CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEVIN WASN’T GOING TO quit school and run back to L.A. with his tail between his legs. Much as he wanted to. His old life was about taking the easy way out; his new one was about finishing things he’d started. Even when they were hard.

He just hadn’t expected anything to be this hard.

He’d hit enough terrible lows in his life to know he would survive another, but this was a first for love. A broken heart packed its own wallop, and telling himself the librarian wasn’t worth this much suffering didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference.

Fortunately, he had good reason to be away for a few days immediately following his breakup with Rachel. Zander might have agreed to play nice, but he’d renege if left to his own devices. Devin refused to let him out of his sight until they’d made their agreement legal.

That meant accompanying him to Sydney, where his brother had commitments. Devin had expected to be back in New Zealand by Tuesday, but quibbles over the fine print kept him in Australia until Wednesday night. Although he accepted the face-saving reprieve with relief, he knew he couldn’t put off the real world forever.

And he was increasingly anxious to make contact with Mark. The kid hadn’t returned any of his phone calls-hardly surprising given Devin’s boorish behavior at the spa. Behavior he’d regretted as soon as his anger subsided.

He’d wanted to hurt Rachel, but Devin hated acting like an asshole to any woman in front of Mark. Let alone the woman he’d soon discover was his birth mother. Still, Devin was surprised when he returned to class on Thursday to learn Mark hadn’t been at school this week, either.

His ego-always his strength and weakness-didn’t allow him to hesitate as he entered the library. But to his immense relief Trixie told him Rachel had taken a leave of absence. Devin quashed his immediate concern for her well-being. Whether she was or wasn’t okay didn’t matter anymore. He decided it was probably another way to postpone telling Mark the truth. “So where’s the kid?”

Trixie’s dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “You mean you haven’t heard from him? He’s not returning my messages, either, but I figured he was punishing me. He said he was going home for a few days.”

She filled him in on Mark’s reaction to Rachel’s confession and his subsequent diatribe to Trixie about “disloyalty.”

So that was why Mark wasn’t returning his calls. Devin scowled, a look Trixie interpreted correctly, because she said, “He’ll get over it. It’s not as if Rachel blamed you or me…he just-”

“Feels like he hasn’t got a friend in the world.” What a goddamn mess.

“Don’t say that. Look, let’s call him at home right now.” Through directory assistance, Trixie got Mark’s parents’ number in Cambridge, then phoned and asked for him. Her kohl-darkened eyes widened. “Okay,” she said, “well, thanks anyway. Yes, I’d appreciate the number.”

Devin started to get a bad feeling. “He’s not there?” he said when she hung up.

“No, and they didn’t even seem to be expecting him because they told me to call him in Auckland. He canceled their visit tomorrow, too. Said he had to study for a test?”

“He’s probably holed up in his apartment to study,” he reassured her. There was no test. “Is that the phone number?” He rang it and got the answering machine, which gave Mark’s cousin’s cell phone number. She answered from Dubai and told him she hadn’t been home for a week. Devin kept his voice casual as he asked, “What’s the street address?”

When he hung up, Trixie said anxiously, “You don’t think he’d-”

“No Goth overreactions,” Devin interrupted, hiding his own increasing uneasiness. “My classes are finished for the day. I’ll call in on the way home.”

Her forehead creased in a frown. “I wish I could come, but with Rachel away we’re already short-staffed.”

“I’ll give him your love.”

That won him a smile. “Don’t you dare. But phone me, won’t you?” She scribbled down her number.

As soon as he was out of sight, Devin dropped the laconic stroll and whistled for a cab. Fifteen minutes later he was at the modest apartment block, hammering on Mark’s ground floor door and telling himself he was every kind of idiot for worrying. No one answered. A neighbor at the next apartment poked her head out her door, pulling it back like a turtle when she caught sight of Devin.

“Ma’am,” he called, “can you help me? I’m looking for Mark White. Have you seen him over the past couple days?”

Her head slowly reappeared and she scanned him from top to toe with her rheumy eyes. “Are you a drug dealer or an undercover cop?”

The right answer came instinctively. “A friend of his mother’s.”

“Hmm.” She came out, leaning on a cane. “I don’t normally see him much but I haven’t heard him for a few days…he plays the sound system loud when his cousin’s not there.”

Shading his eyes against the daylight, Devin peered through a chink in the curtains, and saw a light on in the lounge. “Is there any way of getting in here short of breaking the door down?”

“I have a key. Suzy, his cousin, gets me to water the plants when she’s away. Mark has good intentions but he’s liable to forget.”

Five minutes later, when she turned the key in the lock, he stopped her from reaching for the handle. “Let me go in first.”

“You’re expecting something bad, son?”

“I hope not.” Devin opened the door and stepped inside.

The place smelled shut up. Flies buzzed on the remains of cereal in an empty bowl. The milk had gone sour. Devin started to sweat. This isn’t the same, he told himself. Get a grip.

When he was twenty, he’d lost his best friend, the band’s drummer. Devin had found Jeff sprawled across his bed, the TV blaring, the paraphernalia of heroin beside him. He’d been dead for two days.

Forcing himself to walk, Devin moved from room to room until he’d checked through the whole apartment. Empty. His relief was so great he had to sit down. But it was short-lived. Where the hell was Mark?

“YOU DIDN’T PHONE on Sunday.” There was accusation in her mother’s voice.

She immediately felt guilty, even though there’d been nothing to stop Maureen ringing her. “I’m calling now,” she said.

“Four days later.”

“Mom, please…” Rachel massaged her temple. Why had she thought she might find comfort here? “This is obviously a bad time. I’ll phone again when-”

“He came to see me.” There was a strange satisfaction in her mother’s voice.

Rachel tried to remember what they’d been talking about last week, but the world had spun on its axis too many times since then. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall-”

“Your boy…Mark.”

Rachel’s grip tightened on the phone. “No.”

“He wanted to know why he was adopted.”

She went rigid. “Mom, what did you tell him?”

“The truth, of course. That your father and I wanted to keep him, but that you rejected-”

Rachel cut the connection and punched in Mark’s cell phone number with trembling fingers. Trixie had told her he wasn’t answering calls, but at least she could leave a message. “Mark, it’s Rachel. I know you’ve been to see my mother. There are two sides to every story. Please call me.”

She hung up. Briefly, she considered calling his parents’ home, but dismissed the idea. Whether he’d told them about her or not, this was a private matter between her and Mark. And Rachel wouldn’t force her way into his life without an invitation. Her son had to have some place of refuge.

Desperate to do something, she sat down at the dining room table and started writing a letter. If she posted it today, he’d get it tomorrow.

She’d only written three lines when the phone rang. Caller ID showed it was her mother. Rachel didn’t trust herself to pick up. Even if she could rip through Maureen’s fantasy that their life with Gerard Robinson had been normal-and right now she was angry enough to try-it would serve no purpose.