скачать книгу бесплатно
In answer to Mark’s question, the man indicated items arranged on a table lining the office’s back wall. Something heavy settled in Mark’s throat. No cold medicine that could be cooked up into more powerful drugs. Not even a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes. The suspect was accused of swiping a half gallon of milk, a box of corn flakes and a carton of cherry toaster pastries. A teenager’s breakfast of champions. Arresting a hungry kid was the last thing he wanted to do, particularly so close to the annual gorgefest that was Thanksgiving, but unpleasant tasks sometimes were part of the job.
He turned to the store manager. “Thank you for your help. I will be taking Mr. Wilson back to the post for further questioning. I will be in touch.”
The trip would also include a breakfast stop at a fast-food restaurant, but Mark didn’t mention that to the manager, who would be complaining about special treatment. He’d questioned many things about his new faith that had helped him to turn his life around and then failed to keep his wife from leaving him, but the lesson he’d learned about feeding the hungry still seemed like a good idea.
Soon the suspect was Mirandized, cuffed and seated in the back of the patrol car, and they were headed west on the Interstate toward the post. Well, fidgeting in the backseat, anyway. How Blake had managed to do that with his hands cuffed, Mark wasn’t sure, but the boy’s wiggling had already caused the blanket that Mark had tucked around his shoulders to fall behind him. The only thing that stayed in place was the hat that Mark had returned to him.
“You’re just going to make the cuffs rub your wrists raw,” he pointed out.
“So?”
But the squirming stopped for about a minute, and then it resumed as if the boy couldn’t control it. Instead of mentioning it again, Mark took the Milford Road exit and headed south toward a shopping plaza with several fast-food restaurants nearby.
“We’ll call your parents once we reach the Brighton Post, but I’m hungry, so I’m going to stop for some breakfast.” He glanced at the boy in his rearview mirror. “I can pick something up for you if you like.”
Unmasked longing flitted through Blake’s eyes as he took in the brightly colored fast-food restaurant signs, but he blinked it away as he met Mark’s gaze in the glass.
“Can’t we just go to my house first? I mean...it’s right by here.”
Mark wasn’t sure which surprised him more, that a hungry teen was turning down food or that the boy was begging to see his parents sooner than he would have been forced to once they reached the post. Since he’d suspected that Blake might be a runaway, he was curious to see just how close they lived.
“Why would you want to go there now?”
“My parents will go ballistic when they hear about me getting into trouble anyway, so we might as well get it over with.”
The Lie-o-meter should have exploded on that one because Mark wasn’t buying it. The kid had probably figured out that the store was unlikely to press charges. Or maybe he had a juvenile record a mile long and wanted to delay Mark’s chance to get back to his computer. Mark’s lips lifted at the thought. Blake had missed the laptop mounted on the patrol car’s dashboard if he believed a side trip could slow access to that information.
“Good to get it over with.” His gaze flicked to the mirror. “Sure you don’t want to eat something before—”
Blake shook his head, interrupting him. That settled it. Something was making the boy desperate to get home. Something more powerful than hunger intense enough to drive him to steal. And Mark had to know what it was.
“Okay, what’s your address?”
He popped open the laptop and typed the address Blake gave him into the GPS. The short trip led to a rural area near the line that separated Oakland and Livingston counties. Turning off on a county road, he made a second left onto a lane with only a few houses spaced along it. He pulled onto the narrow drive of an expansive two-story brick house, remarkable in no way beyond its size. The place had seen better days. Its outbuildings were faded. Its gutters hung loose. Its long, blacktop drive begged for recoating. The owner had obviously tried to warm up the place with a fall display of hay bales and yellow chrysanthemums next to the porch, but the effort only reminded Mark of a tiny color portrait on a bare wall.
“Is this it?” At least it was a house. Many of the suspects he’d met lived with less. Far less.
“Guess so.”
From the way Blake was looking at the place, Mark could only guess that he hadn’t been there in a while. Maybe his premise about the boy being a runaway was right. No need to mention it now, though. He would have answers to at least some of his questions soon.
“Sure your parents will be home?”
“Hope so.”
Mark climbed out of the car, put his cover on his head and crossed to the rear door on the passenger side. After Mark had helped him out of the car, Blake looked over his shoulder, indicating his cuffed hands.
“Sorry,” he said with a shake of his head.
Frowning, the boy allowed the trooper to lead him up the walk. They climbed the crumbling steps onto the porch, and Mark rang the bell. Female voices filtered through the wood before a young girl pulled open the door. A very pregnant Hispanic teen.
She stared at them with wide eyes. “May I help you?”
“Who is it?” Another teenager pressed in next to her, this one a Caucasian blonde, clearly pregnant, as well. She shifted her feet, and her gaze slid right to left in that uncomfortable reaction that even innocent citizens sometimes have to an officer in uniform.
“Is it for Miss Shannon?” A third teen, this one African-American with what appeared to be the beginning of a baby bump, pulled the door wider so she could fit into the space.
Finally, the door came fully open, and enough girls to field a soccer team looked out at them, some with open curiosity, others with caution. Most were clearly pregnant.
What had he just walked into? Mark scanned the front of the house, trying to locate a sign, but he didn’t see one. He’d had no idea that homes for unwed mothers still existed. Didn’t pregnant girls usually walk the same high school halls with other students these days? It was obvious, though, that Blake had played a joke on him by leading him to one of these places out of the past. The kid might think this was funny now, but he wouldn’t be laughing when they returned to the station and he booked him.
But when Mark turned to him, Blake wasn’t paying any attention to him. He was staring straight ahead, his posture rigid, his chest pushed forward. Mark followed the boy’s gaze to the petite brunette who had appeared in front of the girls. And Mark couldn’t have looked away if the woman had demanded it with a handgun.
She had this fair porcelain skin, these huge hazel eyes, delicate features and amazing full lips, which combined to give her a fragile, china-doll quality that was just unfair to a guy trying to keep his thoughts on the job. Dressed in jeans and a Henley shirt and with her hair tied back in a braid, she could have been mistaken for one of the girls, but the creases at the corners of her eyes and her attempt to corral the teens behind her signaled that she was in charge.
For several heartbeats, she stared back at him, a deer caught in his headlights, and then, as her cheeks turned a pretty pink, she shifted her gaze to Blake.
Mark cleared his throat. If he couldn’t avoid noticing a female while on the job, at least he’d chosen the only adult in the room. She didn’t appear to be pregnant like the girls either, he noted, feeling strangely relieved. What was that about?
“May we help you, Officer? Has something happened?” She glanced from Mark to Blake, her gaze narrowing.
He frowned, expecting idiot to be stamped on his forehead. Who could blame a woman in a house full of pregnant girls for being cautious when facing a police officer and a teenage boy in handcuffs?
“Everything’s all right, ma’am. My name is Trooper Mark Shoffner.” He paused, clearing his throat again. “We apologize for the disturbance. There was a mistake about the address.”
“Oh... Okay. You must be new. This home is a center for teen mothers. It’s called Hope Haven. I’m Shannon Lyndon, the housemother and one of the social workers.”
At least she hadn’t asked more about why he’d brought a dirty, handcuffed teen to her front porch because he wasn’t sure how to answer that. She wasn’t looking at him, anyway. She was studying Blake as if he was a science specimen. Finally, she shook her head. Her cheeks flushed again. Mark hadn’t noticed earlier, but her hazel eyes struck him now as familiar. Had he met her before? That was unlikely since he’d only transferred to Brighton a month earlier, but he couldn’t shake the sense that he knew her.
“Well, thank you and sorry, again, for the disturbance.” He backed away from the door, pulling Blake along with him, but the boy dragged his feet.
“Wait.” Blake’s voice was tight.
Mark stopped. “What’s going on? I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but I’m not impressed.”
He wasn’t happy with himself either, for letting his curiosity get the best of him and for agreeing to come here in the first place.
“I can explain.”
“Well, you’d better start. Now. Did you think it would be funny to bring us here? Because this obviously isn’t your house.”
The boy didn’t crack a smile, didn’t even look his way. Instead, he trapped the housemother in a straight, accusing stare.
“No, I don’t live here.” He paused a few heartbeats before adding, “But she is my mother.”
Chapter Two
Voices all around Shannon erupted in varying tones and speeds, but the words themselves were muffled and faraway. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Mother. The word she’d waited fifteen years to hear spoken in reference to her, the word she carried in her heart, so soft in its potential, its reality full of jagged edges.
But the venom she hadn’t expected. Now she didn’t know why she hadn’t prepared herself for that. She didn’t question for a second that this was her baby. Her big boy now. He was standing right there in front of her, dirty, sure, but tall and handsome. She couldn’t get enough of seeing him. Eyes so like her mother’s...and her own. A face that looked like, well, his father.
Taking in all of him, she couldn’t help but notice that his arms were cuffed behind him or that he appeared to be in the custody of a uniformed police officer. One with the heavily lashed black-brown eyes and the short brown hair that showed off the kind of face that could have been—no, should have been—sculpted in marble. Shannon blinked, catching herself staring again. She’d had no business gawking at the handsome officer even before she’d recognized Blake. Now it was unforgivable. What kind of woman allowed a man to distract her at a time like this? Well, someone who’d allowed a guy to sidetrack her in the past from what really mattered. But not this time. She didn’t care about the trooper’s broad shoulders and strong-looking arms and chest dressed up that navy blue uniform with its silver tie and badge.
She pushed those unacceptable thoughts away and zeroed in on Blake. Why he’d chosen to come here today, how he’d gotten into trouble, even the officer who’d brought him here—none of that could matter. Nothing except that he was here now.
“Blake?” It was the first time she’d ever spoken his name aloud, and she could only manage a squeak. She cleared her throat. “It is Blake, right?”
He didn’t respond as he stood, shifting his feet, but he didn’t look away, either. It was something. She braced herself and accepted the accusation and conviction in his gaze the best she could. He deserved that much, and if he gave her the chance, she would make him understand.
“She had a baby?” someone said in a low voice. “A baby as old as him?”
“And he got arrested? That means...”
Whispered questions that escalated to frantic chatter invaded her senses, making her vaguely aware that they weren’t alone, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away from her son. Her son. Just the thought of it made her long to reach out to touch him. When she could no longer resist, she took a tentative step toward him, her hands lifting from her sides.
“Do...not...touch...me.”
His words were a wall of glass, keeping her from the only thing she’d ever wanted, the chasm between them suddenly huge and growing. She’d never expected to feel anguish again like the day the nurse had carried her blanketed baby from the birthing room and from her life, but here it was again, bitter and deep. If she could move at all, she would have collapsed into a heap of loss.
“Why don’t we take this conversation inside?”
She blinked at the sound of the officer’s voice, and her gaze flicked to him. Accusation filled his eyes. His expression was as hard as Blake’s was. What right did this stranger have to judge her when he didn’t know all the facts of the situation? He didn’t even know that the choice hadn’t really been hers. But then Shannon shivered as she became aware of the frigid air pouring in through the gaping front door. And that Blake’s sweatshirt was so thin.
“Oh. What was I thinking? Sorry.”
Backing away from the door, she bumped into Holly right behind her. She whirled to face the shock on so many of the girls’ faces. How betrayed they had to feel over learning about her secret this way. They would never understand that it was her shame and not a fear of trusting them with her story that had kept her from sharing it.
“Miss Shannon?”
So many questions were folded into Holly’s two words, and Shannon promised herself she would answer every one of them, but she owed her son an explanation first.
“Girls, could you just give me—”
“We’re going to need to speak privately with Mrs. Lyndon,” the trooper said, interrupting her.
“Miss,” she corrected.
His gaze flicked to the bare finger on her left hand. “Sorry. Miss.” Guiding Blake inside, he closed the door behind him. “Ladies, could you give us a few minutes?”
The teens paused, reluctant to leave her alone with the two males.
Chelsea, who had celebrated her fifteenth birthday at Hope Haven just last week, touched her arm. “You going to be okay?”
Shannon nodded, though she was as unsure as the girls appeared to be. “I’ll be fine. Just work on your lessons in the computer room. I’ll be in as soon as we’re finished.”
She didn’t bother telling them that everything would go back to normal when she returned, if she could call these lives they’d lived on a tangent at Hope Haven “normal.” For Shannon and for the girls she worked with every day, nothing would be the same.
Once the door to the computer room closed, she braced herself and faced the officer, the boy and the past that haunted her memories.
Trooper Shoffner guided Blake a few steps forward so that he was standing in front of her.
“I take it you and Mr. Wilson know each other?”
Shannon looked longingly at the boy who’d stared her down earlier but now refused to look her in the eye. “Well, not exactly, but—”
“You called him by name.”
“As I started to say, he is, he is...my son.” She was simply putting the truth into words as Blake had done, so she hated that her voice broke under the weight of it. She tried again. “I gave up a baby boy for adoption almost fifteen years ago. I met the adoptive parents once. They told me if the baby was a boy, they would name him Blake.” She lifted a hand to indicate the teen. “That’s him.”
“You’re certain of this?”
“Look at him. Don’t you see the resemblance?”
The officer didn’t look at either of them as he withdrew a notebook and pen from his pocket, but Blake sneaked a glance at her from beneath his shaggy hair.
“Obviously, maternity will have to be confirmed.” He tapped his pen on the paper. “But since you appear to have an interest in this boy, you should be aware that he was arrested this morning. You might be interested in knowing what type of items he was accused of shoplifting.”
“Um, okay.” Since Blake had turned to his side now, she couldn’t help staring at his cuffed hands.
“Food.” Trooper Shoffner spat the word as if it had soured in his mouth. “He was hungry.”
The officer’s censure stung, but not as much as the reality that the precious boy next to her had ever known hunger. How could that have happened? “Oh. You poor thing.”
“He also appears to be a runaway.”
The trooper’s stony expression told her he wasn’t kidding. If his first comment had been a stab, he’d twisted the knife with this one.
“Blake?”
His only answer was a shrug. She needed him to look at her, to tell her this was all a mistake, but he kept staring at the ground.
Catching herself this time as her hands lifted to touch him again, she stuffed them into her pockets. “What happened? Did you have an argument with your...parents?” She hated that the word caught in her throat. They were his parents after all. Under the law, she was his birth mother. Nothing more.
“If you give him something to eat, he might be able to answer your questions,” Mark said.
“You mean you didn’t feed him? You knew he was starving, and you couldn’t stop before coming here?”
He met her incredulous look with a steady one. “I started to, but he insisted on coming here first.”
Her righteous indignation fizzled. The blame was back on her, right where it belonged.
“Right. Well, take those cuffs off him and bring him in the kitchen.”
“I don’t think—”
“He can’t eat without his hands.” She didn’t care if she’d just given an order to a police officer, who was clearly more accustomed to giving them than receiving them. For whatever reason, her child was hungry. She might never have been able to do anything for him before, but she could feed him now and help free his hands so he could eat.
The trooper studied Blake for a few seconds and then withdrew a key from his pocket, stepped behind the boy and opened the handcuffs. Blake rubbed his wrists and spread his fingers to stretch them before jamming them in his sweatshirt pockets.
