Janice Kay - A Mother's Claim

She looked at her phone suspiciously and saw that her guess had been right; he’d ended the call.

Would he still email the photos? Her heart drummed. Please, oh, please.

With a shaky hand, she dialed Craig’s number. She’d promised to let him know once she’d talked to Gabriel and what her plans were.

Dana desperately did not want him to insist on coming to Lookout, too. She had no desire to see him, but it was more than that. He had gone on with his life so quickly. He had two other children. Losing his son? Hardly a blip in his life.

She rarely wasted thought on her ex-husband, but bitterness seared her now. Craig had given up on Gabriel. So who was he to pretend to care now?

* * *

UNFORTUNATELY, THE MORNING dawned sunny. Nobody would be going out on the river without a wet suit, but that didn’t stop most ardent wind-or kitesurfers. A powerful wind that funneled between banks of the Columbia River Gorge was the draw. It wouldn’t be like summer, but a sparkling spring day would have Nolan busy from the minute he opened. If not for the business, he’d have been tempted to go out on the water himself.

He wished he’d thought to ask when Ms. Stewart expected to arrive.

Christian had exploded the minute he learned his biological mother was coming.

“You said you wouldn’t let her take me!” he had yelled.

“I said I’d fight her,” Nolan responded, weary and, yeah, freakin’ terrified he would lose. “And she isn’t here to take you away. What she wants is to see you. Talk to you.”

“I don’t have to talk to her if I don’t want.”

Shit. Nolan had pressed the heel of his hand to his breastbone to suppress the pain beneath. “Christian, this is a woman who has hurt for a very long time because she loved you so much. Think about how you want to treat her.”

Too many confused emotions crossed the boy’s face before he bolted upstairs. Nolan had let him go.

Wind & Waves didn’t offer lessons until mid-April. There wasn’t enough call for them. He rented a lot of windsailing packages and Hobie Cats as the morning went on, though, and sold a bunch of accessories, too.

Midafternoon, he had a lull. Over the winter and early spring, he covered the store with minimal additional staff. At the moment, Amir was out helping a couple launch a small catamaran-style Hobie Cat, leaving Nolan alone inside. The growl of his stomach reminded him he hadn’t had a chance to take lunch. Since he’d been so tied in knots this morning, he hadn’t managed to swallow much of his breakfast, either.

Nolan was reaching for his phone to order delivery from a local deli when the bell on the door rang and a woman walked in. He froze, hand outstretched, and watched her look around as she approached the counter. She might be a customer...but he was betting not.

No—he knew she wasn’t. The resemblance between this woman and Christian was too obvious.

Tall and yet slight to the point of appearing fragile, Dana Stewart wore honey-blond hair in some kind of twist on the back of her head. Her bone structure echoed her son’s—no, he supposed it was the other way around. Her cheekbones were almost too sharply defined, leaving hollows beneath. There was a tension to the way she carried herself, shoulders squared, head high, as if she wouldn’t let herself relax in any way. The hand not clutching a purse was curled into a fist.

She was beautiful, but he wondered how much more beautiful she’d been before her son’s disappearance damaged her in ways both visible and invisible.

Needing to be battle ready, Nolan slid off the stool and stood before she reached him.

He met wary gray eyes, which she hadn’t bequeathed to Christian. His were a warm brown.

“Ms. Stewart.”

“You’re guessing,” she said, in a distinctively throaty voice.

“No.” He made a sound even he couldn’t decipher. “You look like him.”

Pleasure showed on her face. “I do, don’t I? Thank you for emailing the pictures. I know you were annoyed at me—”

“I’m not that petty,” he broke in.

Her teeth sank into a full lower lip. “I...would have understood.”

Nolan had to momentarily close his eyes to recover his resolve. I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. Of course it would come to that. No, he might not be petty, but inevitably, he would hurt this woman.

“Christian is still in school.”

“I assumed he would be. Someone at the inn—” she gestured behind her “—told me where to find you.”

Nolan waited.

“You don’t want me here.”

“He’s not ready.”

The pain in those eyes could rip him in two. “Mr. Gregor, do you know how long I’ve waited to see my son?”

His jaw tightened. “Are your needs more important than his?”

As if he’d struck her, she fell back a step, making him feel like an asshole. But then she squared her shoulders again and lifted her chin. “Do you have any concept of the connection a woman feels with her unborn child? And then when she sees him, holds him, nurses him? What happens to both of them when that connection is snapped?”

His gaze lowered to her breasts, full despite her overall thinness. He saw her, a breast bared to a blond baby who had latched on. Her head was bent, her hair falling forward, her tenderness palpable.

When his eyes met hers again, he wondered what his face betrayed.

“If I hadn’t understood, I wouldn’t have put his DNA online,” he said roughly. “What you have to understand is the power of the bond he and I have. I’ve been his father in every meaningful way.”

“Every meaningful way?” Dana Stewart’s voice could have cut glass. “You are not his father either biologically or legally.”

He hadn’t meant to issue threats, not yet, but heard himself say, “The legal part is...still a possibility.”

Temper glinted in her eyes. “We’ll fight you tooth and nail.”

“We? I thought there was no longer any ‘we’?”

“Divorced doesn’t mean we aren’t united as Gabriel’s parents. And I should warn you that Craig is a wealthy man.” She flicked a glance around the store, a suggestion of disdain putting his back up. “He can afford the best legal team.”

That possibility had been worrying him, but Nolan still had investments he could tap into. During his years in the military, he hadn’t had much reason to spend. That didn’t mean he was rich, however.

So fight dirty. “Has it occurred to you,” he said softly, “that if he wins, you lose? Is that what you want? Your son going home with your ex-husband? You don’t really think he’s going to spend his money for you, do you?”

She flinched before regaining control. Knowing his aim had been dead-on made him once again feel like shit, but the devastating truth was that he would lose Christian if he was nice.

“You’re wrong.” Her voice gained strength. “We loved each other. Craig wouldn’t hurt me that way.”

Nolan shrugged. “Your risk.”

As if his insolence had been a trigger, her eyes narrowed and she said fiercely, “Gabriel is my son. If you help me, I’ll allow you to maintain a relationship with him. If you don’t...?” Her turn to shrug, after which she whirled around and walked away from him.

His gaze followed her until the door closed behind her, the bell tinkling cheerfully. And then he went to the front window and kept watching as she followed the path to the inn, a hundred yards away.

That tall, slim body might look fragile, but he had a bad feeling her backbone and will both were steel. She had suffered for a very long time, but now the future that had been only a dream was within her reach.

He didn’t have any doubt that she had meant her threat. Both her threats.