Midnight Choices

“She doesn’t. But that’s no guarantee.” Jeff peeled the foil from a stick of gum. “I stop by every night and the black-and-whites keep an eye on her when they can. That’s no guarantee, either, but this perp picks his times. He hit the other stores when they were empty except for the clerk. First thing he does is shoot out the security camera. Hits the lens square on, single shot with a .22 handgun.”

Duncan frowned. A .22 pistol was a couple of notches above a water pistol for accuracy. Maybe. “Where’s the camera?”

“Far left corner.”

He glanced back into the store, automatically calculating the angle. “Does he come in with his weapon drawn?”

Jeff shook his head, popped the gum in his mouth. “Draws from inside his jacket as he pushes the door open.”

“Then he’s a helluva shot.” Duncan could have made the shot himself. Not many others could.

“Yeah. He’s good, but jumpy. Killed a dog.”

“A dog?”

“When he was headed out of the last place he hit. A stray came around the corner of the store, startled him. He shot it and ran.” Jeff stuffed the empty gum wrapper in the trash can next to the door. “So we’ve got bullets, but not much more. We know he’s male, around five-seven, average build. He wore jeans, a dark jacket, gloves and a ski mask both times. No skin showed. We don’t know if he’s white, brown, black or yellow with blue polka dots.”

“No one made the vehicle?”

“One of the clerks thinks it was a dark compact, not new. She didn’t get much of a look at it. He makes ’em lie on the floor once they empty the register.”

“Did he…” Duncan stopped, shook his head. Damned if Jeff hadn’t gotten sneakier with his pitch. He’d nearly reeled Duncan in this time, gotten him involved enough to ask questions. “You’ll catch him sooner or later. If this guy was really bright, he wouldn’t be hitting convenience stores. They don’t have much cash.”

“Sooner’s better than later. A jumpy, not-so-bright gunman makes mistakes. People get hurt then.” Jeff started for his car. “You going to let me give you a ride?”

“I need to finish my run.”

Jeff nodded, reached for the handle, then gave Duncan a steady look. “What you’ve been doing—that’s important. No doubt about that. A cop doesn’t get much chance to save the world the way you army types do. Sometimes all we can do is drop in on a nineteen-year-old mother who works nights when she isn’t trying to learn bookkeeping. Maybe that will keep this perp from hitting this store, maybe not. We don’t get a lot of sure things in our line of work.”

Duncan’s mouth quirked up. “I remember when you used to try to get me to volunteer for some damned committee or other. Roped me in a few times, too. If you’d had the good sense to go into the army instead of the police force, you’d be their ace recruiter by now.”

A grin lit Jeff’s face. “I’m getting to you. Duncan, we need you. I know it wouldn’t be fun to be a rookie, not when you’re used to being a big-deal sergeant, but if you take some courses, you can move up quick. The chief’s keen on getting a sharpshooter.”

Duncan’s smile slid away. He gave a single shake of his head that combined refusal and warning.

“Okay, okay.” Jeff held up his hand as if to stop a flow of protests. “But you’ll think about it.”

Duncan watched his friend pull out of the parking lot and didn’t think about anything except whether he needed to stretch again. No, he decided. His muscles were still loose and warm.

He’d just started running again when a shot rang out.

He dropped and rolled, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. Then lay on his stomach on the cold concrete, his arm throbbing fiercely. Little by little, understanding seeped in. Along with humiliation.

Not a gunshot. A backfire. From a ’92 Chevy packed front and back with teenage boys, some of whom were staring and laughing. Yeah, pretty funny, all right, he thought as he pushed to his feet and slowly resumed his run. Watching a grown man nearly mess himself because your car backfired would be one hell of a good joke to kids that age.

He concentrated on keeping his shoulders loose as he ran. They had a tendency to tense up when his arm was hurting, which made the jarring worse. The Chevy turned west at the light.

It was a shame Jeff had already driven off. If he’d seen how Duncan reacted under fire these days—or anything that passed, to his screwed-up senses, for being under fire—he sure as hell would drop the subject of Duncan trading one uniform for another when his enlistment was up. Which would happen in two and a half months.

He very carefully didn’t think about that, either.

Ben was sitting in his favorite chair next to the fireplace, which still held the ashes of its last fire. His shoes were on the floor beside the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table. One of his socks had a hole started in the heel. A glass half-filled with bourbon sat on the table beside his feet. He’d poured it after Gwen left, then forgotten it.

He was holding the photograph. It was all he could see, all he could think about, the grinning boy in that picture.

Zachary. His son.

Zachary Van Allen. Not McClain.

The front door opened, then shut. He lifted his head, scowling, and saw Duncan standing in the doorway, staring at him with no expression on his face.

Ben didn’t try to read his brother’s expression. Even as a boy Duncan had been good at tucking everything away out of sight, and the older he’d gotten, the better his poker face became. But he saw the tense way Duncan stood and the stiff way he held his left arm. And he saw his bare head.

“Damnation,” he growled, rising to his feet. “I thought they operated on your arm, not your thick skull, but only an idiot would go running for hours with a half-healed wound. And in this weather, without a hat! I don’t know what they taught you in Special Forces, but a jacket isn’t enough. Half your body heat—”

“Not tonight.” Duncan’s voice was hard. He advanced into the room, voice and body taut, like a big cat ready to strike. “I’m in no mood for your bloody nursemaid act tonight.”

Ben took a deep breath, fighting back a surge of temper. Nagging Duncan to take better care of himself was the wrong way to go about things. He knew that. But in the past Duncan would have greeted Ben’s bossiness with a raised eyebrow, maybe a polite “yes, ma’am” or some other nonsense.

He’d changed. Ben didn’t know what had happened on this last mission, but it had damaged more than Duncan’s arm. “It must be close to freezing out there,” he said in the most reasonable tone he could muster.

“Believe it or not, the army doesn’t make us stay in at night when the weather’s bad. But we aren’t going to talk about my sins tonight. We’re going to talk about yours.” His pause was brief. “Her car is gone.”

Ben’s empty hand closed and opened again. This was going to be hard. “I offered Gwen a room here, if it’s any of your business. She preferred to stay at a hotel.”

Duncan just looked at him. He’d never been one to fill the air with words, and seldom used two when one would do, or one word when a nod or a glance was enough. Right now, though, his silence felt crammed with accusation.

Ben’s scowl returned. Damned if he was going to put up with any lectures—silent or otherwise—from his younger brother. “She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know the boy existed.”

“I know that,” Duncan snapped. “There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s yours?”

Duncan’s irritation reassured Ben. At least he hadn’t needed to be told that his older brother would never have ignored his son if he’d known the boy existed. He answered Duncan’s question by crossing to him and handing him the photograph.

Duncan’s eyes widened, then clouded with some emotion Ben couldn’t read. After a long moment he handed the photo back. “Poor kid. He looks so much like you it’s scary.”

“Yeah.” Ben couldn’t say anything else right away. He didn’t know what to do, what to think—his emotions were so full, so contradictory, he was afraid he’d start cursing. Or maybe bawl like a baby. He cleared his throat. “Not that I would have thought she was lying, even if he hadn’t turned out to look like me.”

“You knew her well, then?”

There was a subtle insult in the tone. Or maybe the insult lay only in Ben’s mind. “No. Not exactly. Hell.” He ran a hand over his hair. “It was pretty much a one-night stand, all right? We met, we hit it off, and… You remember that vacation Annie nagged me into taking a few years ago? Gwen and I met then. We spent a couple days together.” And one night.

“Then you walked away without realizing you’d fathered a child.”

“She could have told me.” Ben began to pace. “She should have told me. I’ve missed so much… He’s four. Four and a half years old.” His voice held wonder and loss and anger.

“So why didn’t she tell you?”

Ben felt all the weight of his own guilt in those softly spoken words. “That’s between her and me.”

“When I think of all those Friday-night lectures you used to hand me and Charlie about responsibility and safe sex…” Duncan’s mouth tightened. “Dammit, Ben. What the hell happened? How could you not know there was a chance you’d started a child in her?”

The disillusion in Duncan’s eyes was harder to face than his anger. Ben stopped by the big picture window. He’d forgotten to pull the drapes, and his own reflection stared back at him from the night-darkened glass—a big, dark man in worn jeans and an old flannel shirt. “I knew,” he admitted gruffly. “We used protection, but…” He couldn’t bring himself to go into detail, but the fact was, she’d put the condom on him. Only she hadn’t gotten it on right, and he hadn’t noticed until afterward, too intent on what he felt, what he wanted.

Just the sort of thing he used to warn Duncan and Charlie against.

He grimaced. “The odds of her getting pregnant were pretty small. When I didn’t hear from her, I assumed everything was okay.” He’d convinced himself of that. He hadn’t wanted to think about her. Or the way he’d ended things between them almost as soon as they began.

Duncan didn’t say anything. It was Ben’s own reflection that stared back at him accusingly from the dark glass. The image wasn’t clear enough to show the touch of gray that had appeared in his hair lately, but his mind supplied that. He was pushing forty, and he was alone. It wasn’t how he’d ever thought his life would work out.

But he had a son. He straightened his shoulders and turned to face Duncan. “She’s coming here with Zach in a couple weeks. They’ll stay here to give me a chance to get to know him, let him get to know me.”

“I can go back to the base.”

“Hell if you will! This is your house, too. Your home. And—” he grimaced “—maybe it will be easier if we have someone else in the house. She and I have a lot to work through.”

“A single night together doesn’t exactly constitute a relationship. There can’t be that much to work out.”

“I’m going to marry her.”

Duncan’s eyes went blank. After a moment he turned away, shrugging out of his jacket as he spoke. “She came here because she wants you to marry her? It seems…belated.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Irritation at his brother’s denseness eased some of the other feelings. “That isn’t why she came here, and I haven’t asked her yet.”

“But you think she’ll agree?”

“She’s the mother of my child.”

For the first time that night, there was a hint of humor in Duncan’s voice. “She might not see the two as being equivalent.”

“That’s why we’ll have a lot to work out.”

Duncan looked as if he might say something more, then shook his head and headed for the hall to hang up his jacket.

Ben was starting to feel better. They’d gotten through some of the worst of it. He remembered the drink he’d poured earlier and went to get it. The liquor tasted warm and mellow, but there was a bite beneath the smoothness. Tonight he needed that bite. When Duncan came back into the room, Ben swirled the amber liquid in his glass without looking up. “So, are you going back to the base, or are you going to stay here where you belong?”

“Do you need me to stay?”

Ben almost snapped out something about wanting and needing being different, but stopped himself in time. Duncan was the one who needed help, not him. But he was too stubborn for his own good. He’d hang around if he thought Ben needed him, though. “Yeah,” he said, though it wasn’t easy.

“All right. Ben…” Duncan seemed to struggle for words. “For God’s sake, think about this. You spent a couple days with her five years ago. You didn’t even recognize her.”

“She looks different now. Her hair was long then.”

“You didn’t know her,” Duncan repeated. “And now you want to marry her.”

“She’s got my son.”

Duncan turned away. “How old is she?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you even know?”

Ben searched his memory. “I think…probably close to thirty now. Maybe.”

“At least you didn’t rob the cradle,” Duncan muttered. He still wouldn’t look at Ben. “You have feelings for her, or do you just plan on using her to get custody of your son?”

It was strain Ben heard in his brother’s voice, not anger. He reined in his own temper as firmly as he could. “I don’t use women.”

Duncan turned slowly to face him. His eyes were winter-gray and unreadable. “If you didn’t want her enough to hang around five years ago, what kind of marriage can you have?”

“Things have changed. She didn’t need me then. She does now.”

“Because of the boy.”

“That’s part of it.” Ben took a deep breath, let it out and got the rest of it said. “Twenty months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

Chapter 3

Andrews, Florida, three days later

Gwen tucked the letter neatly back in its envelope. She took a deep breath, striving for calm.

The moist air carried the taste of home into her lungs—Florida air, flavored with hibiscus and jasmine. Outside a mockingbird welcomed the evening. The orange-gold rays of sunset streamed at a familiar slant through the windows of the porch. An easy profusion of light filtered through the leaves of the big bay tree to dapple the wooden floor, the glass table where she sat and the long white envelope with the Colorado return address.

Ben had booked and paid for the flight for her and Zach. He’d sent a terse little note to let her know, sent it overnight mail. Dammit. She pushed to her feet and started pacing.

She’d agreed to come to Highpoint with Zach. She’d agreed to stay in Ben’s house so he and Zach could spend normal, everyday time together. But she hadn’t agreed to letting him pay for their airfare.

He’d done it anyway.

Well, he was a proud man. A proud, stubborn jackass of a man. She rubbed her temple. This probably wouldn’t be the only time they butted heads over money. Benjamin McClain had a real problem with the fact that she had more of it than he did. She’d known that.

She hadn’t known she was still so angry with him about it, though.

At the other end of the house, the front door slammed. “Mom! Mom! Guess what! Where are you, Mom?”

She stopped moving, a smile easing the tight muscles of her face. “In the Florida room, honey.”

Feet pattered, light and swift, down the uncarpeted hall toward the sun porch where Gwen waited. “We went to see the seals, Mom, and I fed one!” Three feet, one inch of towheaded tornado whirled into the room, legs pumping.

“You did?” She hunkered down and held out her arms. Her son hurled himself into them. “All by yourself?”

“Mostly.” Zachary was ever judicious in his assessment of truth. “I got to hold the fish myself, and the man held me. I told him he didn’t have to ’cause I’m four now, but he did, anyway. And their teeth are really big, Mom. Did you know that?”

“Big teeth, huh? Bigger than mine?” She made chomping noises and pretended to bite him. He giggled, and her arms tightened.

Oh, God. She wanted so much for him, so much….

“You’re squishing me, Mom.” He wriggled.

“Sorry, light-of-my-life. Tell me about the seals.”

“The man said they’re called seal-ions, not just seals. And they bark like dogs. Like this.” He demonstrated.

Her mother spoke from the French doors, her voice dry. “He did that all the way home.”

The muscles across Gwen’s shoulders tightened. “The condition of his clothes tells me he had a good time.”

“We both did.” Her mother gave Zach the soft, faintly surprised smile that only her grandson seemed able to elicit.

All her life, Gwen had heard how much she resembled her mother. It was true. Her nose lacked the symmetry of her mother’s, due to the time she’d fallen out of a tree when she was seven. Otherwise, looking at Deirdre Van Allen’s face was too much like peering into her own physical future—the same eyes, mouth, chin, even the same small ears tucked flat to their heads. The same wheat-pale hair and easily burned skin. Aside from age, there was only one obvious difference between the two women: their height. The fine bones and flat chest that made Gwen look like an undernourished child were transformed on Deirdre Van Allen’s taller frame into a model’s willowy elegance.

Sometimes Gwen had rebelled against the resemblance, sometimes she’d taken comfort from it. These days she mostly just hoped she’d be around to find out how accurate that genetic mirror turned out to be.

Two sticky hands seized her face and turned it toward a small, square face with dark eyes and a determined chin. “I want a dog.”

Her mind snapped back to the moment. “You do, huh?”

“I been telling you and telling you that.”

“Mmm-hmm. And what have I been telling you?”

His mouth drooped. “That I can’t have one till I’m older.”

“That’s right.” He looked so sad, with that pouty lip. And so stubborn, with those frowning eyebrows. And not like her at all. Her heart hitched in her chest. For a long time she’d managed to forget that Zach had come from two sets of genes, not one. She couldn’t do that anymore.

“But you never say how much older. I’m getting older all the time.”

“So you are. What did your grandma stuff you with, anyway?” She poked his T-shirt-clad tummy. “I see a purple spot, a red spot…”

He giggled. “That’s grape drink and ketchup.”

“And was that ketchup on something or did you take it straight?” She scooped him up and stood—and God, but it was good to be able to do that again, to rise easily with the warm weight of her son in her arms. The radiation had left her so weak, tired all the time.

All that was in the past. “I also see a bath in your very near future.”

He frowned, considering that. “With bubbles,” he informed her. “An’ my army guys.”

“Sure thing.” She glanced over her shoulder at her mother as she started for the French doors that led to the rest of the house. “There’s a pot of decaf in the kitchen, if you’d like a cup.”

“Wine sounds better right now.”

“You know where it is.”

Several minutes later she left Zach in a tub that was more bubbles than water, surrounded by battalions of “army guys.”

She would tell him about his father tonight. Oh, she’d had reason enough to wait until she’d seen Ben, spoken with him, but she’d returned from Highpoint two days ago. There was no excuse to delay any longer. Ben had made it clear he wanted a relationship with his son.

How would Zach feel about suddenly acquiring a father?

Her stomach clenched with nerves. She saw that her mother had poured her a glass of merlot and left it on the counter. She picked it up and took a sip, letting the rich taste of the wine linger on her tongue.

It was so important to handle this right. She’d tried to prepare herself for the questions Zach would ask, including the big one: why hadn’t she told him about his father before?

Unfortunately she still didn’t have a good answer for that one.

Sighing, she looked at the open doors to the Florida room. Might as well get this over with. Her mother wouldn’t leave without making one last push to change Gwen’s mind.

“Battles are being waged,” Gwen announced as she stepped into the sun porch. “Campaigns plotted, and bloody war declared. I think the green guys are going to win again, though.”

Dusk had replaced the warm colors of sunset. Her mother stood in silence and dimness, her back to the house, looking out at the shapes and shadows of the garden. Her back was as straight as ever, but the way she hugged her arms to her made her look oddly vulnerable.

“Mom? Is something wrong?”

Deirdre turned, her face pale in the dying light. “I saw the letter from him. You’re going through with this, aren’t you.”

Gwen grimaced and flipped the light on. “It wasn’t addressed to you.”

“I didn’t read it,” her mother snapped. “But I couldn’t help seeing the return address.” She waved at the glass table, where a glass of wine sat next to the envelope with McClain Construction in the upper left corner.

Gwen took a deep breath. Arguing with her mother wouldn’t help. It was probably inevitable, but it wouldn’t help. Her throat ached as she crossed to her mother. “Yes, I’m going through with it. Everything is arranged—we leave on the tenth and will stay with his father for two weeks. I’ll tell Zach tonight.”

“Oh, Gwen.” Deirdre closed her eyes tightly for a second. “I don’t understand this obsession of yours. For heaven’s sake, you had to hire a detective to track the man down!” She shuddered delicately. To Deirdre Van Allen, anything connected with a detective was implicitly sordid.

“That was partly my fault. I’ve told you that.”

“The way you make excuses for this man worries me.”

Was she doing that—making excuses? Wearily Gwen rubbed her temples, where a headache was starting. “This is about Zach, not me.”

“Is it? I don’t think so. With all that Zach’s been through in the past eighteen months, the last thing he needs is another major change to deal with.”

Gwen turned and headed for the kitchen. Deirdre followed. “We’ve been over this and over this. You know how I feel.”

“And this is about your feelings, isn’t it? Not mine. Not your son’s. You’re cherishing some sort of romantic pipe dreams about this man, a man who walked out on you without a backward glance.”

Gwen wanted to scream. She wanted to just stand there and yell as loud as she could, but that would be as cruel as it was childish. It would frighten her mother and Zach.

Her mother was already scared. Gwen understood that; fear lay behind the protests and opposition. So she carried both their glasses to the sink, emptied them and rinsed them and opened the dishwasher. “This man has a name, you know. And a son. He deserves to know his son.”

“And what does Zach deserve? To have his life turned upside down for the sake of some man you picked up in a bar?”

Gwen’s breath sucked in. The jolt of pain came as a surprise. It shouldn’t have, she thought, yanking a paper towel loose from the roll, then bending to grab the spray cleaner from under the sink. Her mother had never put it quite so bluntly before, but then, she wasn’t one to give up without using any and all weapons within her grasp.

There were always fingerprints to be cleaned from the refrigerator. She moved there quickly, sprayed and wiped.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Deirdre came up behind Gwen. “For heaven’s sake, Gwen, sit down. It’s difficult to hold a conversation when you’re bouncing all over the place.”

“I can’t think when I’m sitting still. You know that.”

“You’re not thinking now. What happened five years ago was an aberration on your part. But this man—”

“Ben,” Gwen said, angry. She turned to face her mother. “His name is Benjamin McClain. And it was an aberration for him, too.”

“No doubt that’s what he told you.” Deirdre’s lips thinned. “Be realistic. He’s a construction worker. Picking up women in bars is no doubt quite normal for him.”