LITMIR.BIZ

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want to hurt my folks,” Ryan admitted next. “They were completely open about finding you, but I could tell my mom was a little worried, too.”

      Understandably. Sara had a strong urge to meet the woman who’d been such a good mother to the boy she’d birthed. To tell her thank you. And to tell her not to worry.

      To find out if the woman could accept her—or if she hated her. To find out if some of the jealousy she’d avoided acknowledging all these years could be put to rest.

      But what if it intensified?

      “Do they know you’re contacting me now?”

      She’d jumped ahead. There was so much in between.

      “Yes.”

      That was all. Nothing more.

      “I was kind of geeky growing up,” Ryan said then, obviously sensing that they had to go back to go forward. “I played Little League and high school football….”

      “Were you good at it?”

      “Good enough.” He shook his head, as if his sports successes were inconsequential. “I enjoyed playing, and my father encouraged it, but what I loved most was reading. And surfing the Net.”

      “AOL would have been in full swing by the time you were in high school.”

      “I was a junkie on Genie,” he said, naming an Internet connection source that had been out of business for several years.

      “I’m assuming you know what I do for a living?”

      “You’re executive director for NOISE, a national nonprofit organization that teaches Internet safety to kids, which your father, Sheriff John Lindsay, founded after his first book on the subject was published. You’re not supported by taxpayers’ money, but you get more than half of your funding through state-paid programs that contract your services.”

      “Is there anything about me you don’t know?”

      He glanced away and, for the first time since he’d come into her house, Sara felt uneasy with him there.

      She realized she hadn’t called the office.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “EVERYTHING OKAY?” Ryan asked when Sara came back into the room and sat. He was sitting on the couch, right where she’d left him when she went to phone Donna. “Do you have to leave? I can come back another time.”

      She shook her head, wondering how she was going to answer the questions her executive assistant was sure to ask when she finally did make it in to work. “I had an early flight from California this morning, so my schedule is clear until one.”

      Everyone who knew her at all would find it odd that she wasn’t in the office, anyway—she’d been gone for three days.

      But at the moment, she didn’t really care. For the first time in many years, the office, her father, what people thought of her, didn’t matter.

      “Would you like something to drink?”

      “I’m good, thanks.” He shook his head.

      “You were starting at the beginning.”

      “Yeah.” Head bowed, he didn’t speak right away. Then, looking up at her, he said, “This is kind of strange, isn’t it?”

      Sara chuckled. “To say the least. I’m nothing to you—I don’t even know you. And yet I look at you, know that you’re my son and I feel like a mother. I’m thirty-seven years old and I don’t recognize myself.”

      “I kinda feel like I know you, too.”

      “Sounds like you know quite a bit about me.”

      The thought was a comfort, given the seven years it had taken him to come and meet her.

      “I’ve always loved puzzles, solving riddles and mysteries. When I was a kid I preferred old detective reruns to cartoons and all the action-hero shows the kids at school talked about.”

      She could picture him, a much smaller version of the man sitting beside her, with skinny arms and legs, innocent eyes and the same freshly cut hair, lying on his stomach in front of a television set, his chin in his hands. The vision was so bittersweet it echoed the ache that accompanied her everywhere, every day.

      “I don’t really know how it all started,” he continued. “It’s not like I ever made a conscious decision, but somehow, after I learned your name—and decided that I wasn’t going to try to see you—I started looking you up on the Internet.”

      Sara’s chest tightened. Her entire life was a secret, built on air—and on her determination to protect herself, make amends, never be hurt or hurt anyone ever again. She would not allow herself to falter.

      But no one knew that. In this area she had no confidants.

      “There was no Internet when I was growing up. And I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of person. I imagine that search bored you fairly quickly.”

      Ryan shook his head. But it was the compassion shining from his eyes that scared her to death.

      He knew. That one look from her son brought back all the shame. The dirtiness. The fear and anger. The guilt.

      She didn’t want him to see her like that. Didn’t want to be that person. She’d worked so hard to leave sixteen-year-old Sara Lindsay behind.

      “When I typed in your name, nothing came up. But birth records are public and it didn’t take long to find out that your father was the sheriff of Brighton County.”

      Court cases were probably public record, too. And if someone was savvy enough to know how to access them…

      “It was actually through his name that I found the old newspaper articles.”

      “How old?” The Internet hadn’t been around that long.

      “Twenty-two years. The Maricopa Tribune, like a lot of newspapers, hired someone to archive their past issues and you can access the collection on their Web site.”

      She’d had no idea. Had never seen the articles to begin with, though she’d heard about them. Her parents had pulled her out of school that year and her mother had homeschooled her. They’d done all they could to help her recover from the tragic consequences of her great rebellion—including arranging counseling.

      Still, despite all their efforts—and her own—the damage remained.

      Ryan hesitated, and now it was Sara’s turn to look away. How did a son broach such a subject with his mother? Especially one he’d just met?

      He shouldn’t need to.

      And yet it was clearly important to Ryan.

      “It was my fault.” She hadn’t meant to say the words. And knew logically that they couldn’t possibly be true. Everyone who’d been around then, who’d had anything to do with her, had adamantly insisted that she hadn’t been to blame.

      And yet she’d deliberately disobeyed her parents. She’d lied. She’d put herself in danger….

      “You were raped. Three guys were convicted and sent to prison! How can you possibly think that was your fault?” Ryan’s words echoed those she’d heard so many times before.

      “I should never have been at that party,” she said softly. “It was stupid teenage rebellion. Growing up the only child of a sheriff—especially when you’re a girl—isn’t always easy. My father was pretty strict, seeing danger in everything.”

      “I can imagine.”

      Glancing at his uniform, she was sure he could. And with twenty-one years’ hindsight—heck, with one more day’s hindsight—she’d been able to understand, as well.

      But if they had to talk about this, she needed it done as quickly as possible, with

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