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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU SURE YOU DON’T want me to come in with you?” Shelley asked.

“I’m sure.” Ellen Moore’s voice, infused with confidence and cheer for the sake of five-year-old Josh climbing out of the backseat of her sister’s car, sounded strong and healthy to her.

Because she was strong and healthy. She could do this. No big deal. Thousands of women all over the country shared parenting with divorced spouses.

Though maybe not all of them had their younger sisters driving them to the airport for the month-long parental switch.

Martha Moore Marks, the girls’ mother, had been adamant about Ellen not making the trip alone. That was fine with Ellen. Her sister Shelley wanted Ellen’s opinion on an outfit she was considering for an upcoming vocal performance with the Phoenix Symphony, so they could take care of that while they were in the city. Then the sisters were treating themselves to lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant in Fountain Hills—a quaint Phoenix suburb—before heading home to Shelter Valley.

“I want to wear my backpack.” The solemn voice of her son grabbed Ellen’s attention. And heart. “I don’t want Daddy to think I’m a baby or something.”

“He’s not going to think that, bud,” she said, resisting the urge to run her fingers through her little guy’s dark, silky hair. At home, especially when he was sleepy, he’d let her get away with it, but not here. Not now.

Instead, she helped him secure the straps of the new full-size backpack he’d specifically requested for the trip. The canvas bag—loaded down with his electronic handheld game console; extra discs; dried fruit snacks; animal cookies; cheese crackers; his Cars insulated water bottle filled with juice; two of his favorite nighttime storybooks, both starring Cars characters; and the stuffed Woody doll she’d bought him for Christmas the year before—replaced the smaller plastic one that had been suitable when he’d been going to preschool and day care.

He was starting kindergarten a couple of days after he returned from visiting his father.

“Remember, put Woody under the covers with you at night,” she told him as Shelley popped the trunk on her Chevy sedan. Ellen hauled out the first of two big suitcases, pulling up the roller bar.

“No one will know he’s there,” she said, dropping the second bag next to her and closing the trunk while her sister picked Josh right up off the ground with the force of her goodbye hug.

“You be a good boy and have fun, okay?” Shelley said, nose to nose with Josh.

Josh, arms wrapped tightly around Shelley’s neck, rubbed noses with his aunt. “I get to go fishing in the Colorado River,” the little boy said.

“I know, pal. And you better call me if you catch anything.” Shelley let Josh’s thin body slide to the ground.

“I will.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Shelley nodded at Ellen, climbed behind the wheel and drove off to the call lot where she could wait until Ellen was ready to be picked up.

With a roller bar in each hand, and Josh’s hand next to hers on one handle, Ellen pulled the bags to the curbside check-in station. Josh didn’t need a special-needs tag because, while he was checking in alone, he wouldn’t be flying alone.

Then they were in the terminal, Josh’s hand in hers whether he liked it or not, and Ellen swore to herself that the smile would stay pasted on her lips if it killed her.

It wouldn’t kill her. She was a survivor.

The squeeze of her son’s fingers around her own made her own angst seem selfish and petty.

“You’re going to have a blast,” she promised him.

“Why can’t Daddy and I have a blast right here?”

“Because he doesn’t live here. His job is in Colorado. And he has a room all ready for you in his new house and you’re going to love it.”

The terminal was bustling, with as many families as businesspeople hurrying around them in spite of the fact that it was a Monday morning.

“Then why can’t you come?”

“Because my job is here. Besides, Jaime is there and is looking forward to hanging out with you. You like Jaime, remember?” The beautiful model her ex-husband Aaron had chosen as a replacement for his damaged wife loved Josh and had taken off the entire month of August to care for him.

As far as Ellen was concerned, Josh was all that mattered.

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t really blame Aaron for choosing someone who oozed feminine perfection and sexuality. He’d been far too young to handle the emotional and physical backlash that had consumed Ellen after her attack. Too young to handle her physical rejection of him.

She would have opted out, too, if she’d had that choice.

Aaron had needed to get out of Shelter Valley, to start a new life away from the tragedy, and Ellen couldn’t imagine ever leaving Shelter Valley. There was no future in that kind of standoff.

Josh’s grasp did not loosen even a little bit as they approached the bustling rotunda where they’d arranged to meet Aaron. There was less than an hour’s turnaround between his arriving flight and his departing one with Josh. Aaron and Ellen had both decided whisking Josh off quickly was the best plan.

She was searching the crowd for the familiar dark hair of her ex when Josh stopped suddenly.

“What’s up?” she asked, gazing into his solemn face.

“I don’t want to go.”

“But you miss your daddy, Josh. You say so a lot.”

“I know.”

“You’re going to have such a great time with him. You always do.”

“But he always comed here.”