Page 46 of One More Baby for the Boss

In that way, I suppose Elijah will always be with us. He’s the one who made me realize I wanted to be a part of a family again — that I was ready for that. Whatever I build from now on, I’ll always owe him for waking up that part of me.

It was tragic that they couldn’t be together. But she didn’t know if he even would have wanted that, and she didn’t trust him enough to try.

She would just have to handle this situation the way she did every other — on her own.

CHAPTER 22

ELIJAH

Jack had been sitting outside in the yard all afternoon, playing with a stick in the dirt and intermittently staring off at the distant mountains. Sitting up in his office, Elijah had been looking down at his son every now and again, hoping that Jack would do something — get up and kick a ball around, maybe — anything to show that he was in a decent state of mind. But Jack didn’t move, and eventually Elijah couldn’t ignore it any longer. He got up and went outside to see what was going on.

As he came up behind Jack, he glanced over his son’s shoulder to see what he had been drawing in the dirt with the stick he held — but it was nothing coherent. Elijah supposed he’d been hoping for words. It would be nice if Jack would provide some clear and obvious sign about what he was thinking. But parenting had never been an easy task.

He knelt down beside his son. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You’ve been out here for a while.”

“I’m just looking at the mountains,” Jack said.

“The mountains?” Elijah looked off into the distance. “I didn’t know you were interested in mountains.”

“I’m not interested inmountains,Dad.But that’s where Alex is.”

Elijah frowned. It wasn’t healthy, the way his son’s thoughts kept returning to Alex. “What makes you think that’s where she is?”

“She told me that was where she would be,” Jack said. “She told me that when I missed her, I could look at the mountains, and she would look back at me sometimes.”

Elijah’s heart skipped a beat. “She told you that was where she was going?”

It changed everything. It shouldn’t have — he had told himself he was committed to letting Alex go. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not completely — especially having seen the way Jack was hung up on her. How could he possibly move on while his son wasn’t able to?

And Jack’s accusation had been rolling around in his mind for over a week now. What if it was true that Alex had only left because Elijah hadn’t fought hard enough to convince her to stay? What if she could have been convinced, and he had simply failed?

What if he could still bring her back?

If Jack knew where she was, that meant there was a chance.

He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “What else did she tell you?” he asked. “Did she mention anything about what job she was going to be doing? Did she say what town she would be in?”

“No,” Jack said. “Nothing like that. She just said she would be in the mountains and that I could look for her there.”

“Okay,” Elijah said.

It didn’t feel like a decision, though he knew it was one. Rather, it felt inevitable. It felt as though this had always been what was going to happen. Was there ever a possibility that he might have learned this information about Alex’s whereabouts and not wanted to follow up on it? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t imagine turning away from her now that he knew.

The key thing was to not tell Jack what they were doing. After all, there was no guarantee of success, and Elijah couldn’t let his son’s heart break again.

It meant waiting a full two days, although he didn’t want to. Jack had a long weekend from school, and Elijah was able to come up with a story about wanting to take a road trip together during the break. Jack was dubious, of course. “Don’t you have to work?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t have to work this weekend,” Elijah said. “I got a bit of time off, and you know there isn’t anyone I’d rather spend it with.”

Jack frowned. “Why are we going on a road trip?”

“Aren’t you having fun?”

“We’ve just been in the car.”

“We’re almost to our first stop.”

The first stop was the little town of Tirsdale, on the outer edge of the mountains. It was a place Elijah had driven through before, but he had never actually stopped here. Now he pulledinto a roadside motel. They’d stay the night and spent tomorrow canvassing the town. He would ask around — strangers and newcomers were sure to be noticed in a town of this size. If Alex had been here, someone would know and might be able to give him an idea of where to find her. And once he found her — well, he wasn’t quite sure what he would do then. Beg her to come back? Was there a chance she would listen to that?

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