Fewer had asked about it.
But he knew.
And every day he remembered.
CHAPTER 18
“ I’ll be damned.”
Leaning back in his desk chair, Trace stared at the computer monitor, where, after sifting through public records, he’d found that Jocelyn Wallis, too, had been born in Helena, Montana.
Four for four. What were the chances of that, especially considering the small size of the town?
And you’ve known three personally. Coincidence?
What the hell did it mean?
Nothing?
Of course not. As the pages stacked in the tray, he lifted off the first set and read through them again, trying to figure out a connection. Coming up with nothing, he lifted a hand high overhead, stretching out his shoulder muscles, then rotated his head. Yawning, he snapped off the computer and checked the clock. Midnight had come and gone, and Eli had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television. Trace had tried to get him to bed earlier, but his son had protested that he couldn’t be alone in his own room because he missed Sarge. Was worried about the mutt.
Trace left the small parlor that he used as a den and found his son sprawled over the crushed pillows of the couch. In sleep, his hair at odd angles, dark lashes lying against his cheeks, Eli looked nearly angelic. Except he’d traded his wings for a bright blue cast.
The boy had been a game changer for Trace.
Before becoming a father, Trace O’Halleran had been known for too much drinking and an interest in the wrong kind of women. He had sown more than his share of wild oats but had stopped the minute Eli had come into his world and rocked it. He’d always heard kids changed everything, but he’d never really thought about it. Until he became a father.
Now he leaned down to pick up his boy from the couch. Eli didn’t so much as crack one eyelid as Trace carried him up the old staircase to his bedroom on the second floor.
The room was a mess. Toys and books scattered everywhere, clothes near, but not in the hamper, his twin bed unmade. Light from the window, that eerie gray/white of a snow-crusted night, spilled over the rumpled quilt.
Gently, Trace lowered him onto the bed, then tucked the quilt around him. Sighing in his sleep, Eli rolled onto one side.
His son.
Trace’s jaw tightened at the secrets he’d kept from Eli. Someday he’d
have to come clean, he supposed. It was Eli’s right to know that Trace wasn’t his biological father. But when Eli learned that unforeseen bit of information, the questions would start, and they would be as difficult as the ones fielded the other night, when Eli had been upset and demanded to find his mother.
And Trace wouldn’t have answers.
The truth of the matter was that Leanna had never revealed Eli’s biological father’s identity. Trace had surmised she might not know, and even if she had, she certainly hadn’t cared. Theirs had been a white-hot romance that had started in a bar with one too many drinks and ended with a brandnew pregnancy. Trace had done the right thing: he’d married Leanna and adopted Eli. He’d then eventually come to grips with the fact that she’d either miscarried or lied, because the baby she’d claimed to be carrying, Trace’s child, never came to fruition.
Not that it had ever mattered.
The fights had begun, the accusations flung, and one night she’d just up and left. He’d woken up to an empty bed. Her car was gone; her clothes had been cleaned out of the closet; her phone, laptop, and makeup were missing.
All she’d left was her boy.
Which was just as well.
As he stared into the room where Eli lay sleeping, he couldn’t imagine that he could love any child more. He didn’t understand why she’d left, but when the divorce papers came, and she gave up all custodial rights to her son, Trace had signed quick and fast.
There had been a few phone calls and a handful of visits, but they had petered out over the years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to Leanna. When Eli had called her six months ago, the phone had been disconnected.
You should have tracked her down.
He deserves to know his mother, no matter what kind of a heartless bitch she is.