She watched her words register in his mind a second before she catapulted him over the edge, Jacob’s hoarse shouts of completion sending an aftershock through her. Somewhere in her fogged brain, she heard him gasping, too.
Was he shaking or was she?
He gathered her to his chest, buried his face in her hair, and she wondered what the hell had just happened between them.
You’re mine.
Her words or his? On a day filled with too many questions, she couldn’t find the answer before sleep overwhelmed her.
The ringing alarm clock pulled Dee from sleep. She waited for Jacob to hit the snooze button, but the warm weight of his leg between hers didn’t move. The steady beat of his heart thumped beneath her ear as she squinted against the morning light piercing through the mini-blinds.
Slowly the layers of grogginess peeled away and she realized it wasn’t a clock, it was the—
“Phone, damn it.” Jacob bolted upright and reached to snag the receiver. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then up to his mussed hair. “Jacob Stone here.”
Dee gasped, sat up, praying he’d picked up in time. No one knew to call them here except for his friend with the OSI. Anyone else would have used his cell phone number.
She hugged the plaid cover to ward off the chill of the winter morning and abrupt wake-up after the night of warm comfort in Jacob’s arms. Still, she was immediately alert. Tense. Waiting for any news of her little boy.
“Yeah,” he barked into the receiver, paused, frowned, glanced at her with inscrutable eyes. “Uh-huh. Right. She’s here with me.”
Bad news? She prepped herself for the possibility the body in the river could be Blane’s after all. She couldn’t let herself think about the possibility they had found her precious son in those icy waters.
Even the thick swaddling of a bedspread couldn’t ease the cold that thought brought.
She bit her lip to keep from asking questions. If she interrupted him, the information would only come slower from whoever had called.
Jacob extended the phone toward her. “It’s Spike.”
“The border patrol? He found something?” She could barely allow herself to hope everything could be resolved this quickly.
He shook his head. “Your home phone. Someone called and left a message, someone claiming to be Evan.”
She forgot to breathe. Something she didn’t realize until the room grew dim and Jacob grasped her arm. She gasped in air.
“Spike wants to play the tape over the phone for you to identify the voice.”
Dee grabbed for the receiver and cradled it to her ear, a lifeline to her son. Please, please, please. “Agent Keagan? This is Dee Lambert. I’m ready whenever you are.”
She kept her eyes focused on Jacob’s face, needing the contact. The strength. Oh God, she couldn’t face another letdown if this wasn’t her baby boy.
“Yes, ma’am, hold on just a second while I patch through the recording.”
A crackle sounded then cleared. “Mommy?”
The one word squeezed the air from her lungs. She gripped the phone as if she could somehow strengthen the connection.
“Mommy? I don’t feel so good. Please come and get me….”
A dial tone echoed as the call faded away. A click sounded, followed by Keagan coming back on the line to ask her a question she could barely hear over the roaring in her head.
Now she couldn’t stop breathing, gasping, shaking. She forced her lips to move. “It’s him. It’s Evan.”
Chapter 16
H e stared out his bedroom window at his parents’ silver Suburban and wished like hell he could just drive away from here.
Chase punched his pillow and imagined he could sock Jacob Stone for putting him in this crappy situation. He flung the goose down lump away, envisioning it was Emily, getting the hell out of his life once and for all. No more trying to trap him with her clingy demands to spend time with her. He liked the kid, sure, but he just wasn’t ready to be a dad yet. He wanted to play the field awhile longer. He was only just turning eighteen tomorrow, for God’s sake. There were so many women out there.