Chapter One

      Rhys Maddox looked across the small room at his broken dream. The dream he’d shattered. His boys stood in the doorway with a woman who wasn’t their mother. Owen was a miniature copy of himself. Dylan had so many of his mother’s features, it made his heart bleed.

      “Mr. Maddox?”

      He looked at Renee Delacroix, the Essex County Child Protection Services’ worker he’d been sitting with.

      “This is Suzanne Hill, Owen and Dylan’s foster mother,” she said.

      Rhys strangled the shudder that began when the word foster formed on Ms. Delacroix’s lips. Those memories were behind him and would be behind his boys soon, too. He stood and offered the woman his hand, glad for the opportunity to break away from Ms. Delacroix’s scrutiny and the knowledge that she stood between him and his sons.

      “Mrs. Hill,” he said, warmed by her wholesome freshness, a contrast to Ms. Delacroix’s glacial beauty. “It’s good to meet you in person.”

      “Suzi, please,” she said, smiling.

      “Suzi, then.”

      Today’s half hour with the Child Services’ worker was his second meeting with Ms. Delacroix since he’d come to Paradox Lake to claim his sons. Yet they were still Mr. Maddox and Ms. Delacroix.

      He released Suzi’s hand. “May I?” he asked, glancing from Dylan to Owen, uncertain what he was asking for.

      Suzi looked over his shoulder toward the table where he’d been sitting.

      Ms. Delacroix must have given the okay.

      He ruffled nine-year-old Owen’s hair. “How’s it going, buddy?”

      They’d both grown since he’d seen them this spring at their mother’s funeral. His gut ached. He’d missed so much the past five years.

      Owen threw his arms around Rhys, almost knocking him over in excitement.

      “Daddy, I’m so glad you’re home. You’re not going to have to go back again like you did after Mommy’s...” The rest of Owen’s words were muffled against Rhys’s chest.

      He rested his head on his older son’s. “No.” Never.

      No way was he going to let anything get between him and his responsibility to his family again. He set Owen back and looked into his face. “I’m so proud of you, helping your mom and taking care of Dylan for me. Mrs. Hill sent me your soccer game pictures and one of your winning Pinewood Derby car. And I kept all of the Bible verses that you and Dylan memorized in Sunday school and wrote out for me.”

      “Coach Josh helped me with the car. I painted it like your old Charger. This year, you and me can make one and win first prize instead of second.”

      Rhys’s throat clogged. “Sure thing.” He lifted his hands from Owen’s shoulders and squatted in front of his younger son. “How about you, Dylan? Want to go get some ice cream with Daddy?”

      “No.” The six-and-a-half-year-old shook his head emphatically. “You’re a bad man. My friend Tyler said so. His mommy told him.”

      Dylan’s words hit him harder than Owen’s near tackle. Dylan had been only a toddler when Rhys had been sent to Dannemora Correctional Facility for his part as the getaway driver in a bank robbery. The little guy didn’t remember the four of them as a family, the home they’d had in Albany. But Gwen had brought both of the boys to Dannemora to see him as often as she could manage.

      “Dylan. This is Daddy. It’ll be fun.” Owen jumped to his defense, filling Rhys with regret for all of the times his older son and Gwen had had to cover for him because he hadn’t been there, due to his pride, bad choices and plain stupidity.

      “No, I don’t have to go. Ms. Delacroix said so. Right, Mrs. Hill?”

      Rhys followed Dylan’s gaze from him to Suzi and caught her look of pity before she hid it. He stood and spun around, glaring at Renee Delacroix. She looked barely old enough to be out of college. She was an intern, and she had the authority to keep his son from him? He fisted his hands.

      Ms. Delacroix avoided his glare and fixed her gaze on his fists. “Dylan expressed some reluctance to go with you today. I assured him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t feel secure.”

      Security was one of the many things he’d failed to provide his family. His anger seeped out, combating his rigid stance.

      “Transitioning can be more difficult for some children,” she said.

      Transitioning? Rhys worked his jaw. He was Dylan’s father. He wanted to take his sons for a soft-serve ice-cream cone, with supervision, of course. The plan had been for Mrs. Hill to take the boys and meet him at the ice-cream stand on Paradox Lake, near her home and the house he’d rented.

      Ms. Delacroix pushed away from the table and walked over to stand next to Rhys, facing Dylan. A faint aroma, sweet and floral, tickled his senses. Was it her shampoo? He eyed her black hair pulled back in some kind of fancy braid with a few wispy curls escaping around her face. He knew she couldn’t be as young as she looked. When she’d introduced herself, she’d said she was a graduate student interning with the county. She’d mentioned mission work she’d done with children in Haiti before coming to work in Social Services.

      “Dylan, if I go with your daddy to get ice cream, do you want to come or do you want to stay with Mrs. Hill?” Ms. Delacroix asked.

      While he waited for his son to answer, Rhys followed one of her curls along the curve of her cheek. He curled his lip against the bitter tang in his mouth. What had gotten into him, besides having been incarcerated with 2,500 men for the past five years? He was here for Dylan and Owen, to make them a family again. Not to be distracted by and wonder about Renee Delacroix.

      Dylan wrapped his arms around his foster mother’s leg. “I want to go home with Mrs. Hill.”

      Home. With a woman Dylan had only known for a matter of months. This wasn’t the dream that had kept him going since Gwen’s death, while he was waiting for his appeal and release.

      “I want to go with you, Dad.” Owen’s voice pulled him from the dark place he was headed.

      “You still can,” Ms. Delacroix said. “I can come and drive you back to the Hills’ house afterward.”

      “Would that be all right with you, Dad?”

      “More than all right.” He’d take whatever he could get when it came to spending time with his sons.

      Rhys nodded to Ms. Delacroix. “I know it’s part of your job, but thanks for going out of your way.” He scuffed the toe of his work boot on the floor. The drive from Elizabethtown, where the Social Services’ office was located, to Paradox Lake and back would take her more than an hour. “I mean, having to take Owen home afterward and coming back here.”

      “It’s no problem.” A true smile spread across her face, the first the all-business lady had given him. “I live near Paradox Lake. You can wait here with Mrs. Hill while I go back to my office and wrap things