“Yes,” she said. “It was the only thing I could do to ensure your safety.”
He didn’t respond, so she continued. “My brother was in severe danger. Not only was he trying to go straight, to end his affiliation with the mob, he’d fallen in love with the boss’s daughter. That’s a fatal combination.”
“Where is Reed?” Michael asked.
Heather stole a glance at the baby, who amused himself with a musical pony. “He’s still on the run.”
“But you’re here, with his son.”
“Yes.” She studied the pony. Reed had purchased it for Justin just weeks before he’d been born. It was the only toy the child owned that hadn’t come from a thrift store.
There was another lullaby pony, she thought. Buried near a cabin in Oklahoma.
“Tell me about Justin’s mother.”
She reached for the bitter coffee Michael had brewed and took a sip, hoping to calm her quaking hands. She still dreamed about the other pony. Still cried sometimes in her sleep.
“Beverly wasn’t doing well. She had a difficult pregnancy. I was concerned about the delivery, if there would be complications.”
“Were there?”
“No. It was fine. A long labor, but fine.”
Heather thought about the leather-wrapped bundle Reed had buried. The Cherokee prayers he’d chanted would remain forever in her mind, in her heart.
“But soon after Justin was born, Beverly became ill. She assumed it was stress. We were constantly on the move, and that took its toll on everyone.”
How many states had they passed through? How many nights had they slept in their vehicle? Washed up at gas stations and launderettes? Jumped from campsite to campsite, living on the fish Reed caught? “Beverly got a cough that wouldn’t go away. But no matter how fatigued she was, she refused to see a doctor.”
“Why? Because she was afraid of drawing attention to herself?”
“Yes.” She could still see Beverly, pale and tired, letting Heather care for her son on the days she couldn’t manage him. “Reed did everything he could to convince her to see a doctor. But she was determined to get well on her own. To try homeopathic remedies.”
Michael’s voice turned hard. “What in the hell was Reed planning on doing? Being on the road forever?”
“He and Beverly had originally intended to go to Mexico, but Reed’s contact in Mexico City said the mob was already searching for them there.” She glanced at her hands, at her nervously chewed nails. “We had no idea where else they were searching. So we just kept running.” Struggling to make the money last, she thought. Her brother taking day labor jobs when he could. Using fake IDs. Switching vehicles, registering them to an alias.
“So, who is Beverly’s father? What’s his name?”
“Denny Halloway. The FBI calls the West Coast Family the Hollywood mob. Halloway, Hollywood. It’s a play on words, and he has connections in the entertainment industry.”
Michael sighed. “I don’t know anything about the Mafia. Other than what I’ve seen on TV. The Italian guys in New York. Or New Jersey or wherever.”
“The West Coast Family isn’t an Italian outfit.” And Heather knew more about the Mafia than she’d ever dreamed possible. Reed had been a “made” man. He’d sacrificed his soul for organized crime. “My brother was working on a way to send me home. To fake his, Beverly’s and Justin’s deaths. To stage an accident where I was the only survivor. But Beverly got sick and everything changed.”
“He should have sent all of you home. He shouldn’t have kept two women and a baby on the run.”
“Beverly didn’t want to return to her family. She’d always detested what her father represented, the high-powered criminal lifestyle he led. Besides, she loved Reed and wanted to be with him. He was her husband. Her Cherokee husband,” Heather clarified. “Reed performed a blanket ceremony. It wasn’t legal, but it was binding.”
Michael shook his head. “You wanted me to do that with you when you were sixteen. It was crazy.”
Her chest constricted. “I was young and romantic. I wanted you to pledge yourself to me.” To make a commitment, to swear off other girls and be with her, even though she wasn’t of age. But he’d refused. He’d been an eighteen-year-old boy still sowing his sexual oats, still parading a slew of blondes through his bed.
They sat in silence for a while, caught in the past. Then Justin rose and held on to the edge of his crib, grinning at Heather, waving his pony with one hand, nearly losing his balance.
Refusing to cry, she smiled back at him. She had a child to raise, a son to consider. She had to stay strong.
“Did Beverly die?” Michael asked.
“No, but she probably won’t live much longer. When she got worse, Reed insisted on taking her to a clinic. After a series of tests, they discovered she had small cell carcinoma of the lung, a rapidly progressing cancer. Without treatment, the median survival rate from diagnosis is only two to four months.”
She continued to look at Justin. He was such a good baby, so easy to care for, so happy. Yet his mother was dying, and his father was running for his life.
“We made a decision. Beverly had to return to her family. She needed urgent medical care.”
“I’m sorry,” Michael said, sympathy lacing his voice.
Heather turned to study him, to absorb his sincerity. She knew his mother had died of cancer, that he’d watched her grow pale and weak. Just as she and Reed had watched Beverly deteriorate, without realizing the magnitude of her illness. “Beverly is only twenty-two. A nonsmoker. Lung cancer never occurred to us.”
He merely nodded, a frown marring his brow. “Why didn’t she take her son home with her?”
“She didn’t want her father to have any part in raising him.”
“And what about Reed?”
“He couldn’t care for Justin, not living on the run. Reed knew that Beverly’s father would never quit searching for him, that he’d always be a target. So they both decided to relinquish their child, to give him a chance for a clean, safe life.”
And she remembered how devastated they’d been, how they’d held Justin and cried. They were losing each other and their baby. “We fabricated a lie. It was the only thing we could do. The only answer.”
“What lie?” he asked, watching her through dark, penetrating eyes.
She glanced away, afraid those eyes could look into her soul and unmask her secrets. The other pony. The leather bundle. The Cherokee prayers.
“I was to become Justin’s mother in every way,” she said, still dodging his gaze. “Beverly wouldn’t tell her family that she had a son. They didn’t know that she was pregnant, and there were no hospital records, nothing that proved she’d given birth to him. He was born in a cabin in Oklahoma, with only Reed and I in attendance.”
“And her father bought the lie? He never suspected that Justin was his grandson?”
“Why would he? Who would assume that a girl dying of cancer would have given birth to a healthy baby just ten months before?”
Michael wondered if it could be that simple, if a crime lord could be fooled that easily. “What about you? Does this mobster blame you for helping Beverly and Reed?”
She shook her head. “No. I took Beverly home, returning her to her family. They didn’t hold me accountable. But they made it clear that they’d never forgive my brother. He was part of their organization. He understood the consequences of his