Barefoot by the Sea

Chapter Thirty-two

December in Ottawa was a hell of a lot different from December in Barefoot Bay. Icy wind whipped down asphalt corridors, and barren trees rose naked from the snow-covered ground. To Ian, the world seemed colorless after the emeralds and turquoises of the Gulf Coast.

The only green was the oxidized copper roofs topping the government buildings, and the only blue was the bruise all over Ian’s heart.

For a while he’d been able to ignore that hollow feeling in his chest. He’d filled any emptiness by spending hours next to a hospital bed holding the tiny hand of a young man who was clearly born with a fighter’s spirit.

Witnessing Eddie—he didn’t even answer to Sam, so Ian gave up trying to call him that—survive his mysterious infection went a long way toward healing Ian’s own wounds. The little man not only charmed every nurse, doctor, and visitor in the process, he completely threaded his way right into the fabric of Ian’s heart. And his twin sister, far quieter and a little more terrified of life’s unexpected curveballs, had insisted on staying in the room with a menagerie of stuffed animals she kept in a small suitcase with the name Emma embroidered on it.

By the end of the hospital stay, Ian had given all the animals different talking voices and accents, learning quickly that wee Emma was far more at ease with a stuffed pig than a human being.

She barely spoke to the couple who’d had the children for the last year, which only confirmed Ian’s decision. They greatly favored Eddie, but his illness had taken its toll, and the couple—the third family the children had been placed with—had asked that Emma be sent on to yet another home.

Ian would die first, and that was why Henry had taken the extraordinary step of flying to Florida to reunite the family. The twins would never be separated, and they only had one more home to go to—Ian’s.

Assuming he made it through one last hoop this afternoon: the final Protected Persons review board stamp of approval. Three nameless faces were given the responsibility of granting Ian’s request for one more identity and supporting one more move to obscurity.

While that meeting dragged on in a basement office of Ottawa’s sprawling government complex, Ian leaned against a stone wall high over the city, but the expansive metropolitan view was lost on him. Every two minutes he turned to look at the door where Henry had disappeared nearly an hour ago.

With each sigh, a cloud of cold air puffed in front of his face, making him stuff his frozen hands deeper into his jacket pockets. What was taking so long?

Wasn’t this a technicality, a rubber stamp that blessed his new name, new location, and new life story? The N1L gang members that represented any real threat were behind bars, though as long as they were alive, Ian had to watch his back and keep his story a secret.

He would do that. He’d do anything to keep his children and make sure they were together. Anything—even leave the woman who made him feel whole, happy, and healed.

Another sigh escaped at the thought, interrupted by the vibration of his phone, which was wrapped in his chilled fingers. He yanked it out and stabbed the green button. “Yeah?”

“We have a problem, mate.”

Damn it. “What is it?”

“The answer’s no.”

A bright white light exploded in his heart. “No…what? Why?”

Henry sighed. “There’s a woman on the board.”

Like that explained it. “So?”

Henry paused long enough for Ian to sense that he wasn’t going to like the answer. “She’s transferred here from the Singapore operation.”

Was everything he did in Singapore going to haunt him? “Really.”

“Yeah, not a fan of yours. I tried, but the best we could do was let them agree that you could live somewhere in Canada, probably on the other side of the country, and visit.”

Visit? Fuck that. “I’m coming in.”

Before Henry could answer, Ian marched toward the door. Also, fuck the security and their trumped-up rules about review boards not having direct contact with program members. If some prejudiced, small-minded, idiot woman who read a negative report thought she could ruin his life, she was going to answer to him.

He shoved the heavy door open, instantly blasted by hot air and a scowl from a guard. Undeterred by the protective glass, metal detector, or the gun on the guy’s hip, Ian powered toward him.

“I need to see—”

“Me!” Henry barreled around the corner, still holding his phone. “I’ll clear him through,” he called to the guard.

Ian sailed through the metal detector and met Henry on the other side. “Don’t even try to stop me.”

“I warned them this might happen. She seemed to relish the opportunity to meet you.” Henry gestured for him to head down a flight of stairs into the chilly bowels of the building. “Last door on the left.”

“What’s her problem? The fact that I got in a fight in Singapore?”

“She’s hung up on stability. I told you it would have been better to wave a marriage certificate.”

Ian gave a derisive snort. That was one decision he did not regret in the least. “A fake, meaningless piece of paper that’s going to be annulled before this board convenes again? Why bother?”

“It makes them feel better,” Henry said, hustling to keep up with Ian’s long and furious strides. “They’re bureaucrats and you need to appeal to their love of red tape.” They stopped at a closed door. “Her name is Sarah Banks and she’s got an agenda. I don’t have any idea what it is.”

“Well, fuck Sarah Banks and—” Ian’s words halted when the door opened. “Oh. I already have.”

Bloody hell. It was only a matter of time until one of those many, many one-night stands would come back to bite him in the ass.

Sandy hair, blue eyes, and a smile he’d pronounced “pretty” the night he’d met her in Singapore. She’d probably been a government plant to see if he could stick to his story. And now she’d been promoted to a position in Canada.

He didn’t bother averting his eyes, but held her cold gaze as Henry made a brief round of introductions around a long conference table. He didn’t bother to listen to the names of the two men; they weren’t why he was in this room.

Oh, bollocks. Sarah. It all came back to him now. She’d approached him in a dive in Geylang and he’d been drunk enough to believe she was a British tourist who’d ended up in the wrong part of Singapore. Her accent had sounded like home and her hair reminded him of…

“We’ve met,” she said icily. “Unless you don’t remember.”

He ignored the comment, narrowing his eyes to remind her that even though she’d been a plant sent to test his ability to keep his identity secret, she’d also been a willing and eager sex partner. No doubt that wasn’t in her job description.

“I want my children,” he said softly. “And I’m here to find out exactly what I need to do to get them short of taking them, which I will do if forced.”

One of the men leaned forward. “We take threats like that very seriously.”

You ought to, Ian said with his glare.

“Your unstable lifestyle concerns me,” Sarah said, turning a page in a file he assumed was a blow-by-blow description of his many instabilities. “We have no issue how you choose to live in your government-granted identity when you are on your own, Mr. Browning, but bringing children into the mix is an entirely different equation.”

“Henry gave us the impression you were settling down, even marrying,” the other man said. “That would go a long way to assuaging our issues.”

He practically curled his lip and fought the urge to make a fist to assuage his issues. “You expect me to marry someone and not tell them my life story?”

Sarah shrugged. “It’s been done, and, frankly, we think that encourages you to fully embrace your identity, forcing you to become the new person we say you are.”

He managed not to spit or leap over the table and throttle her skinny neck, but only thanks to a superhuman effort. “I’ll never be the person you say I am.”

“Then you can’t have your children.” She leveled him with a look that sent his blood pressure soaring. “Unless and until you prove your stability.”

He closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath, mining every drop of composure he had. “I assume you don’t have children, Ms. Banks.”

“My life is not on the table.”

“My life”—he clenched his jaw and leaned closer—“isn’t a life. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in the personal hell you condemn people to every day?”

She launched one well-drawn brow. “You’d perhaps prefer a slow death at the hands of some London gang member?”

Just his bloody luck to have his fate in the hands of a woman he’d screwed every way possible. “I’d perhaps prefer to live exactly as I did before some maniac murdered my wife, left my children screaming, and stole any semblance of normalcy I’ve ever had.”

“It’s that semblance of normalcy we’re looking for, Mr. Browning. Get it and we’ll see what we can do about your kids. But you’ll have to hurry. They turn four in a few months.”

Next to him, Henry’s phone hummed and he checked it, pushed back his chair, and left.

After a moment, Ian pinned her with a long look. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“We need to believe those children will live in a secure and stable environment,” one of the men said.

“My children are on the third family in as many years,” he fired back. “They’re about to be separated after my son was hospitalized. What is stable and secure about that?”

It was the other man’s turn as Sarah flipped through the file without looking at him. “We need to see a record that shows you are prepared to raise and rear those children.”

“They’re mine. I was prepared to raise and rear them the day they were born. Before.”

Sarah fluttered the file. “Until we know you are completely safe, the children stay in Canada, in two different families. As you know, when they are four, you can no longer move them, so—”

He launched toward the table, ripped the file out of her hand, and stuck his face right in front of hers, eliciting a soft cry as she pushed backward.

“How many times do I have to die for you people to be satisfied?” He ground out the words. “Because I died in London, I died in Singapore, I died in Florida, and I’m dying here.” He balled the papers in fisted hands. “I want to live. I finally want to live so, for God’s sake, lady, let me do that.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

The door popped open, startling all of them. Henry held his phone, his eyes sparking as he seized the shoulder of Ian’s jacket and pulled him off the table. “Save your breath, mate. The game changed. This meeting’s over.”

Tessa gingerly set the plastic stick on the bathroom counter, washed her hands, and closed the door as she walked out.

A watched test never reveals two lines.

Exhaling softly, she went into the living room, paced from one side to the other, then closed her eyes. Time for the same prayer she’d said every single time she’d gone through this exercise in fertility-futility, as Billy once called her obsessive test-taking when her period was about four minutes late.

“Please, God, let this be the—No…” She shook her head, letting her voice trail off.

That wasn’t the plea she wanted to make. Deep inside, Tessa wanted to pray for something else. This time, the negative result was for the better.

Stunned, she unfolded her prayer-hands and pressed them to her burning cheeks.

Was it possible she was hoping for a negative test? How could that be?

Of course she wanted to be pregnant! That desire was as much a part of her as gardening or breathing. She’d wanted a baby for as long as she could remember. In front of the bookcase, she crouched down to her secret infertility shelf, remembering how John had discovered the books and pulled one out.

Five Hundred Ways to Get Pregnant. She could still hear the humor in his voice. Who knew there were more than one? She’d died a little that moment. Because he was funny and sweet and honest and—

Not honest.

She straightened. She’d forgiven him the lies in the beginning because during their last days and nights together, she’d shared more with him than she ever had with Billy. And he’d told her every minute detail of his life, his childhood, his education, his marriage, his hopes and dreams.

And with each revelation, she’d fallen deeper and deeper in love. In love enough that she didn’t want John’s baby…not without John. Where was the joy in that? What did that leave her for a future?

She wanted a family, not a baby. A child didn’t make a family; love did.

For one thing, she’d merely ache for him for the rest of her life. And what would she tell her child? The same pack of lies her mother had told her? She’d have no hope of being honest with her child and her life would be like her mother’s—buried in secrets and lies, all motivated and rationalized and carried on generation after generation.

The overpowering realization of that made her head spin.

No, something else made her head spin. How could she have ignored that dizziness all these weeks?

Because the sensation wasn’t distinct or long-lasting enough to make her stop and think about it, but now she realized that at least once or twice a day she’d been feeling a distant humming in her brain, the sense that, for one flash of a second, her head wasn’t quite connected to the rest of her.

Truth was, she’d thought she was lovesick until Ashley described her symptoms. But Ashley had been wrong about being pregnant, and Tessa might be, too.

She squeezed her hands and started another prayer. “Please, God. Not this time. Not this time. Not this time.”

The whispered words were like a mantra, relieving her and calming her and reassuring her that this was nothing but a false alarm, like she’d had other times in her life. Still, they didn’t erase the irony of how much she didn’t want to be pregnant.

But it was time to find out. On a slow breath, she walked into the bathroom and closed her eyes, letting her pulse hammer a good five or six beats before she dared to look.

And there were the hard cold facts that couldn’t be denied.

She grabbed the counter and let the impact wash over her, her fingers brushing the bright pink box and knocking it to the floor. Another test slipped out, still sealed in its pouch.

The backup, she used to call it. Should she? It wouldn’t be the first time she refused to believe the results. Once she’d taken five tests because her period was ten days late.

Because all she wanted was a child of her own.

Wrong. She wanted a family. And there was a difference, at least to her. She didn’t want a child of her own, and that was probably why she’d been dragging her heels on adopting or surrogacy or even foster parenting. She wanted the whole package: a father, a mother, kids.

Everything she’d never had. Everything she’d never get.

She turned her back on the extra test, certain this one was accurate enough, slowly sinking to the floor with burning eyelids and a heavy heart.

Why had she let him go? John was what she wanted, John was the man who could give her a family and a life. But she’d let him go. Stubborn, unwilling to lie and leave, now she’d live without him.

Why hadn’t she run after him like in the movies? Why couldn’t she profess her love and jump into that car and whisk off to a fairy-tale ending? Because her fairy tale included the people she’d have to give up forever. Without her friends—her family—there was no happy ending.

But without him, there was no happy beginning.

If you ever need anything, absolutely anything, or if you want to get a message to me, call Henry.

She did want to get a message to him. She had to tell him: I know what I want now. Not a baby, but you. You and your family, our family, any family. All I want is you.

Leaning against the wall, she pulled out her phone with a shaky hand. She carefully dialed the extra-long number, including an international code. Taking a breath, she pressed the phone to her ear and imagined Henry’s face as he looked at the screen and realized his job just got more complicated.

The first ring startled her, it was so loud. The second one seemed to last forever. The third one matched the flutter of her heart as she slowly sank to the floor.

In the middle of the seventeenth ring, she hung up and stared at the two pink lines. They weren’t nearly as beautiful as she’d always dreamed they’d be.