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It had likely been decades since anyone had dared to say no to Phillip Hutchinson. Deafening silence echoed the ringing in Amy’s ears. She waited for a response that never came.
“My staff is more than capable of handling anything that arises in my absence,” she assured him. “The project is in good hands.”
“For your sake, Ms. Loar, I hope so. Your future in this firm depends on it. You’re taking an enormous risk.”
Amy blinked at the finality of his statement. At the thought of all she stood to lose, and how easily everything she was fighting for could vanish, all because of one mix-up.
“I have to be here in Sweetbrook. There’s an important meeting at the school tomorrow afternoon I can’t miss. I’ve promised my daughter,” she added, another no-no in business—bringing her personal life into the workplace.
Which she’d never let happen. Until now.
“Do what you have to do,” Mr. Hutchinson said. The uncomfortable rasp in his voice must have been his attempt at sounding supportive. “Take care of your daughter, take care of your family. Hell, take care of the entire state of South Carolina. Whatever you need to do. Just get yourself back here by Monday.”
“Yes, sir.”
Amy ended the call and stared at her mother.
Her crazy little world had just taken an even bigger twist into bedlam. One misstep at tomorrow’s meeting, one crisis over the weekend that her staff couldn’t cover, and her professional goose was cooked. Meanwhile, she had just over three days to find some common ground with her angry ten-year-old daughter and work things out at her school.
“I’ve got to talk with Josh now,” Amy muttered, her next course of action clear.
“Why?” Gwen asked. “You have an appointment with him tomorrow.”
“Yeah, him and Becky’s teacher, and the staff counselor. I can’t go in there cold. I need more facts, and I need them now.” Her daughter’s happiness and so much more was on the line. “Josh seemed so certain he understands Becky better than I do. Maybe he does. Where does he live?”
“Back at his family’s house, ever since he divorced and his father became ill. His folks moved to Demming late last year.” Gwen checked her watch. “He’s probably home from school by now.”
“Then that’s where I’ll be.” Amy headed into the den for her purse, her mother following close behind. “Tell Becky I’ll be back in a little bit. Maybe I can take her for ice cream after dinner and we can talk then.”
“Honey,” Gwen said as Amy opened the door. “I don’t think going to Josh White’s house is such a good idea. He’s been through a lot himself lately, what with—”
“This isn’t a social call, Mama. I know I’ve been out of touch with things around here for the last few years, but I can’t wait to catch up on all the gossip before I talk with him. Josh is the one who called me. I won’t take up any more of his time than I absolutely have to.”
Amy hugged Gwen’s shoulders, then walked out to her car.
A twinge of sadness whispered through her at the thought of how little she knew about Josh’s life now. He dominated the lightest, happiest parts of her Sweetbrook memories.
She’d never let him guess that her feelings of friendship had deepened into something more their last few years in school. She’d never let on how much that kiss they’d shared during their argument about Richard had affected her. After his harsh words that night, their friendship had fallen apart, and they hadn’t spoken since. Not until yesterday, when she hadn’t even recognized his voice.
She’d handled his phone call badly, partly because of her embarrassment that he was playing a starring role in her crisis with Becky. But only partly. She’d distrusted him on the spot, and she’d said as much to his face. And no matter what had happened between them, Josh didn’t deserve that. She owed him an apology. If it came down to it, she’d beg him to forget about everything but helping her the way he’d offered. She’d even weather more of his obvious disappointment over the mess she’d made of her life. Whatever it took.
Tomorrow’s SST meeting had to be a success. That would leave her the rest of the weekend to work things out with Becky, as impossible as that seemed at the moment. But Amy had done the impossible before. She’d escaped from her marriage physically whole, albeit emotionally scarred. Surely she could make this work, too.
She had to.
“GIVE THEM BACK!” Daniel ripped the last of his clothes from the closet and flung them across his bedroom.
“They’re gone.” His uncle crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
True to his word, he hadn’t come into the room. From day one, he’d said he wouldn’t, not unless Daniel invited him in. He wanted Daniel to feel at home here. To know he had his privacy. To feel safe.
Whatever that meant.
Daniel crossed his arms, copying his uncle’s stance. Anything not to let on how much a part of him wanted this guy to like him. But that wasn’t going to happen. Things were too messed up. He was too messed up.
“So when you said my stuff was my stuff,” he blurted, “that was just a bunch of bullshi—”
“Enough,” his uncle barked. “Those shoes were falling apart. And I asked you to stop wearing them to school. You ignored me, as usual, so now they’re gone. End of story. It’s just a pair of shoes.”
“My shoes.” Daniel threw his arm wide. “My room.”
“In my house.” His uncle raised his hand.
Daniel jerked back, waiting for the slap.
But his uncle combed his hand through his hair instead, then let his arm drop to his side.
He still hadn’t stepped into the room.
“I’m sorry for raising my voice,” he said. “And I don’t like invading your privacy. But we have to come to some kind of compromise on stuff like this.”
The man’s patience had never pissed Daniel off more.
“Cut it out, okay?” He stormed toward the front of the huge house he still couldn’t believe his mother had grown up in. “Knock off the we’re going be a happy family or else stuff. I don’t belong here. You and my grandmother never wanted my mom here. And you don’t want me.”
“That’s not true.” His uncle dogged him all the way to the front door. His hand flattened on the dark wood at the same time that Daniel turned the doorknob. “Where are you going?”
Where he always went when things got too real.
“Out.”
Daniel yanked with all his might, pitting his strength against his uncle’s. Closing his eyes, he shut out the man’s concern. He didn’t know why he’d lost it so completely about a stupid pair of shoes. Why he was always picking fights over nothing. Only it wasn’t nothing.
He could handle his uncle angry. And when he finally pushed him too far, he’d be able to handle whatever the guy dished out. Daniel had taken worse.
But this wanting to let his uncle get closer, the sick feeling that rushed over him every time he tried… Surrounding him, suffocating him, just like the memories did….
He couldn’t take it.
His uncle stepped back, allowing the door to swing wide. Giving Daniel his freedom. The muscles that bunched beneath the rolled sleeves of his dress shirt made it clear just how easily he could have stopped Daniel if he’d chosen to.
“Okay. You’re free to head out to wherever you go every afternoon. But your social worker’s due here any minute for her home visit. I need you to stay until she’s gone. She wants to talk with you about how things are going here.”
“How things are going?” Daniel sputtered. “They’re not!”
He shoved his uncle farther away and waited for him to finally snap. But instead of exploding, the man just stood there.
What a loser. Why wouldn’t he do them both a favor and give up already?
“Whatever.” Daniel snorted and sprinted away.
Let his uncle try to come after him. He could outrun anybody.
Daniel loped down the sloping front lawn, past the weathered brick pillars that flanked the driveway. The stone lions sitting atop the arched entrance growled silently, looking back at him with empty, lonely eyes.
His uncle was nuts if he thought family ties, and money and this moldy old estate would make Daniel feel like he belonged here. The man had been a creep to Daniel’s mother, and now he wanted to play happy family?
Besides, hadn’t he been paying attention?
Daniel didn’t want to belong anywhere.
JOSH WAS SHOVING the worst of the comics and discarded clothes back into his nephew’s already bulging closet when the doorbell rang.
Barbara Thomas, Daniel’s Family Services caseworker, was early. The doorbell rang again. Barbara didn’t like being kept waiting.
Josh gave the fallout from Daniel’s shoe meltdown a final glance and threw in the towel. He usually had the house straightened for one of these visits. But his nephew was getting more proficient by the day at trashing the place.
Josh pulled the bedroom door shut as he walked to greet the caseworker. Everywhere he looked, there were piles of books and toys, socks and shoes. Typical kid clutter that should have reassured him that things were getting back to normal, but he knew better. Daniel wasn’t adjusting to either Melanie’s death or living here with him.
He tugged at his rolled-up sleeves, reaching the front door as he shoved his dress shirt’s wrinkled tail into his khaki pants. He kicked aside the backpack his nephew had dumped on the foyer floor. Pressing his palms to his eyes as the bell pealed again, he counted to five and opened the mahogany doors.
“Hello,” Barbara said.
Her nod of greeting was as efficient as the rest of her. She wore a brown suit this afternoon. The black one must be at the cleaners. Same conservative white shirt as always, though. Narrow collar. Very no-nonsense. Not even a hint of jewelry.
Josh had worked closely with her for years, helping the kids in his school who’d needed more than a simple education. He and Barbara were colleagues, maybe even friends. But at this particular moment, she was the last person he wanted to see.
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” She peered around his shoulder. “I rang so many times, I thought perhaps you’d forgotten our meeting.”
“No, of course not.” He stepped to the side and gestured for her to enter. “I was just—” She tripped on the backpack that hadn’t quite come to rest against the wall. He picked it up and out of her way. “I was just cleaning up a bit.”
Her razorlike gaze touched on the furniture and piles of kid debris she’d already seen dozens of times.
“Have you given any more thought to my suggestion about a live-in housekeeper?” she asked. “Finances can’t be the reason you haven’t.”
“Yeah, I could afford a full-time maid.” He dug his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “And I know things look a little crazy around here, but I’ll get a handle on it. Theresa Cooper has been my parents’ housekeeper for over thirty years. We’re a little more than she can handle right now, and she only works a few hours a day, but she’s family. I can’t just replace her.”
Barbara’s expression revealed nothing as she digested his answer. She was good at that—keeping her opinions to herself until her input would do the most good.
“Is Daniel ready?” She pulled a folder from the briefcase that passed for her purse, and began leafing through it.
“Well, he was. But…”
“But?”
“He’s not here. At least not now.” Josh felt ridiculous. Inept and ridiculous.
“Didn’t he know I was coming for a review?” She checked her watch.
“I think that played a big part in his decision to be somewhere else.” Josh crossed arms. “That and the fact that he knew him staying here was important to me.”
Her eyebrow jerked up. Her expression bordered on amusement.
“He didn’t appreciate me telling him to get cleaned up and change into shoes that weren’t falling apart,” Josh explained. “He—”
“He resents you polishing him up so you can show him off to me?”
“Yeah. I guess that about covers it.”
“So he told you what you could do with your meeting, and stormed off.”
Josh shrugged. “He lights out of here almost every afternoon. Turns up again for dinner. I don’t know where he goes, but it’s somewhere he wants to be a hell of a lot more than he wants to be here.”
“Good.” Another one of her nods. She consulted her folder once more.
“Good?” He had just about had it. “You come here once a month and tell me to take things slow. That a boy abused the way my sister claims she and Daniel were needs time and space to settle in. But when I tell you that he can’t bear to be in the same house as me, you’re finally encouraged?”
“He stood up to you, Josh.” She fingered through her notes. “And from the sketchy details we have of his past before his mother brought him to Sweetbrook, I can only imagine how much courage that took. You’ve remarked about how wary he is around you.”
“He’s downright terrified every time I touch him.” Why had Josh let his mother’s need to protect their family’s reputation, her insistence that Melanie was exaggerating as always, shame his sister into silence about her relationship with Daniel’s father? A man their mother had been mortified to learn Melanie had lived with for five years, but had never married. Josh would give anything not to be piecing together the disturbing details now. To have been there for Melanie when she’d needed him most. To understand what her son needed now.
“Daniel’s nervous around all adults,” he added, “but men especially. He watches every move I make, like he’s expecting me to shout boo or something. Like he can’t turn his back, or I might come after him.”
“And when he first came here, he was nonresponsive and withdrawn if you confronted him directly.” Barbara’s gaze measured Josh’s frustration.
“Yeah.”
Just like Melanie had been.
“But this time, when you pressed him, he pushed back, at least for a moment.”
Her words rattled around in Josh’s head, then came together in a startling flash of clarity.
“Yeah,” he repeated, amazed. “He actually shoved me out of the way.”
He and Daniel had taken a haphazard step in the right direction, and Josh hadn’t even seen it.
“Good.” She nodded and gave him a smile. She headed toward the back of the house. “Why don’t we start with Daniel’s room, then. I can usually tell from a child’s personal space how he feels about his surroundings.”
Josh’s warm feeling of accomplishment fizzled, heartburn rushing to take its place.
Like a bloodhound, Barbara had sniffed trouble and was heading deeper into his nightmare. He shook his head and followed in her wake.
He was three steps from the bedroom when the doorbell chimed, then jingled again.
He bit back a curse as Barbara disappeared into Daniel’s sty of a room. Relieved, actually, that he wouldn’t have to witness her disappointment and shock, Josh turned and retraced his steps to the front of the house.
What now?
AMY PUSHED HER REBELLIOUS curls behind her ear as she waited at the Whites’ door. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.
She hadn’t taken the time to change out of her sapphire-colored dress suit. That would have given her one chance too many to talk herself out of this.
She needed more information about Becky. End of story. And that made apologizing to Josh her first course of business. Asking for his help was the hard-to-swallow second step, but there was no avoiding that, either. She reached to press the bell a third time. Midring, the heavy door jerked open, revealing an all-grown-up Joshua White she should have been expecting but wasn’t.
She’d been prepared for something along the lines of the boy she’d left behind. But the man before her was so much more than a replay of days gone by. Tall and classically handsome, broader at the shoulders, firmer at the jaw, Josh no longer sported the relaxed ease of the comfortably wealthy. The lines on his face spoke of responsibility and determination. Of a life not quite under his control, but he’d be damned if he was giving up.
Still blond and too good-looking by anyone’s standards, dressed in rumpled but clearly expensive business attire, he stared at her for a moment before his pale-blue eyes widened with recognition.
“Amy?”
Just the sound of her name rolling off his lips with the same hint of Southern inflection as before made her incapable of saying anything in return. To her horror, her pulse gave a hiccuping flutter and her breath caught on some unexplainable obstruction in her throat.
What was wrong with her?
She realized a sappy grin was spreading across her face, and forced herself to stifle it.
“Amy?” he repeated. He checked over his shoulder, then turned back. “What can I do for you?”
“Oh, um…” She tucked back the hair that refused to stay where it belonged today. Straightened her purse strap on her shoulder. Fidgeted with the tail of her jacket like a schoolgirl. Get a grip! “I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time—”
“Not right now.”
The coldness of his words washed over her. Where was the caring, it’s-going-to-be-okay Josh from last night?
“I’m sorry.” He winced and propped the hand not holding the doorknob on his hip. “I don’t mean to be rude. But this isn’t a good time—”
“Well, Daniel’s room is certainly an odyssey into the mind,” a feminine voice said from behind him. “And I was glancing through one of his homework notebooks. It looks like— Oh! I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
A middle-aged woman dressed in a nondescript brown suit stopped at Josh’s side. Her gaze cataloged Amy’s appearance, then she turned her attention to the man shifting his weight from one foot to the other between them.
“I’ll leave you to your guest. But there’s an important matter we need to discuss before I leave.”
Amy watched the other woman walk into the sitting room off the hall. She and Josh had often done homework in that room, sprawling on the heirloom rug in front of an overstuffed couch and chairs, devouring snacks and trying to master the intellectual acrobatics required to complete assignments in geometry, history and American lit. Josh had tackled each assignment with ease, of course. He’d been brilliant, even in elementary school. A little bookish and preoccupied with making sure everything was perfect, but alarmingly smart. And he’d also been kind and genuinely interested in helping her do well. There’d been a lot of teacher in him even then.
She shook her head at the folly of looking back, when she’d made such a disaster of everything since.
She squared her shoulders. Josh clearly had company to get back to. What had the woman said about his nephew? “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I came to talk about Becky. I’d hoped you could tell me a little more about this SST meeting you’ve scheduled for tomorrow. Maybe give me some idea of what to expect. What to talk with Becky about tonight.”
Josh chewed on the side of his mouth, glancing into the sitting room, then back at her. With a sigh, he dropped his head and opened the door wider for her to enter.
“Of course we can talk,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve made it down for the meeting.” The slight smile he gave her softened his features. His eyes, however, had her wishing she knew what was wrong, so maybe she could help. “I’m sorry I was so short on the phone last night. I had no cause to question your commitment to caring for Becky.”
“Yes, you did.” She tried to lighten the awkward moment with her own smile. His frown confirmed she hadn’t quite pulled it off. “I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions, Josh. And I wasn’t exactly on my best behavior. It’s been a rough year.”
He nodded his acceptance of her roundabout apology. A flick of his wrist allowed him to check his watch again. “Just give me a few minutes to finish up with my social worker.”
“Your social worker?”
“No… I mean, yes.” He tugged at his partially undone tie. “She’s my nephew’s caseworker from Family Services.”
As if that explained everything.
He squinted when she didn’t respond. Then his expression became guarded, as if he was bracing for an invisible blow. “You haven’t heard, have you?”
“I didn’t even know Melanie had a little boy.” She measured each word carefully as she tried to keep pace with his shifting mood. “After the way we…the way you and I left things… Before my wedding, that is…”
She cleared her throat, remembering again exactly what they’d done the last time they’d seen each other, feeling saddened anew by the chasm that had stretched between them since.
“Well,” she said, when Josh continued to stare. “After we fought, and I married Richard, I haven’t really kept up with Mother’s Sweetbrook gossip. Especially since my divorce. I’ve barely had time to think straight.”
“Yes, well.” The simple effort it took to breathe seemed to cost him dearly. “That woman in the other room is trying to help me find a way to give my nephew some chance at a normal childhood. If you’ll just give me a few minutes, we can talk some more about Becky.”
“Is Melanie okay?” Amy asked.
What on earth was he talking about? Why wasn’t his sister meeting with her son’s social worker?
“No.” Josh turned toward the other room, leaving her by the front door. “My sister died in a car accident in January.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JOSH COULDN’T SHAKE Amy’s image from his mind as he tried to gather his thoughts enough to face Barbara Thomas.
It had been an unreal moment, opening his front door to a sophisticated redhead, who in a blink had transformed into a grown-up reflection of the girl he knew. Maybe if there’d been even a hint of the friendship they’d once shared, it wouldn’t be so hard to accept this new, closed-off Amy. An Amy who had made every day of his childhood brighter. The Amy he’d driven out of his life with his own stupidity.
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