running.
She climbed the rotting wooden steps with one arm around her child and one hand gripping the unstable railing. “Don’t worry. I have you. Nobody’s taking you from me. Nobody.”
She got to the top. The door was stuck. She put her shoulder to it. It gave way. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it, drawing in great gulps of oxygen.
Wren gazed up at her, trusting. Not seeing a crazed woman.
Tears spilled over her lashes. She slid down the wall and sat on the dirty floor. Bending her knees, she tucked the baby against her. “We’ll go to Wisconsin.” Her words were garbled from her tears, but she kept on. “Or Arizona. I have friends there. Or Canada. Just the two of us. We’ll stay someplace where no one will ever find us. . . .”
On and on she went. One insane, impossible scenario after another while Wren listened, content to be held.
She didn’t know how much time passed before he found her. The door of the fire tower creaked open. He stepped inside and looked down at her crouched in the corner. “Tess . . .”
The way he said her name. So much sadness. He knew. He understood.
But he didn’t. “Give her to me, Tess.”
“No! You can’t have her.”
He knelt on one knee in front of her. “Don’t do this.”
“She’s mine!”
He slipped his fingers in her hair, touched her temple with his thumb. “No. She’s not.”
She shook him off. “You don’t care! You don’t understand!”
The jerky movement, the shrillness of her voice, made Wren cry.
“I do understand,” he said. “Let me have her.”
Wren cried louder, her little chest spasming. “You can’t. You can’t take her.”
“I have to.”
She struggled against him, trying not to let go. . . .
“Tess . . . Tess, please . . .”
He peeled the crying baby from her arms.
“Don’t.” She staggered to her feet. “Don’t do this!”
“It’ll be all right.” They were the same words she’d spoken to her child. But he was wrong. Nothing would ever be all right again.
“Give her back to me!”
The grooves around his mouth deepened. “Stay here,” he said quietly. “It’ll be easier for you.”
He opened the fire tower door, and with the sobbing baby tucked in his arms, disappeared.
“No!” She ran toward the door, stumbled, and fell to her knees. “No!” And then, from the depths of her soul, she howled.
* * *
As long as he lived, Ian would never forget that feral sound. He cupped the side of the baby’s head to keep her from hearing Tess Hartsong’s heart breaking.
He kept the baby in his arms as he lied to the Dennings. “Wren was fussy, and Tess took her for a walk.”
The Dennings weren’t suspicious by nature, and they accepted his explanation at face value. “Where is she?” Jeff said. “We need to thank her.”
“She’s staying away. She’s gotten attached to Wren, and it’ll be easier for her.”
Diane pressed her hand to her heart. “Of course. We understand. And we can never thank either of you enough for what you’ve done.”
It didn’t take a trained observer to see they were both nervous. Diane kept licking her lips. Jeff fidgeted with his shirt collar. “We’ve had a lot to do to get ready for the baby,” he said. “I don’t remember Simon being this much work.”
“We were younger then.” Diane pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth. “I prayed to be a grandmother, but I confess I never imagined it exactly like this.”
“It’s funny how life can change with a single phone call,” Jeff said. “One day you’re peacefully retired with nothing to do except plan your next cruise. The next day, you get a phone call from a famous artist telling you you’re grandparents.”
Diane fidgeted with her silver pendant. “We’re willing to make any sacrifice so Wren will know she’s being raised by two people who love her.”
They were good people, but Wren didn’t know them, not the way she knew Tess or even himself. He was the one who’d written down Wren’s schedule that morning—how often she ate, how much formula to give her, where her medical records were—everything Tess should have written down but hadn’t. He was surprised how much he’d absorbed without realizing it. But when he’d tried to double-check his notes with Tess, she wasn’t talking.
The Dennings had been nervous about taking a preemie on a plane, so they’d driven down from New Jersey. Ian continued to hold the baby while he and Jeff had a brief discussion about legalities and