“Yeah,” Shay said. “It would be.”
Boyd leaned back against the sink with a soft grunt as what Shay didn’t want to say caught him in the gut.
“So he is—”
“A relative,” Shay cut him off sharply. “That’s all. He could be a cousin, not even a close one, or my dad could have had another set of kids before he met Mom. Or after.”
“Or,” Boyd said, “the DNA was right, and he is Sammy.”
A muscle clenched into a hard knot under the skin of Shay’s jaw. “He’s not.”
“Shay—”
“He’s not, Boyd,” Shay said flatly. “There’s no miracles in Cutter’s Gap. You know that. I know that. The only one who doesn’t is my mom.”
Of course. Boyd winced. If Shay’s DNA wasn’t enough to prove or disprove Morgan’s identity, then that only left Mrs. Calloway. Their grandparents had died years before, and if Sammy’s dad was still alive, no one knew where he was. He’d been gone since before Sammy was born, and if his son’s disappearance hadn’t brought him back, nothing else was going to.
“How is she doing?” Boyd asked.
“Good as she ever does,” Shay said. He had the grace to look uncomfortable but not ashamed as he admitted, “I haven’t told her. Not yet.”
“Jesus,” Boyd muttered.
“She couldn’t deal with it,” Shay said. “Not so close to the anniversary. Not with him in fucking town, like her prayers came to life. She’d believe it. She’dwantto believe it. I hoped that it, thathe, would just go away once I gave my sample to the cops.”
“But it didn’t.”
“I just told you that,” Shay pointed out acerbically. “So I have to tell her, and she’ll want to meet him. Before that happens, I want to talk to him, make sure he understands that he can’t do this. She can’t lose Sammy again.”
“So ask Mac to set it up.”
“He says it’s a bad idea, but he doesn’t know what Mom’s like, how bad it got sometimes. Not really. You do. Please, Boyd, I need your help.”
Guilt pricked at the back of Boyd’s neck, the reminder that he owed the Calloways for being here, for getting home that day. It had gotten better over the years—therapy, self-preservation, Shay’s steady refusal to blame Boyd, even if that meant shouldering more of his own guilt—but he didn’t think it would ever go away completely.
And he’d agreed to stay away from Morgan when Mac asked him, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted to. How would he ever get any answers if he couldn’ttalkto Morgan? Or get rid of the itch of fantasy that was stuck in his brain like a burr if he couldn’ttouchhim?
That little pull of temptation just made Boyd feel guiltier. “Maybe we should just do what Mac asked,” he said. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Shay curled his lip in a sneer of old, sour contempt. “Since when?”
The door opened and Jessie sauntered in, shirt slung over his shoulders and exercise shorts low around his hips. The colorful tatts on his arms and chest were slicked with sweat, and he was still breathing hard from his workout.
“Hey,” he said with a nod. “Shay, isn’t it?”
Shay flushed red all the way up to his ears and gritted out through clenched teeth, “Maybe we should finish this outside.”
He stalked past Jessie, careful not to brush against his sweat-damp shoulders, and let himself out. Jessie turned to watch him go and then looked around at Boyd. He arched his eyebrows. “What’s his problem?”
Boyd rolled his eyes, grabbed his bag, and headed after Shay.
“See you tomorrow,” Jessie yelled after him.
The fire station was full of the smell of freshly roasted chicken and potatoes as Harry pulled the crew’s dinner out of the oven. Boyd waved off the shouted offer of a plate and jogged between the sturdy red frames of the engines to the main doors.
It had gotten later than he realized. The sky was painted with the murky reds of sunset, and the road was full of slow-moving cars. A few honked appreciation as they saw him come out of the fire station, and he lifted his hand in absentminded acknowledgment as he looked around for Shay.
He caught sight of him on the other side of the road, head down and shoulders hunched as he walked. Boyd hitched his bag up onto his shoulder and loped across between the cars. Most of them braked to wave him through. People usually appreciated firefighters. The tides could change after a bad call, but it usually rebounded to positive quickly enough.
