. “So very proud.”

“You aren’t going to punish me?”

“No. Oh, no. Did you think I would?”

Instead of answering, Matt planted his hands on his father’s chest and pushed back just enough so he could look into Cord’s eyes. The very forest seemed to pause, almost stop its rhythm. From where she knelt, she was privy to the emotion going through her son and understood it in a way she’d seldom understood anything else. He might have called her “Mommy” and asked if she was going to punish him, but it was his father’s reaction he sought and needed. She had no will or strength to fight her tears; Matt would simply have to see them. If he was as wise as she now believed, he’d understand that her tears traced the depth of her love for him.

Cord’s hands were at Matt’s waist; maybe Matt could feel something intangible and vital through that silent contact, and maybe Matt hadn’t stopped staring at his father because he didn’t know enough.

Please, Cord. Say something.

“Just you and Mom?” Matt’s voice was still that of a little boy’s. “There’s no search and rescue?”

“No.”

She thought Matt would ask why not. He simply nodded. “You followed my tracks?”

“Your dad did, yes.”

“All-I didn’t do so good. I got pretty lost.”

Cord didn’t speak, didn’t move. His eyes still locked with his father’s, Matt slowly pulled free and pushed himself to his feet. He glanced down at his dirty boots. “Mom? I’m sorry I scared you.”

A thousand words rolled through her, but she didn’t try to sort through them. She stood and held out her hands. Cord, please! Say something!

“It’s all right,” she managed as Matt buried himself against her. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

He felt wonderful! A dirty, tired bundle of bone and muscle now pressed against her. His arms slid around her waist; she gripped his shoulders, buried her face in his matted hair, and wondered how much longer she would be able to look down at him.

Matt, alive and well.

Matt, not a victim of some hunter’s gun.

Matt, given back to her by Cord.

Cord, who now stood a few feet away looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his body.

Talk to him, Cord. Tell him you love him.

Cord spun and stalked away from them. She nearly screamed at him before she spotted what had caught his attention. Standing at the edge of a bushy thicket were four men, all of them armed with rifles. Cord! No, don’t! They might-

He couldn’t hear her silent warning, and even if he had, his long, purposeful stride told her he was beyond listening. Without saying a word, he walked up to them and grabbed the rifle from one of the men before slamming it to the ground.

“Damn you! Damn you! You almost -”

The rifleless man turned toward one of his companions, a shorter man in a faded red-and-white checked shirt and a face like sun-dried leather. “Chuck! You said it was an elk!”

“That ‘elk’ was my son.” Cord’s strong fingers had become fists. He kept them at his side, just barely. “You’re hunting out of season, shooting at anything that moves. If you’d been a decent shot…” Although close to a hundred feet separated her and Matt from the others, she saw Cord shudder. He concentrated on the man with the checkered shirt. “Chuck?” he asked. “Chuck Markham?”

“Yeah?” To her horror, instead of lowering his rifle, the way the other two men were doing, Chuck kept it firm and steady in his arms-aimed at Cord’s chest. “What of it?”

“Nothing matters to you except getting what you want, does it?” Cord stalked closer.

“What’s it to you? Your kid’s safe, isn’t he?”

What’s it to you? If she hadn’t been so focused on the weapon and her ex-husband, she might have flung the words at the horrible man.

“You almost killed him.” Cord’s voice was either without emotion or so laden that he could barely get the words out; she didn’t know which. “Damn it, you could have killed my son.”

“Look.” Shifting the rifle slightly but not lowering it, Chuck leaned closer to Cord. “There’s elk all over here. I’ve been following their signs for days. How the hell was I supposed to know there was a kid out here?”

If Chuck expected an answer from Cord, he didn’t get it. Cord just continued to stare at the hunter-poacher- whatever he was. As had happened so many times during their days and nights together, his surroundings seemed to lap at him, take over until she wasn’t sure there was anything civilized left in him.

“Look,” Chuck repeated. “It wasn’t me who shot at him anyway. You want to blame someone, blame Owen.”

The man Cord had taken the rifle from spun toward Chuck. “Wait a minute,” he spluttered. “You’re the one who got us here. You planned this whole damn thing. I’m not-”

Shannon couldn’t concentrate on the balding man’s words. What did it matter who was responsible for the poachers’-that’s what they were, all right-being here? The bottom line was, their greed had nearly cost her son his life. With a start, she realized that all four men were talking at once. Cord’s silence stood in sharp contrast to the babble of words. Someone, the oldest of the group she guessed, was offering Cord an obscene amount of money in exchange for a promise not to say anything to the authorities. Owen started toward her and Matt, but Cord stopped him with a cold stare. Neither Cord nor Chuck had altered their defensive stances. Nor had Chuck lowered his weapon.

“Shut up, Elliott!” Chuck ordered. “You don’t get it, do you? I know him.” He jabbed the rifle at Cord. “Know his reputation, anyway. He’s the next thing to the law, works with them all the time. There’s no way he’ll take your money and keep his mouth shut.”

She’d once seen a massive dog that had been cornered by several men after it had killed a couple of lambs. The dog had been backed into a corner, but she hadn’t for a second believed it was giving up. When one of the men made the mistake of getting too close, the dog had lunged at him. If the others hadn’t pulled the dog off its victim, the man would have had his throat torn out.

Chuck reminded her of that dog.

“Cord,” she warned, realizing too late that she shouldn’t try to distract him from the poacher.

Chuck acknowledged her with a look, the contact lasting less than a second but leaving her with the impression that no sense of humanity, of compassion, of regret, even of relief, existed in the man. She waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, his silence was as telling as the dog’s growls had been.