We can certainly use all the well wishes we can get these days, and I’ll make sure I pass yours along to Marie. But I do have some good news for you – mixed in with a little more bad news – if you think you’re feeling up to hearing it.’
Another nervous tickle fluttered in Dana’s chest. ‘What’s that?’
Krugman smiled gently. ‘The little boy from the plane crash,’ he said. ‘He’s alive and well. Not a scratch on him.’
Tears of joy sprang into Dana’s eyes. Overwhelming relief flooded through her entire system. For one long moment, she found it difficult to even breathe. ‘Thank God,’ she finally whispered, echoing Krugman’s earlier sentiments. ‘Just, thank God. Where is he now?’
Krugman rolled his muscular neck on his sturdy shoulders. Even in his late-sixties, the guy was in shape. Dana only hoped she looked half as good at his age. ‘Well, that’s the bad news,’ Krugman said uncertainly, rubbing the muscles alongside the left side of his throat with the palm of his right hand. ‘Right now the little boy’s in a foster home in Parma. Unfortunately, his mother died in the plane crash and he had no other relatives to look after him. The mother died of head trauma very similar to yours. Her skull slammed against the window she was sitting next to and she didn’t survive the impact. FAA investigators say the little boy’s body bounced off hers and that’s what saved his life.’
Dana gasped. Her heart broke into a million tiny pieces like a fumbled dinner plate at Krugman’s words. Poor, poor Bradley. Not only had he lost his mother, Dana remembered all too well how he’d also lost his father recently, though Dana didn’t know any of the details surrounding that death yet. And now the poor kid was completely alone in the world.
More tears flooded into her eyes. Every last cell in her body ached for the little boy. And why the hell not? Seemed to her that she was intimately familiar with someone else who’d lost both of her parents at the tender age of just four years old.
The words tumbled out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop them. ‘I want him,’ she blurted out.
Krugman cocked his head to one side and lifted up his eyebrows on his forehead. ‘What?’
Dana took in a deep breath that filled her lungs to capacity, trying to steel her nerves. It might have been a hasty decision, but she really didn’t give a shit right now. With every last fibre of her being, Dana wanted the boy. Needed him. Wanted and needed him more than anything she’d ever wanted or needed in this life. ‘I want him,’ Dana repeated, a little more sure of herself this time. ‘I want to adopt the little boy. I want to take him home with me.’
Krugman looked stunned. ‘Don’t you think maybe you should…’
Dana cut him off with a look before he could finish. ‘I’m dead serious, sir. If it’s not too much trouble, could you please arrange for somebody at the Bureau to start the paperwork for me? I’ll take over from there once the ball is rolling.’
Krugman held Dana’s gaze, studying her eyes some more. After a long moment, he finally blew out a slow breath. ‘These things take time, Agent Whitestone. They take a lot of time, as a matter of fact. I’ll have someone in admin start making some calls on your behalf if you’re absolutely certain this is what you want, but there’s no shame in changing your mind about it later on. This is a really big decision you’re making here. A huge one, actually. One you probably shouldn’t be making right now.’
Dana rolled her neck on her slender shoulders and felt the unbelievable stiffness there. If nothing else, she knew that she needed to get the hell out of this hospital bed, pronto. And Krugman was absolutely right. It was a big decision she was making here. A huge one, actually. Crazy as the idea might sound even to her at the moment, though, Dana knew there was no way in hell she’d back out of it. Not now, not later and not ever. She already loved the little boy. Had fallen in love with him the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him on the plane. ‘I’m absolutely sure this is what I want, sir,’ Dana said, more forcefully this time. ‘I’ve never been more certain about anything in my entire