Long-Lost Mom

“Yes,” he managed.

She met his unsteady gaze with eyes wise beyond their years. “I know what you told me,” she whispered from the other side of the store, but he caught every word. “That you don’t think she’s ever coming back.”

God. “I’m sorry, Sara—”

“And I know you don’t want me to think about her, but I can’t help it. I want her to come back.”

“Oh, baby.” He sighed and moved toward her. Thankfully he had no meeting, no customers, so there would be no nosy ears listening to this. Gently he took Sara’s shoulders and waited until she looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about her?”

“Because it hurts you.” Sara, her wide eyes sheened with unshed tears, sniffed loudly. “I hate it when you hurt.”

She hadn’t cried about her mother for some time, and Stone was furious at himself for not noticing sooner that she needed him. “Sara...” Was it possible to feel such overwhelming love for a small child, so much that it was a physical pain? “I don’t want you to keep things inside, ever.” He cupped her chin and kissed her nose. “Even if you think it’s going to hurt me.”

“Then why don’t we talk about her?”

How to explain? How to tell his precious and yes, dammit, sheltered daughter that she’d been abandoned at birth by a mother who had been little more than a child herself? That he’d been too young to take on both the baby and the mother? That even if he could have managed, it didn’t matter because Jenna had run?

But Sara needed to know, needed to understand, and he couldn’t fail her. “I’ll talk about her to you anytime,” he promised, knowing that promise was likely to kill him.

“Why did she go away before I was out of the hospital?”

“She had to go, Sara.” Defending the woman who had nearly destroyed him was easy only because Sara needed answers. Kind ones. “She had to. She had no one to love her, and so she ran away.”

Huge blue eyes waited for more. Jenna’s eyes. They were a more brilliant blue than his, and framed by lush lashes—just like Jenna’s. “I would love her.”

Unable to trust his voice, Stone squeezed her hand.

“Why couldn’t she just have made a family with us and be ours forever? Why did she have to go?”

Solemnly, patiently, she blinked at him, and Stone swallowed hard. His own anguish came back so easily, he discovered. “She was scared, honey. Very scared.” And to be fair to Jenna, there’d been evil forces that had pushed her to leave. Forces he hadn’t been able to protect her from. She’d been betrayed, horribly and cruelly, by her own mother in a single event that had changed Jenna’s life forever. Still, she could have, should have, trusted him to help, and she hadn’t. “She was young, and alone and petrified.”

“But you were with her, and you can fix anything.”

God bless this child who had never wanted for a thing. Stone, with his ruthlessly stubborn streak and single-mindedness, had seen to it. But for the sake of memories and a heartache that had never died, he had to try to make Sara understand. “Yes, she had me,” he told her. “But I was young, too.”

“You were in college. At a fancy expensive school.”

“Yes.”

“And your mommy and daddy got mad at you and never spoke to you again. You had to transpose.”

“Transfer,” he corrected with a small smile. “To the local college here. I wanted you with me, Sara.” His parents had disowned them both, the boy barely a man, and the infant without a mother, all because he had “ruined his life” by keeping his baby. The baby he’d been responsible for.

Neither his mother nor his father nor his brother, Richard, Stone’s childhood hero, had spoken to Stone or Sara since.

Regret wasn’t a part of this. He could never look into Sara’s beautiful face and regret one part of what had happened. But it did bring up his worst nightmare, and remind him of the stoic way Sara accepted the fact that they had no family willing to acknowledge their existence.

For what would happen to his daughter if something happened to him? Who would take care of her, love her?

“It’d be nice to have grandparents.” Sara’s casual tone didn’t fool him. “Or...an uncle.”

She wasn’t talking in general, and he knew it. She meant his own parents and his brother. At the wistful tone in her voice, he actually felt murderous toward his own family. “They don’t understand, Sara. They can’t see past their own stubborn noses. But I love you and I’ll never stop. ’Kay?”

She smiled. “’Kay.” Tipping her head, she studied him. “Has she ever been back?”

“I’d tell you if she had. I’ve always promised you that. You don’t ever have to wonder.” He didn’t add that he’d spent more than a small fortune trying to find Jenna over the years. That occasionally he still tried, although now it was completely for Sara’s sake, because he had the feeling he would always be far too angry at Jenna ever to want her in his life. He refused to add to his daughter’s pain, but he couldn’t stand the thought of her waiting expectantly for something he’d become convinced would never happen. And if a small part of him wondered if there’d ever be a woman in his life who could make him truly forget Jenna, he ignored it. He didn’t need another heartbreak. “I’m afraid she’s not coming back, Sara.”

The girl stared down at the last photo of herself, the one where she was decked out in painter’s attire, grinning broadly as she painted her room a somewhat sickening shade of yellow-green. Completely unaware of how much every part of her—her laugh, her carefree attitude, her easy affection—all reminded Stone of Jenna.

“She is coming back,” Sara whispered. “I just know it.” She met her dad’s worried expression and hugged him hard. “Well, she is.”

Holding her close, Stone stared over her head at the calendar.

Ten years.

He was far from the frightened twenty-year-old left with no family and an infant he didn’t know how to care for. As a result, he’d long ago hardened his heart to the memory of the wild needy Jenna who’d so completely stolen his affections. He’d long ago moved on. Yet in spite of all his lingering rage, he’d forgiven her for what she’d done to him. Or so he told himself.

But as he kissed the top of Sara’s head, he had to admit the truth to himself.

He hadn’t forgiven Jenna for what she’d done to their daughter. Hadn’t even come close.

* * *

Jenna’s chest hurt. It had nothing to do with any lingering injuries and everything to do with the sight in front of her.

She sat on a tier of stands in the gymnasium of the school watching a basketball game.

Sara—it was really her this time, not some cruel dream her mind had conjured up to tease her—was playing basketball with all her little ten-year-old heart. Her tongue was squeezed between her teeth, her eyes narrowed in fierce concentration as she dribbled—okay, tripped—over the ball.

Her daughter. It had to be. Jenna had seen no pictures over the years. How could she have when she’d so completely disappeared no one could have found her even if they’d been looking? And she wasn’t hopeful or foolish enough to think that anyone had been looking.

“Go, Sara!” came a chorus of cries from the crowd gathered around Jenna.

Sara. Her name really was Sara.

Which meant Stone had kept his fervent promise that day in the hospital, when Jenna had named their baby before vanishing.

She was incredible, with beautiful long dark hair, bright laughing blue eyes and a sweet infectious laugh. A perfect little replica of Stone. Jenna’s heart squeezed as her arms crossed over herself in a mime of the hug she yearned to give her child.

Looking at her, Jenna couldn’t remember why she’d stayed away. None of the reasons she’d thought so important all those years seemed to matter now.

Tears welled in her eyes, but Jenna ruthlessly blinked them back. She had no right to cry, none at all. But Lord, it hurt. She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted her little girl.

“That’s it, Sara,” someone shouted. “Run, run!”

It was an achingly familiar voice that made Jenna’s heart all but stop. Stone, his hands cupped over his mouth, was giving directions to his team, and God, he looked good. When she’d seen him the day before at the beach, she hadn’t been fully prepared for the sheer physical jolt of being near him again, but the long years of separation peeled away as if they’d never been.

There didn’t seem to be an unsure bone in that tall, toned body. There was something raw and earthy and generally untamed about him, despite the casual athletic clothes.