LITMIR.BIZ

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clear, and dawn was in full bloom, tinting the dew on people’s lawns silver and painting the snow that capped the peaks to the west with lavender, pink and gold.

      He had a son.

      In the scheme of things, it was almost enough to balance the anger Gavin felt every time he stopped to think that if not for a quirk of fate, he never would have known of the child’s existence.

      Almost. But not quite.

      Nor was it enough to blind him to the fact that, given last night’s conversation, the boy’s mother would prefer him to quietly fade right back out of the picture. Or at least limit his involvement to some nice, neat, orderly little schedule she no doubt felt she should be the one to devise.

      If that was the case, she was in for a rude awakening. Although he still was a little hazy on the details, he intended to be an active part of his son’s life.

      With that thought firmly in mind, he slowed as he approached the small, rectangular bungalow, still a little amazed that his designer boutique wife was living in such a bargain basement place.

      And then he saw the empty spot in the driveway where Annie’s car should have been, and it drove every other thought from his mind. Oblivious to the squeal of protesting rubber, he hit the brake and sent the pickup skidding into the curb.

      Alarm splintered through him. Yet even as his stomach twisted painfully, he told himself not to panic, not to jump to conclusions. She’d been on her way out last night. Chances were her car had broken down on the way back, or she’d lent it to a friend, or something.

      She had to be here. She’d promised, dammit.

      Heart pounding, he scrambled out of the truck. He tried the front door first, knocking hard enough to silence the birds singing in the surrounding trees. When he got no answer, he began a clockwise circuit of the grounds, stopping first to peer through the living room windows.

      Inside, everything was dark and still, untouched from the way he remembered it last night.

      He forced himself to step away, telling himself that it didn’t mean anything as he vaulted the waist-high fence that enclosed the backyard. The first thing he saw was a small inflatable wading pool. It sat, abandoned, in the ankle-high grass, one lone rubber duck bobbing on the surface.

      The sight made his heart clench.

      He averted his gaze and strode across the neat concrete patio, up three shallow steps to the small service porch where he tried the back door. It was locked, as he’d expected. He leapt down, unlatched the side gate and started down the drive. It didn’t take long to find that, while the shades were down on both bedroom windows, there was still enough of a gap at the bottom of each to see that neither bed had been slept in.

      There was no doubt about it. Annie and the boy were gone.

      Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Anger and self-disgust choked him. With a strangled curse, he planted his feet and slammed his fist into the rough clapboard siding, needing some outlet for his anguish.

      He cursed the pain that radiated up his arm.

      Yet it was nothing compared to the ache around his heart.

      Dammit. Despite his tough-guy words, his big brave threat to track Annie down like some modern-day bounty hunter, she’d split. She’d probably taken off the minute he’d cleared the corner last night.

      And to think he’d actually felt guilty about threatening her! God! He had to be the biggest fool imaginable. Hadn’t he learned the hard way you couldn’t trust anyone?

      Shoulders heaving, he shook his head at the irony of it.

      Until he’d seen Annie and the boy in the store last week, he would have sworn he’d made his peace with the past. Two years and ten months in prison gave a man plenty of time to think. Although he would never forgive Max Kinnaird for what the older man had done, Gavin accepted that he had only himself to blame for his own situation.

      It had been his decision not to turn in his father-in-law, his decision to allow the older man time to try and fix the mess he’d made. The result had been disastrous, a painful reality he lived with every day.

      As for his wife and his brief marriage…Well, that was a different story. For a variety of reasons he hadn’t let himself think about Annie or the life they’d once had from the day she’d raced out of the Colson visiting room.

      He’d closed the door on that part of his past.

      In much the same way, he’d also resolutely refused to consider the future. Instead, he’d redefined his life by simple pleasures—a cold beer, blue skies, the chance to play a game of pickup softball after work. He’d been thankful for the job provided by an old friend and openly overwhelmed when the same friend had agreed to cosign the loan to get him his pickup. He’d been fiercely grateful for every small freedom, from driving fast on the highway, to taking his morning run, to sleeping in a room without bars on the windows.

      He’d been perfectly happy to live in the moment, a survival strategy he’d learned in prison, where it had been all that had preserved his sanity.

      Until last week he would have said he was content.

      Until last week, when the possibility he had a son had changed everything. Suddenly he’d had a purpose again, a reason for giving a damn.

      Had apparently being the operative word, he thought bitterly, so overcome by misery it took a minute for him to realize that the wheezing, sputtering sound he’d been hearing for the past thirty seconds was an approaching car.

      He raised his head just in time to see Annie drive up in her ancient Honda. Shock and relief made his head swim. He straightened, anyway. By the time she’d shut off the engine, set the hand brake and climbed out of the car, he had himself under control.

      Or at least that’s what he thought—until he saw her undisguised wariness.

      “What are you doing here?” she asked.

      She was still in the same clothes she’d had on last night.

      He didn’t want to think about the implication of that. Nor did he want to consider why her hair was mussed, her blouse partially unbuttoned, her baby-smooth skin pale with exhaustion. He took a step closer. “Where the hell have you been?”

      She stiffened and lifted her chin, as if she were part of the Royal Family and he was an uncouth peasant. “None of your business.” Stooping down, she reached in and grabbed a grocery bag from the passenger seat, bumped the car door shut with her hip and started along the walkway toward the porch.

      Her attitude didn’t do jack for his temper. “The hell it’s not.” He caught up with her at the stairs, which they went up shoulder to shoulder. “We had a deal, Annie—an agreement to talk.”

      She shoved the grocery bag into his arms, freeing her hands to work the key in the lock. “I said noon.” She opened the door, snatched back the bag and looked pointedly at him. “It’s not quite five-thirty, Gavin. I’m going to bed. Come back later.”

      The door banged shut in his face.

      Stunned, he stood there a moment, then nearly ripped off the knob in his haste to get the door open. One quick glance revealed Annie wasn’t in her bedroom. By the time that registered, he was already at the kitchen archway, where he gave a quick look around, this being the part of the house he hadn’t been in last night.

      Not that there was much to see. To his immediate left were floor-to-ceiling shelves that served as the pantry and a small Formica table with two chairs and a high chair grouped around it. Straight ahead, beneath a bank of windows that overlooked the tiny backyard, was the sink, centered in a section of painted white cabinets topped by eight feet of pale yellow countertop. The door to the service porch was to the right.

      The refrigerator was to his immediate right, followed by another, shorter stretch of yellow counter that made a left turn to accommodate the stove. A little further along the

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