Uncaged by Lucy Gordon

believe he can interfere in what doesn’t concern him.”
    “So I’ve already discovered,” Anderson said grimly. “All right, Mother, you can leave Mr. Keller to me. You’d better take Tommy away.”
    Mrs. Anderson took the child’s hand firmly and marched him out of the room, but not before Tommy had turned back and given Daniel a beseeching look. He forced himself to cover his anger with a smile, trying to tell the child that he’d see Megan, give her the picture and pass on her son’s love. A smile seemed a fragile thing to carry so many burdens.
    “I think you’d better leave now,” Anderson said dismissively.
    “I’ll leave, but you haven’t heard the last of me.”
    “Spare me the threats. Tell Megan that for every lawyer she hires, I’ll hire ten. I’ll blacken her name and keep her tied up in the courts for years. Tommy will be grown up before she ever sets eyes on him again. I hope I make myself clear.”
    “Perfectly,” Daniel said grimly.
    “Then I see nothing to keep you here.”
    He followed Daniel out to his car, and at the last minute he said, “Take this as a friendly warning. Megan is using you. That’s her way. She seems sweet and delightful, but underneath it she’s a schemer, a user. Somehow I would have expected a man of your experience to have spotted that earlier.”
    “Good day to you,” Daniel snapped, and got into the car. It took all his self-restraint not to sock Brian Anderson in the jaw.
    * * *
    “What did Brian say?” Megan demanded as soon as he got home.
    “Just what you expected him to say. No dice. Don’t look so cast down. I have something that will please you. Here.” He took the picture out of his jacket and offered it to her. “Tommy gave it to me, for you.”
    Instantly her face was alight. “You saw Tommy?” she asked eagerly.
    “I actually had a few minutes alone with him before we were interrupted. Megan, he knows all about it. One of his school friends saw it in the paper and told him.”
    “He knows I was in prison? Oh, God!”
    “He knows you’ve been cleared. He knows you’re free and he longs to see you. He loves you.” Daniel was speaking quickly, trying to impress her mind with some good news and drive the sadness from her face. “The others are trying to make him forget you, but they’re failing. Hold on to that.”
    He wasn’t sure that she heard him. She was staring at the picture. “Tommy did this?” she whispered.
    “That’s how he keeps your memory alive, despite everything they can do.”
    “He still loves me, doesn’t he?” Her eyes were glowing.
    “Yes, he still loves you a lot,” Daniel said. Her lightning change from despondency to radiance was giving him a hard time. She’d lost so much, and there was still such a mountain to climb. He didn’t know how to tell her that Brian was planning to remarry. He dreaded to see the despair return to her face, and not merely because he felt guilty. This woman’s pain was unlike any other’s. It had a way of seizing his heart and becoming his own pain. He didn’t examine this too closely, or ask why, but it disturbed him. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve discovered something else. Brian has put Tommy in a different school—Buckbridge Junior. Tommy told me that himself.”
    “I could see him,” she cried eagerly. “Let’s go now.”
    “Megan, it’s Sunday.”
    “Tomorrow, then. Just a glimpse. I don’t care how far away I am. I must see him. Don’t try to stop me.”
    “I’m not trying to stop you. I’ll even take you there.”
    “When? First thing in the morning?”
    “Whenever you like. Megan, calm down.”
    “How can I calm down when I’m going to see Tommy again? If only I could tell you what it’s been like, missing him every moment—thinking of him...”
    “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I know how memory can be a blessing and a torment.”
    “Yes, of course,” she said, sobering instantly. He guessed she was thinking of his wife,