Grady knew that the search for Paige Ellis’s son had been expensive. If the condition of this house and its furnishings were any indication, the search had required every spare cent that she could scrape together. Feeling out of place and too big for the space, Grady watched Matthias Porter hobble through a door and disappear into a hallway. He had no idea who Matthias Porter was, but it didn’t matter. Standing there like an overgrown houseplant, the handle of his briefcase gripped in one fist, he waited with a strange combination of dread and anticipation for Paige Ellis to show herself.
Paige looked up from the computer screen as Matthias entered the room, her fingers automatically typing out the words that continued to drone into her ears. The interruption was sufficiently unusual, however, to have her shutting off the recording a moment later.
Matthias had been a great comfort since he’d moved in nearly two years ago, and he never interrupted her work with anything trivial. Beneath his gruff, somewhat aloof exterior, he was really very sweet and considerate, not to mention protective. She tossed the headphones onto the desk.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dunno. But something’s up. You got company.”
“Who is it?”
The answer knocked her back down into her chair. “Jones.”
Her heart thudded heavily. Vaughn. This could only be about Vaughn. Why else would her attorney arrive here unannounced? “Lord, please let this be good news,” she prayed, gulping. She looked up at Matthias. “Did Dan Jones say why he’s here?”
Matthias shook his head. “Not Dan. Big fella. Says his name’s Grady.”
Grady Jones was Dan’s brother and law partner. She could see even less reason for his presence. As curious as she was shaken now, she stood up to her full five feet height and moved woodenly around the desk that occupied almost all of her tiny office.
The room was really nothing more than a screened-in back porch roughly converted with plywood, batts of insulation and plastic sheeting. When Matthias had moved in, she’d refused to even consider taking over Vaughn’s bedroom, so this had become her only option.
Paige tugged at the cardigan that she wore with jeans and a flannel shirt and led the way down the hall to the living room, smoothing her fine, yellow blond hair en route. The last cut had been a bit too short and shaggy for her taste, but the stylist had insisted that the wispy ends feathering about her triangular face made her chin look less sharp and brought out the soft green of her eyes. Since her large, tip-tilted eyes already dominated her slender face, Paige wasn’t so sure that was a good thing, but it was too late now to worry about it.
Matthias skirted the stove and went into the kitchen as Paige greeted Grady Jones, offering her hand.
“Mr. Jones.”
He backed up a step, before slowly reaching out to briefly close his large, square palm around her small hand. Her heart flip-flopped. She’d seen him often around the office in Fayetteville when consulting with Dan, but they’d rarely spoken. A big man with even, masculine features, he reminded her of a bear standing there in that expensive tan overcoat, a wary bear with electric-blue eyes.
“Can I take your coat?”
“Oh, uh, that’s all right,” he said, shucking the long, supple length of it and draping it over one arm.
“Won’t you have a seat then?” She gestured toward the sofa.
Nodding, he backed up to the couch and gingerly folded himself down onto it as if worried he might break the thing. For some reason she found that endearing. She perched next to him, crossing her ankles, and waited until he placed his briefcase at his feet and dropped his coat onto the cushion beside him.
“What’s going on?” she asked warily.
“First of all,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling, “I want you to know that Dan would have come himself if possible.”
She swallowed and nodded her understanding, afraid to ask what was so important that her attorney’s partner and brother would come in his stead. Fortunately, Grady Jones didn’t keep her in suspense.
“It’s good news,” he stated flatly. “We’ve found your son.”
She heard the words, even understood that her prayers had finally been answered, but for so long she’d accepted disappointment after disappointment, while trusting that this day would eventually come. Now suddenly it had, and she sat there too stunned to shift from faith to realization.
Then Grady Jones began to explain that Vaughn had been picked up from school by child welfare officials in South Carolina, where his father was being held under arrest after an alert state trooper conducting a routine traffic stop, had recognized him from one of the many electronic flyers they’d distributed to law enforcement agencies around the country. Finally, the realization sank in.
Vaughn was safe and waiting for her to come for him! At last, at long last, her son was coming home!
Clasping her hands together, Paige did the only thing she could think to do. She closed her eyes, turned her face toward the ceiling and thanked God.
“Oh, Father! I praise Your holy name. Thank You. Thank You! Vaughn’s coming home!” She began to laugh, tears rolling down her face. “He’s coming home. My son is coming home!”
Grady Jones cleared his throat. Paige beamed at him. With two bright spots of color flying high in his cheeks, he looked down. That was when she realized that she was gripping his hand with both of hers.
She was crying and laughing at the same time. How was a man supposed to react to that? Grady wondered. Displays of emotion always unnerved him. He’d been uncomfortable before; now he wanted to crawl into a cave somewhere. Racking his brain for something, anything, to say, he came up blank, which left him feeling even more hopelessly inadequate than usual.
She suddenly released him, jerking her hands back into her own lap as if he’d snapped at them with his teeth. He felt a fresh flush of embarrassment, but at least his brain began to work again. After a few moments he realized that certain matters had to be addressed. He opened his briefcase and extracted documents, explaining each in detail.
The first would allow the Carolina authorities to release information which would help prove the boy’s identity and had already been faxed to the appropriate party. The next proved her identity. Another granted her custody in the state of Arkansas. The fourth proved that such a grant both superseded and complied with Carolina law, and so on. The last document was a charge filed against Nolan Vaughn Ellis for interference with the lawful physical custody of a minor, allowing the state of South Carolina to hold him until such time as the issue of jurisdiction could be settled. Finally came the flight schedules.
“We assumed you wouldn’t want to wait until after the holiday to be reunited with your son,” Grady told her matter-of-factly.
“I’d go right this minute if I could!” she declared, wiping at her eyes with delicate, trembling fingertips.
He thought of the fresh, lightly starched handkerchief in his pocket, then he looked into her eyes and promptly forgot it again. Those enormous eyes, sparkling now with happy tears, were a soft, muted sea green. He was vaguely aware of the perfect cupid’s bow of her dusky pink lips and the adorable button of her nose, but up close like this he couldn’t get past those big eyes. Her long, brown lashes, spiked now with her tears, seemed gloriously unadorned. She put him in mind of a sprite or a fairy, her sunny yellow hair wisping at the nape of her neck and around her face. The delicate arch of her pale brows proved that the blond shade was completely natural.
Grady gulped and forced his mind back to the issue at hand.
“Uh, that’s, uh, why I’m here instead of Dan. Th-the holiday, I mean. Dan has to consider his family, you understand, but I have