Texan's Baby (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Dawson paced while he waited for his parents to circle back and pick him up. The hour that had passed felt like an eternity, and he wasn't any closer to figuring out where Sprigs might be.

If he had to visit Alcorn in jail to pressure him for information, Dawson would.

There were other pressing questions with people closer to home that were about to give Dawson a headache. He needed to know the truth about what had happened between Melanie and his mother. He couldn't fathom his mother going behind his back, and at the same time he couldn't picture Melanie lying about something this important.

The second he heard gravel crunching underneath tires, he locked the door and met his folks as they pulled onto the parking pad.

“Can you take me to my SUV?” he asked immediately.

“Yes, of course,” his mother said as Dawson climbed into the back of her Escalade.

His father was driving and that gave Dawson the perfect opportunity to speak to his mother without either of them being distracted.

“Was Melanie a patient of yours, Mother?” he asked outright as his father reversed out of the driveway.

Mother's jaw went slack, but she quickly recovered.

“I believe she did come see me once or twice.” She looked to be digging deeply to recall the information.

There was another explanation that Dawson didn't want to consider. She was stalling.

“Which is it, Mother? Once or twice?” he pressed.

“I'm not sure. It was a while ago and I see a lot of people in town,” his mother said.

“How many who come in with the flu do you end up running pregnancy tests on, Mother?”

Her face puckered like a prune as she stared out the front windshield.

Dawson waited for a response.

None came.

“Then let's narrow the field down to women I've dated,” he said.

“Son, what exactly are you accusing your mother of?” Dawson's dad, who had been quiet up to now, asked as he spun the wheel, navigating the winding country road.

“Are you saying that you don't know already?” Dawson asked in return.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Dawson's father paused. “Alice?”

Still nothing from her.

“Then let me tell you,” Dawson began.

“Oh, all right,” his mother said, cutting him off. “Melanie did come to my office saying she thought she had the flu. I knew right away what the real problem was, so I had the nurse ask for a urine sample.”

Problem? Did she just refer to Dawson's son as a problem?

“The test came back positive, so I did what I had to in order to protect you,” she continued, her voice so matter-of-fact it sent a chill down Dawson's back.

“You did this for me?” he asked, incredulous. “You threatened the woman carrying my child and kept my son from me for his first year and a half of life, and you have the audacity to say you did it
for me
?”

“Alice,” Dawson's father said, sadness and disappointment in his tone.

“What choice did I have?” she defended, folding her arms.

“The best thing you can do for yourself right now is keep your mouth closed, Alice,” Dawson's father said. “And pray that your son finds it in his heart to forgive you someday.”

“I doubt that will ever happen,” Dawson quipped.

“Tell me you don't mean that, son,” Dawson's father said. “Your mother has done a terrible thing—”

His mother made a move to interrupt his father.

“Alice. Let me say my piece,” he said quickly.

She harrumphed, picking invisible lint off her suit jacket.

“It's unforgivable to think she would do something like this. And I won't lie and say she had your best interest at heart, because I don't believe it, either. What I will say is that she believed she had your best interest at heart because she loves you. And losing Bethany changed all of us. Not all of it was for the better.”

No one immediately spoke, and that was most likely because there was a lot of truth to those words.

Alice's chest deflated. “He's right. When he puts it like that, I realize how terribly I've overreacted. I didn't know how to fix it once I'd set things in motion. Then she disappeared and I tried my best to forget what I'd done. For all I knew she wouldn't follow through with the pregnancy, so I left it alone. You might never be able to forgive me, but I didn't lie about one thing, I'm beyond thrilled to have a grandchild. I hope I haven't messed up any chance I had to have a relationship with your son.”

Dawson would forgive his mother at some point. And he wouldn't keep Mason from her in order to punish her. Too much time had been lost with the people he loved to allow that to happen. Still, he was going to need some time to absorb this news.

He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, wondering if the damage with Melanie was even close to repairable.

“I just want you—”

“Let him be, Alice,” Dawson's father said. “Give the man time to think.”

He was grateful for the interception. If his mother was genuine, and he believed she was, then he could find a way to forgive her. There were a dozen more pressing thoughts running through his mind right now.

His phone buzzed, indicating he had a text.

Dawson pulled it from his pocket and checked the screen. His heart raced when he saw the name, Melanie.

I can't reach Abby and they won't let me look for her. Said they'd handle it themselves. Please help.

It wasn't the message Dawson was hoping for, but it was a start. He wouldn't refuse her plea.

Can you tell me where you are?

He waited for a response.

No. I'm sorry.

He expected that and he didn't want to push it. He'd had to ask.

We're okay. Mason is asking for you.

Reading that message shattered the darkness inside him and filled Dawson's heart with light.

How about you?

He wanted to know where he stood with her.

She didn't respond, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She'd reached out to him in the first place and that was a positive step. That gave him something to work with.

Will check in with Abby and get back to you. Tell Mason that I'll see him soon, okay?

I will.

Came the response. Then she sent Abby's phone number.

Dawson needed to think. Where could Abby be? It was possible that she was somewhere there was no cell coverage.

There were plenty of places to camp in and around Austin that were off the grid. School was about to start and Abby could be having one last hurrah.

Of course, Texas temperatures at this time of year could be brutal, and even she didn't go camping in August, it was generally ten degrees hotter in Austin than in North Texas. Okay, camping might be out of the question.

Melanie hadn't said it, but he knew that she was worried about the same conclusion Dawson had come to...the possibility that Sprigs had her.

But then wouldn't he make contact? Try to use her as a bargaining chip to get to Melanie? He would only take Abby to draw Melanie out. Right? That was the only thing that made sense.

What about Abby's friends? Didn't Melanie say something about a boyfriend? Maybe Dawson could start his search there. Surely someone knew where she was.

Dawson could grab his laptop and log on to her social media account to locate her pals as soon as he got to his parents' place. Then he could do some digging to see where she might be.

The rest of the car ride was quiet.

By the time Dawson returned to Mason Ridge, he'd had a chance to think through a couple of options at locating Abby. He had his folks take him to their house, since that was the last place he'd been before all this started.

What had begun as him wallowing in his own anguish, watching Melanie's parents' house across the street, had turned into a crazy eleven days.

He'd become a father and his entire life had been turned on its head.

And he'd do it all again if it meant meeting his child and seeing Melanie.

“The Dixons had a break-in recently, so I want both of you to exercise caution, okay?” Dawson said to his parents as they parked in the attached garage. He touched his mother's shoulder. “For you, that means staying in the garage with the engine running until the door closes behind you.”

She nodded and offered a hopeful smile.

“It's going to take some time, but I'll do my best to move forward after what you've done,” he said to her.

“None of this was supposed to happen this way,” she said, and she sounded sad. “I'm not making excuses, but I panicked when I realized what was going on and made a huge mistake.”

There was more to it than that, because she'd had a thousand opportunities to tell him since then. “Is it Melanie you don't like?”

“It's not her exactly,” his mother said. “She seems like a nice girl, and the two of you were so close growing up. In some ways I guess I felt like she'd taken you away from us after Bethany...”

Dawson started to defend Melanie, but his mom stopped him.

“We had so much grief that we shut down. That wasn't your fault or hers and I realize that now,” she said. “When I found out she was pregnant I also realized that I couldn't go through that again.”

“Melanie's pregnancy shouldn't have been about you, Mother.”

“You're right,” she said. “Too much of our life has been about me since Bethany.”

When he really thought about it, Bethany's sickness had been about his mother. She'd been the grieving doctor who couldn't heal her own child. The depression she'd succumbed to afterward when she couldn't get out of bed had been about her, too. She hadn't thought of her husband or her son. And it had almost ruined their family.

They had been able to move forward and repair their relationships.

Dawson was an idiot. He shouldn't have doubted Melanie earlier. And as for her knowing him better than anyone else, she did. But she was wrong about one thing. If Mason had inherited the gene, Dawson could handle whatever came with it. He was a father. And being a loving parent meant putting his child's needs first.

Dawson shook his dad's hand. It had been his father who'd finally pulled the family up by their bootstraps. He loved his wife and he must have seen it as his job to protect her.

On some level, Dawson understood. His mother was strong on the outside but fragile when it came to inner strength.

Melanie could take care of herself. But that wouldn't stop Dawson from loving her and wanting to take care of her. The image of her standing in front of him with a shotgun leveled at his chest on the back porch the other day brought a smile to his face.

A woman like that wouldn't cave under any circumstance and especially one that involved her child.

Dawson excused himself, went inside and booted up his laptop. He checked Abby's social media page. So much for narrowing down her friends. She had 1480. No one had that many friends. He scrolled through her photos, hoping that he'd be able to figure out who her closest contacts were. Figuring out who she actually spent time with was his best hope of locating her.

He scanned her page for any posts that might signify where she was. There was nothing identifying her location. Normally, he'd be happy about the fact that she seemed to practice internet safety. Under the current circumstances, he was less than thrilled.

As expected, there were only a handful of people that she hung out with regularly according to her posts. Much to his good fortune, she'd identified them by placing tags on them with their names highlighted.

One of whom he was able to deduce must be Abby's roommate. Her name was Tabitha and he knew that they shared a house in Austin near campus.

Abby last posted three days ago. There was a pic of her and a guy who wasn't tagged with a name. He was good-looking, athletic.

The pair looked cozy. This must be the new boyfriend.

Maybe Tabitha would know. Dawson fired off a private message asking her to call him with any information she had about Abby's whereabouts. He identified himself as a friend of Abby's sister and hoped Tabitha would get back in touch with him soon.

Being away from Melanie and Mason made Dawson feel empty inside. He missed the little whirlwind that was his son.

Dawson was too far away to ensure their safety and he had a bad feeling about Sprigs being so quiet. If the guy had been hurt in the crash—and what were the odds that he wasn't?—then he'd had enough time to heal and get some strength back.

The feds had planted a woman at Melanie's place, but they didn't seem to be getting any bites there.

Sprigs might have been a loner, but he was intelligent.

Dawson knew so little about the guy, and yet they'd grown up in the same town together. What if he made a few calls? Tried to get to know the guy a little better? Didn't he used to live off Maddox Street? That wasn't so far from where Dawson was now.

Time was ticking and Dawson wouldn't get to see Melanie or Mason again until this whole mess was sorted out.

His first call was to his buddy Ryan. Ryan's brother was in the same grade as Sprigs. Maybe he would know something about the guy's background.

Ryan picked up on the first ring. “Dawson, where are you?”

“How's Lisa?” Dawson tried to redirect.

“She's doing a lot better, thanks. She's been worried about Melanie, though,” Ryan said.

“Melanie's with me.”

Ryan relayed the information to Lisa.

She must've had a big reaction because the line went dead silent.

“Tell her that I know about Mason and it's okay,” Dawson said. “We're working things out.”

“Who's Mason?” Ryan asked.

“Long story. I'll tell you later,” Dawson said. “In the meantime, I need to talk to Justin.”