Finding Their Son (17 page)

“You’re not flying back with us?”

She sensed that the question he was asking was really
What the hell is going on with you and my birth father?
“No. Like I said, I’m going to visit my friends for a couple of days then head home from there. Eli will be your legal guardian. I’m sure he wants to get you enrolled in school as soon as possible. And, of course, you’ll meet his family. Your half sisters and stepbrother.”

His expression was as inscrutable as his father’s. She quickly added, “I do business in Lower Brule all the time, so we’ll see each other on a regular basis. My name might not be on that paper, Damien, but I already told Eli that won’t stop me from being a part of your life. Only you can do that.”

She couldn’t bring herself to ask if he wanted her in his life or not. If the answer was no…she didn’t want to think about what that would mean to her future, her plans, all the Normal Rockwell moments she’d imagined for her and her son.

Voices resumed on the television. Familiar voices, yet different. Char looked up and spotted Cooper and costar Morgana Carlyle. They were hiking through an aspen grove. She knew the spot. According to Libby, this was the moment she admitted to herself that she had a thing for Cooper. Later that night, Coop and Libby spent the night together and Libby wound up pregnant. Char didn’t know if the same thing happened in the script or not.

“Love is a bunch of crap, you know,” the young man beside her said.

She snickered softly. “That’s always been my take, too, but do you want to know a secret? Something I’ve never told anybody? I’m a hypocrite. For all my cynicism and bad-mouthing love, I read every romance novel I can get my hands on and I follow all the gossip magazines because I secretly hope that love exists.”
Because if it exists then there’s a chance I’ll get my happily-ever-after, too.

He didn’t say anything. What teenage boy would, she told herself.

She felt embarrassed by her confession. Maybe she’d made a fool of herself. There was such a thing as too much personal information, she silently chided herself.

“My mom and dad loved each other,” he said quietly. “That’s one of the reasons I was so mad at Dad for dying. For leaving Mom alone. Then, she met Steve, and it turned out I was pissed off for nothing.”

“I hate it when that happens,” she said, hoping she sounded sincere, not flippant. “I was mad at my dad, too. First, he divorced Mom and then he died. Unfortunately my mother didn’t make as good a choice the second time around as your mother.” She put a finger to her cheek, pretending to think a minute. “Or the third. Or the fourth, for that matter.”

His grin seemed real. She could see the scared kid behind those familiar blue eyes. She wished more than anything she could offer him a home and a happy life in a picture-perfect world. But she couldn’t.

Nobody can do that, chickadee.

She stood. “Well, I’d better go. Eli is going to sit with you until closing time. Hopefully, we’ll see each other after you get settled in South Dakota. But you have my cell number and e-mail address. And I’m going to set up a
Facebook account as soon as I get home so we can friend each other. In the meantime, just holler if you need anything, okay?”

His chin dipped slightly in acknowledgment. She couldn’t tell if he was sad or upset or what. But since there wasn’t anything she could do at the moment, she turned to go. “Oh, wait,” she said, before she’d taken a second step. “I just finished reading this book. I asked a friend for a recommendation for age-appropriate reading material for a guy who was seventeen going on twenty-five. I read it on the airplane. It’s pretty good. What’s not to like about having your own personal dragon?”

She handed him the hardcover book with the striking cover. “It’s part of a trilogy. If you like it, I’ll buy the rest of the books for you.”

He studied the back jacket a moment. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She started to leave again then stopped. “Hey, I know. I’ll make
Eragon
my selection for the Wine, Women and Words book club. When it’s my turn to host, you can come and be our guest.”

“Why me?”

“Well, first, because I’d like you to meet my friends, and, second, because you’re the target audience of this book. It would be cool to see if your impression is vastly different than ours.”

He gave a shrug.

She decided to take that as a yes. “Later, chickadee,” she said. She didn’t know why that nickname felt right, but it did.

She also really wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure he’d be receptive. She settled for giving his hand a quick squeeze. Lame, she knew, and probably cowardly, but
hopefully there would be a time in the near future when they could be open and honest with each other.

For the moment, she’d take this gift—she’d finally met and touched the child she’d given up—and treasure it. Anything else that came from this meeting would be pure gravy.

“Okay, then, I’m going. Thanks for not telling me and Eli to take a hike the first minute you met us. I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know how any of this will turn out, but I hope to be a part of your life. That’s entirely up to you, of course.”

His eyelids were flickering in that way that said he’d be asleep soon. Instead of waiting for an answer, she impulsively dropped a light kiss on his cheek. Scattered patches of stubble competed with a very mild case of acne below where she kissed. One last inhale of his scent and she left the room.

Eli and Wanda were sitting in the waiting room when she entered. It was apparent they’d been talking. Maybe about her. Eli had that discomfited look on his face that she associated with bad news. What could be worse than saying goodbye to the person you’d been waiting so long to meet?

“He’s starting to doze off,” she said. She retrieved her suitcase from Eli. “I told him my plans and that we’d keep in touch by phone and e-mail once he gets settled.”

Wanda stood. She looked tired, but more at peace than she had when they first arrived. Char was glad for that.

“Do you need anything else from me before I leave?” she asked Eli.

His lips tightened, and for a minute she didn’t think he was going to respond. Finally he looked at Wanda and said, “Could we have a minute?”

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” she told Char. “I’m so glad you’re going home with me. I hate walking across the parking lot alone.”

Char was exhausted, physically and emotionally. The last thing she needed was a big scene with Eli. She put her hand up when he took a step closer. “Eli, please. Let’s not drag this out. I knew the risks associated with loving you—I’ve known them since high school. I chose to ignore common sense and fall back in love with you anyway. That’s my problem.”

“You’re running away.”

He raked his hand through his hair. Several strands stuck straight up, like a Mohawk. A deep, wrenching feeling swept through her. To avoid crying, she drew on her anger.

“Well, you did the leaving last time. Now we’re even.”

“Char, that’s not fair.”

“Right. Well, we’re adults, not kids anymore. We both know fair isn’t a constitutional guarantee. Here’s the deal, Eli. I’m not going to beg or wheedle or try to guilt you into including me in my son’s life. I can take care of myself—I have since I was sixteen, alone and pregnant.” She took a step closer and tapped her finger on his chest. “Just don’t try to keep me from him. That’s all I ask.”

Then she left.

Her anger sustained her until she reached the elevator. Then a tsunami of tears formed in the back of her sinuses, nearly choking her.
You can do this, Charlene.
Not the old black woman’s voice. Her mother’s.

Char didn’t know what that meant but it surprised her enough to distract her from her pain. She was back in control by the time she joined Wanda.

“Thank you for doing this,” she told the woman who
had raised her son. “I can’t wait to see pictures of him growing up.”

Wanda led the way toward the parking lot. As she’d said, the mist had stopped. The damp chill felt oddly life-affirming. Char didn’t bother with a backward glance. The hospital was a convoluted design that was partly below ground. She had no idea where to look to see Damien’s room. But she felt him. In her heart. As she always had. And although a part of her might have wished otherwise, Eli was there, too.

“I
KNOW TORTURE IS BIG
news these days, but I still think a casual roasting of the guy’s balls over an open flame seems fitting,” Jenna said, setting down her wineglass.

Char grinned. She couldn’t help it. Being in the company of friends was more comfort than she could possibly have predicted. In the two hours since Jenna and Libby picked her up at the train station in downtown L.A., the three women had bonded in a way only women could appreciate.

They’d stopped for an impromptu shoe-buying fest, ate fresh crab on the pier and toasted the news of Mac and Morgan’s official engagement with two appletini cocktails and a virgin pomegranate daiquiri. They were now nursing wine and water at Libby’s Malibu beach house. Alone. Cooper and Shane weren’t due back for another hour.

“I appreciate your outrage on my behalf, Jenna, but this really isn’t Eli’s fault.”

“Jenna’s right, Char,” Libby said, leaning back in a chaise so her puffy ankles were slightly elevated. Now well into her sixth month, she looked very pregnant. But in a healthy, happy way. “Eli should have included you in the official arrangements. Talk about presumptuous! Just
because he’s got other kids doesn’t mean he’s automatically Wonder Dad. If his home life was so great, he wouldn’t have been wandering around the Badlands looking for you.”

Char and Jenna looked at each other. “Wow, Lib, you’re a feisty pregnant woman.”

“I think I’m channeling Gran,” she said. And just like that her eyes filled with tears.

Jenna reached out and patted Libby’s shoulder. “It was like this for me, too, after my dad died. I’d be fine—not even thinking about him—then suddenly I’d start sobbing.” To Char, she said, “Coop’s worried all this crying is going to have an adverse effect on the baby.”

“Do you know what you’re having, Lib?”

“Uh-huh. It’s either a boy or a girl,” she said through her sniffles. “I don’t want to talk about it and if Cooper asks you to try to use your influence to get me to change my mind, don’t listen to him. Now, Char, tell us about this secret baby you’ve kept from us for all these years. And we definitely need pictures.”

Char took a sip of wine before filling them in on the details she’d glossed over earlier. Jenna seemed particularly moved by Char’s story of fighting to keep her baby. “You know, after I was raped, I went through a terrible time of waiting to see whether or not I was pregnant. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten my period. To be that confident about your decision at age sixteen says a lot about the person you are, Char.”

Char let her friend’s words sink in for a moment. They felt good. And true. She’d never given herself credit for standing up to everyone—even her aunt. “Thanks, Jenna.”

“You’re welcome. How would you feel about me including your story in a segment of
Sentinel Passtime?
”

Char laughed…until she realized Jenna was serious. “I…um…I don’t know.”

“Different names, of course. Think about it. You could help me make sure I get the tone right. It might give our younger viewers something to think about. A sort of cautionary tale about the lasting repercussions of impulsive acts.” Jenna winced as if realizing her words might have hurt Char’s feelings. “Not that that was a bad thing in your case, but…you know what I mean.”

Char nodded. “I do. Damien was lucky. His adoptive parents gave him a great life. His first school was in Japan, for heaven’s sake. But I think there’s a part of him that needed to reconnect with me and Eli to find out why we gave him away. That’s the part that breaks my heart. And I can’t do anything about it.”

Libby shook her head. “You’re wrong. You’re doing something right now. You’re giving Eli and Damien a chance to bond. And when you get back home, you and Damien can work on your relationship. The thing that worries me is what’s going to happen with you and Eli.”

Char took another sip of wine. She was tempted to get stinking drunk. Maybe she’d light a fire on the beach and do her own, private vision quest. The old black woman and her mother could join her.

“Eli made his choice. He’s a good father. Responsible and all that. He has to try to work things out with his manipulative, self-centered, slut of a wife, right?”

She saw the look Libby gave Jenna. Shocked. She didn’t know why. “Am I being too blunt?”

“No, you’re being Char,” Jenna said.

“And we’re both glad to see it,” Libby added. “For a minute there, we thought Eli put a spell on you.”

“The swoo?” Char asked jokingly.

“No,” Libby answered firmly. “Swoo is magical.”

“Mystical,” Jenna chimed in.

“Myopic,” Char added cynically.

“That, too. Once Coop put the swoo on me, I was done for,” Libby said, obviously pleased with the concept. “What worries me is you got a full dose of swoo back when Eli was seventeen. Forgive the comparison, but Gran always warned that a young rattlesnake was more dangerous than a grown one because they didn’t know how to ration their poison.”

“You think Eli infected me?”

“Sorta. You’ve never fallen in love since then, right?”

Char didn’t answer. Eli had always been the one. Even when he was someone else’s. “So what’s the cure? Or am I going to swell up and turn green and slowly rot?”

“Ew,” Jenna said, sticking her tongue out.

Libby blanched. “I think I might throw up.”

Char laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “You two are a hoot. I’m glad you’re my friends. How ’bout we agree not to talk about snakes for the rest of the time I’m here? Who needs a refill?”

The sun was slipping behind a fog bank far off on the horizon. The sounds of people on the beach mingled with the steady crash of waves. The air was salty and clean smelling. Char honestly felt as if she could toss her worries up in the air and let the breeze carry them away. Inland. Far, far inland. Maybe all the way back to South Dakota, so they’d be waiting for her when she got home.

“Hey, hey, hey,” a familiar voice called from inside the
house. “Never fear, dear ladies, the men have arrived. Char, point us toward the dragon you need slayed—”

“Slain,” another male voice corrected.

“Whatever, Sir Shane of Lexicon,” Cooper put in testily. “We’re here and we brought along Sir William. Because he’s English and they invented dragons.”

“That might have been the Chinese,” added a voice with a distinct British accent.

Char looked at her friends and laughed. “Dragons. Snakes. You people really do live in La-La Land. But I like the idea of my personal legion of knights in shining armor. Cool.” She lifted her arm and pointed north. “He’s that-away, guys. Go get him.”

E
LI SAT CROSS-LEGGED
on the sand, juggling the disposable cell phone he’d purchased. Char had taken hers when she left two days earlier and he’d felt isolated and out of touch without one. He’d intended to call her first thing, but he had yet to hit Send.

“Coward,” he muttered.

The midday sand was warm beneath his butt. He wasn’t the only person in jeans, but he could tell the natives knew how to dress for this kind of November weather—especially on a Friday afternoon. More layers on top, fewer from the knees down.

Natives.

The word made him want to throw up. A woman in the District Attorney’s office told him the reason he’d been given custody of Damien was to circumvent any legal challenge the Native American community might have made if they’d chosen Char over him.

As if his father’s tribe gave a crap. For his entire life he’d
felt like an outsider. When he first moved in with his father, he overheard someone suggest that Eli was there to take advantage of government benefits.

If they only knew. He sure as hell didn’t want that for Damien.

He opened the phone and carefully punched in the numbers he’d memorized. He gazed at the waves gently lapping on the smooth sand of the beach. A few clusters of people were scattered about. Nothing like it would have been in summer, he speculated.

“Hi. You found me. Leave your number and I’ll find you next.”

He smiled. He hadn’t heard her recorded greeting before. He blew out a sigh and closed the phone.

What he needed to say would probably sound lame and pathetic if he tried to leave a message. “Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. The idiot who let you go. I’m sorry. Come back. Please.” His jaw tightened.

Maybe if he went for something more positive. “Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. I talked to Bobbi this morning and told her we’re going through with the divorce as planned.”

Better. But still not exactly right.

“Hi, Char, it’s me, Eli. I miss you. I’m pretty sure my life is never going to be right without you. Marry me?”

He stuffed the phone into his pocket. What kind of jerk proposed on the phone while he was still legally married?

He let out a loud sound of disgust and fell backward in the sand. He kept his eyes closed for two reasons: the sun and his eyes were starting to water. From some previously undiagnosed allergies. Or a sudden-onset cold. Not tears. God, no. He refused to cry in public.

He was so wrapped up fighting off his impending em
barrassment he almost missed the conversation coming from a few feet behind him—until he realized he was the focus of it.

“Wow, Shane. How’d you do that? Point your finger, pull the trigger and he topples over. That was awesome.”

“Why are you looking at me? It could have been William. He was using an imaginary bow and arrow.”

“That’s what you use on dragons.”

The last speaker had an English accent.

“It couldn’t have been us. Any projectile—even an imaginary one—would have made him fall forward because we were shooting from behind.”

Eli opened his eyes. They really
were
talking about him.

“Then why’d he fall over? Maybe he’s on drugs again.”

Again?

“He’s pissed?”

“How could he be pissed? We haven’t even told him who we are or why we’re here.”

“
Pissed
is Brit for drunk.”

“Why can’t they talk right?”

“They? You mean me, and I’m standing right here. With an imaginary bow and arrow that I’m going to shove u—”

Eli scrambled to his feet and turned around. Three men were standing a few feet away, looking at him with varying expressions: apprehension, amusement and intense curiosity.

“Who are you?”

They looked at each other, as if trying to determine who would answer. All three were around Eli’s height. The blond-haired one looked vaguely familiar. His buddy on his left was dressed all in black. He looked dangerous—in an I-can-afford-to-hire-a-hit-man way. The third—the Brit,
he guessed—was slimmer than the other two and dressed more formally.

“Well?”

The blonde put his hand over his heart in a theatrical manner and bowed. “Sir Cooper at your service.”

The dark-haired guy rolled his eyes. “You’re not here to serve him, Coop. You’re here to avenge his contemptible wrongdoings, remember?”

Cooper. Coop.
A light of recognition went off in Eli’s mind. This was Cooper Lindstrom. Char’s best friend’s husband. TV star. Uncle by marriage to the girl whose balloons Eli had carried a week ago.

Had it only been a week?

“Sorry. I got carried away by the role.”

The dark-haired guy advanced a step, hand extended in greeting. “You
are
Eli Robideaux, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Eli replied, reluctantly returning the courtesy. They were acting pretty civilized at the moment, but he’d caught that part about avenging something.

“My name is Shane Reynard. This is Cooper Lindstrom and that’s William Hughes. We’re friends of Char Jones. I’m sure you figured that out.”

“Is she still in California?”

“William’s flying her home tomorrow. He’s a pilot.”

“And Morgana Carlyle’s agent,” the man put in, his accent somewhat less noticeable now.

At Eli’s blank look, he tried again. “Coop’s ex-wife.”

“And costar,” Cooper added pointedly. “Why do you always lead with the ex-wife part? Are you going to tell him she’s engaged to my brother-in-law, too?”

“I don’t have to. You just did.”

Eli couldn’t tell if the tension between the two men was real or made-up.

Reynard coughed pointedly. “We all went together to buy a small jet. Today was our test flight.”

Cooper’s expression turned to almost childlike glee. “We all fly back and forth to the Hills so often this thing is going to save us a bundle. Plus, I’ve always wanted to be able to say I own a jet.”

The look William exchanged with Shane was both amused and indulgent. Eli could tell there was true affection between the men. He was envious.

“Could we possibly take this conversation indoors?” the Brit suggested. “Perhaps over tea? Or a pint?”

“A pint of tea? Are you crazy? Talk about pissing…” Even Eli, who didn’t know this guy from Adam, could tell Cooper was joking.

William gave Eli a droll look then started off. “Come along. You, too, dragon.”

Dragon?
He wondered if this had something to do with the book Char had been reading on the flight out. He didn’t ask. “There’s a bar right up the street,” he told them. He was starting to feel like a regular, sadly.

“So who wants to tell me what this is about?” he asked a short while later when they were seated around a table near the window. The location of the table reminded Eli of his breakfast with Char in San Francisco.

“Well, partly, there was the test-flight aspect,” Cooper said, “but we wanted to check you out for ourselves. To see if you’re really as big a jerk as Libby and Jenna think you are.”

That hurt and he didn’t even know these women.

“Am I?”

Shane sat forward, not aggressively, but his focus was intense and a little unnerving. “Too early to tell. But I will say that to someone on the outside looking in, it appears as though you used Char to write this story then cut her out of the final draft.”