Wild Honey by Veronica Sattler

reaction was ambivalent. On the one hand, she was warmed that her son would be so solicitous of her; on the other, she wondered if Matt was beginning to think of himself as the “man of the family.” Had the lack of an adult to fill that role settled more firmly into his consciousness? Was this a fair burden to place on a four-year-old? She frowned.
    Without warning, an image came to mind. Of a big blond man who resembled her son. Travis McLean. Randi stiffened. She’d actually pictured him sitting on the blanket with them!
    “That’s great, son,” she said hastily, banishing the image as she rose to her feet. She reached for the pail and shovel. “Let’s see about that sand castle, okay?”
    But as Matt followed her cheerfully to the wet sand near the water’s edge, McLean’s lean handsome face hovered at the fringes of her mind. Kneeling in the sand beside her son, she began digging with a spurt of energy meant to drive the image away. That, and something else. Something that felt suspiciously like guilt.
    Don’t be silly, she told herself as she molded the damp sand. Matt can’t miss what he’s never had. As for McLean, what he doesn’t know isn’t hurting him, either.
    Yet the argument in her head persisted. She told herself McLean’s actions precluded his right to know of the son he’d fathered. He’d chosen to donate his sperm, chosen to be an anonymous father, hadn’t he?
    But far more disturbing was the question of whether it was right for her to choose to bring a fatherless child into the world. Unbidden, more questions came, try as she might to ignore them. Had she robbed her son of one of life’s inalienable rights? The right to have and know a father? Had she been selfish in doing what she’d done? Had she stolen from her own child’s future?
    The sand castle was the largest, most elaborate structure built on the beach that day. Other children and their parents came to admire it, including the trio of redheads. Matt grinned at all the praise, even boasting to a man and his young daughter, “Me ‘n’ my mom’s the bestest team in the world for makin’ sand castles!”
    And through it all Randi laughed and smiled, determined to shut out the doubts. Doubts that made her wonder if the happiness of one-parent families and sand castles didn’t have something in common.
    Perhaps neither was built to last.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    “H ERE YOU ARE , Mr. McLean.” The owner of the bedand-breakfast handed Travis a beach badge. “Go around the side porch and you’ll find a path leading straight to the beach.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Muncie,” Travis said with a smile for the elderly widow. He fastened the badge to his trunks, relishing the simple pleasure of having both hands free; the bullet wound was healing rapidly, and he’d discarded the sling. Waving to Mrs. Muncie, he slung a towel over his shoulder and headed for the beach.
    With any luck, he’d find Randi and Matt Terhune on that beach. One of the things the Agency’s computer had turned up was the location of Ms. Terhune’s vacation spot. She’d rented a cottage on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, just a stone’s throw from Mrs. Muncie’s bed-and-breakfast. Through sheer luck, he’d called Mrs. Muncie just after she’d received a cancelation; he was now booked for the weekend and two weeks following. A stay that just happened to coincide with the remainder of Randi Terhune’s vacation.
    The computer had turned up other information, too. Terhune and the kid lived in a quiet suburb near D.C., sharing a home—as he’d already learned—with her older sister. Their modest house was in a good neighborhood, served by a decent public-school system. It had been left to the sisters by the aunt who’d raised them; they were orphaned in their early teens.
    Randi had a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in nursing,and had twice graduated in the top ten percent of her class. She had an excellent work record, had advanced rapidly in her career.
    So