Vow to Protect (7 page)

Cord pulled the strip washer from his bucket and tilted it to the side, letting the excess window-cleaning solution run off into the bucket. When it faded to a trickle, he tilted the washer the opposite way and brought it to the glass.

He figured that while he was here, he might as well work. The prospect of just sitting around listening to every word or movement or breath from Melanie and Ethan was agony. Running over his discussion with Mel last night was torture.

After wetting the pane, he set the strip washer back in the bucket and pulled out his razor scraper. Flipping down the blade guard, he started scraping the manufacturer's sticker and other debris from the glass.

“Can I help?”

The voice was so quiet, at first he thought it
was his mind playing tricks. He spun around to face his son.

His son.

He'd turned the idea over in his mind all night, and still the fact he was a father stunned him. “Not a great idea.”

“Why not?”

Because Cord had nothing to offer? Because kids shouldn't be hanging around ex-cons? Murderers? “Um, I don't think your mom would like it.”

“She doesn't care.”

Right. “Where is she?”

“Sleeping.”

Cord had listened to the steady beat of her pacing all night. It was about time she got some sleep. And when she woke up, Cord could just imagine how happy she'd be to see Ethan kicking it with him. “You don't want to be hanging around me. I'm not much of a kid person.”

“Do you have kids?”

Just a day ago, he could have said no. He wouldn't have known it was a lie. Things were different now. And the irony of his own son asking that question, and him having to lie to the boy to answer it, tasted bitter on his tongue. “No. I don't have kids.”

“Then how do you know?”

“What?”

“How do you know you aren't a kid person?”

He almost had to laugh. It seemed Ethan inherited his mother's ability to back him into a corner with his own words. “I just do. Trust me.”

Ethan leaned against the corner of the bay window. Balancing on one foot, he scratched his shin with an athletic shoe.

Cord tried to go back to scraping the window, but it was no use. All he could focus on was Ethan watching him. What did he see? What was he thinking? This wasn't going to work. “Go on, kid. Go back in the other room.”

“Is it true? What Dryden Kane said?”

This conversation was going from bad to worse. Cord flicked the guard back on the blade and shoved the razor scraper in his tool belt. He turned and eyed the kid. “Dryden Kane is a bad man. You can't believe anything he says.”

“I know who he is. I know he killed lots of people.”

“Then why would you listen to anything he said?”

“He said you killed someone, too. Did you?”

The question hit like a kick to the head. Cord had lied a lot of times in his life. To his mother. To the cops. To the corrections officers and fellow inmates. Lying had never bothered him.

It did now. “I made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes you have no idea how much I regret making.”

“Did you kill someone?”

“I don't want to talk about this, Ethan.”

His eyes widened. “So you did?”

So much for ducking the question. “Your mom is going to wonder where you are.”

“What was it like? Did you go to jail?”

“Listen, I'm not answering your questions. Got it? So back off.”

The kid's face flushed pink. He looked down at the floor.

Damn. Cord ran a hand over his cropped hair. Now he'd crushed the boy's feelings. He'd just been asking innocent questions—questions he couldn't help wondering about after witnessing Cord's little conversation with Kane in the elevator. And here Cord had jumped down his throat.

Exactly why he shouldn't have anything to do with the kid. “I'm sorry, kid.”

Ethan nodded but didn't look up. He made a line in the dust with his shoe.

“It was a bad time in my life. I have a hard time talking about it.”

Another nod.

He was getting nowhere. Ethan would never understand what Cord had gone through. At least, Cord hoped he never would. He should leave it alone. Quit talking. Let the kid slink away, hurt feelings and all. Let him hate Cord. Maybe then
he'd steer clear the rest of their time in the condo. Maybe hurting the kid's feelings was the only way. The price Ethan needed to pay.

Cord rubbed a hand over his face. “If you want to help, you can pick up that strip washer and soak down this window.”

The kid looked up. Hope beamed from his face like a new damn dawn. He reached down to the bucket and grabbed the handle. “I just rub this across the glass?”

“Yeah.” He shouldn't be encouraging the boy. He shouldn't even be in the same room with him. But what was the alternative?

Ethan didn't deserve to have his feelings crushed for asking a simple question. No, Cord would let him wash a window then tell him to go back to his mother. Washing one damn window wasn't going to change anything.

Ethan carried the strip washer to the window Cord had just scraped and rubbed it over the glass until every inch was wet with solution. He looked up at Cord, his eyes as bright as if the chance to help was the most exciting gift he'd ever received. “Now what?”

Good question.

Cord tore his gaze from those blue eyes, so eager and fresh and so like his own. One window. That was it. “You wipe the top of the glass to make
sure bits of sawdust don't get under the squeegee blade. Like this.” Pulling out a cotton towel, he swiped the top of the pane.

“And then you squeegee?” Ethan pointed to the tool hanging from Cord's belt. “With this, right?”

Cord pulled the squeegee from his belt and handed it to Ethan. He guided the kid's hand to the window and fitted the rubber blade against the top of the glass. “Put it as close to the top as you can. Then pull straight down.”

Ethan did as he said. The blade wove for the first few inches, then he managed to steady it and do a respectable job.

“You're a natural.”

Ethan's lips stretched into a smile that beamed from his whole face. “Can you show me how to swoop the squeegee around?”

Cord knew he shouldn't be enjoying the look on Ethan's face. He shouldn't be hanging on the excitement in his voice. But even knowing his mistake, he couldn't turn away. All he wanted to do was stand here and soak in the kid's enthusiasm like drunks soak in booze. “Swoop it around, huh?”

“Yeah, like the window washers do at mom's lab.” He held the tool up in the air and swooped the blade around as if squeegeeing an invisible window.

Cord couldn't help but grin. All his memories
from his own childhood centered around his mother's indifference and the struggle for survival. He didn't have the chance to notice things like the techniques window washers used.

He liked that his son could. He liked it a lot. “We'd better pack this up. Your mom is going to wonder where you are.”

“Can't you show me how they do that?”

He wanted to, more than he wanted to admit. But he couldn't. Cord shook his head. “We can't swoop it around on these windows. Not without getting streaks.”

“Why not?”

“It's best to keep it simple with construction cleanup jobs. Otherwise you get paint specks or bits of sticker under the blade. That's where the streaks come from.”

“Oh.” Ethan was still smiling, but Cord could see the slight flicker of disappointment.

Oh, hell. “I'll show you on another job, another day.”

“Cool.”

Cord had no right to make such a promise. A promise that implied he and Ethan would have a future together, a future that could never happen.

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. He needed to get rid of his kid before he promised to coach his Little League game or some damn
thing. “You'd better get out of here. Your mother will be worried.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes, watching Cord through light blue slits. “Why don't you like me?”

“Like you? I like you.”

“Then why do you want to get rid of me?”

Blowing the breath through tight lips, Cord shook his head. “I don't want to get rid of you, Ethan.”

“Then why are you always telling me to go back in the room with Mom?”

“Because spending a lot of time together isn't a good idea.”

“'Cause you think I'll get attached or something?”

“Something like that.” And that Cord would get attached right back. “Sometimes things can't be the way you want them, kid. Sometimes you just got to accept the way things are.”

Ethan nodded, as if he understood.

At least one of them did.

 

M
ELANIE GRIPPED
the edge of the doorway. The tremble in her knees spread into her chest and hands. She should have stepped into the room as soon as she'd discovered Ethan talking to Cord. She should have put a stop to it. But somehow her feet wouldn't move. Somehow her voice wouldn't function.

It was the expression on Ethan's face that had stopped her.

Wielding that squeegee like a sword, he looked like the Ethan she knew. Carefree. Adventurous. As if he'd forgotten all about Dryden Kane and the scare they'd had the night before. As if he was back to being a normal kid. A kid enjoying time with his dad.

She only wished it was that simple.

She forced herself to release the wall and step into the room. She'd spent her life protecting Ethan. She couldn't let dreams that had died ten years ago stop her now. “Ethan?”

He jerked his head around, as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. “I was just washing windows.”

“That's fine. But now it's time to go back into the other room.” She shot Cord the hardest look she could muster.

“But, Mom…”

“Come on.” She forced shaking legs to carry her across the great room to the master bedroom area. She hated being the heavy. But Cord had been right to tell Ethan there were things in life he just had to accept.

A shuffle of rubber soles on plywood followed.

Safe inside the master bedroom, she sank onto her cot before her knees decayed into a quivering mass. If only the condo was finished off enough to have doors. She'd like to lock Ethan inside. “Sit.”

“I have to go check the lake.”

“The lake?”

“Yeah. There were some dark clouds. They might even turn into a thunderstorm. I want to see it come across the water.”

Melanie frowned. She wished she could believe his interest in a storm was that strong. But she had the feeling that Cord held more appeal than any storm. “I know it's kind of boring holed up in this room. But you need to stay here with me.”

“Why? It's just a storm. It's awesome.”

If it was just a storm he wanted to see, she'd agree with the awesome factor. “You need to stop bothering Cord.”

His shoulders straightened, as if he was squaring for a fight. “He doesn't think I was bothering him.”

No. Though Cord had tried to talk Ethan into going back to the bedroom, the expression on his face was anything but annoyed. More like awed. And that's what worried Melanie most. “Whatever Cord thinks doesn't really matter. You need to stay with me.”

“Why can't I talk to him?”

A muscle pinched at the back of her neck. “Because.” She knew that would never satisfy him. Ethan had always needed an explanation ever since he could understand language. As long as he un
derstood the why behind a rule, he would follow it without fail. And if he didn't understand, he would ask and argue until he did.

She braced herself.

“Cord is nice. He doesn't mind it when I talk to him.”

“I mind.”

“Why?”

What could she say? Because he's your father? Because he's been in prison? Because I don't want you following in his footsteps?

She latched on to what Cord had started to tell Ethan. “Because I don't want you to get too attached to Cord. He's not going to be around long.”

Ethan plopped down on his cot. He glanced out the door, then picked up his Game Boy with a sigh.

Poor kid. He didn't understand what was going on, what was at stake. How could he? “You okay?” she asked.

“I guess.” He switched on the game. A high electronic beeping filled the room. “It just makes me…”

Sad. Upset. She knew it without having to ask. But she voiced the question anyway. “Makes you what?”

His shoulders slumped. He started pushing the buttons with this thumbs, moving them so fast they looked like they were twitching. “You don't want to hear.”

She stepped across the distance and lowered
herself to the cot beside him. She hated being the ogre. She'd never been good at it. And the thought of Ethan withdrawing again after seeing him come alive with Cord hurt like an open wound. “If it's something you think or feel, I want to hear it. Always.”

He glanced up from the game. “It just makes me wish he was going to be around all the time. You know, like he was my dad or something.”

She caught the gasp before it could escape her throat. Gripping her knees, she braced herself as the tremble worked through every muscle in her body. Since Ethan had stepped off the bus yesterday afternoon, she'd been so concerned with keeping him away from Cord, she hadn't even considered she might be too late.

 

M
EREDITH
U
NGER LIKED
her life. She should. She'd worked damn hard to transform herself from the mousy daughter of an assembly line worker into one of the most glamorous and sought-after attorneys in southern Wisconsin. And next year with the release of her first book, she'd take the leap onto the national stage. Life was good. Or so she thought until she stepped from the shower after a long day at work and looked into the ice-blue eyes of Dryden Kane.