Page 41 of Entranced
He caught her chin with his fingers. “You know me.” He kissed her again. “And I didn’t say anything about quick.”
Before she could speak again, he tensed. “They’re coming out,” he said, without turning around. Over his shoulder she could see the door open and the brunette pushing out a stroller. “Let’s cross the street. You can get a good look as they walk by.”
She’d tensed up again. Sebastian kept an arm around her shoulders, as much in warning as in support. She could hear the man and woman talking to each other. It was the light, happy conversation of two young parents with a healthy baby. Their words were nothing but a blur. Without thinking, she slipped an arm around Sebastian’s waist and held on.
Oh, he’d grown! She felt tears rush stinging to her eyes and willed them back. He was moving quickly beyond baby to toddler. There were little red high-tops on his feet, scuffed, as if he might have been walking already. His hair was longer, curling around his round, rosy face.
And his eyes … She stopped, had to bite back his name. He was looking at her as he rolled along in the bright blue stroller. Looking right at her, and there was a smile, a smile of recognition, in his eyes. He squealed, held out his arms.
“My boy likes pretty women,” the man said with a proud grin as they rolled David past.
Rooted to the spot, Mel watched David crane his neck around the stroller, saw his lips move into a pout. He let out a wail of protest that had the woman crooning to him.
“He knew me,” Mel whispered. “He remembered me.”
“Yes, he did. It’s difficult to forget love.” He caught her as she took a stumbling step forward. “Not now, Mel. We’ll go call Devereaux.”
“He knew me.” She found her voice muffled against a cool linen shirt. “I’m all right,” she insisted, but she didn’t try to break away.
“I know you are.” He pressed his lips to her temple, stroked a hand over her hair, and waited for her tremors to pass.
***
It was one of the most difficult things she’d ever done, standing on the sidewalk in front of the house with the blue shutters and the big tree in the yard. Devereaux and a female agent were inside. She’d watched them go in, through the door opened by the young brunette. She’d still been in her robe, Mel remembered, and there had been a flicker of fear, or perhaps knowledge, in her eyes as she bent to retrieve the morning paper.
She could hear weeping now, deep, grieving tears. Her heart wanted to hold rock hard against it, but it couldn’t.
When would they come out? Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she paced the sidewalk. It had already been too long. Devereaux had still insisted that they wait until morning, and she’d had hardly a wink of sleep at the hotel. It was well over an hour since they’d gone inside.
“Why don’t you sit in the car?” Sebastian suggested.
“I couldn’t sit.”
“They won’t let us take him yet. Devereaux explained the procedure. It’ll take hours to do the blood testand the print checks.”
“They’ll let me stay with him. They’ll damn well let me stay with him. He’s not going to be with strangers.” She pressed her lips together. “Tell me about them,” she blurted out. “Please.”
He’d expected her to ask, and he turned away from the house to look into Mel’s eyes as he told her. “She was a teacher. She resigned when David came to them. It was important to her to spend as much time with him as possible. Her husband is an engineer. They’ve been married eight years, and have been trying to have a child almost since the start. They’re good people, very loving to each other, and with room in their hearts for a family. They were easy prey, Mel.”
He could see in her face the war between compassion and fury, between right and wrong. “I’m sorry for them,” she whispered. “I’m sorry to know that anyone would exploit that kind of love, that kind of need. I hate what’s been done to everyone involved.”
“Life isn’t always fair.”
“Life isn’t usually fair,” she corrected.
She paced some more, casting dark, desperate looks at the bay window. When the door opened, she shifted to her toes, ready to dash. Devereaux strode toward her.
“The boy knows you?”
“Yes. I told you he recognized me when he saw me yesterday.”
He nodded. “He’s upset, wailing pretty good, making himself half-sick, what with Mr. and Mrs. Frost carrying on. We’ve got the woman calming down. Like I told you, we’ll have to take the boy in until we can check the matches and clear up the paperwork. Might be easier for him if you went in for him, drove along with Agent Barker.”
“Sure.” Her heart began to pound in her throat. “Donovan?”
“I’ll follow you.”
She went inside, fighting to shield her heart and mind from the hopeless weeping beyond a bedroom door. She walked down a hallway, stepping over a plastic rocking horse and into the nursery.
