She prayed to God that Matt didn’t run. That after speaking with Detective Bentley, the San Diego police would take the case seriously and keep him in their sights.
“Montgomery is posting agents at the front and back entrances of Matt’s house starting tonight,” Johnny told her. The detective had followed the man home one night to get the address.
It was going to cost her Jackson’s college fund, the rest of the insurance money she’d received after her mother’s accident and probably savings she didn’t yet have, but she’d pay him back for the investigator. Somehow.
He lowered his head. He was going to kiss her again. She wanted him to.
“Excuse me! Anyone in there?” a voice called.
Tabitha jerked back, hurried to the window and took care of the customer. Maybe it was for the best that she and Johnny had stopped playing with a fire that would eventually incinerate her.
* * *
Johnny stood in the shower Thursday evening, his mind busy. Sometimes it has to matter enough. Tabitha’s words played and replayed, looking for a place to land, finding none. She’d hit on the flaw that had plagued him all his life. Nothing mattered enough.
Things mattered. But not enough to ignite the kind of passion that drove a man to make certain choices simply because he had to. She’d said that sometimes you have to believe before you see, but he’d never needed to do that. Exactly the opposite. He saw, believed he could make it happen and then did. Whether it was mastery of a sport or a musical instrument, receiving a college degree, closing a deal or winning a case. Even with Angel...he’d seen the woman who was right for him, one he’d loved casually most of his life. He’d seen his parents’ relationship and set out to make his own marriage work.
And now...he saw Tabitha’s need to have her son back in her arms, in her life. But he couldn’t seem to make it happen for her. The defeat was crushing him.
So he’d just keep trying, like his father had said. As long as he tried, there was a possibility of success. Maybe not with Matt and Jason. Maybe not in San Diego. But Mark and Jackson had to be somewhere. Thinking that if things in San Diego didn’t pan out, he’d hire Montgomery and his team to handle Jackson’s case overall. To turn every stone to find the child. Tabitha would never be able to afford the cost.
Perhaps he’d start a nonprofit to find missing children and use the proceeds from Angel’s Food Bowls to finance it. Jackson would be their first case...
Pleased with where his mind was taking him, Johnny finished his shower, eager to meet Tabitha out in the suite for the Italian feast they’d ordered from room service, which should be arriving in a few minutes. They still had three more nights and four days left of the trip. Anything could happen in that time.
The warrant could come through in the morning. By tomorrow night, Tabitha could have Jackson safely in her arms—or at least the DNA testing might be in process. He knew a guy who knew a guy and had the ability to pay the lab enough extra to get almost immediate results.
In the meantime, he’d support the heck out of her. Fulfilling his promises to their partnership. He’d been keeping his distance since their near miss on the couch the other night. Or, rather, their foray into erotically inc
redible territory. He wasn’t even sure anymore why he’d pulled so far back from her.
Or let her pull back from him without noticing. But seeing her that morning, about to fall when she thought there was bad news about her son...watching her hold herself up all day...finding a strength he’d never seen displayed in one individual before, he’d been unable to stand back any longer.
Tabitha shouldn’t be alone. No one deserved to go through tragedy alone. She was in the middle of her second and still standing. And he was there, the one she’d invited in.
Why him? He had no idea. Why no one else in all the years since her mother had been killed in that accident, he couldn’t say.
But she’d seen something in Johnny, something he sure as hell didn’t see in himself, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her down.
Didn’t matter that there were limits on their time together. That their partnership would dissolve. What mattered was she’d asked someone—him—to share her load for a while and he was going to succeed at doing so.
Just as she’d helped him succeed with Angel’s Food Bowls. They’d made a deal and he always kept up his end of any deal.
Checking his phone as he headed out to the suite’s living room, he saw a missed call from Montgomery. A voice mail. And Tabitha, in sweats and a long-sleeved cotton shirt like she’d worn at home during their list-making nights. Barefoot, like him, she was sitting with her legs curled up under her on the couch.
“Dinner hasn’t arrived yet,” she told him, looking more relaxed than she had all day.
“Montgomery called,” he said, hating to bring tension back into the room. He was listening to the voice mail by the time he reached her.
“What?” She didn’t even let him move the phone away from his ear before she was on him.
“Matt and Jason got home, on foot, about half an hour ago. Jason was carrying a stuffed toy and Matt had one like it, several sizes larger. They were both wearing San Diego Zoo hats.”
“They went to the zoo?”
“You know anything about Mark’s mother being fond of animals?”
She shook her head. “But like I said, I know almost nothing about her. I don’t even know if he had a pet growing up.”