Page 59 of Operation Rescue
Her little boy—she caught herself, he wasn’t so little anymore—was out there somewhere, caught up in something he hadn’t intended, or at the least had changed his mind about. Oddly, that gave her hope, but that hope was swamped by the rest of the situation.
…if he could have… Ethan would have asked for help.
She tried to focus on the progress they’d made, more since Blaine and his friends had begun to help out than she’d made the entire time since Ethan had taken off. They were getting closer, and thanks to Foxworth, they knew so much more. But that only made her feel again as if she ought to be out there, pushing harder, searching. They had the cameras here now, she could do it. It would be better than this. But then almost anything would.
She rolled over and sat up on the edge of her bed. She rubbed at her burning eyes, wondering if she had any moisturizing drops left. She got up to go into the bathroom to see, but stopped short of the doorway when she heard something from the front of the house.
Something that had sounded a lot like the front door opening and closing.
Ethan?
Her heart leaped with hope. Had that robbery been the last straw, had he broken free and come home?
She pulled open the bedroom door and started quickly down the hall. But the moment she saw the figure in the darkened living room she knew it wasn’t Ethan. No, this was a man, tall, broad-shouldered, strong. A man who moved in a way she knew all too well.
Blaine.
But he had clearly just come in—using the spare key she had given him, because it was the only practical thing to do—from outside, because he was pulling off his heavy canvas jacket. But what had he been doing? Rafe and Cutter were back at the Foxworth headquarters, she suspected intentionally leaving them alone together. She wasn’t sure why she thought that, except that Rafe had said, when he’d told her he would be staying there, “He’s a good man, Erin. Even if you don’t love him anymore, let him be a bigger part of your son’s life.”
He was wrong about one thing, but she wasn’t ready to admit that yet. And on him being a larger part of Ethan’s life, well, she’d already decided that. Maybe if she’d done that earlier on, Ethan might not have taken off at all. She grimaced, tired of feeling this way, of self-critiquing her every thought and action. But it was hard not to, when this had been the result.
She flipped on the living room light. Blaine spun around, startled.
“Sorry. I tried to be quiet and not wake you.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t asleep.” She let out a sour laugh. “Not sure when I did sleep last, truly.”
He just looked at her then, wearing that worried expression she had once known meant he cared, so much. Now she wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Out walking around. Just in case.”
Just as she had lain there wanting to do, only he’d already done it. How very like him. Even if it seemed futile, Blaine just never quit if it was something that had to be done. She could only remember once he’d lost his temper with her, after she told him that she was leaving because she could not ever go through anything like this again.
A sudden image flashed through her mind, of the moment when her words “I’m leaving,” had hung in the air between them. He had stared at her as if she’d spoken them in ancient Latin, as if he had no idea what she could possibly mean. But when he’d finally understood, what she’d said and that she meant it, he’d had a few choice words to say.
And every one of them had been true.
“I kept thinking,” he said now, “about what Walker said about that clerk’s impression, that Ethan was scared and wanted help.”
She quashed the painful memories of the destruction of a beautiful life. “So did I. It’s why I couldn’t sleep.”
He crossed the room to her, put his hands—those strong, powerful hands that could make such delicate adjustments while flying that his bosses called him one of the best they’d ever seen—on her shoulders. She looked up at him, at a loss for words. Maybe because it used to be when he touched her, words were the last thing she wanted, except to maybe say “Hurry up.”
“He’s going to be all right, Erin. We’re getting closer, we’ll find him and get him free of whatever he’s gotten himself into.”
She drew in a deep breath to steady herself. Rafe’s suggestion once more went through her mind. And then, still looking at him, she nodded.
“And when we do find him, when he’s safe again, things have to change. You have to be in his life more, Blaine. I’m sorry I’ve made it more difficult than it should be. But I was…afraid.”
He drew back slightly, but didn’t let go. “Afraid? Of me?” He looked beyond upset, almost horrified.
“Not you. Never you. I was afraid of…me.”
“You?” he said, brow furrowed.
She took another deep breath. And said what had to be said. What he deserved to know.
