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His brain spun, slipped, skidded out. She didn’t want Dylan, never had, so she must have found out he’d been staying with Abby and wanted to cause trouble. But why? To be difficult? To hurt him? To scare Abby?
“Abby, I have to go now. I’m going to call her and get this figured out, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
“Let’s go.” Finn grabbed his arm as he came out of the locker room and towed him along behind him until they met Kelly, coming down the long corridor toward them.
“This way.” She gestured, keys dangling from her fingers, and the two men followed her as she set a brisk pace, winding between stragglers but keeping their heads down and walking with purpose.
Scott didn’t think he’d be able to keep it together if someone recognized him and asked for an autograph or, heaven forbid, a selfie.
The torturous drive home from Charlotte seemed to last forever. He tried calling Lindsay, but she’d turned her cell phone off, sending him to voicemail. A spiteful, mean move, meant to keep him scared to death. He called the house, then Dylan’s cell phone, then Lauren, but no one answered.
Finally, after scrolling through the increasingly panicked texts from Abby she’d sent while he’d been playing, then listening to the four messages she’d left, he dropped his head into his hands and found himself hoping his son would be there when he got home. If he wasn’t, he’d be flying to New York tonight.
“Is that Lauren’s car?”
As they pulled into Scott’s driveway, Finn’s voice broke through the miasma his mind had sunk into during the three-hour drive.
His breath caught in his chest, then rushed out verging on the edge of a sob. “No. No, it must be Lindsay’s.”
He had the door open before the car stopped moving, feet hitting the cobbled, granite blocks.
“Dylan?” He burst through the front door, shouting his son’s name.
“Oh, be quiet, you’ll wake him up.” Lindsay perched on the edge of his couch, a half-filled glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her. She snapped closed her book, the sound echoing in the silence between them.
Ignoring her, he crossed the room in four long strides, taking the stairs two at a time. Not until he laid eyes on the sleeping form of his son, tucked into his own bed, in his own house, did Scott’s heartbeat slow for the first time since reading Abby’s text message in the locker room.
Gritting his teeth, the cold knot of fear that had been lodged in his belly for the last three hours unwound, then, in an instant, turned red-hot. Closing the door, he retraced his steps to the living room.
Seeing his ex-wife in his home, his refuge—his and Dylan’s—words failed him. The rage simmered so close to the surface, it would take only the slightest spark to explode.
He forced himself to breathe.
Yelling at Lindsay would solve nothing, he reminded himself.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “I’m his mother; it’s not like I’d let anything happen to him. Unlike thatgirlfriendof yours. Did you know her stupid mutt growled at me? I can’t believe you let Dylan spend time with it. I’m half-tempted to call Animal Control and report her.”
Scott ignored her jabs, ignored the way her lip curled when she called Abby his girlfriend, ignored her snide tone when she talked about Gen.
None of it mattered.
“Why are you here, Lindsay?”
His ex-wife took another sip of wine, rose, and sauntered across the living room, gathering her coat and bag from where they’d been resting on a chair near the front door. “I’m here to take care of my son, since you can’t find someone to do it for you. I understand you have a home game next week, so I’ll see you in two weeks... Or, do you need me to come down next weekend, as well?”
The heat coiled deep in his belly, a familiar friend, the same kind as each time he took the field. No, the same kind as in those games that were so much more than simply a game: a redemption game, a come from behind game, a rivalry game. Anger, yes, but anger he could use.
He kept his voice quiet, level, remarkably so given how well Lindsay could rile him. “You kidnapped my son.”
She stalked toward him with the lithe grace of a tiger. “I’m his mother...”
“Maybe you birthed him,” Scott interrupted her, “but it takes a hell of a lot more than that to be amother.” He spat the last word at her. “And I have a custody agreement saying you only get to be his mother every other holiday and one week in the summer.”
Lindsay’s eyes widened, but, for the first time, Scott ignored the small voice in his mind warning him not to cross her. He’d spent so many years tiptoeing around her, believing her when she assured him no judge in the world would uphold his parental rights if she ever wanted Dylan back, heeding her because she was a lawyer. But this? She’d pushed too far, overplayed her hand, and in that moment, the bulwark of threats she’d fashioned meant nothing.
“A custody agreement saying you. Kidnapped. My. Son.”
Her face went white, the color draining at his accusation, then rising back up, beginning at her collar, until her entire face suffused with red.