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way strangers stared when they saw him in it. “I don’t want him to think of me as a cripple.”
    “He won’t if you don’t think of yourself that way.”
    She’d always had a smart mouth. That was one of the first things he’d noticed about her. “I hope you’re right. I’ve got doubts, lots of them, but I’ll give being Brett’s dad the best I’ve got.”
    “That’s all I can ask for.” She glanced at the clock above the stove. “Brett should be surfacing any minute now.”
    “Did he know I was coming?”
    Andi smiled. “Yes.”
    “How’d he take the news that his old man isn’t dead after all?” When Gray tried to imagine a seven-year-old’s emotional reaction to that sort of a revelation, he came up blank.
    “He looked awestruck. To be honest, I’m not sure he quite believed me. I’ve never talked a lot about you to him before.”
    “Why not?”
    Planting clenched fists against her hips, Andi glared at him. “Damn it, Gray, I thought you were dead. I filled him in on everything I knew about you, which wasn’t much. What good would it have done him to make an icon of the father I thought he never was going to know? It wasn’t as if he had your family to keep your memory alive.”
    “Sorry. This coming back from the grave’s a little daunting.” More than a little. When Gray looked out the bay window at a small bike, it struck him. He’d missed so much. His son’s first step. His first wobbly ride on the two-wheeler.
    When she met his gaze, Andi’s expression softened. “For me, too. And for Brett, I imagine.”
    “I hope the way I look doesn’t scare him off.” Gray closed his eye, unwilling to risk stirring the emotion he’d see in her eyes.
    “Damn it, can’t you forget yourself for a minute? Anticipate meeting your son? This isn’t just about you.”
    Gray looked so stricken, Andi wished she could take back her angry words.
    Then Brett bounded into the kitchen, skidding to a halt.
    Gray’s gaze locked on the boy. A smile lit his face, turned his expression of despair to one of pure happiness that instantly choked Andi’s heart in her throat.
    Brett hung back for a moment, his wide-eyed gaze focused on the black patch covering Gray’s damaged eye. Gray’s smile wavered, as though he sensed the boy’s hesitation.
    Then Brett grinned. “Are you my dad?”
    Gray let out the breath he’d apparently been holding, stuck out his hand, and smiled. A huge smile this time, one that deepened the creases around his mouth. “Yeah. Come on over here and let me get a good look at you.”
    Such mundane words, but they conveyed so much emotion. Andi wiped the tears from her eyes.
    She watched Brett climb onto Gray’s lap as though he’d been doing it for years. A sob of joy came from somewhere deep inside her when she watched Gray put his arms around their son. The scene she’d dreamed of yet never dared think she might ever see.
    Brett started to snuggle up against Gray’s cheek, then pulled back. “Mommy said you got hurt.”
    “Yes, I got hurt, but I’m pretty much okay now. I won’t break.”
    Brett hesitated, then reached up with one hand and touched his dad’s scarred cheek. Andi sensed the questions Brett apparently didn’t know how to ask. Questions she’d be hard pressed to answer.
    How on earth would Gray manage to explain how he’d been locked up but wasn’t a criminal? How could he tell his son he’d been held hostage by demented South American drug lords? Andi couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d survived the unimaginable physical and mental torture they’d inflicted, much less how he’d describe his experiences to a seven-year-old.
    “Are you going to stay here now?” Brett asked.
    A simple question, one Andi would never have guessed would come before the rest.
    Gray’s arms tightened around Brett’s skinny shoulders. “Yes. It’s way past time for us to get to know each other.” When Brett shifted on his lap, Andi saw Gray wince, but otherwise he