*
* *
Trace left Abby and took out his frustration on the back
roads just outside of Chesapeake Shores. Riding his Harley usually calmed him,
but today his mood continued to deteriorate. When he finally got back to the
bank, he stormed past Mariah without a greeting, tossed his helmet across the
room where it shattered an ugly porcelain figurine of an osprey done by someone
who clearly didn't appreciate the awe-inspiring beauty of the bird of prey,
then slammed his office door for good measure. None of that brought him any
satisfaction. It did, however, bring Laila rushing into his office.
"Go away," he muttered. "And close the door behind you."
Ignoring him, she went over and picked up the shards of the figurine and tossed
them in the trash. She did it without comment, then sat down and waited.
Trace scowled at his sister. "Why are you still here?"
"Because something's obviously on your mind. Do you want to talk about it
or are you planning to break everything else you can lay your hands on?"
"I haven't decided yet," he told her sourly. "At least not about
breaking more things. I do know for a fact that I don't want to talk."
"Then I will," she said cheerfully. "I know what you're up to,
big brother. By now, I imagine Dad's figured it out, too. How furious is he
that you had me do that report today?"
"No idea what you're talking about," he claimed.
"Oh, please, you're not that clever. I can recognize a scam when I see
one."
"If I'm so easy to read, why didn't you call me on it when I gave you all
the files yesterday?"
"Because I was bored. And I figured it would be fun to throw Dad for a
loop this morning. You should have seen his face when he realized you weren't
coming to the meeting. And Raymond actually looked a little sick to his stomach
when he saw me sitting there."
He stared at her blankly. "Why would your presence upset Raymond?"
Laila rolled her eyes. "You can't be that stupid. He's been Dad's
right-hand man since this place opened. I know he thought you'd eventually bail
and that Dad would never give me a shot, so he'd be the natural
successor."
Trace stared at her incredulously. "Raymond thought he'd be the bank's next
president?"
"Of course he did."
"But Dad's never hidden his intention to have one of us in that
position."
"No, he's never hidden his determination to put
you
into the job. I
wasn't even on his radar, except as a flunky."
"Well, that's changing," Trace told her. "Dad was really
impressed with your work this morning, Laila. He said Raymond was, as
well."
"Oh, goody. Maybe he'll offer to make me Raymond's assistant since I
turned down being a clerk."
Trace met her disgusted gaze. "I think you're going to be surprised by
what Dad decides."
"Nothing he does surprises me anymore," his sister claimed. "But
enough about me. What did you and Abby fight about?"
"We didn't fight," Trace said, his mood immediately taking another
nosedive as he thought of their conversation.
"Well, something obviously happened."
"I'm not discussing Abby with you."
She stood up. "Fine. I'll go ask her."
"Stay out of it, Laila. She has too much going on in her life right now to
be bothered with satisfying your curiosity."
She frowned. "Just tell me one thing. You're not about to do something to
ruin this again, are you?"
He regarded her with indignation. "I'm not the one who ruined it last
time."
"Oh, please, you got all wounded and stubborn, and the next thing I knew
you were down here pining away when you should have been in New York fighting
for the woman you loved."
"I went to New York," he argued.
She dismissed the reminder. "Too little, too late."
Trace was well aware of that. He didn't need Laila to drag up the memory of
just how badly he'd blown it then. "Go away," he ordered. "I
have things to do."
"Must not be bank business," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because you'd be trying to hand it off to me. And just so you know, I am
not taking that check that Mariah says you endorsed over to me, either."
"Why not? You earned it."
"It was a week's pay for what amounted to a few hours of work. Actually it
was more entertaining than anything I'd done in the evenings with Dave the past
few months."
"Which should tell you just how lucky you are that you broke it off with
him," Trace told her.
"You have a point," she said blithely, though there was no mistaking
the flicker of sadness in her eyes.
Trace pushed his own mood aside and studied his sister. "You are okay with
the breakup, aren't you?"
"Of course I am. It was my idea. It's just going to take a little getting
used to."
Trace sighed. He could relate to that. In ten years he'd never quite figured
out how to live his life without Abby in it. Now it appeared he just might have
to do it all over again.
*
* *
It had been ages since Trace had gone for a run. That
evening after leaving the office in a funk, he'd changed clothes and laced up
his sneakers, then headed for the shore road. The fact that he took it in the
direction of Abby's house was purely coincidental. It wasn't as if he was
likely to cross paths with her. The house was a quarter mile back off the road,
tucked closer to the bay than the street. Only after it passed the house Mick
O'Brien had built for his family did the road cut to the east and start edging
along the shoreline and the wide expanse of the Chesapeake.
Running hard, his feet pounding on the pavement, the humid air leaving a sheen
of sweat on his skin practically before he hit the curve in the road just past
downtown, he kept waiting for the exercise to push Abby out of his head.
Unfortunately he couldn't seem to outrun his dark thoughts.
He was a mile up the road, getting closer to her house, when he spotted two
little girls walking toward him, bright pink suitcases dragging behind them.
Even from a distance he could see the tracks of tears on their cheeks.
He slowed his steps as he approached them, then hunkered down so he could look
directly into their eyes. "You girls going somewhere?" he asked.
"We're running away," Caitlyn said sorrowfully.
"We packed our stuff," Carrie added with a touch of belligerence.
"Even food."
"Does your mom know you've left home?"
Caitlyn blinked at him. "It wouldn't be running away if we told her."
Even as he tried to assess how long they might have been gone—five minutes, no
more than ten, certainly—he scrambled to find a way to get them safely back
home that would also salvage their tender pride. He decided on the guilt card,
which had always worked with his folks when they'd played it with him and
Laila.
"Your mom must be really, really sad and scared," he told them.
"No, she isn't," Carrie told him.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because she's mad at us," Caitlyn said.
"And she doesn't love us anymore," Carrie added.
"I doubt that," Trace said. "She might get upset about something
you've done, but your mom loves you more than anything in the whole
world."
Carrie regarded him skeptically. "How do you know?"
"Because of the way she talks about you all the time. You two are the very
best things in her life." He wanted to tell them how hard Abby was working
to make sure her daughters stayed with her, but he wasn't sure how much they
knew about any impending custody dispute. It wasn't his place to fill them in.
He looked directly at each of them in turn. "You know, when I was just a
little bit older than you, I ran away from home."
Caitlyn's eyes widened. "You did?"
"Yep."
"Were you scared?" she asked, her voice faltering in a way that gave
away just how frightened she was herself.
"Not until it got dark," he told her. "Then I got scared."
He gave a dramatic shudder. "Too many shadows where monsters could be
hiding."
"What did you do?" Carrie asked.
"I decided maybe I wouldn't run away till morning, so I went back home.
It's always okay to go where you know you'll be safe. Sometimes that's the
smartest, bravest thing to do."
"I guess," Carrie said doubtfully.
"It's true," he assured her. "And do you know what I found when
I got back home?"
"What?" Caitlyn asked, edging closer to him as if his mention of the
impending shadows of nightfall were already scaring her.
"My mom was crying. She was sure that something really bad had happened,
that I'd fallen into the bay maybe."
"But we're not allowed in the bay by ourselves," Caitlyn told him
earnestly. "It's a rule."
Trace bit back a grin. "And it's a very good rule."
Just then his cell phone rang. He knew instinctively it would be Abby. He held
it out to show the girls. "That's your mom. I'll bet she's calling me to
tell me you're missing. Can I tell her you're with me, that we're on our way
home?"
The twins exchanged a long, resigned look, then slowly nodded.
"Good decision," he commended them, then answered the phone.
"Hey."
Abby immediately started talking, but she was nearly incoherent, her words
tangled up with sobs.
"Slow down, darlin', they're with me. They're fine. We're on our way back.
I'll explain when we get there. Shouldn't be more than a couple of
minutes."
"You're sure they're okay?" she asked, her voice still shaky.
"Here, I'll let you ask 'em yourself." He handed the phone to Carrie.
"Hi, Mommy," she said, her voice small. She listened intently, then
said, "I know. Uh-huh. I know. Mr. Riley's bringing us back." She
shoved the phone toward Caitlyn.
"Hi," Caitlyn said. "Don't cry, Mommy. We're sorry."
When she handed the phone back to Trace, he asked Abby, "Feel better now
that you've heard their voices?"
"I just want to see them."
"Two minutes," he promised. "They were barely out of the
driveway and onto the road."
"They were walking in the road?" She sounded horrified.
"They're okay. Concentrate on that," he said. "We're turning
around right now. See you any minute."
He knew better than to expect her to wait for them at the house. They'd barely
made the turn into the long driveway when he spotted Abby running toward them.
Carrie and Caitlyn abandoned their little pink suitcases and flew into her
arms.
The reunion stirred a lump in his throat. He could imagine exactly how Abby had
felt for those few frantic minutes when she'd believed her girls had run away
from home. She must have been terrified. When he thought of all the ways this
adventure could have turned out differently, it made his palms sweat. Because
he didn't want to do or say anything to reveal just how much those two little
girls with their strawberry-blond curls had come to mean to him, he forced a
cheery note into his voice.
"I guess my work here is done," he said. "I should finish my
run."
He'd already turned to go when Abby said, "Please don't leave."
He faced her with a quizzical look.
"The girls and I want to thank you, don't we?" she said, looking at
each of them.
"Thanks, Mr. Riley," Caitlyn said dutifully.
"We could have found our own way home if we got scared," Carrie
insisted, but at a sharp look from her mother, she lifted her gaze to his.
"Thank you."
"You're very welcome."
"If you have time to wait, I'd like to talk to you," Abby said.
"About?"
Her eyes held his. "Just stay, please."
Trace didn't have the willpower to resist. "How about this? I'm soaking
wet from my run. I'll go take a shower and change, while you get them settled
down. Why don't I come back in an hour?"
She nodded. "An hour would be perfect."
Trace wasn't convinced that an hour was nearly long enough for him to do what
needed to be done. Oh, he could clean up, put on slacks and a shirt, maybe even
shave. But what he really needed to do—steel his heart against the hold this
woman, this
family,
had on him—couldn't be done in days or weeks, much
less the sixty minutes left to him to accomplish it.
18
A
bby
had never been more terrified in her life than when she'd gone upstairs to read
a bedtime story to Carrie and Caitlyn and realized they were missing. Their
suitcases, which had been sitting at the end of their beds earlier, were gone,
as well.
Racing downstairs, calling their names, she had drawn Gram out of the kitchen,
dish towel in hand.
"What on earth?" Gram asked.
"The girls are gone."
"Gone? What do you mean they're gone?" she asked, an expression of
disbelief on her face. "It's only been a couple of minutes since you sent
them upstairs, so they can't have gone far. They probably just slipped outside
to chase fireflies. You know how they hate going to bed. They're afraid they
might miss something."
Abby knew it was more than that, suspected they'd heard her talking to Stella
earlier. Though they were much too young to understand the implications of what
she'd been discussing with her lawyer, she was sure they'd picked up that it
had something to do with their dad.
A search outside the house had turned up nothing. There was no sign of two
barefooted little girls chasing fireflies or on the swing set Mick had
installed in the yard. Thankfully, though, before she'd gone into a full-blown
state of panic, something had told her to call Trace. Hearing his voice had
steadied her, even before he'd told her the girls were safe with him.
The whole terrifying incident had lasted no more than twenty minutes, maybe
even less, but it had quite likely taken five years off her life.
Now, as she walked upstairs with the twins and went through the motions of
making sure they took their baths and brushed their teeth, she debated how to
get into any of it with them. They were so unnaturally quiet, she knew they
were still upset about whatever had sent them fleeing earlier.
After they'd climbed into their beds, Abby sat on the floor between them.
"Are you going to read to us?" Caitlyn asked, her expression hopeful.
Abby shook her head. "Not tonight. We need to talk."
"It's because you're mad at us, isn't it?" Carrie said.
"I'm not mad," she told them. "But I do need you to tell me why
you decided to run away. You know you can tell me anything, right?"
The girls exchanged a telling look. Abby could see that they might as well be
exchanging a vow of silence. Even at five, they were as stubborn as all of the
O'Briens put together.
"Does this have something to do with your father?" she asked.
Again, that quick, furtive look to bolster their silence.
Abby pressed on, determined to make her own point at least and hoping to
reassure them in the process. "You know that running away is never the
answer, don't you? It doesn't solve anything and, more important, it can be
very dangerous. You could have been hurt tonight if Mr. Riley hadn't come along
when he did. You could have gotten lost. Where did you think you were
going?"
"To see Daddy," Caitlyn said.
"Caitlyn!" Carrie protested.
Abby closed her eyes against the tide of dismay that washed over her.
"Because you miss him?" she asked carefully. She knew it had to be
more than that. They'd just seen Wes and they'd never gotten homesick after
leaving him before.
Carrie remained stubbornly silent, but Caitlyn shook her head.
"Why, then?" Abby asked, focusing on Caitlyn.
"Because—" Caitlyn began, only to have Carrie cut her off by accusing
her of being a tattletale.
This was one of the drawbacks to having twins. They mostly presented a united
front. Unless she separated them and took Caitlyn off alone, it was unlikely
she was going to get a straight answer out of them tonight.
Flying blind, she said, "Okay, here's what I think. I think you may have
heard me on the phone today talking about some grown-up things going on between
your dad and me. I think maybe you got scared that I wasn't going to let you
see your dad anymore, so you decided to run away to be with him."
She could tell from the look of surprise on Carrie's face and the relief on
Caitlyn's that she was on the right track. She reached up and managed to clasp
one small, delicate hand of each girl.
"Listen to me," she said quietly. "No matter what happens
between your dad and me, you will always get to spend time with him. You will
live with me, but you can see him whenever you want to."
"Really?" Caitlyn asked, her relief evident. "You promise?"
"I promise."
"I told you," she whispered to Carrie. "I told you we could see
Daddy."
"But Daddy wants us to live with him," Carrie said defiantly.
"And you said on the phone that we have to live with you all the
time."
"Your dad and I will work that out," Abby reassured her.
"Why can't we live with him, like he and Gabrielle said?" Carrie
asked.
The question cut right through Abby's heart, but she couldn't let them see how
upsetting she found it. They were just little girls who adored their dad and
feared that something in their relationship with him was about to change. She
also knew Wes spoiled them during their time with him, while she tended to be a
stricter disciplinarian. In their eyes that made living with him seem like an
endless special occasion.
Abby regarded them seriously. "You're just going to have to trust me when
I tell you that your dad and I will always do what we think is best for
you," she said. With a little impartial help from a court.
"Are you going to punish us for running away?" Caitlyn asked,
apparently satisfied for now with Abby's promises.
"Yes," Abby said at once. "What do you think it will take to
make sure you never forget that running away is wrong?"
"A time-out?" Caitlyn asked hopefully.
"Carrie, what do you think is fair?" Abby asked.
"No dessert or cookies for a week," she suggested, sounding forlorn.
Abby considered the suggestions. A time-out of some kind would serve no purpose
with these two. Even if they were separated—something they hated—they could
entertain themselves for hours on end. Sweets, however, would be a real
sacrifice.
"Carrie, that's a good one. No desserts, cookies or sweets of any kind for
one week." She gave them each a stern look. "And no trying to get
Gram or Aunt Jess to break the rules or sneaking into the kitchen when no one's
around."
"Yes, ma'am," Caitlyn said.
Carrie looked disappointed by Abby's additional admonishments. Despite having
suggested the perfect punishment, she'd clearly had plans for getting around it
until Abby had taken away those options.
"Okay, get some sleep," Abby said. "We'll talk some more in the
morning." She bent down and kissed them. "I love you girls more than
anything. Please don't ever forget that."
Caitlyn sighed. "That's what Mr. Riley said."
Abby smiled. "Well, sometimes Mr. Riley is a very smart man."
And tonight, for whatever reason he'd been in the right place at the right
time, he was also her hero.