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“Well, are you?” His brown eyes pierced hers and though she ached to soften the blow, she had to tell him the truth.
“Okay. Yes, Chase asked me to marry him and I agreed, but I was going to talk it over with you before we made any definite plans.”
“It looks pretty definite to me!” he shouted, pointing at the ring angrily before pleading with her. “Mom, don’t do this! Not now.” And then a look of new horror spread over his face and his tears began in earnest. “Oh, I get it. You’re doing this because of Dad, aren’t you?”
“Your father has nothing to do with the fact that I want to marry Chase—”
“But Dad loves you! He told me so, just yesterday!” Cody cut in.
“He doesn’t love me, Cody—”
“He does! I asked him and he told me he never stopped loving you or me! He wants to come back and you . . . you’re marrying a man who works for Caleb Johnson just to keep Dad and me apart!” Livid, he pushed his chair back, grabbed his backpack from under the table and flung open the front door.
“Oh, Cody, I would never—”
“You would! You have!” he screamed. “You couldn’t even give Dad a chance, could you?”
With that, he ran outside and raced down the hill to the bus stop.
“That does it!” Dani said, thinking about chasing him down and even following the bus to school if she had to. She’d reached for her keys and purse and taken a step toward the door before she thought better of her plan and sagged against the wall. Following Cody would only end up in another bitter argument that would probably embarrass them both in front of his friends and teachers. He would never forgive her.
Knowing that she had to give him time to cool off and think rationally, she hung her keys back on the hook in the kitchen and watched him anxiously through the window. The bus stopped at the end of the lane, honked and waited as Cody ran the final few yards and climbed aboard.
“When he gets home, we’re having it out—all of it!” she promised herself angrily. “I’ve got to make him understand that I’m marrying Chase for both of us.” And no matter how much it hurts, I’ll get used to the fact that Blake is back and Cody needs to spend time with him, she added silently to herself.
* * *
When Cody didn’t get off the bus after school, Dani tried not to panic. Several times in the past, Cody had gone to a friend’s house without telling her. Though she’d made him promise never to go anywhere without calling her, she rationalized that he’d left in a huff in the morning and was probably childishly attempting to punish her by staying away from home.
And it was working. She glanced at the clock every two minutes and listened for his step on the back porch while folding clothes in the kitchen.
Where was he? She thought about calling Chase, but didn’t. “Stop it, Dani,” she told herself. “Don’t depend on him too much. This is your problem. You can handle it.” But deep down she yearned to pour her troubles out to him. Absently, she toyed with her new ring. “It’ll all work out,” she told herself and looked out the window, wondering where the devil Cody was.
After a half an hour of waiting, she couldn’t stand the suspense and dread beginning to settle on her shoulders. She started calling all of Cody’s friends, beginning with Shane Donahue. Twenty minutes later, she replaced the receiver slowly and felt her insides begin to quiver in fear. No one had seen her son.
“Blast it, Cody,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
Her heart beating double time, she called the school and was connected with Cody’s teacher, who explained that Cody hadn’t been in school all day.
Panic swept over her as she listened to Amanda Ross’s apologies and worries. Hanging up the phone with shaking fingers, Dani closed her eyes against the very real fear that Blake had taken Cody away from her.
She could imagine the scene: Cody, still brooding from the fight with Dani had gone to Blake’s brother’s house, had found Blake and told him that his mother intended to marry another man and move far away, taking Cody away from his father. Blake’s natural response would have been to comfort the child and take him away from the intolerable situation.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Please God, no.” Images of Blake and Cody rambling across the country in Blake’s battered old pickup filled her mind before other, more terrifying thoughts struck her. Maybe Cody wasn’t with his father. Maybe he’d taken off on his own, or started hitchhiking to God-only-knew-where.
Trying to think clearly, Dani called Blake’s brother, who lived in Martinville, but no one answered. She slammed the receiver down and held it in place before scrounging in the desk for the phone book and looking up the number of the company where Blake’s brother worked. No good. She was told politely by the receptionist that Bob Summers was out of town on a sales trip.
“What now?” she wondered. Then, trying to keep a level head, she hastily scrawled a note to Cody, hung it on the refrigerator and ran out the back door. “Come on,” she said to Runt, who took his cue and followed her outside. When she opened the pickup door, the dog leaped into the cab. “Let’s hope we can find him,” she confided as she started the truck and put it in gear.
Dark clouds swept over the sky, shadowing the land. The wind, hot and dry, blew leaves and dust across the road. “Looks like we’re in for a good one,” Dani said to Runt while eyeing the purple, roiling sky and praying that Cody was safe. “Oh, son, use your head and come home!”
She tore out of the driveway like a madwoman, and though she tried to calm herself, she could feel her heart in her throat. beating at twice its normal rate. Sweat dampened her arms and back and her fingers were clenched around the steering wheel as she drove into the quiet school parking lot.
“You’re sure he was never here, today?” Dani asked Cody’s teacher
once she’d dashed through the hallways to his room in the elementary school.
Amanda Ross was visibly distraught. “Yes, but I thought he was probably just ill. I had no idea—” Then, catching herself, she touched Dani on the arm. “I asked all the teachers; no one saw Cody—not even the duty teacher who supervises the playground in the morning before the final bell when the kids go into their classrooms.”
