LITMIR.BIZ

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boy jerked his head toward the office. “You can take mine. I’m done with it. It’s on the desk.”

      Cole took his time walking to the office. He’d been cramped up in the truck for most of the morning during the long drive from San Clemente to San Diego. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found what he was looking for in San Clemente, nor had he found it in Laguna Beach before that. But it didn’t really matter because regardless of how long it took or what he had to do, he was going to find his son, take him home and try as hard as he could to make up for all the time they’d lost.

      As he gathered up the newspaper, he saw a map of Valle Verde thumbtacked to the wall. He pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and checked the address of the place he needed to go, located it on the map, then headed back to the truck.

      After he paid for the gas, he pulled back out onto the main road. Well, at least now he knew where to find them. Only one small detail remained: how to approach them so they wouldn’t suspect his real motive, so they wouldn’t know that he might change their lives forever.

      A small, neat park loomed up on the right side of the road and Cole pulled into it and turned off the truck, then reached into his bag and pulled out five thick file folders that represented his private investigator’s work. They felt heavy in his hands. He’d had five chances to find his child. Three remained.

      As he opened the top folder, his gut churned with anger at his ex-wife. In fact, ever since he’d learned that Kelly had been pregnant with his son when she’d left him five years earlier, he’d been swinging wildly between feeling furious and hopeful, anxious and sad.

      It was almost a month ago now that Kelly’s brother had called to tell him that Kelly had died—and that she’d confided something terrible to him just before dying. She’d not only been carrying Cole’s child when she’d left him, but she’d abandoned the baby in the hospital’s nursery. Worst of all, Kelly’s brother had no idea what had happened to the boy, nor the name of the hospital.

      Cole closed his eyes and pushed his anger into a small, tight corner of himself. He had to stay focused. His first two disappointing dead ends in San Clemente and Laguna had taught him that showing up and laying the facts out on the table didn’t work. Once the people discovered why Cole was there, they treated him with open suspicion and distrust. Now he knew to reveal as little as possible until he could determine the facts for himself.

      He reached for the newspaper and flipped to the classified page. Maybe he could get a job here, blend into the community for a week or two. Then when he met the people he was here to find, he would just seem like another newcomer to town rather than a man on a desperate mission.

      A sudden gust of wind whispered through the truck’s open windows, rustling the newspaper in Cole’s hands. He flattened the paper against the truck’s steering wheel to steady it, then ran a finger down the Help Wanted column. Halfway down the page, he stopped suddenly, grabbed a pen out of the truck’s ashtray and drew a circle around a large ad.

      And then Cole Travis smiled for the first time in weeks.

      Lauren Simpson took another sip of the killer coffee they served at Uncle Bill’s Café and smiled across the silver-flecked Formica table at her son who was running on a zillion gigawatts of syrup-induced energy.

      “Read it again, Mommy. Read it again!”

      Underneath the table, she stretched out her long legs and propped her feet up on the vibrant aqua Naugahyde bench across from her and let out a quiet sigh. At four years old, Jem’s capacity for repetition was truly infinite.

      “Pllleeaasssee?” Jem Simpson’s powder-blue eyes danced with mischief as he shot her a “c’mon, Mom” grin.

      She had to admit she was a sucker for that look, one that was designed to melt a mother’s heart while getting her to agree to anything. She smiled as she picked up Valle Verde’s local newspaper and read the Help Wanted ad out loud for the dozenth time.

      “Wanted—A man who can do it all to remodel our home and barn. Must be a good carpenter, electrician and plumber. If interested, please apply in person at the Simpson’s on Agua Dulce Road.”

      Her son grinned up at her. “You think someone’ll come today?”

      “Lord, I hope so.” She stuffed the newspaper back into her tote as she sent a quick prayer to the gods of home repair. More than anything in the world, they needed a really handy handyman to help restore their old house and get their big, beautiful barn ready for public use in just six weeks. But the ad had been running for a few days and so far, no nibbles.

      Lauren put aside her worries and smiled at her son. “If we don’t, pal, it’s just going to be you, me, a hammer and one of the biggest first-aid kits we can find.”

      She put money down on the table to pay for their breakfast and eyeballed the decimated pancakes on Jem’s plate. “You didn’t eat much. Why don’t you go ask Uncle Bill if he’ll box up some new pancakes for you?”

      “Okay.” He slid his agile young body along the bench seat and picked up his plate. Lauren watched as he balanced it carefully on the way up to the counter, then saw Bill laugh at the mess Jem had made of the pancakes just like he had every Saturday morning since they’d moved to this little town just two months ago.

      Even though it was fairly close to a large city—if you could call San Diego large—Valle Verde really was a warm, friendly place, she thought as she looked out the window at the slow, sweet pace of the main street. Kids rode their bikes down the middle of the road, moms walked to the store, women gossiped outside the beauty parlor and businesses put out simple, carved wood shingles with their names on them. From her vantage point she could see Johnny’s Pump and Tune, the What’s Shakin’ Chicken Pie Shop, Gordy’s U Pic It We Pac It Grocery and the Top of the Valley Hardware. And soon, just a few blocks away, a new shingle would sway in the warm summer wind of northern San Diego County: Simpson’s Gems, the Best Little Antique Store in the Southland.

      Lauren put a few more dollars on the table to pay for the boxed-up pancakes, then grabbed her tote and went to fetch her son. She let him finish the longwinded story he was telling the counter full of diners about how they were looking for a handyman and how he was going to help because he was really good with tools—she smiled at that because it had taken her all morning to put the can opener back together after Jem had “fixed” it. Then, when he was done, she grabbed his sticky hand, said her goodbyes and stepped out into the pleasant, early-summer morning.

      Jem chattered nonstop as they walked the two blocks home. She wondered to herself if she’d been the same way at his age. Probably not, considering that there hadn’t been a soul around to listen to her. But that was her childhood—a childhood spent in one cold, awful foster home after another, a childhood Lauren wished she didn’t have to remember but couldn’t forget no matter how hard she tried. And this, she thought as they walked down the shady main street lined with eucalyptus trees, this wonderful, peaceful existence was going to be what Jem remembered about his childhood, no matter what she had to do to protect that.

      She looked down at his tousled brown curls as he stopped to pick up a particularly grimy rock and stuck it in his pocket. Always gathering things, he was a bit like her in that way, although they shared no blood. But because she’d been his foster mother since he was abandoned as a baby and now she was his official adoptive mother, she realized this particular behavior could have been learned from her.

      After all, she’d been collecting things as long as she could remember, long before she took Jem in and made good on the most important of her childhood pledges. And now that she’d retired from her grueling and time-consuming modeling career, she was going to fulfill another of her pledges and trot out all her precious things and open an antique store.

      Jem slipped his hand back into hers as their house came into view and tugged to get her attention. “Look, Mommy,” he said in a loud whisper.

      Lauren followed the boy’s gaze and automatically slowed her steps. There, standing on the front porch of their grand, gorgeous, dilapidated, falling-down Victorian

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