When Love Comes Home. Arlene James
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meant to give Nolan a two-week head start to disappear, and it had worked like a charm. Only as she’d sat alone hour after hour, she told him, waiting to light the candles on Vaughn’s birthday cake, had Paige begun to realize that the two weeks of her son’s absence might well turn into a lifetime.
The particulars of the divorce were likewise already known to Grady, though the Jones firm had not handled it. That, in his opinion, was most unfortunate, something she matter-of-factly confirmed as the story spilled out of her.
High school sweethearts, she and Nolan had married young. By the time their son had reached the age of four, Nolan had decided that he didn’t want to be married, after all. Resentful over his “lost youth” and the burden of family responsibilities, he had simply walked out.
Even more shocking, the divorce papers had alleged that Nolan might not be Vaughn’s father. Angry and hurt, Paige had signed without even consulting an attorney. Only later did she realize what Grady, or any other halfway competent attorney, could have told her: she had, in effect, signed away her and Vaughn’s right to financial support.
She’d realized her mistake when she’d transcribed notes concerning a case in which one of her clients, a medical lab, had been called upon to verify paternity so that child support could be levied. After hearing Paige’s story, a helpful lab technician had arranged for Vaughn to be tested and had also recommended an attorney who dealt with paternity cases. When Nolan predictably resurfaced several months before Vaughn’s eighth birthday, Paige had been ready. She’d hit Nolan with a court order, proved that he was Vaughn’s father and been awarded substantial monthly child support. Nolan had been livid, but he’d seemed to calm down fairly quickly.
“I did think he might disappear again after the court decision went against him,” she said, sniffing, “but after he stuck around for a while, I started to believe that he really wanted to be a father to Vaughn. That’s what my little boy wanted, and who could blame him? Every little boy wants a daddy. I never dreamed Nolan would take Vaughn and disappear.”
“It’s not your fault,” Grady said, wondering when his arm had come to be draped about her shoulders.
“I can’t help wondering if he’s missed me,” she whispered.
“Little boys want their moms, too,” Grady assured her.
“Do you really think so?”
Grady realized suddenly that all this chatter was a product of her emotional state, so when she turned that hopeful, tear-stained face up to him, what else could he do but tell her about his own experiences?
“I know so. I was six when my mom died, and nothing’s been quite right in my world since.”
How on earth they got from talking about losing his mom to talking about his divorce, he would never know. At some point he started telling her how his marriage had fallen apart.
“So, she left you to marry your boss,” Paige clarified sharply, both surprising and puzzling him.
Embarrassment and pain roiled in his gut, but he’d come so far already that he didn’t see any point in pulling back now. “Technically he was her boss, too, since we both worked for the same Little Rock law firm.”
“And how did that come about?” Paige wanted to know.
Grady shrugged. “I asked them to hire her.”
Paige folded her arms at this. “So let me get this straight. First she refused to stay in Fayetteville and join your family’s practice.”
“There aren’t any opportunities for advancement in a small family partnership,” he explained.
“Then, the firm in Little Rock hired you, and wanted you bad enough to take her in the bargain. Right?”
Eventually he nodded. “Right.”
“So she used you to get into a firm she couldn’t have gotten into on her own, then she left you for someone with more power and prestige.” Paige threw up her hands, exclaiming, “Well, at least she stayed true to form!”
“T-true to form?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? She manipulated you, and when she found someone else who could offer her more, she traded up.”
He was so taken aback by the idea that for a moment he couldn’t even give it proper thought. Paige must have taken his silence for censure, for she suddenly wrinkled her pert little nose, sighed and muttered, “Okay, I shouldn’t be judging, but such selfishness gets to me.”
His family had hinted at the same thing, that Robin had left him for his boss not just because the man was elegant, affable and downright loquacious but because she was greedy. It hadn’t made sense at the time. His bank account was hefty enough, after all. Since then he’d avoided thinking about it because it was too painful.
Now, after several years, he could see things from a different perspective. Robin had used him. That didn’t make the hurtful and numerous accusations she’d thrown at him any less true. Did it?
He shook his head. Robin was correct about him being inept with women. Had she not pursued him, he doubted that they’d have ever gotten together. One-on-one with a woman, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his mind went completely blank. The more attractive he found her, the worse it was.
Usually, he amended silently, glancing sideways at Paige.
It was nuts to think that he might be any different with Paige. If his poor communication skills and emotional ineptness were not enough, there was his clumsiness. Okay, maybe once he’d been fleet of foot and a force to be reckoned with on the athletic field, but those days were long gone. That he’d been able to discuss them, even briefly, with Paige Ellis had been terribly flattering, which had led to hours of conversation. The fact that he’d enjoyed those hours so much suddenly made him seem especially pathetic.
None of this meant anything to Paige, after all. She was an admitted sports freak; he’d allowed her interest in the fact that he’d once played college football to become more personal than it was surely intended to be.
Disturbed, Grady let his seat back, mumbling that they had a long day ahead of them, and closed his eyes. She agreed with him and curled up in her seat, but she did not sleep. He knew this because he didn’t sleep, either.
They changed planes in Atlanta, and on that last, short leg of the trip, he avoided personal conversation by discussing business, beginning with a particular form that she needed to sign. He’d mentioned it before, but she’d been in too much shock to really understand at that time.
“In other words,” she said, after he’d gone over the whole thing once again, “if I sign this, we’ll be pressing charges against Nolan in South Carolina as well as Arkansas. Is that correct?”
Pleased that she’d grasped the concept this time, he reached for an ink pen. “Exactly.”
“But I’m not sure that’s what I ought to do.”
His hand stopped with the slim, gold-plated barrel of the ink pen still lodged within the leather loop provided for it. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not sure I want to prosecute Nolan.”
Grady’s tongue seemed to run away with him. “Why on earth not?” he demanded. “The man kidnapped your son!”
The spike-haired lady across the aisle turned a curious gaze on them, and Grady realized he’d raised his voice.
“You think I don’t know that?” Paige said with some asperity. “Believe you me, I know what it’s like to miss your child with every fiber of your being, minute by minute, hour after hour, day after day after week after month…. And I realize that I’m about to do the same thing to Nolan that he did to me. The pain of that may be punishment enough.”
“That’s not the point,” Grady told her urgently, doing his best to keep his voice down. “This is about protecting you and