“Join you?” Owen’s voice shook slightly. She read him like a book. How could she sound calm?
Five years ago he hadn’t understood why she’d demanded he get sober. He’d told her how much his own father loved alcohol, and she knew their child wouldn’t be safe with him as long as he loved liquor more than he could love a family.
She stared into his eyes, searching for telltale signs that he’d fortified himself to come to Vermont to find Ben. All she saw was shock and anger. Betrayal.
She had betrayed him. But his feelings didn’t matter. Ben mattered.
“We’re just going to have breakfast.”
Owen stood. “I am hungry.”
“Blueberry pancakes.” Ben waved his arm toward the kitchen, eagerly leading his guest. He’d never been shy, but even for Ben, this friendliness was unusual. “Let me show you. They’re purple. I like purple food. Grapes, yogurt with blueberries. Grape popsicles, but Mom won’t let me have those very often. Maybe once in five years.”
“You aren’t even five years old,” Lilah said, aware of the quiver in her voice.
“I remember last year and the last year and the next year.”
Owen laughed. “That’s the way I remember, too.”
They reached the kitchen, and Lilah managed to restrain herself from clutching Ben close to her side. He patted his stool. “You can sit here, big man.”
Owen laughed again. “Big man?”
Ben didn’t like being laughed at. “You’re big?”
Owen, who was taller than most men, nodded. “I guess I am.”
“And you’re a man?”
“Yeah.”
“We can’t say ‘yeah.’ Mommy says it’s the wrong word.”
Owen didn’t even glance her way. “Yes, then. I am a man.”
“Big. Man.” Ben scrambled onto the stool himself. “Maybe I better sit here because I can’t see if I don’t, and you’re big enough to see without a stool.”
Lilah slid the frying pan back on to the burner, but then remembered Owen’s allergy. “My friend Owen is allergic to blueberries. I’ll need to make more batter.”
“Don’t bother.”
She turned to look at him, but he was peering around the room, inspecting. She couldn’t tell if he approved of the cozy space, lined with baskets and painted pie plates and her embarrassing collection of kitten and cat figures. Ben had given each one of them a name.
“Have to eat breakfast,” Ben said, looking anxious. Why should he be concerned about Owen’s eating habits? She refused to believe a father-son tie could be so strong that Ben felt it without knowing about it.
She turned the heat back on beneath his breakfast and whipped up another batch of batter. Ben was halfway through his first stack of small pancakes by the time she set a plate and silverware in front of Owen, who looked from her to Ben as if they were playing a game he didn’t understand.
She served him normal-sized pancakes and made another small stack for Ben, who attacked his plate with gusto.
Owen ate every bite, and when he’d finished, Ben clambered down and took his plate. With supreme four-year-old concentration, he carried the dish to the sink. Then he came back and gave Owen a clumsy pat on the back.
“Good job, buddy,” he said.
Lilah laughed, but she couldn’t hide the nervous hitch in her voice.
“I’ll have two more,” Ben said, holding up three fingers.
“Are you really hungry?” Lilah asked him.
Ben looked down at his belly as if he could gauge how full he was. “I might not eat them,” he said. “Do I have to take a shower now?”
“You could play in your room for a little while if you want.”
He nodded so hard his chin must have hit his chest. Then he tilted his head to grin at Owen, who laughed. A husky laugh that made Lilah shiver. She remembered it far too well, and she could already tell Ben was going to have the same laugh when he grew up.
“Go to your room and play, then, but don’t turn on the water until I come up.”
“Okay, Mommy.” He slid off the stool again, but offered his hand to Owen. “See you later, Mommy’s friend.”
“You can call me Owen.”
“Own.”
Ben turned and ran for the stairs, growling car engine sounds as he climbed.
Owen seemed to topple forward onto his elbow, which was braced on the counter.
“My son,” he said. “And such a sweet kid. So friendly. He doesn’t even know me.”
He didn’t move for several seconds. Lilah’s worry spiked. He was either trying to hide his feelings, or planning revenge.
When he looked up, redness rimmed his eyes. “Get this through your head. I am never leaving him.”
WEREN’T THOSE THE WORDS she’d hoped to hear? Just after he promised, “I’ll never drink again.” She would have told him about her pregnancy, and in her dreams he would have promised, “I won’t put our child at risk.”
She’d stopped dreaming when he’d admitted with heartbreaking honesty that he couldn’t stop drinking. After that, there had been no room for Owen Gage in her life. He’d missed his chance with their son, and she’d heard from her brother, Tim, that Owen still had problems with alcohol. Wanting to do the right thing and actually managing it were miles apart for Owen.
“Lilah.” He made no effort now to hide his anger.
Startled, she jumped. Almost deafened by the silence after Owen barked her name, she didn’t answer. Ben’s voice came down the stairs as he talked to his trains or his army of action figures, who were hampered by the fact that he’d broken so many of their body parts.
In the sink, the faucet dripped with annoying regularity. Lilah’s own breathing sounded like someone hissing.
She had to run. Hide her son. Why hadn’t she done that four years ago—made herself and her baby invisible to the one man on earth who could destroy her life?
“How did you find us?”
He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a large gift tag the size of a postcard. He passed it across, and Lilah read the Christmas-red text that wrapped around a photo of her and her parents and her brother. And Ben. They were sprawled or standing or slouched on the porch of the beach house at Fire Island.
“From our family to yours,” the gift tag read. And her family had told Owen about his son.
She knew immediately what had happened. Her parents had arranged to send an alcoholic a bottle of good wine with this gift tag around its neck.
“I knew the second I saw the photo,” Owen said. “But I got out an old picture of myself to compare Ben and me at the same age. You understand I’m not leaving him with you, right?”
“You don’t have custody.” She had kept his son from him. If he didn’t have a reputation as an alcoholic, he might have a leg to stand on. “You can’t come up here and walk off with my son. First, I won’t