“Violate me anytime you want, hon.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “This should not have happened in Owen’s room.”
“We still have our clothes on.”
“I came.”
“Two seconds more and I would have, too.”
She smiled and he noticed guilt set in. “This is bad. Owen is missing and I’m . . .”
“You’re stressed. You needed relief. Don’t kick yourself.” He wanted relief, too. But he wasn’t going to pressure her.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.”
She rolled off him and he stood.
With a look of guilt, she smoothed the edges of Owen’s bedspread. “So bad.”
Jason placed a hand on her waist to tug her away.
With the movement, the bedspread untucked from the foot of the bed, and Rachel stood perfectly still. “Wait.”
“What?”
She shoved the blanket aside and then ripped it off the bed altogether.
“What is it?”
“Owen has an electric blanket. It’s not here.”
“Are you sure it was on his bed the last time he was here?”
“It’s always on his bed. As soon as the temperature dropped under fifty.”
She pulled his pillow away to unveil his backpack. “He came home.”
They both stared at each other.
“We were looking in the wrong house,” Jason said quietly.
Rachel flew across the room and tossed open Owen’s closet.
Jason ran down the hall, searched closets, down the stairs, the coat closet, the garage . . .
They both stood in the kitchen, and their gazes landed on the door leading to the basement.
“He wouldn’t.”
Jason had to laugh. “Hide in the one place you would never look for him? Yeah, he would.”
They opened the door slowly and started down the stairs.
Behind a stack of boxes, in a makeshift tent, Owen was curled up on his side, the electric blanket working double time in the cold space . . . snoring.
Rachel started to weep before she fell to her knees and grabbed a sleepy Owen in her arms.
“Hey,” he said with one eye open.
“I’m going to kill you,” Rachel told him. From the strength she was using to hug him, it might be possible he wouldn’t make it out of the basement alive.
“You found me.”
She pulled away, grasped his face in her hands. “Never do that again. You hear me?”
“I didn’t want you to go to jail.”
“Never! You don’t get to leave. We will figure it out together. But you don’t get to leave. Got it?”
“’Kay.”
And the hugging began again.
“I’m okay,” he told her.
“Yeah, well . . . I’m not.”
Owen looked over Rachel’s shoulder at Jason, smiled, and then wrapped his arms around her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Nice of you to join us, Mr. Moreau.”
Judge Sherman held humor in her voice.
Rachel stood beside Owen, both of them properly dressed for a day in court. Jason had sent Owen to his tailor. The suit he wore made him look five years older than he was.
“Hi,” Owen said sheepishly.
Rachel nudged him and whispered, “Your Honor.”
“Your Honor,” he said after the fact.
The people in the courtroom laughed.
Rachel glanced behind them to find Jason and his family sitting there in support.
“You gave Miss Price quite the scare. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Well, Judge . . . I mean, Your Honor. At the time I didn’t feel I had any other choice.”
She seemed surprised by his answer. “And now?”
“I realized that if I had used a few more of the skills Mr. Collet was teaching me—he’s my English teacher—I might have learned that I could have stayed with one of my buddies instead of a foster home until we had a court date.”
“Mr. Collet sounds like a wise man.”
“His tests are hard.”
The courtroom laughed again.
“Hard teachers are always the best,” she told him.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Judge Sherman looked at Rachel and then the Colemans. “I’m told you’ve come to an agreement.”
“We have, Your Honor,” Mr. Yanez said.
“We have,” said Clive.
“I’m listening.”
“My clients have decided to drop the petition for custody of Owen Moreau.”
Rachel already knew they were going to drop everything, but it was nice to finally hear it aloud in front of a judge.
“I think that’s wise,” Judge Sherman said. “I take it you’re TJ?” She addressed Owen’s father.
“That’s right, Your Honor.”
“What are your intentions?”
TJ looked around the attorneys to stare at Owen. “I want to get to know my son, Your Honor.”
Rachel placed her hand on Owen’s shoulder.
“With all respect, I don’t think a court should force Owen to see me, or his grandparents. The stress this situation has put on Owen and the roadblock I’ve created by not stopping my parents before they came to the court is something I’m going to have to live with.” TJ turned his attention to Owen. “He’s turning out to be a fine young man without us, and my guess is that isn’t going to change. I hope that one day he will want to know me.”
Rachel caught Owen moving his gaze to his feet.
“TJ is relinquishing his rights for custody so long as Miss Price remains Owen’s legal guardian,” Mr. Yanez stated.
Judge Sherman focused on Rachel. “You’re in agreement with these terms, Miss Price?”
“Yes, Your Honor. With all my heart.”
The judge smiled and lifted her papers. “Let’s hope all my cases go this well today. I am ordering Miss Price and Mr. Moreau’s passports to be returned and all mobility restrictions lifted.”
It is over . . . finally over.
Owen hugged her.
“Not so fast, Mr. Moreau.”
Owen froze.
“Being a teenage runaway is a probationary offense.”
The air left Rachel’s lungs.
“I won’t do it again, Your Honor.”
The judge had a catlike smile. “I’m sure you won’t. And to help you with that wise decision, I’m ordering you to perform twenty hours of community service, to be completed at the local homeless shelter and teenage runaway hotline.”
Rachel closed her eyes in relief.
“Really?” Owen asked. “Your Honor?”
“Really!”
Rachel lifted her hand, as if she was in a classroom.
“Yes, Miss Price.”
Rachel glanced at Owen, then back to the judge. “I’d like to request forty hours of community service.”
“What?” Owen cried.
The courtroom exploded in laughter.
“The hard teachers are always the best. And I’m too young to have to start dyeing gray hair.”
“Forty hours it is.” Judge Sherman hit her gavel to the block. “Case dismissed.”
Rachel ruffled the top of Owen’s head before pulling him into a hug.
She turned to Clive and shook his hand. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
TJ approached them once they all walked out of the courtroom. “Owen?”
Owen nodded but didn’t say anything.