How To Rescue A Family

The boy shook his head. His face and hands were sticky with barbecue sauce, as was the red dinosaur toy, which was now standing on the table, poised to strike at Dillon’s half-full glass of milk.

Ryan’s in-laws would have been horrified. Annabelle and Finch Brewster would never have allowed Dillon to bring a toy to the table, and the head shake would have been deemed wholly unacceptable.

Say “no, thank you.” Where are your manners, Dillon?

Ryan could practically hear the voice of Maggie’s mother in his head. No matter how many times he’d told Annabelle and Finch about what the child psychologist had recommended about not trying to force Dillon to speak, they continued to press him about please and thank you, yes sir and no ma’am.

It irritated Ryan to no end. He was doing everything he could to protect his son’s fragile emotional state, and whenever they were around, they sabotaged him at every turn. Sometimes he felt like it was intentional, like they were trying to prevent him from fully bonding with Dillon.

Surely that wasn’t true. Annabelle and Finch were Dillon’s grandparents, and in their own dysfunctional way, they loved him. Ryan did his best to chalk their misplaced interference up to grief. Maggie had been their only child.

But they were also lifelong members of the country club set, so their world revolved around appearances and social niceties. They’d liked Ryan better when he was a political editor at one of the most esteemed newspapers in the country instead of a journalistic one-man show in the Deep South. And sadly, they’d liked their grandson better back then too. They acted as if his refusal to talk was a form of rebellion. Couldn’t they see he was grieving?

“How about a movie before you wash up and get ready for bed? Lion King?” It was one of the few things Dillon liked better than barbecue. He knew every line and every song of the movie by heart, and sometimes Ryan liked to put it on just so he could watch his son’s lips move, mouthing the words—times like tonight, when happiness seemed almost close enough to touch.

Ryan didn’t want to think about Amanda’s part in making him feel that way. He just wanted to enjoy the faint stirring of hope before it slipped away. But as Dillon climbed down from his chair and carried his dinosaur to the den, Ryan’s new phone rang, punctuating the hopeful silence with a grating reminder that nothing had changed. Not yet anyway. A newsman couldn’t ignore a call. The Spring Forest Chronicle was a far cry from the Post, but Ryan was the editor-in-chief. He had a responsibility to his job, just like he had back in DC.

He glanced down at his cell, where Annabelle and Finch’s contact information lit up the small screen. Of course.

His thumb hovered over the green Accept button, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer the call. The conversation would be the same as it always was—awkward small talk, followed by a request to talk to Dillon. Once again, Ryan would have to admit that his son still wasn’t speaking.

No.

Just...

No.

Not tonight. He’d deal with Maggie’s parents later. For now, he’d watch a movie with his son, and if his thoughts wandered every so often to Amanda Sylvester, her bright smile and the subtle sprinkle of freckles across her rich complexion, then so be it.

Why fight it?

There was no harm in thinking about her when nothing whatsoever would come of it. Other than brief interactions at the Grille, he had no intention of seeing her again. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. There was no room in his life whatsoever for a relationship—not even with a woman who made him want things he hadn’t even thought about in months...maybe even years. Things he wouldn’t, couldn’t have.

At least that’s what Ryan told himself as he followed Dillon into the other room and let the call roll to voice mail.

Chapter Four (#ue8d381f9-0db5-5704-b918-b33d7487c58e)

“Tell me about the night the tornado came through.” Ryan’s pen was poised above the reporter’s notebook in the palm of his hand as he glanced back and forth between Birdie and Bunny Whitaker, waiting for a response.

The dishes from his barbecue dinner the night before were still sitting in the sink, right where he’d left them. He and Dillon had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the television somewhere around the point when a grown-up Simba reunited with Nala. Ryan had woken up this morning in a tangle of blankets with Dillon’s head on his shoulder, and he’d been reluctant to move, despite the nagging pain in his back. One of these days, he really needed to start sleeping in a bed again.

Back spasms aside, he’d let his son sleep as long as he could before finally relenting and waking him up for a quick bath and breakfast in time for school. It had been a good morning—the best in a long while. The dishes could wait.