Stella MacLean - To Protect Her Son

“I lived in Riverside for a short time, but Anaheim mostly.”

A frown line formed between his eyes. “I can understand that you’d be busy with a child and a career, but why was it easier to make friends here in Eden Harbor than in Anaheim?”

He was asking questions she couldn’t answer without exposing the truth she’d vowed to keep to herself. She’d moved out of the neighborhood she’d been living in with Harry as soon as she could. With the grudging help of her parents, she’d taken a medical receptionist course, after which she’d moved to another part of town. There she’d intentionally avoided making friends who might connect her to the sensational coverage of Harry’s trial. Having Adam in her life was everything she’d ever wanted, and the one good thing to come out of her past. “I...I’m not sure.”

“What about Adam’s father?”

Gayle nearly dropped the plate she was placing in the dishwasher. “His father died in a fishing trawler accident off Alaska just a few months after Adam was born.”

“I’m sorry. It must have made your life very difficult. Did you have family to support you while you raised Adam?”

“My parents passed away a few years ago.” In Anaheim, her mother and father hadn’t bothered to stay in touch with her, and she didn’t mind because they were always expecting her to do things for them—from housework to grocery shopping. She guessed that making demands on her was their version of being involved in her life.

She finished cleaning up the kitchen while Nate watched, as if assessing her. She was exhausted from the past hour, and needed to get this man to leave before he asked any more questions. He would do what he could to help get Adam’s life back on track, of that much she was certain. Once that was done, and it would be, she’d concentrate on the future, her work and her friends.

The man standing just a few feet from her would not play any role in her life after that for a couple of very good reasons. She couldn’t trust herself not to be drawn to him, or worse, to end up wanting him. If she allowed him into her life beyond his involvement with Adam, he would certainly learn things about her he wouldn’t like, thus putting an end to any further relationship.

She wanted Nate to leave, but from the way he’d positioned himself along the edge of her counter, he didn’t intend to do that any time soon. To stop his deluge of questions, she decided to learn what she could about his relationship with Anna. She and Gayle had had coffee several times, but Anna had never really talked about her brother.

* * *

NATE FOUND IT hard to take his eyes off this woman, while she seemed to be totally unaware of him. Gayle Sawyer was gorgeous, worried and hiding something.

All Nate’s police training told him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the woman before him was protecting a secret so big that she would do anything to keep it from him. Given that his sole purpose in being here was to mentor her son, that secret almost certainly involved Adam. As he stood there watching her, he wondered what would make a mother hide the truth if her son’s happiness stood to suffer.

Furthermore, if he was completely honest himself, he wanted to know more about this woman out of a personal interest. He’d liked her from the first moment they’d exchanged glances.

Not that he wanted to date her. He didn’t. She wasn’t his type. He’d made it a practice to choose women who wouldn’t make any emotional demands on him, who were out to enjoy life. Such relationships suited his lifestyle.

He’d once had a different outlook, and was drawn to a different type of woman... Until that disastrous day after he’d been shot when he’d learned that the woman he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with wasn’t into a man with a disability.

That moment of truth had nearly been his undoing. Never again would he kid himself into thinking that a woman would want him just as he was, disability and all. Maybe in the short-term, but not the long. Because of that, he would never again allow a woman to get close enough to hurt him.

From what he could tell by being around her, Gayle Sawyer was the kind of woman who took life seriously. Something he wasn’t into. He couldn’t be.

“Gayle, I understand how you must be feeling right now. Having someone walk into your life under such difficult circumstances and then start asking personal questions would cause anyone anxiety.”

She didn’t flinch, nor did she offer up any information, as so many people did when they were offered a sympathetic response. This lady had the kind of focused determination he usually experienced with his law enforcement friends and colleagues. Not a woman who was worried about her son.

He hadn’t expected her to be so self-contained, so in control. She wasn’t the typical mother of a son on the verge of trouble with the law.

There was something going on here...

Or was he simply feeling the effects of her total lack of interest in him as a man?

* * *

GAYLE GRUDGINGLY ADMITTED she liked this man, despite his questions. After all, he was only doing his job, and she had to believe that he would help her son, that his questions would lead to a better life for Adam. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I know your sister, Anna. We belong to the same single-parents support group.”

“No, I didn’t. She’s been busy and so have I.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he met her questioning gaze.

“She’s really great. So brave to be raising her boys alone after losing her husband in Afghanistan. She’s amazing.”

“She is. When Kevin was killed we were afraid that she might not be able to cope. Sherri was really supportive, and her mother, Colleen, moved Anna and her family into her house for those awful first weeks after we’d learned about Kevin’s death.”

“Were you living here at the time?”

“No. I was still in Boston recovering from my injuries.”

She couldn’t look at his leg or the cane leaning against the counter without wondering about the officer Harry had shot. “I’m sorry you were shot. It must have been really awful.” She desperately wished she could change the subject without appearing heartless.

“It was, and there are days when it still is. But life goes on. The one good thing that came out of it was that I made the decision to move back here where I have family and friends.”

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, leaving Gayle to wonder if the memories of the shooting still haunted him. Yet she didn’t want to know more about that day. She didn’t want to know his story. That would only heighten her guilt about what Harry had done fourteen years ago. “Yes, friends and family can be so supportive,” she said to comfort him and to keep the conversation moving away from her.

Many times she wished that she’d gone to see Officer Perry and apologized for what Harry had done. But back then she was too afraid that she would be seen as an accomplice. She had been almost eighteen at the time and had lived in fear that somehow she would be implicated. Her ignorance of the law had held her back from acting on her need to somehow make it right with the officer, and then time passed until it was too late for her to say anything.

“How easily a single event can change everything for so many people,” she said, feeling an odd attachment to this man—and an even more unusual curiosity about him. “Was it difficult to pick up and move home, leaving your life in Boston?”

His eyes were kind as he spoke. “I had been thinking about making a change. After my injury I wasn’t really happy sitting at a desk all day. When Kevin died I was needed here. Anna’s two boys had lost their father, and that was something I felt I could help them deal with. When I suggested it to Anna, she tried to dissuade me, but I convinced her that it was what I wanted.”