“I’ll get dressed and walk over to Nate’s. It’s only five blocks.”
“You can’t avoid your dad, Blake.”
He scowled. “Yes, I can.”
Her son started to close his door, but Zoey stuck her foot in the doorway to stop him. “Your father is here to stay.”
“How do you know?”
His question caught her off guard. She didn’t know for sure. Dane’s job with the DEA had always been so important to him, to the point that she’d felt her and their family had often come in second. He’d told her the evening before he didn’t have plans yet, but if past patterns were any indication, Dane would be gone on some DEA assignment as soon as he felt he had recovered, and Blake needed a full-time father, especially right now. “I want you downstairs for breakfast in ten minutes.”
She didn’t wait for her son to protest her command. She hurried to Tara’s room and found her youngest playing in her crib as though she had been patiently waiting for someone to come get her. It wouldn’t be long before she needed to put the crib away and get a big girl bed for Tara. Her youngest was growing up too fast.
“Sweet pea, time to get up.”
With a big smile, Tara stood in the crib and lifted her arms for Zoey to take. “Mama, up now.”
After quickly changing Tara’s diaper and dressing her, Zoey carried her downstairs, noticing her son’s bedroom door was still closed. Blake was a good kid. He’d do what he needed to do.
As she entered the room, Dane placed his bowl in the dishwasher, then poured himself another cup of coffee. She drew in a deep breath at the sight of him in her kitchen. She’d never thought she would see that again. Then she remembered Blake’s question about Dane staying and needed a more definite answer than the one Dane had given her the night before.
“What are your plans, Dane?” Zoey put Tara into her high chair, then tied a bib around her neck. She gave her daughter some apple juice to drink in a sippy cup.
He glanced up, his eyebrows rising. “To go with you to the store.”
“No, I mean for your future.” She heard the exasperation in her voice and didn’t care. She was frustrated, confused and afraid for her children, for herself.
A shadow dimmed his eyes before he veiled his expression and focused his attention on his mug of coffee. “I told you last night, I haven’t made any plans yet. That hasn’t changed in the past ten hours. I just got back to the States not long ago.”
“How long have you been back?”
“Five days.”
“Five days! Why did it take so long to let me know you were alive?” She was determined not to feel hurt, but it gripped her in its powerful talons.
“Zoey, I wasn’t in the best of shape. The jungle can be hard on a person’s body. I was in a hospital, then I had to be debriefed.”
“Hospital!” She collapsed into a chair next to Dane, her whole body trembling. “I should have been there.”
“I didn’t want our reunion to be in a hospital and Carl wanted me to be checked out thoroughly before leaving Dallas. I even had to see a psychologist.”
“How many people knew you were back before I did?” she asked, the hurt she couldn’t keep at bay lacing her question. Again she was reminded that she had often come in second to his job.
His gaze snared hers, dark, hard and unreadable. “Not many. I didn’t want the media to get a hold of it before I had a chance to see you.”
“Thank you for that.” Zoey gripped the table’s edge and leaned into it. “I still want to know what your plans are. Where do Blake, Mandy, Tara and I fit into your life?”
He hesitated, taking a long sip of his coffee.
His silent wall was in place. She might have changed in the past two years, but Dane really hadn’t. He was still quite good at shutting her out of his life. “Never mind. That says it all.”
He finally pierced her with that probing look of his. “Says what? That I’m not sure what I’m going to do? That I’ve spent the past few years wondering who I am? That I’m still trying to fill in some gaps in my memory?”
Her anger fizzled as quick as it surfaced. “What gaps?”
“I don’t remember anything leading up to the crash and right afterwards. They tell me Bob Patterson, my partner, was on the plane. I don’t remember any of that. So you see, I haven’t had time to decide what I’m going to do.”
She didn’t want to add to Dane’s pain, but she had her son to think about, too. Blake was hurting. “Blake’s worried you’ll leave soon.” And so I am, she silently added.
“I’m not—”
The door eased opened, and her son came into the room, a pout on his face, his eyes downcast. He plodded to the cabinet and prepared himself some cereal, then started eating it at the counter.
“Blake, please have a seat,” Zoey said in a gentle voice, aware how fragile her son’s emotions were at the moment because they mirrored hers.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled, his attention trained on his bowl as though it were the most delicious food he’d ever had.
Zoey scooted back the chair next to her. “We don’t eat at the counter. We sit down as a family at the table.”
He huffed, then grabbed his bowl and trudged to the table where he plopped into the chair. Not once did he look toward Dane. But his father watched him, a sadness in his eyes that ripped apart Zoey’s fragile control. Putting her family back together wouldn’t be easy. Like Humpty Dumpty, the nursery rhyme she often read to Tara, it might never be accomplished.
Silence, thick and heavy, lay like a blanket over the room. Zoey swallowed several times to coat her parched throat, searching for something to say to ease the tension. Nothing came to mind.
“Blake, I hear you have a soccer game later this morning. What position do you play?” Dane asked, cupping his mug between his hands and bringing it to his lips.
“Forward,” her son mumbled, barely audible.
“I used to play in high school and college. I was the goalie.”
Blake continued to eat his cereal, his movements quickening as if he couldn’t finish fast enough. Finally he spooned the last bite into his mouth and shot to his feet. “Mom, may I get ready to go to Nate’s?”
Zoey nodded, her throat constricted.
After putting his bowl in the sink, Blake hurried from the kitchen. Zoey looked at Dane, wishing there was something she could do to make the situation better between father and son.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, you know,” Dane said into the quiet that again reigned.
“What?”
“Be gone for two-and-a-half years.”
“It’s more than that, Dane. He thought you had died. He had to deal with those emotions and now he realizes that wasn’t really what happened. He didn’t handle it very well then and I’m afraid he might not handle it very well now.”
“And what about you?”
Chapter Three
“Are you asking me if I handled your ‘death’ well?” Zoey remembered the days of numbness, of not feeling as though she could get a handle on anything, and never wanted to revisit that time—not even in her memories. Despite often coming in second in Dane’s life, hers had revolved around him. His disappearance had shaken the very foundation