Praise for the Novels of Tara Taylor Quinn

“One of the skills that has served Quinn best…has been her ability to explore edgier subjects.”

—Publishers Weekly

“One of the most powerful Superromances I have had the privilege to review.”

—WordWeaving on Nothing Sacred

“Quinn writes touching stories about real people that transcend plot type or genre.”

—All About Romance

“Quinn explores relationships thoroughly…. Her vividly drawn characters are sure to win readers’ hearts.”

—Romance Communications

“Quinn’s latest contemporary romance offers readers an irresistible combination of realistically complex characters and a nail-bitingly suspenseful plot. Powerful, passionate and poignant, Hidden is deeply satisfying.”

—Booklist

“Somebody’s Baby is an exceptional tale of real-life people who are not perfect, feel heartache, make mistakes and have to find their inner strength…. Somebody’s Baby easily goes on my keeper shelf.”

—The Romance Reader Reviews

Where the Road Ends is “an intense, emotionally compelling story.”

—Booklist

Dear Reader,

Most of us, when we were children, spent a lot of time playing. As we grew up and responsibilities presented themselves, the child inside us was slowly buried. For some, the burial was complete and we forgot how to play at all. For many of the rest of us, playtime was minimal. We not only lost the “fun” that filled the majority of our waking hours, but we lost the ability to believe in things we couldn’t explain, to assume we’d be loved just because we existed, to wish for something with any expectation of receiving it.

A Child’s Wish is the story of a woman who didn’t lose that ability to listen to her heart, who didn’t lose the ability to believe in the things she couldn’t explain. It’s also the story of a child whose greatest wish, and her attempts to achieve it, could cost her her life. And it’s the story of a man who trusts only what he can explain with his head, not his heart.

A Child’s Wish feels, in part, like my own autobiography. While all the events are pure fiction, the catharsis, the coming of age, by all three of the story’s major players touched me personally. This story gave me hope and joy; it gave me not only the reminder, but the license, to play. I hope you can find the freedom to believe what your heart tells you, no matter where it leads—even if it goes against the crowd. I wish you all joy in life. I’m off to play now….

Tara Taylor Quinn

P.S. I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at P.O. Box 133584, Mesa, Arizona 85216 or through my Web site, www.tarataylorquinn.com.

A Child’s Wish
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kevin, Rachel, Mom and Sherry, the daily recipients of my intensity, who hang around in spite of me. You are the culmination of my deepest wishes and I am grateful for you every single day.

Acknowledgment

Many thanks to Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy David Parra for his generous contribution to the technical aspects of this book. And for the kindness, respect and humor with which he handled my ignorance.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER ONE

“MS. FOSTER, are you alone?” Startled as the loudspeaker sounded in her third-grade classroom during her Thursday-afternoon planning period, Meredith glanced up from the sloppily scrawled math problem she’d been trying to decipher.

“Yes, Mr. Shepherd.” She used the formality, just as she always did when anyone else was around—or could possibly be around.

“Could you come down to my office?” The principal’s inner sanctum—the only place in the building where one could be guaranteed an uninterrupted meeting.

Meredith dropped the purple pen she’d been using to grade papers.

“Yes, Mr. Shepherd. I’ll be right there.”

The beautiful March day had just taken a nosedive. She was in trouble again.

“YOU’RE THE BEST teacher I’ve ever had, Meredith. Year after year, your students average higher scores than any other students in the district on both national and local aptitude tests.”

“I know.” Hands clasped in her lap, one thumb rubbing the opposite palm, Meredith added, “Thank you.”

“You’re also the teacher who brings me the most parental phone calls.”

She occupied one of the two wooden armchairs in front of the scarred but spotless desk while the principal, dressed in casual slacks, cotton shirt and tie, stood at the window behind it.

“I know.”

“Those parents pay my salary.”

“I know.”

“And yours.”

She nodded, pulling her hair in the process as her waist-length ponytail got caught in the corner of the chair’s arm.

“Some of them make up the school board and the superintendent who oversee us.”

It must be bad.

“They are the community that—”

“Mark, I get the picture,” Meredith interrupted. “Mr. Barnett called.” She was only guessing, but it didn’t take a psychic to figure it out.

“He got me at home last night—during dinner.”

“I’m sorry.” For what, she wasn’t sure. Causing him aggravation, certainly. Interrupting his dinner, of course. But for telling the boy’s divorced mother that she suspected Tommy’s father was emotionally abusing him—no.

“You not only created grief that we didn’t need, your conversation with Tommy’s mother yesterday afternoon resulted in a nasty fight between the boy’s parents.”

Unfortunate, to be sure.

“Which should be avoided at the cost of an eight-year-old boy’s safety?” She shifted and felt a sting as the back of her leg stuck to the wood. If she’d ever learned to tuck her skirt beneath her when she sat, as her mother had urged her to do for most of her life, that wouldn’t have happened. Instead, the long folds of colorful cotton flowed around her.

“You’re a third-grade teacher, Meredith, not the school counselor. Your job includes speaking to parents about scholastic concerns, reading problems, poor test scores or a lack of attention in class—not about unproved suspicions of suicidal tendencies.”

“So I should just let a kid kill himself or rip himself to pieces considering it? I should let his monster of a father continue to tear him down until he eventually believes there’s no point in being alive?”

“He’s eight years old!”

“A very mature eight years old.”

“There’s a protocol for these things. Professionals who are in place to help if you suspect trouble. People who are trained to deal with sensitive issues, with families and life tragedies.”

“I’ve talked to Jean twice. She talked to Tommy and said she didn’t think there was any need to call in the boy’s parents—or to speak with him again unless something else came up.”

“Jean’s been with us for four years. She has almost a decade of child psychology training and is highly respected in her field.”

That might be. But Jean Saunders lived completely in her head. If it wasn’t logical, if it didn’t fit a predetermined pattern, it didn’t exist. “She’s missing something with this one.”

“What did she say?”

“That he’s suffering from the usual apprehensions, guilt and insecurity of an only child pulled apart by divorce. That at most, his parents are using him to get at each other. Which they are.”

“Meredith…” The name was drawn out in warning. “You have no way of knowing that.”

She didn’t respond to his comment. There was no point. Mark wouldn’t listen.

“Tommy is considering suicide,” she said softly, instead. “His father has convinced him that he’s not a stable child and that he is the sole cause of his parents’ divorce.”

His father was rich, powerful and the current district attorney.

Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Has he said as much to you?”

“No.”

“But you overheard him talking to someone else? One of the kids?”

“No.”

He stood behind her and began to pace. “I’m guessing he didn’t write a paper on the topic.”

“He’s only in third grade. We’re working on learning cursive script, nouns and verbs, not creative writing.”

Mark settled against the edge of the desk, directly in front of Meredith. She wished he wouldn’t do that. His closeness made this all much harder. And it was hard enough already.

This was one of those days when she found it a tempting idea to turn her back on Mark Shepherd, walk right past his secretary in the outer office on the other side of the thick mahogany door and out of this Bartlesville, Oklahoma, school forever.

But she didn’t know what she’d do if she couldn’t teach. And there was Tommy—and others like him—to consider.

“I’ll call Mr. Barnett and apologize,” she said, glancing up at the man she might have dated if they hadn’t been working together, if sexual relations between colleagues at the same school hadn’t been against district policy—and if he’d ever asked. “And then I’ll call Mrs. Barnett and tell her I was out of line and to disregard what I said.”

“You know as well as I do that she won’t. The suspicion has been planted.”

Meredith stood, which made her just inches short of her boss’s six feet, allowing her to meet him eye to mouth. Frank, her ex-fiancé, was Mark’s height. It had been one of the few things she’d ended up still liking about him.

“I hope for Tommy’s sake that she won’t ignore it,” she said to him, standing her ground. “I hope she gets him into counseling and away from his father eventually.”

“All of which you absolutely are not going to say to her.”

No. Because she couldn’t do any good for anyone if she was out of work and away from the children she knew she was here to help. But it would be hard.

“He did it to her, too,” she said, facing him, the chair at the back of her legs. “That’s why it was so easy for her to believe that he was doing it to their son.”

“Let me guess, she didn’t tell you that. You just know.”

“No.” She shook her head, the colorful earrings dangling. “She told me.”

“TOUGH DAY AT WORK?” Susan Gardner slowly ran her fingers through Mark’s hair, back and forth. He loved it when she did that.

“Hmm,” he said, his eyes half closed as he lounged beside her on the couch. He’d listened to Kelsey’s bedtime prayers an hour ago, checked to make sure that her cat was curled up beside her and was only now starting to relax.

“I really admire your ability to spend your entire day with kids and not go crazy,” she said. “I wouldn’t have the patience.”

“I could never spend my days looking down people’s throats and up their noses,” he responded, grinning.

She chuckled, as he’d meant her to. “I do not spend my days looking up people’s noses,” she said, tugging gently on a strand of his hair. “I only do that once or twice a week. Now if you want to talk about peering into ears…”

He didn’t. Not really, though he greatly respected her ability. He spent his days refereeing, while Susan, an ear, nose and throat specialist, spent hers healing.

“Kelsey seemed awfully subdued tonight.”

Susan was being kind.

“She was rude,” he said, frustrated with his nine-year-old daughter. She’d always had such a big heart, her awareness of those around her advanced for her age. Lately, however, there were moments when she was a person he didn’t even know.

“She doesn’t like me.”

“It’s not you….” Mark turned his head, taking in the beauty of the woman beside him. Susan’s hair was short, dark, sassy. Her eyes big and luminous. Nothing like the long red-gold hair and soft green eyes of the woman who’d made his day ten times more difficult than it had needed to be.

He liked short, dark and sassy.

“Kelsey’s not used to sharing me.”

“We’ve been dating for almost six months.”

“But she had me to herself for almost three years before that.”

Her hand trailed down the side of his face to his neck. “I might believe that, if you two didn’t still have three nights a week alone,” she said and shook her head. “I’m not that great with children. I like them, I just don’t know how to relate to them. Put me in an operating room and I’m calm and confident, but leave me alone with a child who’s not a patient and I’m completely out of my element. I don’t know what to say.”

“You just talk to them,” Mark explained, touched by her earnestness. “They’re people like everyone else, only shorter.”

“They don’t think like adults.”

“So, you were a kid once. Think back to that.”

She sighed, resting her head against his shoulder. “I don’t ever remember being a kid. My folks had me on the fast track before I was five.”

Her parents were older; he’d met them several times. And she’d been something of a child prodigy. She was four years younger than he was and she’d been in medical school when he’d still been an undergraduate in college. She hadn’t had many chances to make friends her own age. He knew all this. He’d just never considered the possibility that her unusual upbringing might have robbed her of childhood thoughts as well as everything else.

“We’ll work on it,” he told her, reminding himself to think of some ways to do that. Tomorrow.

Tonight his mind was tired and his body was restless. He slid an arm around Susan, enjoying the slender shapeliness of her athletic body. She came to him eagerly, raising her mouth for his kiss.

They wouldn’t sleep together tonight. Mark never had sex in his house when Kelsey was home. But he needed to—tonight more than many other nights.

Her lips opened and he slid his tongue inside, finding the rhythm that had become familiar to them over the months, relishing her response. Until he reminded himself that he had to stop.

“Being a parent’s tough sometimes,” he said with a groan.

“Did you get a sitter for tomorrow night?” Susan’s whisper was hoarse and not quite even.

She’d invited him to her place for grilled steak—and a couple of hours in her bed.

“Not yet.” Mark’s mood dropped as the day—the week—came back to him. “It’s the spring dance,” he said. “But I have one more person to try.”

“If you can’t find anyone else, I’m sure Meredith would do it.”

“No.” Mark regretted his tone the second he’d responded. Regretted, too, that being friends with people at work wasn’t against policy—unlike dating. It would be a damned fine reason to keep Meredith Foster out of his life a whole lot more.

Susan leaned back to look at him. “Uh-oh.”

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Meredith Foster was Susan’s best friend. Meredith had introduced them to each other.

“What’d she do?” Susan asked, her eyes serious, concerned, but with a hint of a smile on lips still wet from his kisses.

With as few words as possible, he told her. And wasn’t at all pleased when Susan sat back after a moment and said softly, “She’s probably right, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” He was tired. Cantankerous. He’d been cussed out a second time by Larry Barnett that afternoon. His daughter was being snippy. He needed to make love. Meredith Foster was his scapegoat.

“How many times have you called her into your office over the past four years?”

Mark sank down on the couch, his feet on the floor straight out in front of him, his head resting against the cushion. “I have no idea. Too many.”

The lights were low, and soft new-age jazz played in the background. He should be relaxed.

“And how many times has she been wrong?”

“Every one of them. She steps outside her position, she apologizes and life goes on. Until it happens again. She’s a damn good teacher, Suze, I’d hate to lose her, but she butted heads with a powerful man this time and I don’t know how long I can keep explaining things away.”

“I mean about the kids, Mark,” Susan said, her voice filled with compassion—whether for him or her friend, he wasn’t sure. Knowing Susan, it was probably a bit of both. “How often has she been wrong about the kids?”

In a way, he resented her generosity. Meredith Foster deserved anger tonight, not compassion.

“She’s good with the kids, no one’s arguing about that.”

Susan straightened up on the edge of the couch, facing him. “How many times have her predictions turned out to be true?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you,” he said. “The point is irrelevant. Anyone can guess and be right fifty percent of the time.”

“I’d bet my retirement fund that her percentage is closer to eighty or ninety than fifty.”

He highly doubted it—but he couldn’t prove either of them right without a hell of a lot more work than he had time for. Meredith Foster was stepping outside the boundaries of her position and she could cost both of them their jobs. If she’d wanted to psychoanalyze, she should have gone into psychology.

“What about Amber McDonald?”

“Who?” He opened an eye to glance at Susan. Other than her current choice of topic, she was good company. He was glad she was there.

“That little girl two years ago. She was being sexually abused by a family friend and no one suspected anything until Meredith came forward.”

She was Amber Walker now. Her mother had remarried and moved the child to a different state. Last he’d heard, she’d joined Girl Scouts and was starting to socialize a bit.

“Amber must have told her something,” he said.

“Testimony revealed that she’d been threatened and manipulated so completely that she couldn’t even tell the police, her mother or counselors about it—not even after the guy was arrested.”

He’d forgotten that. It had been a minute detail compared to the anguish everyone—including Mark—had experienced over the incident. That event had branded within him a fierce need to protect his daughter. He’d carefully screened the four teenage girls who were permitted to sit with Kelsey. And at no time, under any circumstances, were these girls to have anyone over when they were in his home. If there was an emergency, the police were to be called. Followed by him.

“Meredith felt it, Mark,” Susan said, her brow creased. “I know it’s hard to grasp, this gift of hers, but that doesn’t make it any less real.”

He stared at her, not sure what to say. He’d suspected that Susan put credence in Meredith Foster’s fantasies, but she’d never before actually come out and said so. They’d managed to avoid conversation on the subject until now.

He respected her right to believe whatever she believed. She just wasn’t going to convince him. It wasn’t logical.

“Has she ever known stuff about you without first being told?” he asked. He was somewhat curious to hear the answer, but he also hoped to show her the hole in her theory. Meredith and Susan had been friends since they were fifteen years old—having met at a church youth function and found common ground in their non-traditional lives.

“All the time.”

Mark’s eyes opened wide at her response. Susan was a medical doctor, for God’s sake. A scientist.

“Ten minutes after Bud died, Meredith was at my door. I was still in shock, hadn’t called anyone yet, and there she was.”

“You said she stopped by often during the last days of your husband’s fight with leukemia.”

“She did. But she always called first to see if Bud was awake. She didn’t want to impinge on what little time we had left together.”

“So maybe she was in the area.”

Susan shook her head. “She knew, Mark. She didn’t knock, she just used the extra key, came in and found me on the bed beside him sobbing….”

Mark’s throat tightened as Susan’s eyes filled with tears. He could see her need to believe—he hurt for the anguish she’d been through, and cared enough to let the rest go.

Pulling her against him he held her while she cried, rubbing her back, wanting to do whatever he could to ease a grief that he understood would be with her always. Three and a half years had passed since Barbie had walked out on him and Kelsey, and the ache still throbbed as intensely as ever during the dark hours.

“THESE ARE BAD MEN.”

Kelsey Shepherd leaned over on the stained couch to whisper to her mother. Two scary-looking old guys had come in from the garage door and they were putting something in the refrigerator. Kelsey thought they were gross.

Dad would kill her if he knew she was there with them.

Smiling, Barbie was shaking her head. “They’re fine,” she whispered back quickly and Kelsey stared at her. Was her mom okay? Even after all these times seeing her, she couldn’t get used to the short, choppy hair and no makeup and sloppy clothes. She remembered her mom being beautiful.

Of course, maybe that was just kid stuff.

“Don, sweetie, come on over and meet Kelsey,” Mom said. She squeezed Kelsey’s hand so hard her fingernails cut into Kelsey. “Kelsey, this is Don.”

The bigger of the two men, the one with the beard that mostly covered his mouth and made it so you couldn’t tell if he was smiling or getting ready to spit, came over, his big boots making a lot of noise on the tile floor, which, as far as Kelsey could tell, covered the whole house.

“Hi there!” he said, rubbing Kelsey’s head. She wanted to jerk away but she was afraid to upset her mom. Her mom wasn’t doing so good today. She was in one of those moods where she could be happy and then all of a sudden cranky.

“Hi,” she finally said, leaning into her mother.

“So your mom here tells me you’re in fourth grade.”

Another squeeze of her hand. “Uh-huh.”

“You like your teacher?”

I’d like it if you’d go away. “She’s okay.”

“You get good grades?”

“Uh-huh.”

Did Mom really live with this guy? When she could have Daddy?

“I’ll bet you have lots of friends, a pretty girl like you.”

Kelsey felt creepy. She wanted to leave.

Her mother’s nails bit into her hand again, reminding Kelsey that she hadn’t answered.

“Uh-huh.” If she didn’t love her mother so much, she’d never come back to this place, for sure. She hoped Mom wouldn’t make her. She liked driving around in the car more—even if it was old and rusty and had ripped seats and a bad smell.

“Cool.” Don smacked his lips, leaned down and gave her mother a wet, messy kiss that lasted so long she could smell that he stank. He slid a finger through the hole in the thigh of her mom’s jeans. Just when Kelsey was going to jump up and leave, Don stood and went out the garage door. Kelsey listened for a car, hoping he was leaving, but there was only quiet.

Mom let go of Kelsey’s hand and gave her a hug and a soft kiss like she used to do at bedtime. Kelsey almost had to wipe it off. She didn’t want any spit from that awful guy on her, anywhere.

“You remember that ‘fluffy puppy’ book we used to read?” her mom asked, like she’d read her mind or something.

“Yeah.” Kelsey still had it.

“Remember how the cover was all stained and torn?”

“Yeah.” She liked it that way.

“The story was still the best, huh?”

What was even better was that her mom remembered. And was talking like those days were important to her, too. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s how Don and his friend James are. They’re kind of rough-looking on the outside sometimes, but inside they’re the best.”

Oh. Well, she hadn’t looked at the puppy book in a long time. It was probably covered up with her puke and stuff.

“He has yellow teeth.” The hand running through her hair stopped.

“Coffee stained is all. Don’s a truck driver and has to stay awake all night sometimes.”

“Daddy drinks coffee.”

Her mother didn’t say anything. She never seemed to listen when Kelsey mentioned Daddy, but Kelsey kept trying anyway. Her mom put both arms around her, pulling her close and Kelsey forgot all about her dad. If only she could come home from school every day and have her mom there waiting with a hug—the way Josie’s mom waited for them.

“James has a daughter your age,” her mom said, and Kelsey didn’t feel as good. If all Mom was going to talk about was those men, then Kelsey shouldn’t have come. Didn’t she realize that Kelsey’d be grounded for a year if she was caught here? Daddy thought she was at Josie’s house, which she would be in time for him to come pick her up.

“Last month, James stayed up all night sewing trim on a dance costume his daughter needed for a competition she was in.”

Kelsey nodded. A dad who sewed. That was cool. But one who looked all dirty and long-haired and tattooed like James?

She wanted to ask if his daughter had tattoos, too, but she was afraid that Mom would switch back to being cranky again. Even as old as Kelsey was now, that part of her mom still scared her.

CHAPTER TWO

“HI, MS. FOSTER, come on in. Daddy said you were coming. Can we do some more of that yarn stuff like we did last time?”

Meredith grinned at the petite little girl with long, straight dark hair. Her face was often solemn, but right now she was smiling profusely. “Hi, Kelse,” Meredith said, stepping through Mark Shepherd’s front door, a denim bag over her shoulder. “Yes, I brought plastic canvas and yarn. I thought we’d make a butterfly bank for your room—how’s that sound?”

“Cool! I got that new comforter, too,” the child said, closing and locking the door before skipping ahead in front of Meredith. “You know the purple and pink one with butterflies?”

“I remember,” Meredith said, completely comfortable with Kelsey. If only her father were already gone and Meredith wouldn’t have to suffer through even a few minutes in his company.

“You want to see it?”

Did she want to run the risk of running into Mark in the bedroom hallway?

“I do, but can I put this down first?” She slid her bag down her arm.

“Oh.” Kelsey’s expression was momentarily blank as she glanced at the bag. “Sure. I forgot. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize, honey.” Even before she’d had Kelsey in class the year before, Meredith had adored this child. She was sensitive and aware and far more responsible than most kids her age. Meredith missed seeing her every day.

Heading for the kitchen where they’d sit at the table and work on their project with the little TV mounted beneath a cupboard playing one of the Doris Day movies she’d brought, Meredith set her bag down and waited. Once Mark was on his way, the tension would be gone.

“I love your jeans,” Kelsey said, plopping onto one of the wooden kitchen chairs. “I wanted some with beads like that, only instead of flowers they had butterflies, but Daddy said all that stuff would come off in the wash anyway.”

Oh, great. She was already in the doghouse with this man and now she either had to lie and say that the jeans fell apart when she washed them, or she would have to tell his daughter he was wrong about that. She bent to pet the calico cat that was weaving itself in and out between her legs.

“Are you and Daddy fighting again?” Kelsey’s pert nose wrinkled as she glanced over at Meredith.

“Why would you ask that?”

“You are, aren’t you?” Kelsey frowned. “He said Susan asked you to come over tonight and usually he asks, and since he sees you at school and all, it’s not like he couldn’t get ahold of you. I figured that meant you were fighting again.”

As the cat wandered off to investigate something more interesting, Meredith dropped down opposite Kelsey, hating the tightness she was feeling just beneath her rib cage. It meant she wasn’t relaxed—and it was uncomfortable. “Your father and I don’t fight.”

“Well, you don’t maybe. I don’t think you’d ever have a fight with anyone. But he sure gets mad at you.”

So much for keeping things between teacher and principal.

“Do the other kids at school know that, or are you extra smart?”

“I think it’s just me, ’cause I live with him,” Kelsey said, her adult-sounding assurances so touching.

“Well…” Meredith took a deep breath and sent up a quick request for assistance, please. “Sometimes I get a little carried away when I try to help, and your dad doesn’t want me to lose my job.”

“How could you? He’s your boss.”

“Yes, but the school board is his boss and if they told him to fire me, he’d have to do it.”

“Are they going to tell him that?”

“No, sweetie, they aren’t,” Meredith said, with a cheerful smile, crossing her fingers. “Your dad just worries a lot sometimes.”

“I do not worry.”

Swinging around, Meredith stood up and saw Mark in the doorway behind her. His snug-fitting jeans and long-sleeved white shirt distracted her for a moment—but only for a moment.

“You worry all the time,” she told him. “About everything.”

“I get concerned, with legitimate cause. I do not worry.” He said the words firmly, with a completely straight face.

Meredith burst out laughing. Kelsey’s worried stare settled on her father, until Mark slowly smiled.

Thank goodness. He was finished being angry with her. This time.

“I’m out of here, pumpkin,” he said, resting his hand on his daughter’s head.

She nodded.

“Bedtime is ten tonight, since Meredith is here and it’s not a school night.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t answer the…”

“Door.” Kelsey turned around to grin at her father. “We know the rules, Daddy,” she said with only a hint of condescension.

“Then give me a hug so I can get lost, as you two are obviously eager to have me do.”

Meredith’s throat grew tight as she watched Kelsey jump up and throw her arms around her father’s trim waist. Mark held on for a long moment and then let her go, glancing over at Meredith.

“I don’t know how late I’ll be.”

She didn’t want to think about why—it was kind of embarrassing—but at the same time she was glad to know that Susan was intimately involved. Her best friend was slowly but surely coming back to life.

“Tell Suze I said hi and I love her.”

With a nod, Mark was gone.

An hour later, the muscles beneath Meredith’s rib cage still had not relaxed.

“You feeling okay?” she asked Kelsey. Tongue peeping out one side of her mouth, the girl was intent on following the pattern of squares and colors that Meredith had placed on the table in front of her.

“Fine,” Kelsey said, her needle going through the plastic canvas with quiet deliberation.

Meredith had assumed that as soon as Mark left she’d relax. She’d been fine before she arrived. So what was making her tense? Her own internal radar? Someone else’s?

The fact that Mark and Susan were doing what adults do when they’re alone together—while she spent her Friday evening stitching butterflies with a fourth grader?

“You and Josie getting along okay?” The girls might be suffering from too much togetherness, now that Mark had agreed to let Kelsey go to Josie’s every day after school in exchange for summer care for Kelsey’s friend.

“Yep. We’re best friends now.”

Meredith’s yarn knotted. She hated it when that happened. “You used too long a piece,” Kelsey said, glancing over and then looking back at her own work.

“I know. I make a better teacher than a doer.” She dropped the needle and canvas on the table. “You want a snack?”

“Ice cream?”

“Of course. What weird flavors did your dad buy this week?”

“Butterfinger and rocky road.”

Grabbing three bowls and two spoons, Meredith pulled open the drawer where Mark kept his ice cream scoop. “So what’ll it be for you, young lady?” she asked, scooping a bit of vanilla into the first bowl for Gilda, the cat, who was purring at Meredith’s ankle.

“What are you having?” Kelsey asked without looking up.

“I guess I’ll try Butterfinger. I’ve never had it before.”

“Then that’s what I’ll have, too.”

“DO YOU THINK judging a book by its cover is the same as knowing about people?”

It was five minutes to ten and Meredith was tucking Kelsey into her white-painted canopy bed, pulling up the new comforter. Though it’d been in the fifties all week, the temperature was supposed to drop down to near freezing that night.

“What do you mean?” Meredith asked, sitting on the side of the bed, careful not to disturb Gilda, who’d already curled up and was sleeping soundly. She tried to ignore the tightness in her stomach—too much ice cream, she told herself.

“If a book looks bad that doesn’t mean the story inside is bad. So if people look bad, should we still think of them as good?”

Meredith forced herself to focus carefully on the nine-year-old’s questions and ignore the increasing pain in her gut.

“That’s not a yes or no question, sweetie,” she said. “No, you shouldn’t judge people just by how they look, but people put out messages about themselves—messages you need to learn to read as you go out into the world and deal with strangers.” The words rolled off her tongue without conscious thought.

Kelsey nodded, but her eyes were full of confusion.

“Say, for instance, you see someone who has wild clothes on. That wouldn’t mean that the person doesn’t have a good heart. It might just mean that he or she has artistic taste.”

“What if they have tattoos?”

A few years ago the question might instantly have been a cause for concern. “Lots of people have tattoos these days,” Meredith replied. “It’s kind of the in thing for college students, and lots of moms are getting little ones on their ankles and other places. And you’ve seen girls at the mall with them on their lower backs, haven’t you?”

The girl nodded, her hair falling around her shoulders.

“It’s more accepted now, so people are changing their opinions about tattoos and a lot of quite regular people are getting them.”

“They might be good people?”

“Right.”

“And say, maybe, someone was greasy and dirty looking… It could be that he was just working in the garage, huh?”

“Could be. But unless you know that he was in a garage, I’d be careful there. Someone who doesn’t have good hygiene might be wonderful inside, but it might also be a sign that he or she is down on his luck—which could make him desperate. Or it might mean he has no respect for the human body, in which case you don’t want to go anywhere near him.”

Kelsey’s features relaxed, but Meredith’s stomach didn’t.

“Okay?” Meredith asked.

Kelsey nodded, sliding down until the covers were up to her chin.

“You have some stranger bothering you?” Meredith had to ask.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I just heard someone talking about judging people and it didn’t really make sense to me, is all.”

Thank God for that. Kelsey Shepherd had already been through enough in her young life. And so had her dad.

AT TEN AFTER TWELVE Meredith heard Mark’s automatic garage door start to open. She yanked on her ankle-length hikers, tied the laces and grabbed her bag, which was packed and waiting. And then she reached for the remote control and turned off the TV.

“Hi,” Mark said, coming in and dropping his keys on the brass plate on the counter.

“Hi.” Meredith looked at the keys rather than at Mark. If his hair was mussed or he had that satisfied look in his eyes, she’d die of embarrassment.

“I know it’s late, but you got a minute?”

Her gaze darted to his. “Sure.” Her stomach was still uncomfortable, but she’d lain down after Kelsey went to bed and it was better than it had been before.

“In the living room?”

Odd, but…okay.

The first time she’d ever been in Mark’s living room, three years ago for a retirement party for one of the teachers, she’d been impressed with the simple, elegant gold, brown, maroon and green decor. The room had the feeling of a cozy fall day, right down to the coasters on the plain oak coffee table. Rather than choosing the love seat or the sofa, Meredith chose the autumn-colored wing-back armchair. It only sat one. No awkwardness there.

“What’s up?”

“I need your help with Kelsey.”

Meredith’s stomach tensed again. “What’s wrong?” The little girl had been happy enough that night.

“Nothing, when she’s with you.” Mark’s words weren’t quite resentful, but his frustration was evident.

“She’s not okay with you?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t seem to like Susan and I don’t get it. Susan’s kind and gentle and she wants so badly to be Kelsey’s friend.”

Settling back into the chair, allowing her bag to slide down her arm and onto the floor, Meredith nodded. “I know she does.”

“I’m sure it’s just because Kelsey resents having to share me, but I have no idea what to do about it. I make certain that she and I still have at least three nights a week alone and on at least another two, she’s included in whatever plans Susan and I make.”

If only more parents tried that hard. “So what do you want from me?”

She could take Kelsey to her house to spend the night, or even a weekend now and then, but that wasn’t going to solve the problem.

“To see what you think. I couldn’t talk to you about this at school, of course, and most of the time you’re around, it’s with either Susan or Kelsey there.”

Thank goodness for that. She wasn’t sure how long she and Mark could last without fighting, if they spent much time together by themselves. She had a tendency to piss him off.

“I guess I was hoping, since Kelsey seems to adore you, that you’d be able to talk to her or something. Or maybe have some insights as to what I might do.”

Meredith wasn’t sure what to say. Susan was her closest friend—a lot of times in her life she’d been Meredith’s only friend. She would be loyal to Susan until death. So would it be disloyal to talk about her behind her back if she was attempting to help Susan get what she’d said she wanted?

Waiting until she felt calm inside, until she felt the doubts fall away, to be replaced by the certainty that she’d learned long ago to trust, Meredith let the quiet of the room settle around her.

And then with more confidence, she said, “Susan never learned how to interact with kids.”

Yes, it was okay to say that. “She wants to be Kelsey’s friend but she has no inner direction, nothing instinctual, not even a memory to draw on to tell her how to be a friend to someone that age. Which makes her feel awkward and insecure, and so she forces things. Kids can tell when people aren’t being natural with them and they respond with a defensiveness that’s mostly unconscious.”

That was how it felt. Pretty much.

Mark thought for a minute, hands rubbing slowly against each other. They were nice hands. Big. Dependable-looking. Meredith had seen them gently wipe away tears, tenderly hold shoulders, sign papers and applaud success.

“I understand,” he said at last. “But I still have no idea what to do about it.”

“I’m not sure, either,” she said. “Except to keep doing what you’re doing. The more they’re around each other, the more Kelsey’s going to be able to see that Susan’s a good person and perhaps start to trust her a bit. And the more Susan will learn what a nine-year-old kid’s about and start to relax, which will help Kelsey trust her.”

And…

No. Meredith refused to acknowledge her inner “awareness.” So what if she’d been shown a picture, a flash only, of her and Kelsey together. Then together again somewhere else. That didn’t mean it was real. Or even if it was, that she had to take heed of it.

And…

“And I think that it might help if, instead of always calling teenagers to sit with her—girls who are trustworthy and will keep her safe, mind you, but kids who don’t really see Kelsey as anything more than a chance to earn a few extra bucks—you call me. Or let me take her to my place for a night. That way she won’t feel like a castoff.”

Her life’s purpose was to help kids. She knew that. Any kids. Anywhere. Any way she could. It wasn’t so much a choice as a conviction that she wouldn’t be happy any other way. Helping kids completed her.

“I can’t ask you to do that. You have a life.”

“You aren’t asking. I’m offering. And it’s up to me how I spend my life.”

“Why would you give up your weekend for me? I’m not even that nice to you.”

“You’re not un-nice to me.” She should have left the television on. Of course, that would be out in the kitchen, which wouldn’t offer much distraction in here. “Besides, I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Kelsey and Susan.”

He nodded. And relaxed. And when she realized she knew that, her own tension grew. She didn’t want to know any more about him than anyone else knew. Especially when all she experienced were random feelings without explanation and minus a name tag so she couldn’t even be sure of the source. But someone in this room had just relaxed, and it wasn’t her.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thank you.”

Time to go. Meredith grabbed her bag as she stood, moving as quickly as she could for the door without looking as if she was running. He was right beside her, reaching for the doorknob—and not opening it.

Meredith didn’t like the way his tired, yet…something…look made her feel. All edgy and, oh, maybe…she didn’t know what. Just more. Was it him? Her? Both?

“In all the months I’ve been seeing Susan, I’ve never once heard of you out on a date,” he said.

“So?”

“I’m surprised. You’re a beautiful woman….”

And thirty-one. Her clock was ticking—slowly, granted, but still ticking.

Yet, if he thought she was beautiful…

“Thanks.”

She moved toward the door. It didn’t open. His hand was solidly on the handle. Hell, it was solid, period. Reassuring. Capable. She’d never thought much about men’s hands before.

“Why don’t you?”

Meredith’s first priority was to get out of there. She needed space. Peace.

“I find that my life’s happier that way.”

“Are you gay?”

In today’s world it was a reasonable question. “Does it matter?”

“No!” He stepped back. “Of course not.” And then… “Are you?”

She debated her answer. If she’d been gay, this intense awareness of him would never be an issue; never be discovered or even suspected.

“No, unfortunately, I’m not,” she said.

“Unfortunately?”

Yeah, she’d stepped right into that one.

Meredith shrugged, catching her hair in the strap of her bag. As she reached up to pull it out and slid her hand into the beaded back pocket of her jeans, she decided to tell him. Maybe then she could escape and go home. Where she was safe.

“It would’ve saved me a lot of heartache.”

“How so?”

“I was engaged.” It wasn’t something she talked about. And out of respect for her, Susan wouldn’t have told Mark, either. “Frank was kind and smart, witty, good-looking. Motivated. He got along well with his family. And with my mother. I trusted him.”

She stopped, her chest tightening as she fought the memories.

“He had an affair,” Mark said softly, his eyes darkening. “What an idiot.” He leaned back against the door.

“No, he didn’t,” Meredith said. “I wish he had. It would’ve been a lot easier to deal with, because that would have been his problem, his weakness and not mine.”

“So what happened?” Mark folded his arms across chest.

Solid chest. Strong. Reliable. Firm.

“He didn’t show up at the wedding.” A woman’s worst nightmare. Or at least hers. And it had come true.

Sometimes she still couldn’t believe it had really happened. Surely that whole part of her life had merely been one of those nightmares that seemed so real you had a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.

“The church was full. My mother had spent far too many thousands of dollars on flowers and food and photography and a band and invitations. I was there in my dress, my friends all around me in theirs…”

“Damn!”

Mmm-hmm.

“I waited not one hour but two,” she said with a twisted grin. As soon as she could actually laugh when she told this story, it would no longer have the power to hurt her. Maybe three lifetimes from now.

Which was why she never told anyone. Susan knew, but then she’d been the woman in the soft purple maid-of-honor gown, holding Meredith up as she walked sobbing from the church.

People who’d known her then knew. They’d all been there. Witnesses.

“Did you ever find out why?” Mark didn’t touch her, but she thought he wanted to. Or maybe it was just that she wanted him to. Wanted a man to find her worth the effort.

She nodded, and stood with her chin held high. “There was a letter for me taped to the front door of our apartment. He’d moved all his stuff out while I was at the church waiting—”

“Cold bastard!”

Meredith smiled a little at the interruption, nodding. She never should have started this, and now she was having to force herself to breathe.

“What did it say?”

“That as much as he loved me, he couldn’t handle a lifetime of living with me. I’m too much.”

“What does that mean?”

“You need to ask?” she said, staring up at him. “You’re right there with him, Mark. I’m too intense. I feel too much. And when I experience certain sensations, I act. Even if the situation is one I should probably walk away from. But you know what?” She was feeling a little better. “I’m never going to walk away, not from any of it. I can’t. I am what I am. I’m intense, just as my fiancé said. I feel everything around me, and I’m glad about that. I can’t imagine life without the depth, without the magic that accompanies the pain.” She was on a roll. Perhaps she should do this more often. She could stand on street corners and tell everyone her story.

“I like me.” She finally said it. And stood there shocked. She’d never said that before; never consciously thought about it. She’d never known it.

But it was true.

Life was good.

CHAPTER THREE

“HEY, DADDY.”

Mark glanced up from the bathroom sink on Monday morning to meet his daughter’s sweet brown eyes in the mirror. She was wearing hip-hugger jeans that were getting a little too short, along with hiking shoes and a beige long-sleeved sweater. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail that was decidedly crooked. His heart caught—how he loved this kid. “Hey, Kelse.”

She boosted herself onto the second sink, watching as her father scraped another row of shaving cream from his cheek.

“I fed Gilda.”

“Good girl. Thanks,” he said, while he rinsed the razor. “What do you want for breakfast? Cream of wheat or pancakes?”

She scrunched her chin for a moment. “There’s more dishes from pancakes, so cream of wheat.”

Mark stopped, razor halfway to his face, and grinned at her. “What do the dishes matter?” he asked. “You don’t do them alone.”

“I know.” Her voice was light. Her gaze followed his hand from sink to face and back again—just as it had done most of the mornings of her life. This ritual was one of the best parts of his day.

Before Kelsey, Mark used to shave in the nude. Since his daughter’s birth, however, he’d always had slacks waiting by the shower so he’d be ready to run if she called.

“I forgot to tell you, Lucy’s mom called and invited you over to play with Lucy after school Friday. I can pick you up on my way home, or you can spend the night and I can get you Saturday morning.”

“No, thank you.” The heel of Kelsey’s shoe kicked lightly against the cupboard as she swung her leg. Mark considered telling her to stop. But the wood was dark enough that scuffs wouldn’t show. And anyway, what showed could be cleaned.

“What?” he asked when he realized what she’d said, all thoughts of wood and scuff marks leaving his mind. “You love going to Lucy’s! And you haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.”

Lucy and Kelsey had gone through preschool and kindergarten together before the other girl’s family had moved across town.

“I know. I just don’t want to this Friday, Daddy.” Those soft, dark eyes glanced up at him. “Do I have to?”

“No, Kelse, of course you don’t. But can you tell me why you don’t want to?” He dried his razor and put it back inside the cabinet. “Did something happen the last time you were there?”

“No.”

“Did you and Lucy have a fight?”

“No.”

“Was her mom or dad mean to you?”

“No.”

Something wasn’t right. “Then what?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. I just don’t want to.”

Short of calling his daughter a liar, which wouldn’t get the desired results anyway, Mark was going to have to leave it at that.

He didn’t like it.

“Turn around, sweetie. Let’s fix that ponytail,” he said, tugging gently on the beige-and-blue holder she’d chosen and sliding it down the silky length of her hair. Her mother’s hair.

“I’ll call Lucy’s mom first thing this morning,” he said, compelled at least to try one more time. “If you’re sure that’s what you really want.”

She nodded, helping him create another crooked ponytail.

“HELLO?”

“Hi, Mom. It’s me.” Meredith held the cell phone against her ear with one shoulder while she unwrapped a granola bar, which—with a glass of Diet Coke—would be her breakfast.

“Meri, hi!”

Meredith’s mood sank. Too much exuberance. She’d been right to follow her impulse to call. Something was wrong.

She had to leave in five minutes if she was going to get to class before her kids started to arrive. And with third-graders, that was always a good idea.

“I was feeling a little uneasy about you this morning,” she said, holding her unwrapped breakfast in one hand as she put down her drink long enough to haul her school bag up onto her shoulder. The big green M&M emblazoned on the black patent leather was facing out.

“I went out to go to bridge club last night and my tire was flat,” she said. Evelyn Foster, a retired scientist and executive from Phillip’s Petroleum, lived in a nice condominium in Florida in an active-living adult community.

“Did you call road service?” Drink back in hand, Meredith headed for the door. “You got that extended warranty.”

“I know. I called and they’re coming out first thing this morning.”

Hmm. Then…

“Nope, I still feel uneasy. Come on, Mom, I’m late. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Evelyn chuckled. “You know how hard it is having a kid you can’t keep things from?” she asked.

Meredith’s tension eased, but only slightly. “Your kid’s all grown up, Mom. You don’t need to hide things. Come on, what gives?”

She was in her car—a Mustang convertible, which she never drove with the top down.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Evelyn said, drawing out the words in a way that told her they were a lie. “I have to go in for a liver biopsy in the morning.”

Her tires squealed and Meredith stopped fifty feet short of the sign at the end of her block. “What?” A quick, automatic glance in the mirror assured her no one was behind her on the dead-end street.

“I had my annual physical last week and the blood work raised a few questions.”

“What’s the worst case scenario?”

“Cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, maybe hepatitis….”

Meredith dropped her granola bar onto the car’s console next to her drink. Stared out the windshield, registering nothing—focusing. Feeling.

Her widowed mother. Alone in Florida—except for the many friends she’d made. Kind. Sixty-one. Active.

Alive. Very alive.

Meredith nodded. She stared again, barely aware of a horn honking behind her, a car speeding around her.

And then, blinking, she picked up her granola bar, stepped on the gas and turned onto the road that would take her to school.

“It’s going to be okay, Mom,” she said.

“It is?”

She found it hard to listen to the fear in her mother’s voice. All her life Evelyn had been Meredith’s strength. Sometimes her only strength. Meredith didn’t want to think about her mother getting older. Failing.

“Yes,” she told her, grinning over her own relief as much as for the relief she felt for her mom.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith told her, eating half the bar in two bites. “But you feel fine to me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I knew it wasn’t serious,” Evelyn said brusquely. Then she added, “I love you, Meri.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

“Be safe.”

“You, too.”

Meredith clicked the phone shut and took a long swig of soda. She was tired and the day had hardly begun.

“SUSAN INVITED US over to her house for dinner tonight. You want to go?” Mark had been working up to the question most of the morning and now they were almost at school.

His daughter, ponytail centered on her head after a third try, turned away. “No.”

He could barely hear the words aimed at the passenger window, but her slumped posture said enough and his mood slipped a notch.

“How come? She’s going to make chicken alfredo. You loved her alfredo, remember?”

“I just don’t wanna.”

“But Monday night’s our night to have dinner with Susan.”

“It’s your night, not mine,” Kelsey said. “I never said I wanted to.”

This was going from bad to worse.

“Talk to me, Kelse,” Mark said, taking the long way to school. “Why don’t you like Susan? Do you resent the time I spend with her?”

“No.”

“Then what? Is it that she’s not your mom?”

“No!” The derision in the child’s tone put that one to rest.

Mark pulled onto the shoulder of the country road he’d chosen, put the car in Park. “Then what?”

His question garnered no response. Not even a shake of the head. But he had plenty of time to analyze the perfection of the ponytail his daughter was showing him.

“Why don’t you like her?” he asked again. He couldn’t deal with what he didn’t know.

“I do like her.”

Really? “Then why are you so quiet around her?”

The hardness in the eyes that turned to face him shocked Mark. He’d had no idea his daughter was capable of such strong negative emotion. “She treats me like I’m an alien from Mars.”

“No, she doesn’t,” he said, and then wished he’d bitten his tongue instead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to discount your feelings.”

Kelsey showed no reaction other than to stare out the windshield at blacktop, gravel and emptiness.

“Susan’s not very good with kids,” Mark said. “But only because she’s never been around them and not because she doesn’t like them. She never had a chance to be a kid herself. But she likes you, Kelse. She wants to get to know you, to be your friend.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Don’t argue perspective, his schooling taught him. It was a lose-lose approach. “Why do you think that?”

“I dunno.” Hard not to argue, when the opposing side gave illogical answers.

“You don’t have a problem with Ms. Foster—Meredith,” he said, in response to his daughter’s knowing glare. Meredith had been at their house the previous Thanksgiving for dinner, helping Susan with the meal. She’d granted the child the right to call her by her first name, since Kelsey had graduated from her class months before. As long as she could remember not to do it at school.

“So?” Kelsey said, sliding down in the seat as she crossed her arms over her chest. When had his precocious pal turned into a drama queen?

“She and Susan are best friends.”

“So?”

Well, he didn’t know. That was the point of this conversation. He thought. But obviously Kelsey didn’t think so. Until the past few months, they’d had no problem communicating. What had changed?

Not him. At least he didn’t think so.

“You never talk to Susan.” He tried a different approach, glancing at his watch. In fifteen minutes they were going to be late.

Good thing he was the boss. Because he was willing to miss the whole damn day if that was what it took to reach an understanding with Kelsey again.

“She never talks to me.”

This was getting more frustrating by the second.

“But you don’t wait for Meredith to talk to you.”

The child’s eloquent answer to that was a shrug.

He could make her clean her room. He could make her brush her teeth. He could make her do her homework. But he couldn’t make her share her confidences.

“What do you two talk about?” he asked, without much hope of enlightenment.

Kelsey sighed. “I’m growing up, Daddy. Girls have stuff.”

Stuff. Uh-huh. For the first time since his daughter’s birth, Mark felt completely incapable of caring for her.

“What kind of stuff?”

“You know,” she said, having a stare down with him. “Girl stuff.”

He almost choked. Did girls start that stuff at nine? He’d thought he had more time….

And then he caught the uncertainty in Kelsey’s innocent gaze. The child was out of her league.

At least they still had something in common.

“You don’t want to tell me.”

“Nope.”

“Is everything okay?”

She glanced over at him and then away. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

He had no idea.

“Have you ever tried to talk to Susan about some of this ‘stuff’?”

Kelsey’s silence said far too much.

Watching her for another minute, thinking over everything he knew about child development and patterns of behavior, Mark figured it was best to cut his losses for the moment. He pulled back onto the road and drove the rest of the way to school in silence.

And the first thing he did when he arrived was phone Lucy’s mom to say that Kelsey wouldn’t be coming on Friday, after all. Then he called Susan and cancelled dinner that night. As always, she was understanding.

MEREDITH STOOD AT THE DOOR to her classroom, dressed in a red turtleneck sweater and a black cotton shift that featured a colorful shoe print. She’d opted for hose and pumps in honor of a new week, and her gold shoe earrings, necklace and charm bracelet completed the day’s ensemble. Smiling, looking forward to Monday morning, she welcomed each student as the kids slowly filed in, shouted greetings at classmates, put backpacks in lockers, took their seats or a place at one of the computers against the far wall or stopped to chat with a friend.

“Good morning, Erin. How was your weekend?” Meredith asked a tiny red-head who, though the smallest in the class, had proven to be one of the most rambunctious. If there was trouble, Erin usually found it.

Innocently, but completely.

“Boorrringgg,” Erin sang, knocking her backpack into Jeremy Larson as she passed on her way to her locker.

“Hey!” Jeremy shoved back.

“Hold it!” Meredith’s voice stopped all movement in the classroom. “Jeremy, what’s the first rule of this classroom?”

The boy turned red and looked down. Then he mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Meredith asked, aware of the eyes turned in her direction, but focusing only on the boy.

“Don’t hit.” He refused to look at her.

That wasn’t it, exactly. “And?”

“Don’t be mad.”

That wasn’t it, either, not exactly. But he was close.

“Do you think Erin bumped into you on purpose?”

Jeremy shifted from foot to foot, his chin tucked down on his chest. He was one of the kids who caused her the greatest concern. He had far too much pent-up anger. But she had no idea why. He came from a good family—lots of siblings, support, closeness. She’d taught an older sister and a brother of his, so far. Knew both of his parents well enough to be completely comfortable with them.

“I didn’t,” Erin blurted out, as Jeremy remained silent.

“Jeremy?” Meredith said again, smiling as another couple of students shuffled in, eyes wide at the silence so early on a Monday morning. “Do you think she did it on purpose?”

“No.”

“Good. Erin? Do you have anything to say?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Meredith bit back a smile. “You already said that. What else?”

“I’m sorry.” The boisterous little girl spoke so softly she could barely be heard. But because of the earliness of the day and because of the kids still coming in, Meredith chose to accept the apology, thin as it was. She watched long enough to see that the kids were separated by half the room and then turned back to the door.

“Macy! How long have you been standing there?”

Mark’s secretary, Macy Leonard, was one of Meredith’s heroes. Calm and unflappable, the plump fiftyish woman exuded good nature.

Usually.

“What’s wrong?” Meredith asked more softly, reaching the other woman’s side.

“You’ve been summoned.” Her voice was low, serious. Concern shadowed her soft blue eyes.

With a quick look up at the loudspeaker directly over her head Meredith said, “I didn’t hear anything.”

Macy shook her head, her short gray curls stiff with spray. “He sent me. I’m supposed to stay with the kids.”

Her chest tightened. “He wants me to come right now?” Before she’d called roll or set the kids to work?

Macy nodded.

“Why?” Meredith asked, attempting to quell the nerves in her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

Shaking her head, the older woman gave Meredith’s hand a brief squeeze. “I don’t know, honey, but judging by the look on his face when he came from his office it’s probably best not to keep him waiting.”

“I used to think he was such a happy guy,” Meredith said softly, a bad attempt to make light of the situation. Better that than let her nerves have their way. That was never good.

With a quick clap of her hands, Meredith called her class to their seats, told them that Macy was in charge and moved after-lunch reading to first thing in the morning.

She’d never been called to Mark’s office twice in one month. Never two school days in a row.

She’d phoned both of the Barnetts as she’d promised to. And she hadn’t spoken to a single parent—or student, for that matter—since she’d gone home on Friday.

Hurrying down the hallway she tried her best not to fret, not to make a big deal out of something that would probably be nothing.

But she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what would require an early Monday morning summons. As a rule, a teacher never left her classroom if there were students in it, unless there was an emergency. The kids always took precedence over administrative business.

Had she talked to any other parents recently? Said anything that could have backfired and caused friction? She didn’t think so. Couldn’t remember if she had.

So who was missing that morning? She turned the corner, mentally checking her roster, praying there’d been no accidents or emergency surgeries over the weekend—nothing that she’d have to prepare her students to face.

Other than Tommy Barnett, she was pretty sure everyone had arrived before she’d left the room. And Tommy was always five to ten minutes late.

Mark was standing behind his desk, staring out the big metal-framed window that took up most of one wall. The lush green trees that Bartlesville was known for were in full spring bloom, but Meredith was pretty sure, judging by the tense way Mark was holding his shoulders and neck, that he wasn’t finding any joy in their beauty.

“Did you see the editorial section in the Republic this morning?” He spoke with his back to her.

“No.” Her heart started beating heavily, blood pounding so hard she could almost feel its passage. Had there been an accident?

Mark’s silence was excruciating. “I don’t get the newspaper…. I don’t watch the news, either,” she said inanely, in case he thought maybe she’d heard about whatever it was they had to discuss. “Too depressing.”

Mark shook his head, sighed loudly and turned. She couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes, but she knew he wasn’t pleased.

And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was more angry than sad and the unkind sentiment was directed at her.

At least, unlike Larry Barnett, he wasn’t lashing out.

Yet.

He reached for the Bartlesville morning paper and tossed it in her direction.

“Read it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

REPUBLIC EDITORIAL

FAMILIES AT RISK

Local Teacher Sticks Her Nose Where It Doesn’t Belong

Washington County district attorney Larry Barnett got the shock of his life Thursday evening when his ex-wife called to say she had to speak with him on a matter of urgent business regarding their eight-year-old son, Thomas. This “urgent business” was a message from Tommy’s teacher saying that recently elected, highly respected Barnett was abusing his son—and all on the basis of some kind of hunch!! In a society that is becoming obsessed with its own shadows, why would we put in our classrooms, in charge of our impressionable young children, women who send out alarms without a trace of proof? And to make matters worse, according to Barnett, the teacher in question had made the damaging statement after referring the boy to his school counselor, who sent him back with a clean report. Lincoln Elementary School principal Mark Shepherd assured Barnett that he had the situation in hand, after which an apology was forthcoming. An apology? For scaring a single mother half to death? For falsely accusing a father of hurting his own son? I say fire the woman immediately!

HOPING THE TREMBLING in her lower lip wasn’t visible, Meredith glanced up. “He didn’t waste any time, did he?”

It was only an editorial.

“That’s all you have to say?” His words were soft, far too controlled. She’d never seen Mark so angry.

“Bo Reynolds is always trying to scare up trouble about something.” Even Meredith, who rarely saw the paper, had heard of him. “Everyone knows you have to take him with a grain of salt.”

“I’ve had more than forty calls already this morning,” Mark said, still by the window and facing her now, arms behind his back.

She had a feeling they were being forcibly held there for her protection. He’d sooner have his hands around her throat. She stood up.

“From whom?” she asked, pretending a calm she couldn’t even remember how to feel.

“Parents who wanted to make sure their third-grader was not in the same class as Tommy Barnett.”

Sweat oozed out her pores. “How many of them were?”

“One.”

Out of four third-grade classes, roughly 120 students, with forty calls, only one had been from her group?

“My parents know me and trust me.” Other than the obvious exception.

Mark dropped his arms, sighed. “I suspect you’re right,” he said with some hesitation. He leaned on his desk with his palms down, bringing his face closer to hers, his eyes deadly serious.

“It has to stop, Meredith.”

She said nothing.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“Not one more time,” he warned. “Please.”

Meredith withstood his scrutiny even when that hard glint returned to his eyes. He stood up and said, “I don’t want to have to fire you.”

“I know.” But he would if he had to. Still, the threat wasn’t going to stop her feelings, wasn’t going to stop the knowing. And she wasn’t going to stand by and silently watch children suffer, if she thought she could help them.

Of course, if she wasn’t around, she’d be useless to them.

She was just going to have to get a whole lot better at figuring out how to act on those situations that “occurred” to her without her being told about them.

“Can I go back to my class now?” she asked. “Mrs. Brewer is here for music this morning and we’re second on her list.”

“Yes.” Mark waved a hand at her. “Go.”

She didn’t wait for any niceties, didn’t intend to say another word. But at the door she turned.

“Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“Who was the one?”

She wasn’t surprised when all she received in reply was a frustrated stare.

TOMMY BARNETT DIDN’T show up late for school on Monday. He didn’t show up at all. But his mother did, late in the afternoon, avoiding Mark’s gaze as she withdrew her son from Lincoln Elementary School.

“I’m sorry,” she told Mark, sitting in his office, filling out papers on a clipboard she rested on her lap. The obviously expensive gray pantsuit she was wearing, the jewelry, makeup and well-tended hair didn’t seem to give her any confidence at all.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mark told her. “I completely understand.” He sat behind his desk, an authority figure who lacked the power to change a situation that had arisen under his care. Or even to explain it. “We’re the ones who are sorry,” he continued. “We let Tommy down—and we let you and his father down, as well.”

Ruth Barnett glanced up then, her eyes wide and luminous. “You didn’t let Tommy down,” she said softly. “He loved it here and he particularly loved Ms. Foster. His second-grade teacher told us she suspected he was dyslexic. This year, after just six months with Ms. Foster, he’s reading up to his grade level and beyond. Something had been holding him back, but it wasn’t dyslexia. I hope you know what a gem you have in her.”

Such a passionate speech from this woman startled Mark. But then, women had a tendency to do that more often than not.

His relief was less easy to accept. He was Meredith Foster’s boss, nothing more. If he had to fire her, he would.

“She’s very consistent with her classroom results,” he said now, choosing his words carefully.

Pen held poised above the plastic clipboard, Ruth studied him. “My ex-husband insisted that Tommy change schools,” she said, naming a private institution across town. “Larry Barnett is a powerful man.”

Mark nodded.

“He won’t let this drop.”

It was confirmation he’d rather not have had.

“With your support, Ms. Foster might be able to keep her job.” Mark didn’t miss the plea in her voice or in her eyes.

“What she did was completely inappropriate.” He said what his job required him to say.

“What she did could very well save my son’s life.”

It was Mark’s turn to study her. “You’re saying there’s truth to her claim?”

The woman began to write again—rapidly. “I’m not saying that.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing, really.”

“If you know something you have to speak up, ma’am—if not to me, then to someone else. The authorities. You could be Tommy’s only hope.”

“I’m very well aware of my son’s safety requirements, Mr. Shepherd.”

She was a frightened woman, afraid of her ex-husband’s power.

On the other hand, if Tommy denied the abuse and his school counselor saw no evidence of it, and if his mother knew nothing, what was the flack all about?

One woman’s intuition.

It was pure craziness.

“If, as you say, your husband’s pursuing this, then it would help Ms. Foster a great deal if you went public with how you feel about her.”

She was writing so fast he didn’t see how she could possibly have read the questions. “It’s best if I stay out of this.”

Best for whom? Tommy? Not if he was being mistreated. Best for her, then?

“Are you keeping Tommy away from his father? Or at least having supervised visits?”

A bitter chuckle was her first response. “You obviously aren’t familiar with my husband,” she said. “If I tried to keep the two of them apart he’d find a way to take Tommy away from me completely.”

“The courts wouldn’t agree to that. Not without compelling reasons….”

“The ‘courts’ is one judge, when it comes down to that.” She spoke quietly, but not without cynicism. “Whatever judge is assigned to the case…. And with Larry’s contacts, you can bet he’d be assigned a judge who would be sympathetic.”

Mark was well aware this kind of thing happened. On television. In big towns. In other people’s lives. “Then why hasn’t he done that—gone to court already?”

“It wouldn’t be convenient,” she said simply. “Larry likes to play. Being responsible for a child 24/7 would hamper his freedom. And taking a child away from his mother might lose him some votes. Still… If there’s any possibility of people believing the truth of Ms. Foster’s claims, he’d get full custody simply to show that he has the stellar reputation to do so. It would shut up his critics. If he has any.”

Barnett had the woman sufficiently boxed in. There would be no help from her.

Assuming they needed help.

Assuming Mark had any intention of supporting Meredith Foster.

Or was Mrs. Barnett just bitter and slightly off the mark and her husband was to be pitied and taken seriously? If Mark had to put money on it, he’d probably choose the latter scenario.

“So if Barnett continues to have access to Tommy, how did Ms. Foster’s statement have any bearing on the boy’s welfare?”

“It put Larry on notice.”

Eyes narrowed, he watched her carefully for signs of dishonesty—shifting eyes, nervous twitches, lack of focus. There were none. She made that statement as if it were a given, as if Barnett had a reason to be on notice.

“Is Larry Barnett abusing his son?”

“Not that I know of.”

Mark tossed down his pen, frustrated with the entire mess. No one knew anything and yet a student had just been yanked from school, Mark’s reputation had been smeared in the local paper and Meredith Foster could lose her job.

“Do you believe he is?”

“I hope not.”

“But there’s a possibility.”

She stood. “I really must go,” she said, laying the clipboard on the edge of his desk. “Tommy won’t want to wait for me to pick him up after his first day in a new school.”

Mark rose from his chair and walked her to the door.

“Did Barnett ever hit you, Ruth?” His use of her first name was calculated, but he justified his attempted manipulation with the thought that it was for a good cause.

“No, of course not. Now I really have to leave.”

“Will you give me a call if anything changes?”

She nodded and was gone.

“MORE WINE?”

Meredith hesitated as her friend held the half-empty bottle of expensive Riesling over her glass. “I shouldn’t,” she said. In the morning, she’d have a roomful of feisty eight-year-olds to face. “But okay.”

Susan topped up her own glass next. “Thanks for coming, by the way. I’d already made the pasta this morning, and you know how I am about eating it fresh.”

“Hey, I’m the one who benefited here,” Meredith said, relaxing for the first time that day. “I can’t believe you aren’t upset with Mark for leaving you in the lurch at the last minute.”

Susan shrugged. “It was up to Kelsey, and based on our track record chances were good that she’d say no.”

“But you made the pasta anyway.”

“There’s always hope.” Susan grinned.

Toying with her butter knife, Meredith said, “You feel more conflicted than nonchalant here, woman.”

“And it’s eerie how you see right through me.”

“I’ve known you a long time.”

“About as long as I’ve known you, and you can be falling apart inside but I won’t know it until it actually shows on the outside.”

The knife slipped from Meredith’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be!” Susan’s talented, steady fingers closed over Meredith’s, drawing her gaze downward first and then to Susan’s eyes. “I need you, Mer. I rely on you to understand me when I can’t see myself—to find me in the muck and pull me out.”

“I’m not a magician. Nor am I always right.”

“Of course not. You aren’t always tuned in, either. I love you for all kinds of different things, but this gift you have…I want you to know that I realize how important it is. I believe with all my heart that it’s as real as you are.”

Meredith’s eyes rimmed with tears she didn’t even try to hide. It’d been a long few days filled with far too much emotion, leaving little time for the familiar routines of life. Everyday events she needed in order to keep everything in perspective.

“So tell me what’s going on with you,” she said a moment later. “Is there a problem with Mark?”

“No.” Susan sounded sure, but her eyes were clouded. “He’s a great guy,” she continued. “Warm, considerate, patient, funny. Sexy as hell….”

Meredith reached for the butter knife again, twirling the little handle back and forth between her fingers. It wasn’t that she was prudish, but she didn’t need to hear about Mark and Susan doing…it. Didn’t need to think about Mark in that way.

Because it was too easy to picture?

Please, no, don’t let it be that.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked, pulling her mind firmly back to the conversation. “He’s sexy, but you aren’t turned on by him?”

Why the hell had she said that?

“Oh, no, I am!” Susan grinned. “Every single time he kisses me I want to go to bed with him.”

Now, Meredith desperately wanted to change the subject. And if that was odd, considering that she and Susan had been best friends when they’d lost their virginity and had always spoken openly with each other about intimate topics, she wasn’t about to ask herself why.

She had too many other things to worry over at the moment.

“The problem is the rest of the time,” Susan said, her voice dropping. “I look forward to seeing Mark and I want to spend as much time with him as I can, but I don’t feel…I don’t know…like I’ve arrived yet. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” Meredith wished she could take that lost look from Susan’s eyes, the feeling from her heart. “You aren’t trusting in a future.”

Susan’s eyes were moist as she glanced up—wet and fearful. “What if I never do, Mer? I mean, how can I? I know firsthand that there are no guarantees, that nothing lasts forever. That you can get up one morning, shower and have breakfast as you always do, go to work, looking forward to the day, the evening ahead, the weekend to come, and by afternoon, with one phone call, all hope of a future is wiped away.”

“Bud’s future is gone, but yours isn’t. It’s just changed. And as long as you’re alive, that future is a guarantee. When you’re dead, it’s gone—but then so are you.”

Trite words, maybe. But Meredith felt the truth of them clear to her core. “It’s up to you to put the promise back in your future, Susan. Or not to, in which case you’re right and you’ll never have it again.”

“I mentioned Bud the other night, when I was with Mark.”

“And?”

“I started to cry.”

“And Mark was good to you, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Susan’s gaze lightened as she smiled softly. “He was.”

“TOMMY BARNETT transferred schools today.”

“Shit.”

The two women were still sitting at the table, nursing their wine. It had been weeks since they’d spent this much time together. Meredith hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. Susan was one of the few people with whom she felt completely safe—with whom she didn’t have to hide or filter her natural reactions, her thoughts.

“Mark threatened to fire me if there are any more ‘episodes.’” She said the word as if it were nasty and needed to be hidden.

“He’s blind as a bat on this one, but he has a good heart.”

“I know.” Meredith nodded. “Otherwise I’d never have trusted him with you.”

Susan sat back, wineglass in hand, slowly sipping. “I just wish I got along better with Kelsey.”

Meredith did, too. She was missing something there. They all were. In her spare time, when she thought about it, it was driving her crazy. “She’ll come around,” was the best she could manage to offer.

“Do you really think so?”

Oh, no. Susan was giving her that look: she wanted complete truth.

“I think it’s possible,” Meredith said slowly, trying her best to differentiate between what she thought and what she felt—to separate it all from the depression that had been threatening to descend ever since she’d been summoned to Mark’s office the previous Friday.

Susan nodded. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Because Mark meant that much to her. Which was exactly what Meredith wanted for her.

So why did the thought make her melancholy when it should have brought her joy? Was her own situation pulling her that far down?

If so, she was going to have to do something to change that. Immediately.

“You want to go for ice cream?”

“A banana pie creamie?”

The first time they’d shared that concoction from a local ice cream carry-out chain, they’d been in college.

“We could take one to Mark.” If she came bearing a delight to feed his ice-cream fetish, maybe he wouldn’t dislike her so much.

“Kelsey loves cookie dough,” Susan said.

“There you go! You’re already learning how to please her.” Meredith began to clear the table, and with Susan’s help they made short work of the dishes. “All it takes is paying attention to the little things and Kelsey’ll come around,” Meredith assured her friend as they drove across town in Susan’s silver BMW. She hoped she was right and that it would really be that easy. “Kelsey’s like anyone else,” she added. “She just needs to know that she matters.”

“Did Mark tell you she refused to go see her best friend from across town today? He’d made arrangements with the girl’s mother and had to call and cancel that, too.”

“Mark and I weren’t exactly on speaking terms today,” Meredith said slowly, thinking about Kelsey. “Did she and Lucy have a fight?”

“Apparently not.”

Meredith looked at the houses they passed, noting the lights on in living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, wondering about the darkened ones. So many people, so many lives saturated with hope and fear and love and regret; so many emotions. Trapping her.

“I told Mark I’d be happy to keep Kelsey overnight any weekend the two of you want some time alone,” she said slowly, deciphering her feelings as she spoke. “Maybe we should do it this weekend. Think you can come up with a plan to entice him?”

Susan pulled to a stop at the corner. “You want some time alone with her.”

“I enjoy Kelsey.”

“You’re worried about her and you want to see if you can figure anything out.”

Meredith didn’t answer. She had no idea if there was anything wrong with Kelsey Shepherd other than the usual little-girl jealousy that came with the territory when a single dad started dating. She had no idea if there was any real justification for this feeling that she should be paying special attention to Kelsey right now. She had no idea if she was being overemotional, reacting to the trauma of the past several days, or if she was getting intuitive guidance.

“I’ll make it happen,” Susan said, her foot back on the gas.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I THINK I WANT HER, Don.”

Barbie Shepherd lay naked in her lover’s arms, hoping he wasn’t going to get all bossy and manly—and hoping he’d stay in bed with her until she fell asleep. She hated nights. The dark, the loneliness….

“Want who?”

“Kelsey.”

Every time she’d thought about the idea in the four days since her daughter had last been here, a good feeling had come over her. Now that Kelsey had met Don—and more importantly, now that he’d met her—she couldn’t be happy without being a real mom again.

“You want her to live here with us, you mean?” His voice was soft, kind of hoarse, like it got right before they had sex. Or right afterward.

He had to leave soon, on a run to Colorado. She toyed with his nipple. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“Really?” she asked. “You mean it?”

“Sure.” Don leaned over, licked her breast, his beard tickling her. Then he sat up, reaching for the cigarettes that were never farther away than the nightstand. She watched the amber flicker of the lighter’s flame, saw the cigarette catch and glow as Don inhaled deeply. Took her own drag when he handed it to her and lit a second one for himself.

“I’m her mother. I have rights.”

“Of course, you do.” The end of the cigarette disappeared between his whiskers and Barbie told herself he was a good-looking man. Especially in the semidarkness, when you couldn’t see his teeth.

“You’re the one who carried her around in your body,” he said now, running a finger lightly from her breasts down and over her belly. “You went through labor, gave birth to her…”

“Breast-fed her and raised her for the first five and half years of her life…”

“She’s an asset,” he continued. “Your asset.”

Yeah. Kelsey was someone who had to love her, no matter what.

“Kids are good for lots of things,” Don went on, letting the ash grow dangerously long before flicking it into the ashtray. “She can help you out around here.”

She hadn’t thought of that. Kelsey had still been too young to be of much use when Barbie had left. Not that she’d minded. She’d liked taking care of her. Still…

“So, what do I do?” she asked now, straddling his stomach as she leaned over to flick off her ashes.

Crushing the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray, Don grabbed her butt. “Get a lawyer.”

She took one last drag and ditched her cigarette. “Can we afford that?”

“You can get one for free.” This was the best news yet—she’d thought the legal part would be the most difficult. “State has to appoint one for you.”

Barbie slid down the roundness of his belly until she rested at the top of his thighs. “You sure about that?”

“Yep.”

Then he moved and she couldn’t think about Kelsey or being a mother anymore. Don wasn’t like Mark in bed. He had lots of tricks, kept her guessing, and as usual she gave herself over to whatever he had in mind. It always ended in orgasm and those moments were glorious.

MEREDITH APPROACHED her Mustang in the deserted parking lot an hour after school let out. It was only Wednesday afternoon and already she was worn out—longing for the weekend, forty-eight hours of anonymity, hot baths, good books and little responsibility.

Her students, whether picking up on her own tension or bringing it from home, had been restless as well, talking too much, too loudly, focusing only in short spurts. And that afternoon during art class Erin had tripped near Meredith’s desk, and now Meredith had a patch of red poster paint staining the white silk blouse she’d worn with her black slacks and white-and-black pumps.

Black-and-white jewelry, black-and-white leather satchel. She’d been hoping for a black-and-white kind of day—and had ended up splattered in red.

“Ms. Foster, could we have a word with you?”

Glancing up sharply, Meredith stopped. She’d noted the van in the parking lot, of course. Enough to be aware that it was there. Not enough to have noticed the Tulsa local-news logo on the side or the two people who had just emerged from it.

“We’d just like to ask a couple of questions.”

She walked past them to her car.

“We’re interested in the editorial that ran in Monday’s Republic. I understand that the newspaper didn’t contact you. Is that correct?”

She looked at the brunette, who was her age, at least, dressed in jeans and a white sweater, and wondered if she liked her job. The hefty, bearded cameraman behind her she ignored completely.

“We’ve got some good tape from Mr. Barnett,” the woman said, her eyes showing something akin to sympathy. “My producer was ready to run with it, but I insisted that you deserved to have your side told, as well.”

Keys in hand, Meredith stood there another second, assessing. Granted, her senses weren’t honed at the moment, but she believed the other woman was sincere.

The brunette dropped her mic at her side. “He was pretty brutal,” she said. “I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

Meredith glanced back at the school. Mark would kill her if she said anything.

And if she didn’t? She’d be crucified.

Who’d stick up for her? Ruth Barnett? Hardly. The woman was a classic battered woman, so intimidated by her jerk of an ex-husband that she’d still lie just because he told her to. And that left—who? Her boss? Fat chance.

“What do you want to know?” She regretted the words even as she said them. There would be hell to pay. And at the same time, she felt better. She’d done nothing wrong, had nothing to be ashamed of. Unlike Larry Barnett.

“Did you tell Mr. Barnett’s wife that he was abusing his son?”

Meredith glanced at the school one more time. This was her last chance to walk away.

But for what? To let that man take everything from her, without even trying to defend herself?

“You can’t blame people for what they’re going to think, if you don’t give them another perspective,” the other woman said, her gaze compassionate.

“I told her I suspected his father was inflicting some pretty severe emotional abuse.”

“You suspect,” the woman said, moving nearer with her microphone as the cameraman closed in behind her. Meredith was trapped between her still-locked car door and what suddenly felt like two vultures. The school was behind her—a perfect backdrop.

“You have no proof,” the woman prompted gently, after a long pause.

“No.”

“What made you suspect?” The question was more curiosity than accusation. She was receiving a fair chance to be heard. Which was more than she’d expected following Mark’s pronouncement Monday night over ice cream. Ruth Barnett had said her ex-husband was not going to let this go away.

Give me strength, she asked her unseen source of guidance—as she’d already done uncountable times over the past week.

“Tommy was a student in my class. I listened to him, as I listen to all of my students.”

The reporter’s eyes narrowed. “So Tommy told you?” she asked, perhaps seeing a larger story brewing. If it was found that the D.A. actually was abusing his son, she’d have a much bigger audience for a longer period of time.

“No.” Meredith hated to disappoint her. She sighed, searching for the best words. “But every time fathers were mentioned, or Tommy mentioned his father, I sensed that there was great turmoil. But no physical danger—at least not yet.”

“You sensed.”

Meredith nodded.

“As in how? You just thought about it and reached this conclusion?”

That was how Mark saw the situation. And probably the majority of Bartlesville, as well. Meredith was tempted just to leave them to it. In the end, it might be far less painful than to have everyone think she was some kind of quack.

But if she didn’t stand up for herself, who would? How could anyone even have a chance of choosing to believe her, to understand, to support her, if she didn’t speak out?

And if she allowed herself to be lied about, allowed her credibility to be crushed beneath Larry Barnett’s expensively shod foot, how would she ever do any good in this world?

A vision of Tommy Barnett’s innocent young face appeared before her.

“I get feelings,” she said. “I tune in, focus deeply and I can feel what other people are feeling. Sometimes.”

“So you’re saying you’re psychic.”

“No.” She didn’t believe there were special people who were granted the right to know everything about someone else, both past and future. “I don’t get grand messages,” she said. “I’m not told secrets, nor can I predict anything that’s going to happen in the future—no more than you can predict your own future. I can just feel what they’re feeling. Sometimes.”

She wasn’t some kind of weirdo. She didn’t run around town invading people’s privacy.

“What am I feeling?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to know. She wanted to go home. Perhaps cry. Call her mom. Take a hot bath.

“What’s he feeling?”

“I don’t—” Meredith glanced at the cameraman, let her guard down without meaning to. “Good,” she said, head slightly tilted as she eyed him with warning. “Not nice, but good. Self-satisfied. I’d guess he’s having inappropriate thoughts about something or someone and feeling good about them.”

The camera slipped, was righted…and Meredith met the man’s eyes. She didn’t know if she’d been the target of his thoughts and she didn’t know if they’d been sexual in nature or just mean-spirited, but she knew she’d caught him.

And he knew it, too.

The reporter chuckled uneasily. “Uh, you ever think about working with the police?”

The woman believed her.

“No.” Meredith smiled straight into the camera. “I’m a teacher, not a cop. And I’m nothing special.

“Everyone has the ability to do what I do,” she explained, paraphrasing what she’d read in the books that had finally made her abilities make sense. “My senses are heightened in this area, but we can all—with focus—tune in to other people’s energy. Their emotions.”

Except that in her case, sometimes she couldn’t turn off the feelings.

“Wow,” the woman said. “I’d like to hear more about this, but unfortunately we’re out of time. This is Angela Liddy for KNLD news.” She clicked off the wireless microphone and nodded to her cameraman, who lowered his equipment and turned back toward the van.

“Thanks,” she said to Meredith. “I don’t know what good it’ll do, but I’m glad we got both sides.”

Meredith hoped she’d be glad, too, already regretting what she’d done. “When will it air?”

“Tonight, if I get back in time,” she said. “If not, then it’ll start tomorrow morning.”

Unlocking her car, Meredith dropped her bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Angela Liddy said, speaking softly as she paused beside the car. “But you should know that Larry Barnett is determined to see you lose your job.”

Yeah, Meredith had gathered that much. “It’ll take more than my speaking with his wife to make that happen,” she said. “I have rights.”

“And he has power,” the reporter said. “I’d be careful if I were you.”

Careful. What did that mean—not talking to reporters? Okay, she’d screwed up that one. And otherwise she was just living her life, going to work, coming home, watching the game-show network while she graded papers. What could she do that would be any more careful than that?

Not feel, not be herself?

How the hell did one do that?

MARK CAUGHT the news Wednesday night, lying in bed alone with the television on, attempting to fall asleep. Heart sinking when he heard the intro to the coming stories. Remote control in hand, he raised the volume another couple of notches.

She’d done a damned interview? Bad enough that Barnett was spreading this all over the media, but did Meredith have to feed the frenzy? Did she have no sense at all?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.