Chapter 4

She was tall and sharp-edged, maybe thirty-five, with dark hair pulled back tight enough to pull her skin a little wrong at the corners of her eyes. She wore jeans and boots and a dark coat zipped to her chin, and she carried a thin folder in one hand like a woman who had learned that papers mattered more than words.

Her eyes went not to Dane, not to the room, but to the small figure behind Ronan's leg.

"Toby."

The boy's head came up.

"Mama?"

The word cracked the silence.

She dropped to her knees on the concrete, and the boy ran — one bare foot, one socked, the freight tag still flapping off his wrist — and he hit her like a small missile, arms around her neck, face buried in her shoulder.

"Baby," she said, into his hair. "Oh, baby."

Dane had gone perfectly still. His grey eyes were fixed on the woman, on the boy in her arms, on the picture they made in the amber doorway light.

"How did you know about this?" he asked, and his voice was small.

"I'm here to take my son," she said, without looking at him.

"You have no rights. You have no —"