Page 69 of Exhale
The little boy giggled. “No, silly, I’m Weston.” One small finger pointed to his own chest.
“Ahhhh, well, I guess I was wrong,” Owen chuckled.
“What’s your name?” Weston asked.
“I’m your daddy, and my name is Owen,” Owen said, sliding out the picture of him holding the fish and one of Ginny and him out of his shirt pocket.
Weston took the picture with the fish and looked at it for a long time, and then gazed up at him.
“Where have you been?”
The innocent tragedy in the words coming from his son was gut-wrenching, and Owen’s heart broke for his small family.
“I didn’t know,” Owen whispered brokenly. “Mommy didn’t tell me about you.”
Weston dropped the picture and reached for him. It wasn’t the launch into his arms that Elliott had done, but Owen would take it.
From there, it was dinner time, and they ate casserole and garlic bread around the kitchen table.
Weston had an amazing appetite for a five-year-old and Owen soon discovered that his son was a chatterbox. He asked a million questions of him and then turned and did the same to Jordan.
Jordan seemed to take it all in stride; in fact, the techie seemed more at home around his son than he did.
A knock on the door sent Molly into a tizzy, and Diesel shushed the dog.
Elliott, Kellum, and Creed arrived, and the twins were reunited.
“I lost you!” Elliott wailed, clinging to Weston.
“You dufus!” Weston said. “I told you to hold Cody’s hand.”
Elliott sniffled and nodded.
Triton invited the new arrivals to stay for dinner. He had made enough to feed a small army, and with a few folded chairs, they made it work.
After dinner, Triton and Jordan bathed the twins, and Kellum and he cleaned the kitchen while Creed and Diesel got the fire pit in the backyard going and placed the chairs around it.
It was later, after the twins were sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms, that Diesel told the story of exactly how he’d rescued Weston.
“We’re such a small town,” Diesel murmured. “When we got the word from Dave, we mobilized not only Fern law enforcement, but the citizens as well.
“It was Sally from the train station who noticed something was up. A woman came through with a crying young boy, and Sally got a gut feeling. She pulled up the photo and recognized Elliott right away.”
“She tackled her,” Triton cackled, and Diesel chuckled.
“That she did.”
“Why is that funny?” Creed wanted to know with his lips twitching.
“Because Sally is seventy years old, but she’s spry, and she wasn’t letting Elliott leave with that woman.”
“Ah, okay,” Creed chuckled softly.
Owen found himself smiling at the thought. “Tell Sally thanks for us.”
“I will.”
“Where is the woman now?” Jordan asked.
