Chapter Forty-Four

They entered the crowded police station and were ushered past the lobby counter into a big room crowded with desks and smelling like stale coffee.

Cole sat on a counter along the back wall between a sink and microwave. He wore his cowboy pajamas and an oversized police hat that drooped over his eyes. Even from this distance, he could see that Cole wasn’t the slightest bit distressed by his adventure.

“There.” Dennis pointed across the room. His arm shook with relief.

Audrey cut in front of Dennis and walked as fast as her tight skirt and high heels would allow. She practically hopped forward with her short, quick strides. Dennis hovered behind her. He could’ve walked faster on his own, but he was too happy to shorten his strides so they could stay together. They were a team now. Together. He, and Audrey, and Cole.

Beside Cole, an officer stirred his coffee with a red plastic straw. He saw them coming and tapped Cole’s hat to push the brim back. “Hey, sport, you know these people?”

“Daddy! And Miss Turner!” Cole’s little legs swung in excitement, his heels in cowboy boots thumping against the cabinets. But then his face collapsed into a fearful scowl. “Are you going to yell at me again?”

Dennis grabbed Cole in a bear hug. The boy was okay. He was in one piece and healthy and unharmed. “No, I’m not going to yell at you. Even though you really scared me tonight, and we’re going to have to talk about it and make a new rule.”

Dennis set the boy back on the counter and straightened the huge blue hat.

“Aw, not more rules.” Cole thumped his heels against the cabinet.

“Afraid so, son. But first, tell me what you did tonight.”

Cole brightened. “I got to wear a policeman hat! See! And I got to lock the police lady in the jail!”

“You went to the jail?” Dennis couldn’t help frowning. That was no place for his son.

The officer chuckled. “We have an empty holding cell right over there.” He waved his red straw at the side of the room. “The kid thought it was pretty cool that he got to lock up one of our detectives. I take it you’re the parents?”

“Yes.” Dennis didn’t bother to explain that Audrey wasn’t Cole’s biological mother. The truth was, she was as close to a real mother as Cole had ever known. And if Dennis had his way, that bond would only deepen.

“We have some paper to push. Let me get it, and then you can get out of here.” The officer walked away.

At that moment, a thin young man in oversized jeans shambled up. He held out a small bag of fruit candy to Cole.

“You sure you like sour, right?”

“Yes!” Cole stuffed a red candy into his mouth, and his face twisted from the sourness.

“You’re letting him eat candy?” Audrey asked with a soft smile at Dennis.

Dennis sighed and looked down at her. “It’s not good for him, I know. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned tonight, it’s that there are bigger dangers.”

Audrey laid her hand on his bicep and stroked him lightly. She was radiant with joy and relief. “This has been a big night.”

“But don’t think you can eat candy all the time.” Dennis wagged a finger at Cole, then turned to the thin man. “What do I owe you, Officer?”

“Oh, I’m not a cop. Not me.”

“Daddy, this is the taxi driver man.” Cole mouthed around a green candy. “I told him to take me to Nana and Papa’s house. I did it the right way, too. I gave him the paper you wrote down.”

“The paper?”

“The one from my special book. With Nana and Papa’s house written down on it. But Daddy, you wrote it wrong, because he didn’t bring me there. He brought me here.”

“I started to take him to that address. But then I kind of thought it over, and I decided I should probably bring him here. A kid in his pajamas, all by himself.” The cabbie shrugged.

Dennis extended a hand to the cabbie. “How can I ever thank you?” The cabbie’s hand felt almost frail in his grasp. This driver, this underfed man with shaggy hair, had had the presence of mind to know that something was wrong. More important, he’d done the right thing.

“No problem, man. Just doing my job.”

Dennis pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and extracted a wad of cash and a business card. “This should cover your fare. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, it would be my pleasure.”

“Thanks.” The cabbie took the card and shoved it in his shirt pocket. “Okay, well, you’re here, so I think I can go now. Got a long shift ahead of me.”

“Bye, driver man!” Cole called as the cabbie walked away.

“Cole,” Dennis said. “Before the police officer comes back, I want to ask you something. Why did you leave like that? Without telling me anything?”

“Well, you see, Daddy.” Cole swung his legs and swallowed his candy. “You said that if Miss Turner broke the rules, she had to leave. And you also wrote to Miss Turner that if she couldn’t watch me, I got to go to Nana and Papa’s house. So I went. Cuz that’s what you wrote.”

So that was it.

Wow.

Dennis blinked and tried to find a response.

“Cole, is that why you were trying to get me fired? Is that the real reason?” Audrey asked.

Cole nodded and fished in his candy bag.

“Why didn’t you tell me, son, when I asked you about it tonight?”

“Because, Daddy. It had to be a secret. Nana and Papa always say it has to be a secret when I get to see them. Because they let me eat cookies. And because you would get mad.”

“But I know about it now.”

“Yeah,” Cole agreed. “It’s not a secret if you know now. But Nana and Papa were right. You were mad.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry I lost my temper. Are you sorry about keeping secrets? And running away?”

“I don’t know if I’m sorry. Because I want to see Nana and Papa and you won’t let me.”

The officer returned then with a sheaf of papers. They filled out the forms, and Dennis handed over his driver’s license and a photograph of Cole. The whole time they worked on the formalities, Dennis’s mind was elsewhere.

This had all happened because of his own refusal to heal the breach with his parents. He’d thought he could walk some fine line that allowed Cole to see the Delaney clan without letting them get too close. This near-disaster had come about because of his own stubborn fear that he would lose Cole and his irrational pride that drove him to be the perfect father.

But he wasn’t perfect. He’d proved that beyond a doubt tonight. Try though he had, his attempts to go it alone had failed. He was a single father with a mission to give his son the best of everything. He’d been so certain that he could single-handedly provide Cole with everything that the boy could need.

But he’d been wrong. Not wrong in a way that would scar his son for life, but still wrong. On some level, he’d known that from the moment he’d come home and heard Audrey and Cole giggling over their horse game, even though he couldn’t admit it at the time. That laughter had broken through the defenses he’d so carefully built around his castle. He couldn’t treat Cole like a fairy tale prince and lock him away in a careful tower, guarding him from dragons both real and imaginary.

His son deserved better.

He was still angry with his parents, and it would take a long time to get beyond that. But if he was going to prevent a repeat of tonight, he had to try. He might not ever completely trust them, but he had to do what he could to heal the breach. Really heal it, not just slap a bandage over it.

Dennis glanced at Audrey, who played a hand-clapping game with Cole as Dennis dealt with the police. She was good for Cole, good for both of them. Oh, he and Cole might have muddled along well enough without her, getting through the days in the carefully controlled world Dennis had erected for them. But it never would’ve been the best of all possible worlds. As much as he loved Cole, Dennis’s guiding emotions had been fear and pride. Not love. He saw that now.

He also saw that he needed help. But not just any kind of help. He needed Audrey. She was the missing ingredient, with the joy and laughter she’d brought into his home. And the love.

The love was the most important thing of all.

The officer finished the paperwork and told Dennis that they were free to go. Dennis returned to Audrey and Cole, who still sat on the counter. The two of them were giggling with their right hands clenched.

“One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war,” they chanted together. Cole shrieked. His whole body leaned into the effort to trap Audrey’s thumb under his. Dennis waited for them to finish their game, then wrapped their clasped fingers between his two bigger hands.

“Listen up, here. New rules.”

Cole sagged. “We already have enough rules.”

“I think you’ll like the new ones.” Dennis leaned over and dropped a kiss on top of Cole’s soft hair. Then he brushed a feather kiss on Audrey’s cheek.

“Cole, you really like being with Nana and Papa, huh?”

“Yep. Cuz they let me sit on their laps and eat cake all the time and it’s really, really fun.”

“We haven’t been having enough fun, have we?” Dennis asked.

“We have fun sometimes. But mostly I have to do boring stuff.”

Dennis hid a smile. “New rule. We’re going to start doing more fun stuff.”

“Yes!” Cole thumped his heels against the counter.

“And another new rule. You get to see Nana and Papa, but only if I’m there or if Miss Turner is there. One of us has to be there. You understand?”

“You’re not going to fire Miss Turner from being your girlfriend?” Cole’s voice was plaintive. He really did like her, the little monster. His misbehavior was about his grandparents, not about Audrey.

“Miss Turner isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you. We belong together. All of us.”

“Is that another new rule?” Audrey’s lashes fluttered. She was teasing him. Ah, he loved it when she teased him. He’d almost forgotten what joy there could be in playing with a beautiful, loving woman like this.

“Yes, and I expect perfect obedience. Think you can handle it?” Her clear blue eyes brimmed with laughter as she tilted her chin up to face him. A small smile played around her pink lips.

“Yes, but I get to make a rule, too,” she said. “From now on, you tell me what you’re thinking instead of just making that face at me.”

“You mean this face?” Cole jutted his button chin, baring his bottom teeth, and lowered his brows in a fierce scowl.

Audrey pointed her finger at Cole and giggled. “That’s the one.” She turned to Dennis. “Make the face if you need to, as long as you keep those lips moving, mister.”

Dennis leaned close and whispered near her ear, just at that tender spot on her throat that made her weak. “Keep my lips moving when you’re around? I like this new rule.”

He dropped a stolen kiss just below her earlobe before straightening up again. Audrey blushed soft pink and looked around the station in tender confusion. Her lashes fluttered again and she clung to his elbow with one light hand. It filled him with masculine pride to see her like this, his capable, smart Audrey all flirty and feminine in response to his touch.

Dennis hoisted Cole into his arms and the boy snuggled against his neck. Cole was getting too big to be carried, but Dennis didn’t care. He felt a fierce need to keep his son close right now.

Audrey picked up Cole’s purple backpack with the Pinocchio doll peeking out the top. She led the way out of the police station. As they emerged, free of the tight constraints of desks and counters, Dennis shifted Cole to his hip and put his free arm around Audrey. She was another one that he wanted to keep close to him. Forever.

The streetlights bathed them in a golden glow. “You know, my parents might have been wrong about some things, but there was one thing they were right about.”

Audrey tilted a curious glance at him.

“A boy needs more than school and lessons. He needs a family. He needs to be surrounded by love.”

They walked down the sidewalk, a new family in the making.

“And so does a man,” Dennis said, squeezing Audrey lightly around the waist. She tilted her chin up and the street light bathed her beautiful face in a warm glow.

“So do I,” she murmured.