LITMIR.BIZ

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to spend time with Brian and get acquainted with China. After all, he’d always felt responsible for her disappearance in the first place. That is, if she was Abby.

      He pushed that thought away, trying to refocus on Sophie and her children. Understanding what was going on here was important to him. Helping anyone in trouble was a family commitment.

      There was something particularly appealing about Sophie, Eddie and Emma. And he felt a curious compulsion to know more. While the children had done an inadvertently cruel thing, he had to admire the cleverness of their scheme.

      And what had it been about marriage that had made Sophie Foster not want another husband? Maybe the guy had been a rat.

      Sawyer had gotten the impression, when she’d told him her husband was gone, that she’d wanted to let the matter go at that—as though he’d simply walked away. Then Emma had added that he’d gone to heaven. The expression in Sophie’s eyes had said she didn’t think so.

      Sawyer followed them to the row of chairs, determined to know more about Sophie. She was very pretty in a delicate way, yet she looked as if she’d struggled through or endured something difficult. He knew that being a mother required toughness. Chloe, his stepmother, was a beautiful, genteel woman who could be as hard as necessary when the situation warranted it. But she’d had his father to help until he’d died, then she’d had the support of her son and her stepsons.

      Sophie had the love of her children, but he’d gathered from this afternoon’s antics that she had her hands full keeping them from harm—or at least, incarceration.

      She looked lonely.

      He sat on the other side of Eddie just as a nearby office door opened. The police chief stood in the doorway, his expression severe. Until he saw the children. Then his posture relaxed and he said in a firm but quiet voice, “Edward and Emmaline Foster?”

      Eddie raised his hand.

      “Come in, please,” he said. “And bring your mother and Mr. Abbott.”

      Sawyer knew Chief Albert Weston from the hospital board. He was average in height, but wide and balding, and he’d honed his police presence to a fine art. Sawyer had seen him talk to a knife-wielding man whacked out on drugs and alcohol for three hours. By the time the city had sent a hostage negotiator, Weston had the man in the back of a police car, sobbing out his rage over a lost girlfriend, a lost job, a lost life.

      Weston’s office was like a room in a law enforcement museum. He had photos and citations on the wall from his years as a police officer in the city. He’d come to Losthampton ten years ago.

      On a shelf behind his desk were trophies from the Long Island Officers Bowling League, and taped to the wall was artwork his grandchildren had created. Sawyer knew he and his wife were raising a nine-year-old abandoned by their daughter, who was living with a musician somewhere in L.A.

      Weston arranged four chairs in front of his desk and put the children in the middle two. Eddie, who’d been smiling and generally unconcerned to this point, now looked big-eyed and worried. Emma climbed into Sophie’s lap.

      “My officers are very busy,” Weston said, shuffling through the paperwork on his desk. “Just today, six officers have answered sixty-three calls. How many is that apiece, Edward?”

      Eddie sat forward. “Um…ten,” he replied, “and three left over.”

      The chief suppressed a smile. “That’s right. One was a robbery of a couple of cars at the beach, one was a tourist stranded on the rocks, two were traffic accidents, one was a man having a heart attack, one was a domestic…” The chief stopped, realizing the boy wouldn’t know what that meant. “I realize you don’t understand that, but they all take a lot of—”

      “I know what a domestic is,” Eddie interrupted. His worried expression deepened. “It’s when a dad beats up a mom. It happened to us a couple of times.” Then he turned to Sophie with sudden concern, as though afraid he’d said the wrong thing.

      The pink in her cheeks vanished, but she drew a breath and put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s all right. I’m sure Chief Weston wants you to tell him the truth. And he wants you to understand that it’s bad to waste the time of his police officers, because they have important things to do.”

      As Sawyer dealt with equal parts of rage and sadness, he saw the chief’s jaw drop for an instant.

      Eddie nodded. “I didn’t think about that when I saw Sawyer in the market. I just thought about how you need to have a husband that’s nice to you instead of mean, and how cool it’d be to have a dad who likes us. So me and Emma gave him the test.”

      Sophie’s eyes brimmed with tears, and Sawyer was very grateful that Chloe had drummed into all her sons the old-fashioned notion that gentlemen carried handkerchiefs, if not for themselves, for the ladies they took to sad movies or sandy benches at the beach.

      He handed her a white square of linen with a gray monogram. As she turned to accept it, a tear spilled over.

      “The test?” the chief asked Eddie.

      “Yeah. Our dad yelled a lot. And when my bike broke, Mom fixed it. When Emma got lost, Mom went to find her. When Gracie got in trouble at school—”

      Sophie put a hand on his knee. “He understands, Eddie.”

      “Who’s Gracie?” the chief enquired.

      “She’s our big sister,” Eddie said. “She’s ten. She’s grumpy ’cause she doesn’t have any boobs yet. She stayed to watch a Jennifer Lopez special with Kayla Spoonby across the road.” Apparently thinking her whereabouts required explanation, he added, “We don’t have cable.”

      The chief nodded gravely. “I see. So, telling Sawyer…Mr. Abbott…that you were kidnapped was part of the test?”

      “Yeah. ’Cause one time I heard Mom talking to Grandma Berry and she said she never wanted to get married again unless she could find someone who’d rescue the children. That’s me and Emma and Gracie. And rescue means save, right? So we had to see if he thought we were in trouble he’d save us.”

      The chief opened his mouth to respond, and obviously had no idea what to say. The boy had clearly misinterpreted what he’d heard, but cleverly created his own solution to what he perceived to be the problem.

      Sophie groaned and put Sawyer’s handkerchief to her eyes for a moment. Then she lowered it and took Eddie’s hand.

      “I meant…rescue you from not having a dad. From having to go to ball games with me instead of a dad. From Emma having no one to carry her on his shoulders, and from Gracie having no one to tell her she’s pretty.”

      Eddie obviously didn’t get that, either. “But, she’s ugly,” he said seriously.

      Sophie laughed, which was a good thing. Even the chief seemed relieved. Sawyer wanted to take Sophie and her children away to Shepherd’s Knoll, wrap them in fleece and shut out the world.

      Of course, he knew that wasn’t healthy. But he had to do something.

      “Okay.” The chief cleared his throat, then did it again. “Well. Now I understand what you were thinking when you scared your mother that way, but the next time you get an idea like that, I want you to promise me you’ll think twice. You know what that means?”

      “Think twice,” Eddie repeated, considering. “Think about it two times so…so if there’re bad parts in the idea, you’ll see them.”

      “Exactly,” the chief praised. “’Cause I’m sure your mom worries about you all the time. Moms usually do. And there’s enough real stuff to worry about without making things up that just scare people. Understand?”

      “Yeah,” Eddie said.

      Weston focused on Emma. “Do you understand, Emmaline?”

      She nodded. “We don’t want to scare Mommy.”

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