Almost a Family Read online

  “Sure,” Bailey said stiffly.

  “And I don’t want to be called Junior. A counselor told me I could have my name legally changed to Chad Green.”

  Another pause, and he and Ginny shared another glance. The kid sounded like an eight-year-old going on sixteen. Bailey conceded. “Okay, we’ll talk about the name change later.”

  “So what’s this place like, this Columbus, Ohio?” Chad’s tone sounded as if he were already decidedly unimpressed with his destination.

  Bailey shrugged, immensely relieved to be on more neutral ground. “It’s flat, and big, and busy, not unlike here.”

  “A friend of mine used to live there and said he froze his ass off.”

  Bailey frowned. “Do you always talk like that?”

  “It’s a free country���”

  “I know,” Bailey cut in. “But watch your language.”

  Chad gave a dismissive wave and turned back to the table. “I changed my mind���I don’t want to live with you.”

  Bailey tamped down his anger. “You’re not going to live with me, you’re going to live with Ginny.”

  At last he was rewarded with Chad’s undivided attention as the boy sorted the words in his head. He snorted. “You mean you guys are divorced?”

  Regret washed over Bailey���he didn’t dare look at Ginny because he knew he’d find no remorse there. “That’s right.”

  The boy threw up his arms in resignation. “Great. How many half and step brothers and sisters do I have?”

  “None,” Ginny said.

  “But I have stepparents, right?”

  “No,” Bailey said.

  Their son frowned, the wind taken from his sails. “When did you get divorced?”

  Bailey exhaled a long, noisy breath. “A few months after you were kidnapped.”

  “No more kid, no more marriage?” Chad hooted. “What was I, an accident or something?” One look at Ginny’s face, and his smirk disappeared. “You’re kidding���I was an accident?”

  “Unplanned,” Ginny said quickly, “but we wanted you very much.”

  “Oh, right,” Chad declared haughtily. “You were probably glad I was kidnapped! You probably left me alone on purpose!”

  “No,” Ginny whispered, shaking her head. “We looked everywhere���”

  “That’s enough,” Bailey said, his voice low and just short of threatening. He buried his hand in his hair and bit back a curse. “You’re my kid all right. I’d have known it if you didn’t look like me because you don’t know when to keep your mouth shut.”

  “Bailey,” Ginny began, but he held his hand up to silence her.

  “From the minute we arrived, you’ve been nothing but rude, disrespectful, and downright mean.”

  “Don’t like me, huh?” Chad’s voice had lost some of its bravado. “Well, maybe I don’t like you either, mister.”

  When he noticed moisture gathering around the corners of the boy’s dark eyes, Bailey experienced his first glimmer of hope that things might work out someday, somehow. He reached over to squeeze Chad’s shoulder, and the boy turned his head, but didn’t pull away. Another good sign.

  “My daddy always told me it was a shame you couldn’t pick your relatives like you pick your friends.” Chad’s hooded gaze darted back to him and Bailey shrugged. “But you can’t, so I guess we’re stuck with each other.”

  His son pondered the words a few seconds, then asked, “Are you the only family I got?”

  Bailey reluctantly withdrew his hand, shaking his head. “An aunt, uncle, and six-year-old cousin in Ohio���”

  “A boy cousin?”

  “Jean Ann’s a girl, but she’s no sissy. Throws a baseball so hard it’ll burn your hand through a glove.”

  Chad seemed mildly impressed. “Who are those old people who came with you?”

  “They’re my parents,” Ginny said softly, stepping forward. “Your only grandparents, and they’re dying to meet you.” She smiled and wiped at her lingering tears with the heel of her hand.

  Bailey left and returned a few minutes later with Edward and Peg. Chad shuffled over to them with little enthusiasm, but surprised Bailey by shaking hands with Edward and allowing Peg to give him a hug. As he watched his son nod and answer questions, pride filled him and he struggled a few seconds with his own emotions. He wondered if his expression matched Ginny’s.

  She positively glowed. Her eyes never left Chad, soaking him up like a thirsty sponge. The top of his dark head nearly reached her shoulder. At times her fingers hovered just above his skin, as if she wanted to touch him, but didn’t dare. She looked as tentative around Chad as Bailey felt around her.

  Taking advantage of her distraction, he allowed his gaze to roam over her figure. He’d always loved her slender neck, and the topknot she wore gave him a tantalizing view. The fabric of the dress she wore clung softly to her shoulders and slight curves. He remembered the skin on her stomach being satiny smooth���flat muscle before the baby, stretched during the pregnancy, then softness afterward on the way back to muscle tone���his fingers had been explicably drawn to her abdomen at every stage. Her legs were long, her calves well defined, narrowing to slender ankles.

  Desire welled within him. The sexual aspect of their relationship had never been lacking���Ginny had been a warm, enthusiastic lover, at times leaving him too tired for his physically demanding job. He remembered the ribbing he’d taken at work on days he’d moved with less energy than usual.

  His prevailing memory of their lovemaking was her whispering his name in urgency. Every time he’d lain with a woman since his divorce, he’d imagined Ginny’s satisfied gasp… Bailey… oh, Bailey…

  “Bailey,” Ginny said, snapping him out of his reverie. She volunteered her first genuine smile since their reunion and motioned him to the table where the four of them were pulling up chairs. “Join us.”

  As he walked toward them, Bailey locked his gaze on Chad and Ginny. The last eight years seemed to disintegrate. Here was his family, his son and wife, the two people he loved most in the world. Guilt slammed into him with the force of an anvil.

  He’d failed miserably at his husbandly duties. How well would he handle parenthood?

  *

  Virginia had never experienced such a deluge of emotions in such a short time span. As an hour slipped by, then two, her pulse finally slowed to just below the dangerous mark, only to leap again when Chad revealed some interesting tidbit about his life. In fidgety, staccato sentences, he admitted that he skateboarded, hung out at the video arcade, and could hit a three-point shot on the basketball court in his school gym. And that he liked animals, hated girls, and tolerated homework. While not exactly warming to his new family gathered around the table, Chad seemed to become less confrontational as the sparse conversation progressed.

  But he avoided all eye contact with her.

  The ceiling, the floor, and every other person at the table seemed worthy of his attention, but not Virginia. His earlier outburst still rang in her ears, but she tried to push it from her mind. And she really didn’t mind his averted eyes, because then she didn’t have to worry that he would discover her secret.

  She was terrified at the thought of taking him home.

  Virginia could scarcely reconcile this belligerent, gangly boy with the baby she’d carried home in her arms so many years earlier. As she watched him move and speak, she felt twinges of happiness and longing, but the fear… the fear dwarfed every other sensation. She kept smiling while her skin prickled, and her blood raced.

  Before this moment, only one other person had ever made her feel so completely overwhelmed���Bailey.

  She lifted her eyes to find her ex-husband engrossed in Chad’s explanation of why the South Eastern Conference was definitely the best college basketball conference in the country. Bailey nodded thoughtfully, his eyes warm and rapt on his son. Then he offered his own argument for Ohio State’s conference, the Big Ten. Bailey sat back in
his chair and splayed his hands, then cracked his knuckles with a bend of his wrists. She’d once hated his noisy habit, but now found it oddly familiar and comforting.

  He had removed the gray sport coat and rolled up the sleeves of his starched dress shirt to reveal impressive, darkly tanned forearms. The calluses on his large hands further attested that he often abandoned his position of crew chief and pitched in to help his men, a revelation that didn’t surprise Virginia at all. She smiled sadly to herself. Bailey had never been afraid of hard work���it had been the more abstract demands of life he’d found too challenging. Like loving her…

  A rap sounded at the door, then Ms. Andrews’s head and shoulders appeared. “Would you like to break for a light meal?” Though not the least bit hungry, Virginia felt immensely grateful for a return to the mundane details of living. The group rose and filed from the room, following the counselor.

  With a pang Virginia noted the identical father-son saunter, originating from the carriage of the same wide shoulders, and the gait of the same long legs. The child was created from the joining of her and Bailey’s bodies, but as she watched them move in near perfect synchronization, she realized that little to none of herself had made it past the dominance of Bailey Kallihan’s genes.

  Bailey and Chad were formed from the same mold���it was she who didn’t belong. Her ex-husband and her son had both voiced their doubts about her ability to be a good mother, and they didn’t even know the extent of her own apprehension. From the recesses of her mind, the thought materialized that perhaps they’d be happier together���without her. Premonition shivered through her, but she shook it off.

  A cold meal in the dining room was a quiet affair, with conversation contributed mostly by Ms. Andrews and Mr. Maybry. As dusk approached, Detective Lance reappeared to announce reporters were still camped outside the building.

  “Chad,” Virginia said across the table. “This is Detective Lance. He was assigned to our case when… from the very beginning.”

  The officer smiled. “Good to finally meet you, young man.”

  Chad acknowledged him with a nod, swallowing the last of his sandwich. “So Lois outsmarted you, huh?”

  She thought she detected a hint of pride in Chad’s voice, and her anger at the woman who’d taken him flared once again.

  Detective Lance glanced from her to Bailey, who was taking his time wiping his tightened mouth with a paper napkin. She nodded for the officer to speak freely.

  “I guess she did, son.”

  “Those other cops wouldn’t tell me what really happened.”

  After another encouraging nod from Virginia, Detective Lance pulled up a chair beside Chad, then opened a brown accordion folder and removed yellowed newspaper articles. “The suspect,” he began to explain in an official-sounding voice, then stopped and removed his hat. When he resumed, he encompassed all of them in his sweeping gaze, and spoke in a softer tone. “Lois Green was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She was an only child, kind of quiet, with no criminal record. She married young and, around eight years ago, became pregnant. Her husband abandoned her when she miscarried.

  “She left Michigan and made her way south, moving from diner to diner as a waitress. She quit a job at a truck stop in Westerville, Ohio, a few days before the kidnapping. We’ll probably never know if she planned the kidnapping ahead of time or made a split-second decision in the grocery store.” He pushed a newspaper account of the story toward Chad, who picked it up and began reading in earnest.

  She remembered the article. The Columbus Dispatch headline read “Infant Boy Stolen from Grocery,” and had created a stir up and down the East Coast. For weeks, volunteers had poured in to search for their missing baby. The article’s accompanying picture showed the face of a young, angst-ridden Bailey tramping through the woods. Virginia had stayed home, feeling helpless as she waited by the phone for a possible ransom demand. But the call never came, and the only tormenting clue had been the discovery of their son’s blanket in a ditch along a busy highway. Lois Green must have discarded it as she drove out of town with her tiny victim, Virginia surmised.

  Chad’s eyes moved rapidly over the story, then sifted through other accounts, recaps, and updates. Long-forgotten memories crashed over Virginia. The inevitable waning public interest, bitter fights with Bailey, separate beds, her leaving, then filing divorce papers. Ironically, on the day their divorce had been final, nearly a year after the abduction, a reporter called for her comment on the rumor that the investigation had been unofficially closed. The next day Virginia began picking up the remnants of her life.

  Chad suddenly pushed the pile of paper back toward the detective. “She was a good mom,” he asserted in a challenging voice, his chin jutted high. “Maybe she made a mistake, but she was a good mom.” At last he looked directly at Virginia. “She must have wanted me really bad to risk getting into trouble.” She saw his unspoken words in narrowed, accusatory eyes. She wanted me, and you didn’t.

  “Chad,” Ms. Andrews cut in, standing up, “why don’t we have one last chat this evening? I’ve got some free time right now, then you’ll need to finish packing.”

  He frowned, but shrugged reluctantly. “Whatever.” He pushed himself away from the table with a heavy sigh, threw the remains of his meal into an industrial-sized waste can, and followed Ms. Andrews out of the room without a backward glance.

  Virginia took a deep breath and made her best effort to appear cheerful. “I suppose we should check into the hotel soon, but I don’t look forward to facing that crowd.”

  “Ms. Catron,” Mr. Maybry said, his face flushing a deep pink. “Ms. Andrews and I assumed you both would want to be as close as possible to Chad tonight, but we weren’t aware of your, um, status, and we have only one guest room available.” He coughed. “However, it is equipped with twin beds, and we can���”

  “That was very thoughtful.” She caught Bailey’s wide-eyed reaction. “We’ll work out something,” she assured the embarrassed man, her insides churning at the mere suggestion of intimacy with her ex-husband.

  “Meanwhile,” Bailey said, “we probably should decide what to do about the press.”

  “Just run ‘em off!” Edward sputtered.

  “But it’s not often we hear of such a happy ending,” Mr. Maybry reminded them, his expression gentle. “The attention might help some other child be reunited with his parents.”

  “You could prepare a statement and your father and I can read it when we leave for the hotel, dear,” her mother offered.

  “Thanks, Mom, but I think this is something Bailey and I need to do.”

  “Together,” he added, meeting her wary look with a conciliatory smile.

  Red flags went up in her mind. Darn him, she fumed. He was so, so… accommodating.

  “How about getting it over with?” he asked, standing and lifting his palms.

  She hesitated a few seconds before rising to her feet. “Okay.”

  He held out his hand for hers. With an audience, she couldn’t refuse such a friendly gesture, which was all it meant anyway. She placed her hand in his, a rush skittering over her as their fingers entwined and their palms met. Her heart raced with the realization this wasn’t the first time they’d held hands that day, but it was the first time she’d participated deliberately and for a reason other than pure fear.

  They walked to the front of the building, preceded by Mr. Maybry and flanked by Detective Lance and her parents. As soon as the doors opened, a murmur rose and the crowd of about fifty onlookers pressed toward the tiny sheltered stoop where they stepped into the humid evening air. Cameras flashed and microphones bobbed high.

  Mr. Maybry unceremoniously yanked a microphone out of a young man’s hand and waved his arms to silence everyone. He quickly introduced himself, then announced, “The child’s parents, Ms. Virginia Catron and Mr. Bailey Kallihan, will make a short statement.” He then thrust the borrowed microphone into Virginia’s hand.

 
; She held it for a few seconds, registering the cold heaviness, wondering what on earth she was going to say. Every eye was riveted on her, and she could read the anticipation in their eyes, hands poised to record her every word. They wanted tears of happiness, an embracing Norman Rockwell-type family touting plans for their future. How could she confess they were the epitome of the modern dysfunctional family���a divorced couple juggling a troubled child?

  Bailey slipped his arm loosely around her waist, his hand resting casually on her side after giving her a slight squeeze. Her heart rattled in her chest, quickened by his touch. She somehow found her voice. “E-eight years ago the media came to our aid when our son was taken from us. I can’t tell you how much it means to me”���Virginia stopped and swallowed hard before continuing���“to see my son again after all these years. Please pay attention to posters, fliers in the mail, milk cartons���any pictures of missing children. Someday you may be the one to reunite a family.” A family of strangers, she added silently.

  The crowd applauded loudly, but began to fire questions before the noise even died down.

  “Ms. Catron,” an older, pleasant-faced woman asked, “how does your son look to you?”

  Virginia smiled. “He looks very much like his father.”

  “Handsome?” the woman pressed, her eyes twinkling.

  “Well, um… of course.” Her face burned and she heard Bailey’s low chuckle beside her.

  “How is your son taking the news?” another woman asked.

  She hesitated. “He’s confused, naturally, and as surprised as we are, but I’m sure things will work out fine.” Liar, her mind nagged.

  “Ms. Catron,” a man near her asked, “I assume from your name that the two of you are no longer married?”

  “That’s correct,” she said calmly. A disappointed murmur resounded.

  “Have you both remarried?”

  “No, neither of us,” Bailey piped in helpfully.

  “Are you planning to get back together?”

  The crowd tittered, and every reporter waited, straining forward for a juicy tidbit of gossip. She felt Bailey’s arm tighten and she tingled with humiliation. There could be an us, he’d said, as if now that their son had been found, things were right with the world again. He’d never turned his back on her, never broken her heart.