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She was missing the boat on this one. And running out of time.
“I want to help you.” Bonnie paid her to help children adapt to day care life. Not to help single fathers raise their children.
But she knew she could make a difference here. Abe was a motherless baby boy who could benefit from her services and she didn’t care about being paid.
“I don’t need help.”
“Hey—” Slowing, she touched his wrist and stepped out of the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. He followed her, standing facing her, both hands in his pockets. “I’m not judging you, Jon.” And then quickly added, “May I call you that?”
“Of course.”
“Call me Lillie.”
“Fine.” He glanced over her shoulder. Presumably at the sidewalk they’d left. He seemed eager to be on his way, but still had time before he was due in class.
“Have you ever worked with a child life specialist before?”
“Never heard of one until yesterday.”
“Which makes you like a lot of people,” she said, offering him the first natural grin she’d felt since their meeting began. “Child life specialists have college degrees, generally in a child development field. After college, they complete a practicum, followed by an internship, usually at a hospital. Finally they take a national, several-part exam and, upon passing, receive certification. Our goal is to reduce the negative impact of stressful situations on children and on their families. Most commonly, we’re found in hospitals or in the medical field, supporting kids and their families through procedures or long-term illnesses, but we work in schools, with the courts, and even in funeral homes.” She spoke like a parrot in front of a classroom. Not at all like herself.
And wasn’t happy about that. She’d like to have walked away, to put this man, and his son, out of her life, but something was compelling her to press forward.
“Abraham’s not sick or in court. He doesn’t go to school and no one’s died that I know of.” Jon started to walk again.
“You just moved to a new town, a new apartment. You’ve started school and working at a new job. Your situation could be having a negative impact on him.”
That stopped him.
“What kind of impact? He’s throwing tantrums like a normal two-year-old.”
She shook her head. “That’s just it. He’s not. Other than his bouts of panic, Abraham is probably the most well-behaved two-year-old I’ve ever met. His tantrums don’t seem to be a product of testing his boundaries like you’d normally see at his age. They aren’t temper related. He doesn’t throw tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. He doesn’t have problems sharing. To the contrary, he lets the other children take things from him. His tantrums appear to be emotionally based. A symptom of stress, as opposed to part of his normal development process.”
“Are you suggesting that I quit work? Or school?”
“What I’m trying to suggest, Mr. Swartz—” Jon just didn’t do it “—is that you let me help you. Or at least let me try.”
She’d never pursued a client before. Why was she doing so now?
Her schedule was kept plenty full with the clinic and Bonnie and the school, and the once-or-twice-a-year call from the local funeral home.
“How can you help?” He didn’t slow down. Or look at her. She wasn’t sure if he was just humoring her or not.
“I’d like to spend some time with you and Abraham. To observe you together. I’ve got some things I can show you to help him to calm down, little things. Easy things...”
“Like singing.”
“Music therapy is good, yes,” she said, relaxing for the first time since she’d seen him standing by the tree. “I’m not sure what’s causing Abe’s stress, but I think that if you gave me a little time, I might be able to figure it out.”
“You’re some kind of shrink, then?”
“Psychology classes were part of my degree, but no, I’m nowhere close to being a psychologist.”
Veering off the main path, he approached a classroom building, stopping at the foot of a wide staircase up to a row of doors. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to hang out with us, give me some ideas, and that’s it?”
“That’s it.” She had no idea if that would be a good thing or bad thing as far as he was concerned.
“And Bonnie’s paying you for this?”
“She pays me to help her clients adapt to preschool and Abe’s stress is preventing that adaptation,” she said carefully. Money didn’t matter here. Abe did.
“Fine.”
It was Lillie’s turn to stare. “Fine?”
“Yes, fine.” That was it. Nothing more. Her heart rate sped up, anyway.
“Okay, then, I’ll call you tonight and we can discuss schedules. If that’s okay with you.”
“I can tell you right now. I’m working tomorrow until three and then Abe and I are going to go to the park and out for a hamburger before coming home to have a bath, read books and get ready for bed. And no, I don’t feed him fast food every night. Once a week for a special treat is it.”
The next day was Saturday. Traditionally a light day for her as only the emergency clinic was open in Shelter Valley after noon. “Unless I’m called in on a medical emergency, I can meet you at the park at four.”
“Fine.”
Wow. What had appeared to be a mountain she was going to have to scale had turned out to be a curb. “Fine,” she repeated, smiling, getting lost in his gaze when she should have just been getting lost. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said and, turning, hurried away from the strangest encounter she could ever remember having.
First rule of child life—the specialist did not become personally involved with the patient or the patient’s family. She was there to support. Not to experience.
The designation fit her life to a T.
CHAPTER FOUR
JON TOOK THE last half of his peanut butter sandwich in two bites. A machine had gone down that morning and he’d lost half an hour getting it back up again so the plant didn’t miss shipment. Every minute a line was down cost the company five hundred dollars in employee salaries that weren’t producing product.
The emergency put him behind on his regular Saturday maintenance work—checks and balances that had to be done on schedule to meet regulatory standards—and he couldn’t leave until he’d completed every one of them.
He never liked to be late picking up Abe, but today, with Lillie Henderson meeting them in the park only an hour after he clocked out, he couldn’t afford to be running behind schedule. How would that look? A dad who couldn’t even get to the day care to pick up his kid on time?
So, Jon was outside on the patio at the cactus jelly plant, standing with his foot on a boulder, gulping down a five-minute lunch, with plans to work through the rest of his scheduled break time.
“Hey, man, I heard you saved the day in there. Good work.” Jon’s lab partner, Mark Heber, leaned against the boulder next to his, facing the miles of desert and mountain behind them, pulling open a brown paper bag.
He shrugged. “It was a tension issue, mostly—stretched belt that caused a kink in the chain.” Mark, a shift supervisor, and three years his senior, would already have known that.
“Management’s pleased with your work,” Mark said. “I thought you should know.”
Nodding, Jon opened the cup of fruit he’d brought along, dumping half of it into his opened mouth. There was a spoon in the bag, but he wasn’t out to impress anyone at the plant. He was in a hurry.
“Addy and Nonnie are baking cookies today. You and Abe want to stop by later?”
Mark’s outspoken, wheelchair-bound grandmother and his hotshot lawyer fiancée were in love with Abe. Jon figured his son could do worse.
“How about I bring Abe by after dinner and the two of us will visit with Nonnie while you and Addy go out on a date?”
Nonnie lived with Mark. At eighty years old and in the late stages of multiple sclerosis, she was sometimes a handful.
“You got a deal.” Mark’s grin wasn’t masked by the bite of sandwich he’d just taken. And then he sobered. “I assume you heard about the break-in?”
“What break-in?” Jon stared, his urgency to get back to work put on hold.
“I just figured you’d heard,” Mark said, dropping his sandwich back into the little plastic bag from which he’d removed it. “It was less than a mile from your place. Sometime last night. A guy lifted the sliding glass door out of the track, took a bunch of cash and left the door leaning up against the kitchen wall. The couple were in Phoenix seeing a play and called it in when they got home. Everyone was talking about it this morning in the break room.”
Jon didn’t shake his head on the outside, but inside his mind was reeling. Would he ever get used to living in a place like Shelter Valley? It was so different from the neighborhoods he’d grown up in, where a dead body under a bench wasn’t much in the way of news, that he sometimes felt as if he were living on another planet.
A break-in would be a big deal here. As would the knowledge that a new guy in town had done time for robbery.
“I guess they don’t get much crime around here, do they?” he said, reminding himself that this was the life he wanted for Abraham.
Shrugging, Mark dug out his sandwich again. Took a bite. “One thing about this town—people watch out for one another here. And the sheriff, he makes it his business to get to know everyone.”
Wishing he hadn’t just eaten, Jon kept the expression on his face neutral.
“A real autocrat, huh?” he asked, mentally calculating how much he’d have to pay back in scholarship monies if he packed up and skipped town with Abe. If they came after him for the money.
“Not at all,” Mark said, finishing one lunch-meat sandwich and pulling out another. “He’s open-minded and fair. But he’s also a great cop, ready to help anyone who needs it.”
The statement made him curious. “You’re as new to this town as I am. How come you know so much about the sheriff?”
In his world, guys kept their distance from cops. Mark finished his sandwich, bunched the bag into a ball shape and tossed it into a can six feet away. “Addy was born here,” he said, as though testing the waters. “She knows him.”
Walking with his friend back to the shop, Jon forgot about time, about his impending meeting that afternoon, and frowned as Mark mentioned his fiancée, the woman who watched Abe once a week. “I thought she was new to town, too.”
“She’s only been back for a couple of months. She moved away when she was six.”
There was more to the story, Jon could sense as much. But Mark didn’t elaborate, and Jon didn’t ask.
* * *
LILLIE WAS RUNNING late. She’d been called to the clinic to assist with setting the arm of a ten-year-old boy who’d fractured it playing football. It had been almost one o’clock before she’d been free to change into her jeans and tend to the paperwork and reports that had built up during the week, and she hadn’t eaten yet that day.
Which was why she was at the Shelter Valley Diner at three, grabbing a bite before walking over to the city park across the street for her four-o’clock appointment with Jon Swartz.
“Hey, woman, how are you?” The familiar voice greeted her as she stood at the counter, trying to decide what she felt like eating. Salad or sandwich? Or maybe just a cup of soup?
“Ellen? I didn’t know you were in town!” There was nothing about the pretty blonde that suggested the trauma she’d lived through almost ten years before.
“Jay and I are dropping Josh off at Mom’s. We’re heading up to Jerome for the night.”
Jerome, an authentic old mining town built into the top of a five-thousand-foot mountain, was a couple of hours north of Shelter Valley. These days, the bustling roadside town was an artists’ haven and boasted several B and Bs in addition to a well-preserved twenty-five-room hotel that dated back to the 1900s.
“Are you taking the motorcycle?” Lillie asked, noting the happy glint in Ellen’s brown eyes, the shine to her natural blond hair. Marriage to Jay had done wonders for the woman Lillie had first met through Ellen’s son, Josh, when Lillie had first come to town. She’d supported Josh through a routine procedure at the clinic. And bonded with his grateful mother in the process.
Ellen, who’d been born and raised in Shelter Valley, had been a regular to the clinic back then—visiting the counselor whose office was just across the hall from Lillie’s—as she fought her way back from the hell of having been raped.
Jay, a masseuse at the clinic, had been central to Ellen’s recovery. In ways no one could have foreseen.
“Of course we’re taking the bike.” Ellen’s grin stretched across her face. “Jay’s been great about taking the car when we have Josh in tow, so I insist on taking the bike anytime it’s just the two of us.”
“Admit it—” Lillie grinned back “—you just want to spend the entire trip with your arms wrapped around that husband of yours.”
“I also happen to love the wind in my hair, the feeling of flying and the rush of speed....”
Ellen looked happier than Lillie had ever seen her. And for a brief second, she was envious.
Nancy, a mother of six who’d been working at the diner since she was in high school, approached them from behind the counter. Ellen ordered a cherry pie to go. “Jay and Josh are in the car,” she told Lillie. “Mom’s having the ladies over this afternoon and I told her I’d pick up the pie on my way there.”
Ellen’s mom, Martha—who was married to one of the preachers in town—and her friends, some of them from as far back as high school, got together every week. They were well-known throughout town because anytime anyone needed anything, the ladies inevitably found out about it and went out of their way to help. It didn’t hurt that Becca Parsons, mayor of Shelter Valley, was among their ranks.
Nancy turned to Lillie and she ordered a sandwich—easy to eat in the park—and waved as Mrs. Wright and Bailey walked in, hand in hand. Bailey’s lab work hadn’t come back yet.
“Did you hear about the break-in?” Ellen asked as Nancy went to the back to collect the pie and put in Lillie’s order.
“At the Conklins’? Yeah, Dr. Mueller mentioned it this morning. They just took cash, right?”
“Mom said they think it’s one guy working alone. Something about a size-ten footprint. They aren’t sure if he was only after cash, or if the Conklins got home while he was still there and scared him off. He left the sliding glass door leaning against a wall.”
“I was here four years for college and I’ve been back for five and the only break-ins I ever heard of were on campus.”
“I know what you mean. I read the police report in the weekly paper Mom sends to me in Phoenix and there have been a few accounts of people walking out of stores with things,” Ellen said. “But mostly the calls are due to domestic violence or traffic accidents or someone having a heart attack.”
But they both knew that, even given Shelter Valley’s low crime rates, bad things did happen there. Ellen was living proof of that.
“I’m sure Sheriff Richards will catch whoever did it,” Lillie told her friend, and hoped she was right. Knowing that there was a thief living among them was creepy. Shelter Valley was a unique little place on earth. It had been founded by a man who’d sought shelter from a world that condemned him for a mixed-race marriage at a time when such things weren’t accepted. The town’s growth had been guided by the belief that all good people deserved shelter from life’s storms.
And everyone who came to town seeking shelter and stayed was ready to offer shelter to others who needed it.
After saying goodbye to her friend, Lillie paid for her sandwich and focused on her upcoming appointment.
The child. Not the father.
She could get through anything life had to hand her by focusing on work.
* * *
“THROW THE BALL, son.” Kneeling next to Abe, Jon showed the toddler how to give the plastic orb an underhanded toss. And with a sprint, he made it in front of the ball to grab it as it fell and toss it back toward the little boy. Abraham followed the ball and, tripping over Jon’s feet, fell against him. Standing immediately, Abe reached for the ball with both hands and placed them just as Jon had demonstrated, tossed the ball and went running after it again.
“Wait, son,” Jon said. “Stay right there and Daddy will throw it back to you.” For two Saturdays now he’d been trying to teach the boy the concept of playing catch. Trying to get Abe to wait for the ball to come back to him. And just as Jon was determined to teach him, Abe was determined to play the game his own way.
Still, Jon continued to try. He waited while Abe tossed the ball and then went after it, trying to get the ball heading back to the toddler before Abe’s small legs got to it.
“Watch,” he said. “Daddy will throw the ball and then you catch it,” he said. Backing up, he tossed the cheap dollar-store toy gently in Abe’s direction. The boy ran toward it, waited while it dropped and then grabbed it with a laugh.
“Now throw it to me,” Jon said. Abraham tossed. And ran. Jon reached the ball first and, scooping it up with one hand, tossed the ball back in his son’s direction. Again. And again.
“I’m going to back up farther now,” he said as Abe once more picked up the ball. Turning, he hurried a few steps away before Abe had time to straighten. “Nooo!” His heart in his throat, Jon swung back around at the sound of his son’s terrified scream.
If...
Abraham stood there, right where he’d been, screaming his head off. No one was around. The ball was still in the boy’s hands.
“Abe?” He ran forward. Grabbed the boy’s hands, letting the ball drop to the ground as he checked for bee stings. Abe’s legs were next, and Jon scrutinized them fully while the toddler gained the attention of everyone else in the park with his full-bodied screams.
Jon glanced quickly around, fearing that Lillie Henderson would observe this latest display, but only saw unfamiliar faces staring back at them. Some were tinged with curiosity. An older woman on a bench several yards away was frowning.
But there was no sign of Ms. Henderson.
Jon picked the boy up and Abe quieted almost immediately.
“Put him back down,” a soft voice said from directly behind him.
His first instinct—a strong one—was to ignore the child-life-whatever-she-was. He wanted nothing more than to avoid another screaming match in public. He also wasn’t completely convinced that Abe was okay. Something had clearly upset him.
And then he thought about losing Abe. Because the woman who’d just directed him to put his son down might be a spy—someone employed by Abe’s maternal grandmother to observe Jon’s parenting skills.
And even if Lillie wasn’t a spy, she was clearly someone who knew a lot about raising children. He wanted whatever help he could get. He set the boy back on his feet.
Before his feet had even touched the ground, Abe opened his mouth and started to cry again.
And Lillie Henderson was down on her knees in front of him, shaking her head. Abe, apparently startled to see her, quieted enough to hiccup through his sobs. Lillie put a finger on his lips.
“No more screaming, Abe,” she said. “Remember what we talked about? Use your words.”
Abe only had four words. Jon started to tell her so, but figured he’d let her find that out on her own.
The boy studied Lillie’s mouth. His lower lip was still jutting out and quivering, but he wasn’t crying.
“Your Daddy and I—” she turned and smiled up at Jon “—can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong.”
Yes. That was completely true. And as soon as Abe got old enough to comprehend the concept they’d be home free.
“Instead of screaming, use your words to tell us what’s upset you,” Lillie said. “Okay?”
Abraham nodded. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t give Jon a clue as to what had caused his distress, but the tantrum had apparently passed.
Jon wasn’t as confident that he’d passed the parenting test.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY SPENT AN hour at the park. Abe tripped over a root and fell and started to cry. Jon picked him up and faced the woman who’d just given up an hour of her day to explain various coping skills to him.
Things he hadn’t found in any of the numerous child-rearing books he’d read. Things like encouraging Abe to use his words, even though he didn’t verbalize any yet. According to Lillie, the boy had a full understanding of language, and they had to give him a reason to vocalize his thoughts.
“Time to go,” he said, looking at Lillie, hoping to hell that she wasn’t a spy. He was grateful to her. “That particular whine means he’s hungry.”
She looked at Abe. “All you had to do was tell Daddy that you want to eat,” she said simply. “Eat.” She drew the word out. Said it again. Abe watched her mouth.
He grinned.
And shoved his fist in his mouth.
“Would you like to join us for a hamburger?” Jon asked, and was shocked when she nodded.
“I’d like that, thanks.”
Twenty minutes later, after a quick diaper change in the front passenger seat of Jon’s small, four-door truck, they were seated across from each other in a booth at the fast-food hamburger place just outside of town. Lillie, who’d followed behind them in her car, had insisted on paying for her own grilled chicken sandwich.
Abe, in a booster seat next to him, was happily shoving French fries in his mouth.
Lillie made a face at the boy. He laughed out loud. She chuckled.
And Jon was struck by how much he was enjoying himself.
Which posed a major problem.
“I have a question,” he said, leaning forward over his opened container with a quarter-pound burger inside.
“Ask anything. That’s what I’m here for.”
“You married?” Not the question he’d meant to ask.
She blinked. “No.”
“You said, the other day, that your life was an open book. I’m apparently not much of a reader. You know about me. I know virtually nothing about you.”
And he wanted to know. Which was why he had to ask her.
“I graduated from Montford eight years ago. I married a business major I met my senior year. I’m divorced. And I’ve been back in Shelter Valley, practicing child life full-time, for the past five years. I live alone and am on call 24/7. My choice. Because that’s the way I like it.”
“No children?”
“No.” Something moved in and out of her expression so quickly he couldn’t make it out. Sadness, maybe.
Had she wanted children?
Or her husband had and she hadn’t?
It seemed kind of strange that a woman who knew so much about kids, and who clearly adored them, didn’t have any of her own.
“That wasn’t my question.”
She grinned. “Whose was it?”
Bowing his head, he tried to hold back his own grin, and lost the battle. “Okay, it was mine. But it wasn’t the one I’d meant to ask. Before. When I told you I had a question.” If he sounded anywhere near as idiotic to her as he sounded to himself, he should just hang his head and go home.
“What’s your question?” Grabbing a napkin, she wiped a drop of ketchup from Abraham’s mouth.
“Are we working?”
Frowning, she took a bite of her sandwich. Chewed and swallowed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Right now. What we’re doing here. Is this work?”
“As opposed to what?” She really seemed confused.
Breaking more pieces of bread and hamburger patty, Jon put them on the paper in front of Abraham.
He felt stupid. “I don’t know. Two people becoming friends...” It sounded as though he was hitting on her. Which he wasn’t. At all. Not that he hadn’t noticed how those jeans of hers hugged her long legs and a backside that— No. He was better than that. “Am I a client? I mean, I know you said I don’t have to pay you, but—”
“I’m happy to help you with Abe, Jon. Don’t worry about it.”
He wasn’t worried, exactly. Except when paranoia set in and he thought she might be a spy. “I’m not too sure about protocol for child life specialists.”