Chapter 1

      Bethany Trent pulled into her driveway and checked the clock on the dashboard. Her son, Caleb, still had thirty minutes of soccer practice. She’d arranged for him to have a ride home so she could swing by the grocery store and get a head start on dinner. Overhead, tall white clouds puffed slowly across the rich blue of the October sky, and she paused to appreciate the view as she unloaded the car. This was her favorite time of year, with the heat of summer gone and winter still weeks away.

      If she hustled, she could get chocolate chip cookies—his favorite—into the oven before he made it home. Motherhood had taught her that teenage boys were easier to manage and more prone to chatter over food, particularly when their mouths were full. She figured the two of them had earned hazard pay for surviving his angst-ridden year of thirteen, and she was grateful that the sharpest of those edges had smoothed out over the past year.

      As was the habit of children, change was inevitable. With Caleb, the changes and growth spurts often happened before she was ready. With his fifteenth birthday just over a month away, he’d started pushing back and, in some instances, shutting her out. His grades were still good, and he hung out with the same friends, but something had shifted. A girl, maybe? She didn’t know because so far she hadn’t found the key to open him up.

      While putting away the groceries and gathering the ingredients for the cookies, she let her mind wander through the various approaches. She understood the logic and timing as Caleb asserted his independence. She’d been a teenager herself and recalled that internal tug-of-war between wanting to be autonomous within the steady framework and safety net of her wonderful parents.

      She set out the butter to soften, preheated the oven and stirred dry ingredients. Cookies would never make up for the fact that Caleb was still one parental unit short. The pang of guilt she hadn’t felt in years prickled under her skin. As a single mom, she’d counted herself blessed with Caleb from day one. He was an amazing kid, who was growing toward a remarkable adulthood. He was a wonderful teenager, who had never met his father.

      Beating the butter and sugar, and then adding the eggs, she coached herself a bit. It wasn’t as if she’d hidden everything from him, only the name. Through the years, when he’d ask, she’d assured Caleb his father was an upstanding man, who was committed to his Military career. She’d told him over and over that his father cared and provided for him; he just had to do it from a distance.

      Caleb had never demanded to learn his father’s identity. He’d never thrown a fit, insisted on a meeting or raged at her about the situation. All things she’d heard other mothers cope with, usually in the case of divorce. Yes, she had an amazing kid.

      Still, as she finished mixing the cookie dough, the scent of chocolate wafting up as she stirred in the chocolate chips, she worried. If having a father-in-absentia was the source of his recent withdrawal and curt moments, what would be the best next step?

      She cut short the litany of “what-if” scenarios that crowded her mind. Caleb had given her no signals of the precise trouble weighing on him. Jumping to conclusions wouldn’t help either one of them. Please let it be girl trouble, she thought.

      Well, the cookies were her strategy for today, and with luck, they would soften him up. Dropping the dough on baking sheets, she reminded herself she’d been strong enough for everything else, from giving birth to teething to sitting through the Alien movies while he recuperated from wrist surgery. She slid the first dozen cookies into the oven and set the timer. Telling Caleb the whole truth about his father was likely to expose her to a world of hurt, but she’d do it.

      She’d do anything to ensure her son continued to feel safe, valued and loved. Maybe rather than aching over the past, explaining the circumstances and their choices would grant her a sense of relief and closure. And maybe pigs would sprout wings and put on an aerial display in that pretty afternoon sky.

      The oven timer went off at the same moment the security system chimed and announced that the front door was open. She’d count that perfect timing as a good sign.

      “I’m home,” Caleb called out as the door closed with a thud.

      “Kitchen,” she replied, pulling the finished cookies from the oven and sliding the next baking sheet inside.

      She turned as he walked in, his backpack slung over one shoulder, cleats dangling by their laces. There were grass stains on his knees, the side of his shorts and one shoulder of his T-shirt. The ripeness of his practice gear almost overpowered the aroma of freshly baked cookies. With his hair mussed and damp with sweat, he took a deep breath and a smile bloomed across his face. The one dimple, inherited from his father, creased his cheek. Here was her heart, her whole world. Today, her normal influx of love and pride was overshadowed by the lingering remorse that she’d kept Caleb to herself all these years.

      No. She would not presume to know the trouble. She’d wait for him to confide in her. And she would answer his questions honestly and completely—if he asked. The answer to “why” had been rattling around in her head since the beginning: leaving his father out of the equation had been the best decision for everyone at the time. At twenty, they’d both been too young, with too much on the line to try to build a life together. It would have been a disaster.

      Every year around this time, she debated broaching the topic first and asking Caleb if he wanted to extend an invitation for his father to become involved in his life. Every year, she managed to pull back before she blurted out the words and changed everything.

      The idea of sharing her son wasn’t the problem. It was the potential for a disastrous fallout that scared her. Opening herself to those old emotions made her feel vulnerable in ways she’d never learned to overcome. She and Caleb were a family of two, a team where the dynamics were clear. For years, she’d chosen to give Caleb that familiar