Bring On The Night

“Don’t say that I wouldn’t have cared about my son,” he said tightly, clenching his fists again.

“I know you would have cared,” she stated quickly, “but it wouldn’t have changed anything.” She shook her head and sunlight caused golden glints in her thick brown hair.

“It might have, Kate.”

“You know it wouldn’t have!” she snapped, then bit her lip and looked away. Henry had climbed into a large sandbox and was digging in the sand, and both his parents stared at him.

“How could you keep silent? How could you keep my son from me?” Jonah asked, pulling on his earlobe.

“I know I shouldn’t have,” she replied in a tight voice.

“Damn straight you shouldn’t have!” he snapped. “It’s not just me you cheated, but his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and Henry himself! Dammit, Kate!”

She turned, fire flashing in her eyes and color spilling into her cheeks. “We divorced! Even if you had known, I would have tried to get full custody, and since you were out of the country most of the time, I probably would have succeeded.”

“You don’t know that. Would you have kept him from his grandparents?” Jonah asked, thinking about how much his mother and dad loved their grandchildren.

Kate closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

“You cheated me out of knowing my son as a baby and a toddler. Not even a picture, Kate. No knowledge of his existence, and you never planned to tell me! Damnation!” Jonah swore in a deadly quiet voice. He was furious, hurt, close to rage, yet even so, he wanted to reach out and touch her. She still dazzled him, and that angered him even more.

“You didn’t want us!” she snapped, looking him in the eye defiantly. “Your military life was the most important thing to you!”

Jonah took a couple of deep breaths. His pulse was pounding and he felt hot. Standing, he jammed his fists into his pockets and walked a few steps, feeling a pent-up need to move while he tried to calm himself.

He knew he needed to think before he spoke, because every word between them was loaded and could explode into a fiery fight or disaster. He was angry with Kate, angry with himself for still finding her incredibly attractive. How could he want to kiss her when she had done such a terrible thing? Yet when he looked at her lips, all he could do was remember—even through a haze of fury.

“I’m out of the military now, and I want to know my son,” Jonah declared.

She caught her lip with her teeth, looking at Henry and frowning. “You’re going to hurt him.”

“Never,” Jonah replied emphatically. “Do you think knowing his father is going to hurt him?”

“No,” she admitted with a sigh. “I know you would never deliberately hurt any child, much less your own son.”

“What are you doing in San Antonio?” Jonah asked.

“I just got a job here,” she replied.

“Where are you staying?”

When she named a motel that was part of a low-priced chain, he looked more closely at her. Her purse was frayed, her sandals scuffed and worn. She wore a dime-store watch. He wondered what had happened, because when they had been married she had had an excellent job as an account executive with an advertising agency.

“Why did you leave North Carolina? Are your folks still there?”

She looked away and shook her head. “No. Both of my parents died—Dad died in January and Mom in April.”

“I’m sorry, Kate. Their deaths were close together and that’s rough. What happened to them?”

“They were terminally ill, both with heart trouble. After their deaths, I closed things up and found a job here, and we just arrived in town. I have to find a place to live and a day care for Henry.” She looked at Jonah. “So where do we go from here? Do you live here, too?”

“Yes. And I intend to get to know my son.” He glanced at Henry and then back at her, thinking of the future. “I’ll take you to court over this if I have to, Kate.”

She looked away, but not before he saw tears fill her eyes. Her tears didn’t diminish his anger, however.

“Don’t run away, either,” he added tersely. “I’ll find you. I can promise you that.”

“I won’t run. I suppose we’ll have to work out times and all that…. Have you remarried?” she asked, turning tostudy him.

“No, I haven’t.”

She shook her head and looked away again. Wind blew her long hair, and he could remember its softness when he’d wrapped his fingers in it.

“When do you start this new job?” he asked.

“Monday morning.”

Surprised, he arched his brows. “That leaves you just this weekend to find a place to live and a day care. That’s cutting it close.”

“I needed to start work as soon as possible.”

Jonah sat down again on the end of the bench and rested his elbows on his knees, watching Henry in the sandbox. The little boy was digging, carefully building a structure. Jonah’s thoughts seethed, and he tried to think calmly what to do next.

“Jonah, I should go,” Kate said, locking her fingers together tightly in her lap. “I can give you my phone number and the number of the place where I’ll be working, but right now, this afternoon, I should be looking for a place to stay. That’s what we’ve been doing all day today.”

She opened her purse and fumbled for a pen and paper. Jonah’s hand closed over hers and her gaze flew up to meet his.

“I’ll take you to dinner tonight and we can plan what we’ll do.”

“I don’t have any time before this job starts. Can we wait until I’ve had a week or two?”

“You’re going to tell him the truth today, right now—here at the park. Or else I will,” Jonah said in a voice of steel, a tone she had never heard before and knew she couldn’t argue with. “I don’t want to be cheated out of knowing my son one more minute.”

She rubbed her forehead again. “Please wait. I can’t deal with all this at once.”

“I’ve waited five damn years!” Jonah snapped. “I’m not waiting another moment.”

She nodded. “All right, Jonah. I guess you have that right.”

“Damn straight, I do. What have you told him about me—about us?” Jonah asked. “Did you tell him that we’re divorced?”

“Yes. I told him that the army was important to you and you were gone most of the time, and we decided it would be best to part. I told him you wanted out of the marriage.”

“Kate, that’s a damn lie!” Jonah said, standing again and pacing away from her, fury making him shake once more. He whipped around. “You’re the one who walked.”

“I know, but I was afraid he would keep hoping you would come back,” she explained.

The anger Jonah was keeping in check tore at him. He clenched and unclenched his fists and took deep breaths, knowing he needed to calm down.