The Mother. BEVERLY BARTON
jerked her hand away as her gaze flashed from his face to Zoe’s. “If you ever need someone to talk to, give me a call.”
J.D. barely managed to keep from telling Audrey to back off and leave his daughter alone.
“Thanks,” Zoe said. “I just might do that, Dr. Sherrod.”
Audrey smiled warmly before turning and walking away.
“I like her,” Zoe said. “Why can’t you date somebody like Dr. Sherrod instead of that stuck-on-herself-because-she’s-so-wonderful Holly Johnston?”
“Whom I date is none of your business,” J.D. told her as he escorted her downstairs and out of the police station.
“That should work both ways,” Zoe said.
“It will when you’re twenty-one.”
Zoe groaned and rolled her eyes skyward.
Damn. Fatherhood should come with a how-to book.
Chapter 8
After they had made love, while he held her close, Wayne had told Grace about the two toddler skeletons found with the bodies of the two murdered women. He hadn’t needed to say more than that. She had guessed what he had dreaded telling her. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t said much. But he knew she was as torn up inside as he was.
Now she lay cuddled against him, her breast pressing into his side and her head resting on his shoulder. He had known her for almost twenty-five years, but they hadn’t become lovers until ten years ago. They had met under the most horrific circumstances—Grace’s two-year-old son, Shane, had been abducted not long after Blake had been kidnapped. Their mutual hurt and anger and unbearable grief had created a bond between them, a bond that intensified because they each not only lost a child, but lost a mate. Enid had committed suicide, leaving Wayne alone and lost in his agony. Grace’s husband had become an alcoholic and drank himself to death less than five years after Shane’s disappearance, leaving her to raise their older son Lance alone.
Over the years Wayne and Grace had stayed in touch. In the beginning, it had been nothing more than Wayne sharing information with her whenever he heard about anything that might possibly be remotely connected to their sons’ abductions. Eventually, they started meeting for coffee, and that led to getting together for dinner, and after fifteen years of gradually becoming dear friends, they had become lovers.
Grace was a part of his life that he didn’t share with anyone else. Willie and Geraldine knew about Grace and he was pretty sure Garth did, too. But the kids didn’t know, Audrey and Hart. Hell, they didn’t know much of anything about his life, and he knew very little about theirs. And it was his fault that things were the way they were. He had been the one who had abandoned them. Emotionally abandoned. While they were growing up, he had kept them housed, fed, and clothed, and had paid the bills, but he had ceased being a father to either of them years ago.
Grace eased out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. He watched her, enjoying the view. No longer young, firm, or slender, her body still looked damn good to him. She was a giver, his Grace, not a taker. Looking back over the past twenty-five years, he wasn’t sure he would have survived without her.
He got out of bed and joined her in the bathroom. She had already freshened up and slipped into a floor-length blue cotton robe.
“While you’re cleaning up, I’ll go fix us some supper,” Grace said.
“Don’t go to any trouble, honey.” He nuzzled the side of her neck as he pulled her backward against him.
She rested there in his arms for a couple of minutes, then pulled away from him. “How about scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast?”
“Sounds good.”
When she left the bathroom, Wayne stared at himself in the vanity mirror over the sink. His brow was deeply furrowed and his eyes and mouth were framed by wrinkles. And his once-dark hair was now light gray, almost white. How the hell had he gotten so old so fast? Sometimes it seemed as if it had been only yesterday that he’d been twenty-one, his whole life ahead of him. Now he was sixty-one, most of his life behind him.
He turned on the cold water, cupped his hands to catch the water, and tossed it into his face. Then he filled the sink with warm water, picked up the soap, and lathered his genital area. Afterward, he retraced his steps, picked up his discarded clothing, and dressed.
Entering the kitchen, he found Grace at the stove. With the bacon sizzling on one electric eye, she busily poured whisked eggs into a hot skillet.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“Put on some coffee and fix the toast.”
As he set about preparing the coffeemaker, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
She kept stirring the eggs, focusing her attention on the job at hand. “What more is there to say?”
“I guess you’re right. Until we know for sure if those little bodies are Blake and Shane, then …” He didn’t know whether he hoped they were his son and Grace’s son or if he hoped they weren’t.
She lifted the skillet and spooned the scrambled eggs onto two plates, then set the skillet aside. “You’d think that after all these years, it wouldn’t still hurt so much.”
Wayne poured fresh water into the reservoir and punched the On button to start the coffee brewing. He moved closer to Grace and slid his arm around her waist.
She closed her eyes. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
Wayne turned her in his arms, reached up, and wiped away the tears with his fingertips. He leaned down and kissed her closed eyelids as his unshed tears caught in his throat.
Zoe hadn’t said a word all the way home, and the minute they entered the house, she headed for her room.
“We need to talk,” J.D. told her.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Too bad. Come back here and sit down.”
Zoe plodded reluctantly from the hallway into the living room and slumped down on the sofa.
God, he didn’t want to do this. But he had to do it. He was Zoe’s father.
“What you did today—running off with Dawson—was not only irresponsible and thoughtless, it was dangerous,” J.D. said, doing his level best not to raise his voice.
Zoe remained sullen and silent.
“I expect you to acknowledge what I just said,” he told her.
She lifted her downcast gaze, her eyes bright with anger and a hint of tears. “It’s all your fault.’
Stunned by her accusation, he stared at her as he tried to figure out her illogical reasoning. “How is it my fault that you slipped away from Jacy’s aunt, who, by the way, was worried sick about you, and ran off with a boy who’d been drinking? How is it my fault that you could easily have been killed in a car wreck because he was driving drunk? And how is it my fault that you and Dawson were picked up by the police?”
“Because … ’cause …” She swallowed her tears. “If you’d just let me date Dawson, let him come here and let me go out with him—”
“You are fourteen years old. That’s too young to be dating.”
“My mother was dating when she was fourteen!” Zoe shouted.
“Yeah, and see how she turned out.” The moment the words left his mouth, J.D. wished them back. Maybe Carrie had been a very untraditional parent, maybe she’d been irresponsible and flighty, but she had been Zoe’s mother.
“How dare you say that about my mom!” Zoe shot up off the sofa. “She was a better parent than you are. At least she loved me.”
When Zoe ran out of the room,