Dangerous Abduction (O'Connor Brothers Book 2) by Rhonda Brewer Page B

couldn’t let Marina see his uneasiness so when he opened her door, he held out his hand and smiled. For a moment she just stared and then hesitantly placed her hand in his. The boys were yelling in the back seat as they wiggled in their car seats impatiently waiting to be set loose.
    They were hardly free from the truck when they darted to the playground. James glanced at Marina and she smiled but it wasn’t her normal bright smile, the one that made his heart skip a beat. This one was a shy, and hesitant one, almost as if she was nervous to be with him.
    They walked silently towards the playground with James keeping his eyes locked on the boys. He’d spent time working with the department that dealt with missing children, and he was always overly cautious when it came to Mason. He’d seen a lot of the missing children cases not end well and someone taking his son was his biggest fear. Although Hopedale was probably the safest place in the world.
    Marina sat on one of the benches and James sat next to her. He leaned his elbows on his knees and did a quick scan of the other benches since he still had an uneasy feeling. Most of the adults were women, with a few men but none of them seemed out of place. That didn’t make him feel any less edgy. It was as if he was being watched. He turned in the direction of the parking lot but again nothing. He turned back to the boys and they were climbing up to the top of the slide. Mason suddenly stopped in the middle of the ladder and jumped down.
    “Daddy, can you come push me and Danny on the swings?” Mason begged as he and Danny ran up to him. James glanced at Marina. She nodded and he took it as a sign she was okay with him leaving her alone, although, he wasn’t sure if she should be. He chased the boys to the swing set and helped them climb in. His gaze met Marina’s and he wondered what was going through that beautiful head of hers. She still seemed extremely tense and with the way she was scanning the park, he had a feeling she was getting the same uneasy feeling. What the hell was going on? Most of the people here were obviously from Hopedale and the ones that he didn’t recognize were talking to people from the area.
    “Daddy, push me higher,” Mason yelled.
    “I wanna go up to the sky.” Danny giggled.
    “Okay, hold on tight guys.” James said as he pushed both boys harder making them squeal, but something out of the corner of his eye had him spinning around to see a shadow disappear behind a tree.

Chapter 9
    J ames tossed Mason into the air, and her son squealed with glee. When he did the same with Danny, her heart melted. James treating Danny the same as his own son only drove home what a great father figure he could be for Danny, and her son could see how a father should be. He’d never know how it felt to be with his own father, but she was glad Marc was not in their life anymore. She sometimes wondered how to explain what happened to his father when she didn’t really know what happened to him herself. At some point Danny was going to ask, and all she could do is tell him about the man she’d fallen in love with. Nobody would know how to explain the evil man he turned into.
    It was getting hard to swallow, and her eyes blurred with tears. She didn’t want the boys or James to see her about to lose it, yet again. She made her way to the lake at the side of the park.
    Over the past four years she’d managed to keep her tears hidden from Danny, and she wasn’t going to let him see it now. James wasn’t going to see them either. In her mind, she knew Danny was better off without Marc in her life. The drugs had turned him into a cruel and violent monster, and her son didn’t need that. He needed a man like her own father or James. It hurt to know Danny would never have what Mason had, but then again Mason didn’t have a mom. Maybe it was why the boys seemed to get along so well—they were each missing a parent.
    Danny had only asked once why he