Don't Let Go by Marliss Melton Read Free Book Online

beyond the scope of our powers I’m afraid,” he apologized.
    “I thought so,” she said, sadly.
    An awkward pause filled the phone lines.
    “How are you doing?” Rafe asked to fill it. He really didn’t want to hear an answer. There wasn’t any question that she had to be struggling, that she could use all kinds of help, even his.
    “Oh, hanging in there,” she said, with just a thread of desperation. “My therapy horses arrive in a week. I’m expecting my first patients shortly after that.”
    “You’ll be busy,” he noted, wondering when she was supposed to fit in time for a baby.
    “I was wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner this Friday,” she offered, unexpectedly, “to welcome Jordan back and to thank you for bringing her home.”
    “I’ll need to check my calendar,” he replied, inexplicably panicked. Jillian was available.
Available.
“May I get back to you?”
    “Of course.” Another awkward pause. “Rafael?”
    The way she said his name made him feel like they were sitting next to each other. “Yes, Jillian.”
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Gary.”
    His breath caught.
    “I just . . . I didn’t want to burden you with my situation, that’s all. It’s so tiring to explain what happened and then have to listen to people stutter through their condolences. I just want things to be normal again, not sad all the time, you know?”
    “Yes,” he said, though he was a hypocrite to say so. But hearing her practically beg for a reason to be happy, he elected to accept her invitation to dinner. “My calendar looks clear on Friday,” he decided. “What time would you like me to arrive?”
    “How about six?” she suggested, sounding relieved and grateful.
    “I’ll be there,” he promised, hanging up quietly. He was pleased to have given her something to look forward to.
    The record-breaking, late-July heat summoned a trickle of sweat between Jordan’s shoulder blades, just as it had in Venezuela. She’d give anything to be there and not at the front door of her condominium in Chesapeake, struggling to insert a key in the lock, weighted down by grocery bags and today’s mail.
    The lock yielded with a click, and she stumbled inside. The condominium she had bought a year ago still smelled new, unlived in. As she dumped her groceries on the kitchen counter, the mail slipped free to scatter across the floor.
    Blinking back tears of frustration, Jordan bent to scoop up the dozens of bills. She hadn’t had the courage yet to look into her finances, which were already strained from paying to fly to Venezuela.
    An envelope addressed to her in a forceful scrawl caught her eye. She picked it up, her heart accelerating as she took note of the Venezuelan postage.
    Laying the bills aside, she sat down at her dinette table and tore open the envelope, praying Father Benedict had written with news of Miguel. In confusion, she frowned at the small wrinkled page inside. A poem appeared to be written on it, entitled “To My Son.” Her gaze dropped to the signature at the bottom: Solomon McGuire, and her heart stopped.
    McGuire. Mako. The senior chief whom she blamed for her separation from Miguel. Who’d have guessed he had a name like Solomon?
    Intrigued, she read the poem, once quickly and then a second time, unable to reconcile the tender, poignant message with the one who sent it.
My boy,
he wrote,
my beautiful, my own.
    In disbelief, she sought a return address, but there wasn’t one.
    She could scarcely comprehend it. He’d put into words her complete and utter despair at having had Miguel ripped from her arms. But how could he, unless he’d lived through something similar?
    With a thoughtful frown, Jordan’s assumptions shifted, expanded, made room for the unthinkable. She laid the paper on the table and smoothed out the creases.
    Perhaps she was wrong to have blamed him. The senior chief’s surliness might have been a reaction to the awful task ahead of him. Who but