Panic set in about five minutes after Paige Matthews
realized her son was gone.
At first, she told herself it was no big deal. He was
probably two rows over in the toy aisle, checking to see if
the selection was up to snuff.
When he wasn't there, poring over the surprisingly extensive
collection of miniature cars, she figured he'd simply
wandered over to the ice cream case—Luke was a sucker
for strawberry ice cream.
And when he wasn't there either, when the small kernel of
concern that had formed the moment she realized he was not
at the end of the aisle as she'd thought he was, started to
grow, she still told herself she was overreacting. This
mom-and-pop grocery store in the small Oregon town she'd
grown up in was a far cry from the huge supermarkets of Los
Angeles, where Luke had been born and raised. Even at eight,
he knew how to take care of himself, knew not to talk to
strangers and to stay in one place if, for some reason, he
did get separated from her—though it had never happened
before.
So what could possibly happen to him here?
The reassuring thoughts didn't keep her from walking faster
any more than they kept her from remembering her childhood
here in Prospect and all the trouble she had managed to get
into. While the fact that they weren't in the big city made
her feel a little better, the feeling didn't last
long—especially when she got to the candy aisle and
realized Luke hadn't wandered over there, either. Worse, the
store's display of gummy animals and body parts was
completely undisturbed, a sure sign that he had not stopped
here at all. And that was so unlike him that concern turned
to terror.
"Luke!" she called, racing past the deserted candy
section to the front of the store. "Luke, where are
you?"
There was no answer and in those moments every terrible
thing that
could happen to an unaccompanied
eight-year-old boy flashed through her mind, small town be
damned. Sure, this was Prospect, but Eugene really wasn't
that far away. Salem. Portland. All reasonably sized cities
with rising crime rates.
"Luke!" She was running now, from one end of the
store to the other, looking down each row that sprouted from
the perimeter of the store.
Other shoppers stared at her, whispered, but she didn't
acknowledge them. They'd whispered about her for the first
seventeen years of her life—right up until she'd left
town, broke and alone, save for the unborn baby she carried.
The fact that they started talking about her so readily,
even after all this time, came as no surprise. She might
have been back for only a day and a half, but she knew how
this town worked.
Some things never changed.
This time at least there was something real to talk about.
Sure, she was running around like a crazy woman, but if they
knew she was looking for her son, maybe someone else would
start to look. Maybe someone else would spot him. Finding
Luke, making sure he was safe, was the only thing that mattered.
But—surprise, surprise—no one came forward to help.
Where could he be? she wondered again as she
frantically combed the aisles for her son's yellow and
purple hoodie. She'd bought him the outrageously expensive
jacket for his eighth birthday and he rarely went anywhere
without it.
Why, oh, why, had she let Mary Beth Peters distract her? She
didn't even like the woman—never had, even when they
were in school together. Mary Beth had been the most popular
girl in school and Paige had been…popular in her own
right. But certainly not because she was head cheerleader.
Still, when Mary Beth had stopped her, Paige hadn't wanted
to be rude. Hadn't wanted to cause any more gossip than was
absolutely necessary—her sister Penny had to live and
work here long after Paige and Luke went home, after all.
And she figured alienating the locals was not the best way
to reconcile with her sister.
And look what her concern had gotten her. One of these days
she was going to remember that trying to keep on the right
side of these people's opinions cost too much.
"Luke!" Paige screamed his name as adrenaline
coursed through her ice-cold body. She was approaching the
last section of the grocery store and if he wasn't
there—If he wasn't there, she didn't know how she was
going to hold it together long enough to call the sheriff's
department.
She'd only spoken to Mary Beth for a couple of minutes, long
enough to exchange pleasantries and a quick explanation
about why she was back after such a long time. How could her
son have possibly disappeared in less than one hundred and
eighty seconds?
Suddenly she spotted the familiar L.A. Lakers hoodie.
"Luke." This time it wasn't a scream so much as a
long, exhale of relief. Grinding to a halt, she rubbed her
eyes to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. She wasn't. He
was still there. Her son—her beautiful, amazing,
mischievous son—was seated in front of the small
comic-book display, the iPod he'd gotten yesterday from his
aunt Penny playing in his ears as he flipped through the
latest superhero comic.
She blinked rapidly to clear her vision of the moisture that
flooded her eyes—a shock in and of itself as it had
been years since she'd allowed herself the luxury of
anything as useless as tears. For so long it had been just
Luke and her against the world. If anything ever happened to
him she would—
Paige shook her head, unable to think about such a
nightmarish occurrence, even in the abstract.
She didn't go to him right away, didn't wrap her arms around
him and squeeze him the way she wanted to. Doing that before
she had herself under control might trigger a public crying
jag. A really bad idea here in the middle of Prospect hell.
Luke chose that moment to look up, and his
not-quite-little-boy-anymore face lit up at the sight of
her. "Hey, Mom! Look, it's the new one." He jumped
nimbly to his feet, raced toward her. "Can I get it?"
Forcing herself not to grab him, Paige gently pulled one of
the earbuds free. "You wander away from me in a public
place and you expect me to reward you for it?" she asked
in the sternest voice she could muster. It might have
worked, too, except for the fact that her voice—like
the rest of her—shook.
She saw the knowledge register in Luke's eyes, followed
swiftly by a look of shame. "I'm sorry, Mom.
I went to find the gummy eyeballs and then found these
instead. I didn't mean to scare you."
She tried to hang tough, but felt herself cave in the face
of his obvious remorse. Taking the comic from Luke, she
herded him to where she'd left her cart. She tossed the book
on top of the fresh fruits and vegetables and told herself
not to sweat it. She wasn't normally so lenient, but the joy
of finding him clouded her judgment. She'd transplanted the
kid from everything he knew to this small town next to
nowhere. If a comic helped get him through the interminable
summer, who was she to argue?
"Don't ever do it again. I couldn't find you and ran
screaming through the store."
"Ugh, Mom, that so isn't the first impression I was
hoping to make." Luke glanced toward a couple of boys
who appeared close to his age. Both were staring at them as
though they were alien life-forms. She didn't have the heart
to tell Luke it was probably more about the nasty things
they'd heard their mothers say about her than her mad dash
through the store.
Prospect had a long memory, and no matter how much she'd
accomplished in the nine years since she'd left here, she
was still that wild Matthews girl from the wrong side of the
river. The one whose mother had conceived her while her
husband was serving his country overseas, then left her to
wear the Scarlet A.
It was a legacy that had proved impossible to live down no
matter how hard Paige tried, so in the end, she'd done her
best to live up to it. It had been lonely, but infinitely
more satisfying than crying herself to sleep every night had
been.
At the moment, hearing the echoes of whispers and taunts and
boys asking her for things she had been all too eager to
give in her search for affection, she wished that she'd
never come back. Never let Penny talk her into returning to
this one-horse town, even if it was just for a few months.
But then, the wish was nothing new—she'd been repeating
variations of it since she and Luke had rolled into town the
day before. Before that actually, if she was completely
honest with herself. That first pang of regret hit before
she'd hung up the phone. Only the awareness that her sister
was finally reaching out to her after so many years, that
Penny needed her, had kept Paige's foot on the gas pedal and
her car pointed north during the long trip.
"Come on, Luke, let's go." She hustled her son to
the checkout. "You know you're not supposed to wander
away like that. Anything could happen—especially in a
place you don't know."
Luke stared at her in disbelief. "Mom, this place has a
population of, like, five people. Nothing's going to happen
to me here."
"More like five thousand people and you don't know that
nothing will happen to you. No one does." God knew,
plenty had happened to her in this sleepy seaside town. More
than enough that she had gotten the hell out and never
looked back. Until Penny's desperate call for help—too
embarrassed and afraid to ask their parents for it.
That vulnerability, that fear, had been impossible for Paige
to ignore. She'd turned her back on Penny once, had all but
cut her sister from her life in her bid for survival. She
couldn't, wouldn't, do that again. And if it cost her a
little of her hard-won sanity, oh well.
Something in her voice must have tipped Luke off, because he
stopped arguing much more quickly than usual. "I'm
really sorry, Mom."
"I know you are. Just, please, stay with me. You don't
know the town yet."
"I know. I promise I won't do it again." His silver
eyes shined with remorse.
"Good. Because next time I won't be so nice." She
was rubbing his back even as she made the threat, leaning
down to press a quick kiss on his rumpled black curls and
marveling—not for the first time—at how incredibly
blessed she was to have him. Prior to Luke's arrival, her
luck with men had been so abysmal that when she'd found out
she was having a boy, she'd actually broken down and sobbed
in the ultrasound room.
But that was before she'd had him, before she'd held him.
Before she'd known him. From the moment he'd entered the
world, Luke had been the most amazing creature. Gorgeous,
smart and with a heart full of joy and eyes full of
mischief, he made every day an adventure. She wouldn't trade
him for the world—and certainly not for a perfectly
coiffed, well-behaved little girl. Any gray hair he gave her
would be more than worth it. She was certain of it.
"Thanks for the comic, Mom. It's really cool."
Paige emptied her cart onto the conveyer belt as she
listened to Luke rattle on about the adventures of his
favorite superhero-bad-guy duo. She should have thought to
check the book aisle for him first. Would have, had she
known the store carried them. When she'd been a kid, the
only books old Mr. Marshall had allowed into his store were
religious and nature ones. Obviously, some things
had
changed in Prospect.
But not too many, she acknowledged wryly, hyper-conscious of
the not quite whispered comments currently circulating the
market.
"Isn't that Paige Matthews? What's she doing here?"
"Always knew she was no good. Unwed mother—"
"Losing her child on her first day back—"
"Come to stay with her sister, in that pitiful little B
and B—"
"She must be broke and is mooching off Penny—"
"I don't think she's broke. Did you see her car? Must be
some drug dealer's girlfriend—"
Paige slammed her purse down on the small check-writing
counter, and began bagging the groceries as the clerk—a
teenaged girl who didn't seem to be aware of the barbed
chatter—asked if she was new in town. Normally, bagging
your own groceries was considered the height of rudeness in
Prospect, as it indicated a desire to leave instead of
participating in a nice, long chat. But being thought rude
was the least of Paige's problems, so she shoved a head of
broccoli into the same bag as a loaf of bread and a
chocolate bar and prepared to call it a day.
"We're here for the summer," Luke told the girl with
his quick, easy grin. "Mom says she's going to teach me
to surf."
"Oh, yeah?" The girl looked impressed. "I've
always wanted to learn how to do that myself."
"Well, maybe my mom can teach you, too. She's really
good at it."
Paige laughed. "By
really good, he means I fall
off the board only about half the time." She put the
last bag in the basket. "How much do I owe you?"
"Ninety-seven forty."
"And she's taking me for lunch at Prospector's,"
Luke continued. "She says they make the best strawberry
shakes in all of Oregon."
"Maybe in the whole universe," the girl agreed.
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