She tipped her head to the wind and listened…. Again, she heard a young voice singing along. A strong, healthy voice. Her breath caught in her chest. Did Jacob hear, too, even though the voice came from the opposite direction he’d taken?
Dee’s gaze skated left. Should she follow Jacob and tell him—or track the voice herself before it faded away?
She didn’t even have to wait for the answer. Blane wasn’t going to defeat “Dee” the way he had “Deirdre.” She had to be there for Jacob and Evan.
Jacob had helped her trust herself, to take an active role in going after what she wanted. Never again would she be the Deirdre who’d run away from Blane so intensely she lost herself in the process.
Dee stepped from the truck. Her tennis shoes crunched against the hardpacked snow. She winced, as if Blane might hear and somehow know she’d come for their child.
Quit being ridiculous.
Dee picked her way through the sinister beauty of the frozen branches. The tinkling notes lured her closer, chimes and something else. Like those late-night infant whimpers and whispers that only a mother heard, each elusive sound sent Dee’s maternal instincts on full-scale alert.
Then she heard it. Precisely. Chimes followed by the unmistakable giggle of a child.
Her child. Every cell within her cried out for her baby, a voice she’d recognized since hearing his first tiny wail.
Adrenaline pumped stinging heat through her as she wove past another fir. She ducked behind a towering trunk and listened. Again, Evan’s laugh kissed the air. Dee pressed herself against the ice-slicked bark and peeked around.
Air whooshed from her lungs. Behind the camper where their binoculars couldn’t have seen, Evan danced through the snow in his navy-blue snowsuit with energy and health to spare. Scooping up a fistful from a drift, he packed it into a ball and pitched it at the wind chimes abandoned on the branches of a twisted oak tree by some long-ago camper. He giggled as his aim proved true.
That laugh wrapped around her soul and squeezed. Love pounded through her with an intensity that rivaled labor contractions, along with a relief so intense she could hardly contain it all. Tears chased each other down her cheeks. Her arms ached with an emptiness she would soon fill.
Evan.
She almost bolted forward before she remembered the inherent danger. Where was Blane? And Jacob? Dee scanned the small clearing and found no one.
Adult-size boot prints left twisting paths, some older and half-filled with fresh snow. The deepest, most recent ones led to the cab of the vehicle. Through the window she saw…Blane was inside.
Cranking the engine.
He couldn’t be leaving Evan. No way. He must be warming the car, in which case, time had run out for them. God, where was Jacob?
This could be it, a sliver of time to regain her child. If she waited for Jacob, Blane might come retrieve Evan before they could stop him. He could step out at any second.
She couldn’t afford to wait. Tears froze on her cheeks as she sprinted from behind the tree trunk’s protective cover. Her heart slammed against her ribs with each pounding footstep. Only a few more yards and she would have him.
Evan turned. His laugh rose into a squeal. “Mommy!”
What a beautiful word, a name she feared she would never hear again. Her arms locked around him and held tight. The sweet smell of him filled her senses.
“Evan!” Her breath hitched on a sob, and she hugged tighter. “I have you, baby. Mommy’s got you.”
“Missed you, Mommy.” His sweet words puffed clouds into the subfreezing air. “You was gone a long time, so I snuck Daddy’s phone away and called you.”
With a familiarity that broke Dee’s heart all over again, Evan clutched a lock of her hair and nuzzled it to his face. So often as a baby he’d done that very thing, like clasping a security blanket. How frightened and confused he must have been during his time away from her.
“I’m here now and nothing’s going to make me leave again.” The sound of the revving engine sent shivers down her spine. Blane was so close. Enough of happy reunions. She needed to get Evan away, fast. “We’re gonna go for a ride.”
“What about Daddy?” Evan glanced over his shoulder. He gripped her hair until she winced.
“Shh, sweetie,” Dee whispered as she stumbled back toward the cluster of trees. Evan’s extra weight threw her off balance. She forced herself to sacrifice speed for a more surefooted pace. The last thing she needed was to sprawl in the snow. “It’s Mommy’s turn to see you for a while.”
“Okay.” He smiled, innocently oblivious to the trauma all around him. “I was sick from the candy bar but Daddy gave me a sticky pin.”
Thank God Blane had remembered about the extra Epis she always kept around Evan. “Good, that’s great. But I need you to be very quiet. We can talk all you want once we get to the truck.”
Hugging her son closer, she started back toward where she’d come. If she could just make it back out of the clearing, she would have cover. Where was Jacob? Taking on life solo stunk. She could have used his clear-thinking steadiness.