Paper Marriage Proposition (Gage Brothers 1)

“I spoke to a mother of one of his school friends. He’s over for a play date today and I thought—”

“You did not!” she gasped, then covered her mouth with trembling hands. “Ohmigod!”

“Breathe, Beth,” he said, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “It’s a bit risky. We’re violating the custody arrangement, but we’re compensating your friend with a generous amount in exchange for her silence—and nobody will know as long as David understands he needs to keep quiet. Do you think we can pull this off?”

Her chest moved. “Yes, God, yes! David and I have been keeping secrets from his father for forever—he’ll never tell!”

It depressed her to think that David was too old for his years, but it was true. Ever since he was three, he’d seemed to notice how easily his father angered. He’d loathed the fact that every time his dad felt displeased he’d issue a silent treatment that made both David and Beth want to hide.

But how had Landon managed to set this up? Her mind whizzed with questions, but they all ended with one simple fact, one unerring truth: no matter why, or where, or how Landon had managed to schedule a meeting with her son, the only important thing was that he had.

She would see her son today.

She felt so big all of a sudden it was a wonder she fit inside the car.

As they rounded a corner, Beth’s attention became riveted on a familiar redbrick house. The fenced front lawn was green and trimmed, and a set of bicycles were tossed over on their sides in the driveway. She spotted two kids playing by the rosebushes and her heart soared at the sight of the blond little boy—her little boy. She almost heard music in the background, could practically see his aura shine like an angel’s.

Barely a second after the car halted, Beth shoved the door open and ran across the asphalt to the fence. “David!” she shouted, as she entered the yard and closed the gate behind her.

He pivoted instantly, a baseball in his hand. “Mom?”

His fingers tightened around the ball, but he didn’t run to her. He stayed frozen in place, in loose jeans and a striped T-shirt. He eyed his good friend Jonas first, as if asking for his permission, but all Jonas did was stick his hand out for the ball.

“Sweetie, oh, darling baby,” Beth choked as she dropped to her knees and stretched out her arms. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He crashed into her and Beth’s eyes welled up as they clutched each other. He smelled of shampoo and grass and little boy, and for a moment Beth inhaled as much as she could.

When her pulse calmed, she began asking him what he’d been doing, reminded him his father could not know about this if they wanted to be together again, and then she remembered Landon, now leaning against the car, and she seized David’s little hand and rose to face her husband. The sun made his dark hair gleam and glazed his tanned skin like warmed honey.

His expression was inscrutable, but there was emotion in his eyes. The silver in them had intensified to a sharp polished metal.

She brought David over to the fence. “Landon, this is my son, David. David, this is Mr. Gage.”

Landon’s son would be his age, she realized. Had he wanted to be a dad? He seemed to be ruthlessly suppressing the urge to go back into the car.

“Is he my new daddy?” David asked, blinking.

Her motherly instinct didn’t take long to kick in. Beth quickly began to arrange his shirt, comb his hair, and out of habit, checked his temperature. “He’s mommy’s special friend, my love. And he’s doing everything he can to bring you home with us. With me. Do you want that?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

Both man and boy continued regarding each other warily. Landon with a hand in his pocket, the other restless at his side.

David kicked the grass. “Does he like horses?”

Smiling because that’s just the thing that her David, the animal lover, would say, she hugged him again. Tight. Had he grown? He’d grown an inch, she was sure of it! “He has two big dogs,” she told him excitedly. “They’re as big as lions. You would like them.”

“Jonas’s mother said you would come. I didn’t believe her but I wanted you to. She said I could make you something and I made you this.” From the back pocket of his jeans, he retrieved a paper and gradually unfolded it to show her a drawing of spaceships and stars that read, “David+Mom.”

“Oh, my! Well, there, Commander, that is one dangerous aircraft, and is that big heart mine?”

He nodded, his grin already showing a missing tooth. Beth thought of how they would play astronauts and cowboys and anything else they could conjure when they got back together. She’d deepen her voice to sound like the villain so David could trap her and be the hero.

She rumpled his hair and stole a peek back at the house to find Mary Wilson standing by the kitchen window with little Jonas now at her side, watching their reunion with a smile.

Beth nodded at her and mouthed, “Thank you.”

As though having at last convinced his legs to move, Landon approached the fence, still so quiet. He reached over the top of the pickets. “Hi, David.” He offered his knuckled fist, as Beth supposed he might do with his brothers, and said, “If you bump it, it means we’re friends.”