A Dad At Last

She could only pray for the latter. One way or another, she would have her answer soon enough.

But right now, it was her grandson she was concerned about. Her grandson who had to be rescued and brought back to the fold. The details and explanations could be handled later. First things first.

She slipped an arm around Lacy’s thin shoulders, feeling as if, in a way, she was somehow stepping into the past and comforting herself.

“There are dozens of reasons they haven’t called, Lacy, and none of them are bad.” A slight smile curved her lips. “And no matter what the television commercials would have us believe, not everyone carries around a cell phone in their hip pocket.”

“And even if they did,” Shelby interjected, “it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working. Garrett can’t remember to charge the one I gave him to save his life. Says it’s a nuisance.”

Lacy sighed, praying they were right. That it was just a matter of not taking the time or finding the opportunity to call. Maybe they were, even now, on their way home. Home with her son.

But she couldn’t calm down.

The agitation was growing steadily, threatening to consume her. “Well, right now it’s a nuisance I really wish he’d put up with.” She could only hope that didn’t come out as short as it sounded. Lacy knew that Connor didn’t own a cell phone, but that shouldn’t have prevented him from finding a way to call.

She looked at the telephone again, willing it to ring. It remained silent.

He wasn’t calling because something horrible had happened. She just knew it.

Unable to remain still, she began to pace again, her eyes all but riveted to the front door with every step she took. Why weren’t they back yet? The meeting was for midnight. It was past two.

Unable to remain on the sidelines any longer, Shelby checked her pockets for her car keys. “Maybe I’ll just take a ride up to the sugar factory to see if everything went the way it should have.”

Megan instinctively took a step to block her way. “No.” It was an order. “It’s too dangerous.”

Shelby looked at the Maitland family matriarch. Years ago Megan had taken Shelby and her brothers and sister under her wing when their own parents had abandoned them. Though she had arranged for the children to be adopted by friends of hers, Megan had always been like an aunt—or at times a second mother—to the Lord children. Shelby realized there was no point arguing, but she wasn’t happy about doing nothing.

Sensing the struggle she’d created within the younger woman, Megan mitigated her words with logic. “Besides, they might be on their way home already, and you’ll wind up missing them. No sense in driving up there for no reason. Better to stay put.”

“All right.” Shelby relented, slipping her keys into her pocket. “I’ll give them another half an hour, but after that I’m out of here.” As if to back up her position, she took out her cell phone and held it up for inspection. “And I’ve got a fully charged cell phone, so if they do show up while I’m gone, you can reach me the minute they walk in.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lacy told her. Megan opened her mouth to protest, but Lacy wasn’t about to be talked out of it. “I can’t take this waiting any longer, Mrs. Maitland, and if I pace anymore, you’re going to have a path worn through your tile.”

Megan shrugged carelessly. As if that mattered. “I was getting tired of that pattern anyway,” she quipped. “And I know how you feel.” Her eyes held the younger woman’s. She saw doubt. “I really do.”

There was something in the older woman’s eyes that spoke to her, though for the life of her, Lacy didn’t understand how Megan Maitland could have the vaguest idea what it was like to be an unwed mother whose child had been kidnapped. Megan, who together with her husband had founded the prestigious Maitland Maternity Clinic, where the country’s rich and famous came to have their babies, rubbing shoulders with desperate young women who had their backs up against the wall and nowhere to turn—women for whom the clinic had originally been created. But Megan Maitland was far removed from the world Lacy knew. She could easily buy and sell half the people in Austin without blinking an eye. How could she possibly know what it was like to be so destitute that she had nowhere to turn?

But she did have somewhere to turn, Lacy reminded herself. She had a job as a chef at Austin Eats Diner. Shelby Lord had taken her in and given her that job when she had amnesia. After a blow to the head had restored her memory, Shelby said nothing had changed. The job was hers for as long as she wanted it.

So she had a job and friends now, friends who had been eager to help reunite her with her baby. Friends who were willing to risk themselves and the ones they loved to do it. She might not have money like Megan, but she was rich in her own way. Rich in friends.

Lacy smiled. Maybe she had more in common with Megan than she’d thought.

“Wait.” Shelby held up a hand to stop the other women from talking. “Table the talk about driving over to the sugar factory, I think I hear a car. Two cars,” she amended.

Lacy was at the front door before Shelby finished speaking, pulling it open in time to see the two cars that had driven up and turned off their headlights.

“They’re back,” she cried, running out to meet them, her heart hammering wildly.

“Wait, Lacy,” Megan called.

Her back to the house, Lacy didn’t hear her. She didn’t hear or see anything but the tall man coming toward her.

Moonlight outlined his long frame and the tan Stetson he wore. In the dark it was difficult at first to see that he was holding something in his arms. Or what that something was.

Her mother’s heart told her even before her eyes could adjust.

Lacy didn’t remember crossing the last five feet to Connor. Didn’t remember her feet hitting the ground in a dead run. All she was aware of was that her eyes had filled with tears, making it difficult to focus.

She could have made her way to her son’s side blindfolded.

Lacy clutched Connor’s arm, looking into the face of her sleeping son.

“You found him,” she sobbed. “And he’s so big.”

The baby she remembered holding to her breast had been almost a newborn, certainly not this thriving child with his fair hair and rounded face.

As if in response to her voice, Chase opened his eyes, looking at her with wonder. A sweet smile moved the small, rosebud mouth.

Something warm opened up smack in the middle of Connor’s chest. He had trouble dealing with it. “He knows you,” Connor said.

Lacy wanted to say yes, even though she knew it was almost too much to hope for. She and Chase had been apart for so many months. Important months. But for the moment, she told herself that it was true.

“He had a very sweet disposition,” she murmured, taking her son into her arms.

It felt like heaven.

She hadn’t realized until this very second how much her arms had ached for this small weight. How much her heart had ached to feel the baby’s heart beating next to hers.

Happiness threatened to overwhelm her. It was almost more than she could humanly stand.

“Oh, thank you,” she murmured, raising her eyes to Connor and the men who were gathered behind him. “Thank you all for bringing my baby back to me.”

“Can we hold the thanks until we get into the house?” Garrett Lord requested. The month-old wound in his shoulder still ached, and he needed a painkiller.

Belatedly, Connor realized that Lacy had rushed out in her bare feet. Sometimes the woman didn’t have the sense she was born with. She could hurt herself on the stony drive.

“Get inside before we add a sprained ankle to the list of things that’ve gone wrong for you,” he ordered, slipping an arm around her.

Some things might have gone wrong, Lacy thought, but other things had gone very right. She had her baby back, and Connor, however temporarily, was in her life once more. There was no way she felt in the wrong tonight.

“Throw away the list,” Lacy told him. Without being conscious of it, she leaned into Connor as they walked to the house, absorbing the strength that radiated from him. “All that matters is that you found Chase and brought him back to me.”

“Not quite all,” Jake Maitland corrected, coming in behind them. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto the coatrack, snaring a hook. He wrapped one arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her toward him, pausing to kiss Camille before he continued. He noted that the women were all looking at him, waiting for him to continue. “I think equally important is that Janelle is finally behind bars, and if there’s any justice in this world, will never bother you or anyone else in this family—” he looked at his mother “—again.”

“What about Connor?” Abby asked, then immediately realized her mistake. “I mean Petey.”

“Well, he’s not going to be sharing a cell with Janelle, that’s for damn sure,” Michael told her.