LITMIR.BIZ

      The rhythm of the words was soothing, as familiar and well-worn as the rabbit Jamie clutched. Kelly pitched her voice low, savoring the peaceful hush of the evening routine. She had chosen Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever tonight. She remembered her own mother reading it to her. They would snuggle together on the bed, just as she was doing with Jamie, only that bed had been crammed under the eaves of a bedroom a quarter the size of this one.

      Kelly had liked the way the ceiling had sloped over her head. It hadn’t felt cramped, it had felt cozy. In the summer, the breeze through her window had brought the sound of rustling leaves from the big maple in the front yard and the train whistle from the crossing at the bend of the highway. In the winter, she would curl up under the same quilt that her mother had used as a child, the one her grandmother had embroidered with nursery rhyme characters.

      “‘I’ll love you forever,’” Kelly read. “‘I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.’”

      The words were a chorus that was repeated throughout the story, a song from a mother to her child. Kelly carried them in her heart. Whenever she needed to hear them, she could call up the memory of that bedroom in the house in Maple Ridge and it all came back. Not just the sounds and the images, but the feelings: safety, comfort, belonging and, above all, the persistence of love.

      She brushed a kiss on the top of her son’s curls before she turned the page. When she had been a child, she had listened to her mother’s voice more than to the words. She hadn’t understood the emotion she’d heard—it wasn’t until she’d had a baby of her own that she did—yet she hadn’t been too young to understand the power of a voice.

      That was when Kelly had first dreamed of being a singer.

      Would her mother still love her if she knew what Kelly had become?

      She blinked hard to stop the rush of tears. Damn that Nathan Rand for stirring up the past with his questions yesterday. Sometimes she could go for days without thinking about it, but the home and the family she’d left behind were too much a part of her to forget for long.

      She could never go back. Let her parents believe she was still chasing her dream. They didn’t know it had become a nightmare.

      Yet it wasn’t all a nightmare. She looked down at Jamie. Despite how he’d come into the world, she could never regret having this child. He was a gift. He was her reason for drawing breath. “‘As long as I’m living,’” she whispered, “‘My baby you’ll be.’”

      She sighed as she felt her eyes fill once more. She loved this story, but it always made her cry.

      She closed the book and reached behind her to set it on the shelf above the headboard. Jamie’s eyelids fluttered. He pulled his rabbit against his cheek, his lips working sleepily as his thumb inched toward his mouth. He had started dozing off a while ago, and now his body was completely lax as he lay curled on her lap, his head on her chest. He had wanted to wear his racing-car pajamas tonight, so red Ferraris decorated the flannel that covered his feet. She wrapped her hand around his toes, marveling at the miracle he was.

      It was times like these that she lived for. With her child safe in her arms, the world contracted to just the two of them. He would always have her love, but there was so much more that she wanted to give him. While Stephan spent extravagantly on Jamie’s material needs, there were things money couldn’t buy. Jamie needed to play with children his own age. He needed a normal environment, good influences and positive role models. He deserved a future free from the taint of crime.

      And in five more days…

      She blotted her eyes on her sleeve and moved her gaze to the window. Through the dusk that shadowed the grounds, she could see a light in the apartment over the garage where Nathan was staying. He had surprised her. She had assumed he would offer some resistance to living at the estate as Stephan had suggested. Nathan seemed astute enough to realize that Stephan’s hospitality was a ploy to intimidate him, yet first thing this morning, she had heard the rumble of his motorcycle as he’d driven through the gates.

      At the sound, she hadn’t been able to stop the crazy leap of her pulse.

      He was a criminal, she kept reminding herself. He was like Stephan. He had no qualms about bringing two tons of misery into the country.

      Yes, she knew all that, yet she couldn’t help feeling there was more to him.

      He’d been matter-of-fact when he’d told her about that horror from his childhood. There had been no condemnation in his voice when he’d mentioned his mother, either. From the sound of it, he’d learned to take care of himself early on. He had intelligence, drive, and an impressive insight into people. How different might his life have been if he’d been given a better start?

      And what would Stephan do to him when the heroin he was moving went missing?

      I’d prefer to keep all the body parts I was born with.

      Like a cold draft on the back of her neck, the words Nathan had spoken yesterday returned. The comment had been half in jest, but given Stephan’s track record, Nathan had been closer to the truth than he’d realized.

      Why couldn’t he have been crass and rude? If he had ogled her rather than looking her in the eye, if he had come right out and propositioned her, wouldn’t he be easier to dismiss from her conscience?

      Instead, for the past day she’d found herself haunted by the image of an eight-year-old Nathan forced to defend himself, just as she

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