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"You are leaving Mansfield. Come back soon," the sign had printed on the board as the two men drove out of town. Getting Kyle's fiance back safely and freeing the town of the mad man who'd held it and her hostage made the world a little better.
Breaking the silence, the passenger pulled off his gloves, again. A nervous habit he had taken up years ago. "Thank you for calling me."
Steel blue eyes left the road to quickly glance at the passenger, then back again. "He's grown a bit since the last picture I sent you."
"Yes, he has. He's a fine young man, good principles. Thank you for taking him in from the orphanage."
"I see a lot of him in you. He'd love to know that you're his..." the driver was cut off quickly.
"NO! He can never know, not now. Too much time has passed."
Silence once again filled the car.
The driver tried again to talk his friend into opening up. "He thought for so long that he was alone."
"And what could I have offered him? Treat him like Taige did his son? Drop him off where ever when I needed to go on a mission?"
Continuing to defend his idea, the driver persisted. "You could have given him what he needed - a family history."
"You gave him a family fifteen years ago. Caine's back and he now has him."
"What would your daughter have wanted?" the driver continued.
Sighing, the passenger thought back to the girl he had last seen when she was only 16, before he went off to Vietnam, only to be captured as a hostage. Negotiations between the Asian country and the world weren't going well, any American caught was fair game in the war of words. Later the war without a title.
"She would have wanted her son to grow up strong. He did that. Paul, I didn't know about Peter until I was released from that camp and tried to find her killer. When I found out she had married and had a boy then died of some disease...I wanted to take him with me then, but I knew Caine was giving him the life Laura would have wanted for her son."
Paul didn't see his friend smile as he remembered the time at the temple when he'd seen his grandson for the first time. Peter had been twelve and an active child. He didn't know he was being watched, Caine had shown the best places to watch the children from. Meeting Peter for the first time face to face the other day had been a dream come true.
"No, it's best this way. He won't judge me for leaving him so long ago. He knows he can call on me for anything and he calls me a friend. That's all I want." A pause as a soft chuckle came from his throat. "That and maybe a great grandchild."
Paul shared in the humor. "I'd like to have a grandchild first."