Anything for Her(96)

No, not that fast. He knew a careful investigation was being conducted. The marshal’s office wasn’t eager to have to produce entirely new identities yet again for two women who’d already been moved once more than the original plan had called for. Nolan hadn’t asked questions and now wished he had.

Was the guy Allie’s mother put in prison still there, or had he served his term and walked out? If so, was anyone in law enforcement keeping an eye on him? Goddamn it, they’d know if he had died, wouldn’t they? Or committed yet another crime and been put away again, maybe for a life sentence? Would anybody else in the crime family really give a damn after all these years about the secretary who testified in the trial?

Surely to hell the government wouldn’t go to the expense of continuing to hide Cheryl Wright née Judy Nelson née... He didn’t remember the first name she’d been born with, if he’d ever heard it. He shook off the irrelevancy. Nobody would waste the money unless there was at least a remote possibility that she could still be a target.

He hoped the decision would be made not to move Allie’s mom—and Allie if she chose to go, too. But he had zero control over that decision.

I could try talking to Allie again. Getting on my knees and begging.

Had her father or brother begged her to stay behind last time? he got to wondering. Or had they shrugged and said, “Your choice”?

Nolan had a troubling thought. It was nice to think her father might have loved her enough to plead with her to stay with him rather than disappear with her mother. But ultimately, both parents had been selfish. No matter what choice Allie made, she was the one making the sacrifice. She’d lose her father...or she’d lose her mother.

This time, she’d lose the man she claimed to love...or she’d lose her mother. Once again, everyone in her life—everyone who claimed to love her—demanded she make the sacrifice.

Oh, hell and damnation, Nolan thought, appalled. There was a way he could offer to make the sacrifice so that she didn’t have to. And maybe he’d been tiptoeing toward it without even noticing. Why else had he asked himself which he’d choose, the work he loved or Allie?

Now the dilemma lay in front of him, as impossible to miss as a meteor that had just crashed through his workshop roof and lay burning in front of him.

Nobody had ever offered to give up everything for Allie. Not her mother, who had made the original decision for her own reasons, despite the cost her daughter, son and husband would pay. Not Allie’s father, who in divorcing his wife had left his daughter feeling abandoned even before he let her go forever. And certainly not her brother, who when the family divided chose Daddy’s side, leaving his quiet, wounded sister behind.

This, Nolan thought with the same sense of shock, is how I fix the disaster I created. This is how I make the words “I love you” have real meaning.

He tipped his head back and groaned. He could cut the bonds that linked him to his family, although knowing he’d never hear Anna’s voice again, knowing that she would always wonder what had happened to him, that would be hard.

But he could not abandon Sean, who had already lost everyone else he’d ever loved and trusted.

He couldn’t present himself to Allie and offer to pack up and go with her without first talking to Sean.

Which meant breaking the promise he’d made her. He had to tell Sean what was going on, and ask how he felt about starting all over. Again.

* * *

THE HIGH SCHOOL basketball season launched that evening with a junior varsity home game. Nolan couldn’t be anywhere else but in the stands.

He stood and clapped with the rest of the crowd on the home side of the court when the boys ran out onto the court. Students whistled and stamped on the bleachers, creating thunder and making them shake. Nolan hardly noticed. He was thinking how young those boys looked. Skinny legs, big feet, zits. Tank tops bared thin bodies. Sean was actually one of the better-put-together of the group. A couple of the boys blushed and cast shy glances at the crowd. Being the center of attention must be new to them.

Sean’s head turned and he scanned the crowd. For a moment there was something achingly young and worried on his face. But when he spotted Nolan, he gave a huge grin. The relief and sheer pleasure in that grin did strange things to Nolan’s heart.

He hadn’t understood the impulse that made him take in the boy he had barely exchanged a few words with, but he supposed he’d thought he was doing something decent. What he hadn’t known was how quickly he would come to love this boy, no different than if he was his own.