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Chapter Two
Kingston
I watched the boy cross the clearing to where Riley stood. He hugged her thigh and leaned his weight against her side, but he wouldn’t stop eyeing me. “Are you coming, Mommy? I kept waiting and waiting but you didn’t come.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” She rumpled his hair while she hugged him against her body. Then she bent down and kissed the top of his head.
She was a mother.
Hismother.
She looked the same as I remember with her red-blonde hair pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail. She sure took care of herself these last few years. She wasn’t as skinny as she had been when she was younger. Having a child put some inches around her hips and made her chest fuller, but all of that only made her more drop-dead gorgeous than she was before.
Her round, beaming bright face betrayed every agonized emotion hidden underneath. Her dark brown eyes kept darting in my direction. She didn’t look like her son at all.
He looked… like me.
He couldn’t have been much more than five years old which meant… It couldn’t be, but it had to be.
My son. I was looking at my son.
Even if by some impossible chance she would have slept with someone else—which she wouldn’t—the boy looked way too much like me to be anybody else’s.
Looking at him was like staring into a mirror from my childhood.
Those eyes didn’t lie.
He stole another peek at me under her arm. “Who’s that, Mommy?”
She turned bright red, but he didn’t see that. She shot me a look, but I couldn’t read it. Her cheek quivered and her lips trembled. “That’s……His name is Kingston Heller. He’s……someone I used to know.”
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one with secrets.
The boy studied me for what seemed like an eternity. Did he notice the resemblance? Did he even suspect or was he too young to ask questions like that?
Five years. I’d been searching for her for four of those years. All this time, she was raising…..my son.
He pulled away from her, strode over to me, and stuck out his hand. “I’m Connor Strickland.”
I shuddered. He had Riley’s surname, which was a good thing. At least she wasn’t using Heller anymore. I wouldn’t have to explain why Connor and I had the same last name.
I forced myself to shake his hand and a charge of electricity raced up my arm at his touch. Did he feel it? His eyes bored into my very soul. Those eyes…
“Hi, Connor,” I choked. “It’s great to meet you.”
“We’re going to the top of the mountain,” he told me. “Are you coming?”
I had to grin at him. My son. A torrent of the most painful happiness gripped my heart. I was a father. “I might. I’ll see how tired I get on the way up there.”
He burst out laughing and tore away. “I bet I can beat both of you. Come on, Mommy!”
He took off running up the trail. I glanced over at Riley, but she wouldn’t look at me. She wouldn’t even turn around.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I croaked. “All these years…..”
“How was I supposed to tell you?” She spun around yelling at me. “You were gone! Do you have any idea how much I needed you? I had to go through all that alone….because of you!”
“How could you keep this from me?” I demanded. “How could you keephimfrom me?”
