He got out of a Corvette. A 1965 mint-condition Corvette.

“Unusual transportation for a crossing guard,” Valerie murmured. Stupid thing to say. But damn, there was a lot about this man that didn’t add up.

“I haven’t always been a crossing guard.”

No kidding. “What did you used to be?”

“An unhappy member of the corporate world. Now I’m a happy crossing guard.”

An explanation of sorts, if somewhat flippantly delivered. But no answer at all. How could someone with his drive and intelligence be satisfied not using his talents?

“You’re going to be a crossing guard for the rest of your life?”

“You have a problem with that?” Kirk’s tone was light.

“No.” Maybe. It just seemed like such a waste.

“It’s honorable work. And the kids—including your twins—deserve the best.”

“Of course they do.” But it didn’t take a businessman successful enough to drive a mint-condition vintage Corvette to provide that at a low-traffic side street.

Valerie knew, without another word being said, that this particular conversation was over.

Dear Reader,

I want to tell you about something that happened to me when I was writing this book. I discovered that I’ve spent my entire life ignorant of the judicial system, which has been serving me diligently every single day. Of course, I knew it existed. I’ve been in a courtroom, seen hundreds of trials on television. I knew all about being a judge—I thought. I knew so much I missed the fact that I didn’t know anything at all.

Every day while we go about our business there are, in every county in the nation, people who carry the pressure of making life-determining decisions. As I was doing research for this book, I sat in a juvenile courtroom, to the side of the judge’s bench, and saw what she saw—the kids out there in front of her, the attorneys and parents and witnesses and victims. I saw the fear in the eyes of teenage offenders whose lives might be forever changed that day. And the hope felt by those who might be given another chance. And I saw us. You and me. Out living our lives. Taking for granted that the judge is going to look into the eyes of a sixteen-year-old, see the hope and the fear, and still make the decision that will keep us all safe. Including that kid…

I could hardly handle a morning of that pressure. And I was experiencing it vicariously. I’ve always known that doctors did miraculous things—holding lives in their hands every day. And policemen. And firefighters and paramedics. I missed the fact that judges give their lives and hearts and minds to preserving all our lives. I, for one, will be aware and grateful that they’re in those courtrooms, taking this challenge upon themselves so that the rest of us can raise our children and send them off to school and grocery shop and go to church without worrying too much that the person next to us is a criminal. A heartfelt thank-you!

I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at P.O. Box 15065, Scottsdale, AZ 85267 or visit me at www.tarataylorquinn.com.

Tara Taylor Quinn

For the Children
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sherry. You’ve enriched my life beyond measure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks to Judge Sherry Stephens and her staff for their generous assistance with technical aspects of this story. Any liberties taken—and all mistakes made—are mine.

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 ONE

“TOUGH MORNING, Valerie?”

The black silk robe flowing around her, Superior Court juvenile judge Valerie Simms smiled and nodded at Judge Hal Collins Wednesday morning. She stopped briefly in the hall on the short trek from the courtroom to her quiet high-ceilinged sanctuary. “How about you, Hal? A piece of cake as usual?”

“It wasn’t bad,” he said, still smiling. With a little wave, he disappeared into his office.

It wasn’t that Hal didn’t care about the kids they tried to help after parents and schools had failed to make a difference. But he didn’t let any of it get to him.

Someday, when she grew up, she was going to be just like him.

Trying to pretend she already was, Valerie shook off the Billings case and thought, instead, about the lunch date she had ahead of her—with her in-line skates and the new concrete jogging trail not far from the Mesa, Arizona, Juvenile Court Division. She’d have just enough time to get in ten miles and a quick shower before she was due back in court. She’d already reviewed her afternoon calendar, which left the entire hour-and-a-half lunch break free.

“How’d it go?” Valerie’s supportive and energetic judicial assistant met her at the door of her office.

Valerie grimaced. Unsnapped her robe.

“That bad, huh?” Leah Carmichael followed her inside the large, peaceful room.

“Not really.” Hanging up her robe, sinking into the plush maroon leather of her desk chair, Valerie continued, “I released Sam Marsden. I think he’s ready.”

“He spent a lot of time on the report you asked him to write about his community service.”

He had. She’d been pleased with his work. And, for this boy, she was honestly hopeful.

Leah sat in one of the two maple chairs across from Valerie’s desk, crossing her legs as though settling in for a long chat. In her taupe slacks and jacket with perfectly matched shoes, she looked every bit the professional Valerie knew her to be.

Attention to detail was among the many strong points Valerie appreciated about Leah. She’d chosen well when she’d hired her first J.A.

“The Marcos kid was as unbending as ever. I told him that if I see him again, I’m going to detain him.”

Signing a request to issue a warrant for truancy, Valerie gave Leah a brief rundown on the rest of the morning’s calendar.

“What about Abraham Billings?” Her assistant fingered a few strands of her light brown hair. The top of her head bore several intricate and perfectly ordered braids that day, with the rest of her hair hanging straight to midback. Val wondered how early Leah had to get up to achieve such an elaborate style. And whether or not she felt the result was worth the time and effort.

“Judge Simms?”

“I let him stay with his mom.”

Leah stood. “Well if you think that’s where he should be then that’s good. I’ll bet he was happy.”

“Yeah. He was.” She met Leah’s clear blue and damnably trusting eyes. “I wanted to remove him.”

“You did?”

She nodded.

“Then why didn’t you?” Sinking back to the chair, Leah’s glistening lips hung open.

“Diane Smith recommended removal. She’s a darn good probation officer. She’s been to the boy’s home. I haven’t.”

And the boy’s mother…

“You knew that before you went in.”

Carla Billings, in spite of her many shortcomings, had been so in tune with her son she’d seemed to have felt every breath he took. A person had to be pretty insensitive to rent apart a bond that close.

Valerie didn’t think she’d survive if Blake and Brian were ever taken away from her…

“I did know it, you’re right,” Valerie answered belatedly when Leah continued to silently appraise her.

“C.P.S. moved for removal.”

And Diane had spent more time with the boy.

“Abraham put up a good fight for himself. He was willing to do whatever he had to do to stay home.”

“So what does he have to do?”

“He’s on probation with community service.” It was the strongest penalty she could give for truancy.

“I want to keep as close an eye on that boy as possible,” she said. “And I want him busy, out of his home participating in a good cause, for as many of his waking hours as we can manage.”

She wanted him away from the mother she’d just allowed to retain custody. Though nothing had been proven yet, no official filing, Abraham’s mother was most likely prostituting out of her home—although there’d been a vague claim that she was some sort of bookkeeper.

That was all speculation at this point, however. Right now, her biggest concern was Carla’s incorrigible twelve-year-old son. A young man who’d attended only nineteen of the first forty days of his seventh-grade year. The middle of October, and already the kid was in jeopardy of having to repeat the grade.

A grade he’d barely reached due to absenteeism in his last year of elementary school.

His probation required thirty-two hours of commitment weekly. And just as important, constant communication with a probation officer. It was a harsh disposition. And Abraham had signed the requisite contract without hesitation. Most of his thirty-two hours had to be fulfilled by attending his classes at Menlo Ranch Junior High.

“They tried CUTS, right?” Leah asked, frowning, referring to the Court Unified Truancy Suppression program.

Judicial assistants reviewed all files. Valerie’s J.A. remembered everything she read. “A requisite component of the program is parental participation.” The implication was clear.

Valerie also remembered everything in the files she read. Including the name of Abraham’s school. Menlo Ranch. Which her own sons attended.

“You want me to send your robe out for dry cleaning?” Leah got to her feet.

Valerie shook her head. As her assistant left, closing the door behind her, she slouched back in her chair, hands linked across her stomach, and stared at the ceiling. Her job was to make decisions. She’d made one.

So why was she doubting that she’d done her job?

In her mind’s eye, she suddenly pictured a man. The new crossing guard at the boy’s school. He’d only been around since the start of the semester, replacing old Mr. Grimble who’d been working the corner in front of the elementary/junior-high complex since Blake and Brian had started kindergarten. The new guy wasn’t old—mid-thirties, Valerie guessed. Younger than her own thirty-seven years.

He was about medium height for a man. Five-eleven maybe. And although he wasn’t skinny, he was slim. Clean-shaven. With brown hair cut in a businesslike style above his ears. But what Valerie remembered most about him was the way his mouth quirked to the right when he smiled.

And he’d been smiling at her—and everyone else approaching his crosswalk—since the first day of school eight weeks before. Every morning when she dropped the boys at his corner. He waved, too. And she’d heard him call her boys by name—their right names. An unusual feat for someone who wasn’t intimately acquainted with them. Blake and Brian were identical twins.

Standing, Valerie grabbed her clothes out of the canvas bag she carried back and forth to work, locked her office door and quickly changed. She’d never spoken to the crosswalk man. Didn’t even know his name. But thinking about him calmed her, anyway.

She put on her in-line skates at the trunk of her car, skated a full twelve miles in less than an hour, showered, and still had time for a bowl of soup with crackers.

By the time she was seated for her Wednesday-afternoon calendar, she felt whole again. Confident. Ready to determine new directions for the lives of her troubled kids.

“HI, CINDY, got your lunch money today?” Kirk smiled at the pint-size redhead standing at the corner with him on the fourth Thursday in October.

“Yep, see?” she said, holding it up for him.

He glanced quickly at the couple of dollars she held, returning his attention immediately to the goings-on around him. There would be no children in his street unless he said so. “Good,” he told the fourth-grader. “Now, be sure you put it someplace you can find it at lunchtime.”

“I will.” The girl giggled, and skipped across the street as he stepped out, raising his sign to stop traffic.

Several other kids had gathered, as well. Kirk greeted each of them by name as they passed. Steve and Kaitlin and little Jimmy Granger. Jake and Josh and Melissa and…

The day, the job, continued. When school had started in August, he’d given himself a week to learn the names of the kids. Since then, he’d paid close attention to the children themselves.

As soon as he stepped back to the curb, a car pulled up on the west corner. Abraham Billings. That made six days in a row.

Kirk was impressed.

Until the past week and a half, Abraham had missed school more often than he’d come. But when he did show, his mother always dropped him off. She kissed him on the cheek, then sat in her car watching until he’d disappeared inside the school.

Kirk could imagine Susan there, doing the same with Alicia.

“Hey, buddy,” Kirk said as the boy approached his corner.

“Hi.” The word was barely uttered.

At the moment Abraham was the only one waiting there to cross. Which meant that Kirk could hold him there for a second, have a chance to talk with him.

“You okay?” Kirk had known for months that this agile young man had problems.

“Yeah.”

He waved to the boy’s mom, who waved back. Abraham scowled.

“You mad at her?” Kirk asked.

“No.” The tone was almost belligerent.

Abraham was probably one of the best-looking kids in his class. Tanned and lithe, he had perfectly proportioned features and big brown eyes. He wasn’t looking particularly attractive at the moment, however.

Deciding to leave well enough alone for that day, Kirk adjusted the edge of his bright orange vest and waited for enough kids to warrant stopping traffic. He didn’t see any children coming down the street. He’d wait another thirty seconds and then halt traffic anyway.

“Do you hafta wave at her like that?” The question seemed to burst from Abraham.

“Like what?”

“Like she’s a piece of meat or something.”

Whoa. Kirk frowned, framing his next words carefully around something he sensed was there but hadn’t yet identified.

“I wave at all the mothers,” he said easily. “And fathers, too. Every day.”

“Why?”

“To let them know they can trust their kids to me.”

“Oh.”

Another car was approaching. The Smith boys. They were good kids. Kirk knew several Smiths, including the business professor in college who’d mentored him during his undergrad years and then grad school—and guided him through his first multimillion-dollar deal.

Glad that Smith was such a common name, Kirk kept hoping that the more decent Smiths he knew, like his professor, the less pain he’d feel at the thought of the one bastard he’d never met—the Smith who’d changed his life forever.

“That’s dumb.” Abraham was staring out at the street, but didn’t seem to be focusing on much.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, man, it just is.”

The Smith boys had stopped halfway out of their car, apparently listening to some last-minute instruction from their mother. According to her sons, she had a different name—Simms. And apparently she was a juvenile court judge.

“Basketball tryouts are next Tuesday,” Kirk said casually.

“So?”

“I’m the coach.” Steve McDonald, principal of Menlo Ranch and the one person who’d remained a friend to Kirk all his life, had included the coaching position in the package he’d presented last spring. It was intended to save Kirk from himself. And it seemed to be working.

“So?”

“I’d like you to try out.”

“I’m too short.”

“You’re quick. And I’ve seen you at lunch, tossing trash in the can from eight feet away. You never miss.”

Kirk served as lunchroom monitor during the middle part of the day.

Shoving his hands in the pockets of his freshly laundered jeans, Abraham shrugged his backpack higher on to his shoulders. “I don’t have time.”

“It’s only for an hour or two after school.”

“What is?”

The Smith twins had arrived. Kirk looked up and waved as their classic blond beauty of a mother pulled past them. He waited for her to go and then stepped off the curb.

“Basketball tryouts,” he answered Blake. “They’re next Tuesday.”

Abraham had already left them.

“Cool,” Brian said. “Can anyone try out?”

“Of course.”

The boys were walking slowly across the street, seemingly oblivious to the traffic they were holding up.

“You coaching?” Blake asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be there,” Brian called as they raced the last few yards to the opposite curb.

Kirk watched them go, his forehead creased.

Something wasn’t quite right with Brian Smith. He shuffled when he walked. Like he was too lethargic to pick up his feet.

That was as far as Kirk had gotten with his analysis, however. Those two were hard to get to know. They were cheerful and friendly on the surface, but didn’t reveal much about their inner thoughts and feelings. They covered for each other, looked out for each other—almost as though they didn’t need anyone else. As though they had one identity instead of two.

Kirk was no psychiatrist, but he didn’t think that could be good for them.

“HEY, BOY, you want to see how babies are made?”

Coming in from school late Thursday afternoon, Abe didn’t recognize the male voice that had called out to him from the end of the hall. He glanced sideways at the guy standing in the trailer Abe shared with his mother. He didn’t recognize the man.

Except that they all looked alike. Too tall. Too fat. Too bald—or too gray. Too dressed up. Too slick. And always, always too sickening.

Reaching his room at the opposite end of the hall, Abe ignored the man. He’d been doing his community service work at the old folks home since class got out and he wanted to change clothes.

“’Cause I’ve got some great pictures of your mom I can show ya…”

Abe shut his bedroom door. Put on his headphones. And waited for his mother to call him to dinner.

“HI, MOM.”

Blake and Brian were in the kitchen, leaning on the counter in front of the small television set mounted above the countertop, when Valerie came in with dinner on Thursday night.

“What’re we having?”

The question was from Blake. Brian wouldn’t care.

“Chinese.”

“Cool.”

Blake turned back to some basketball game they’d been watching on one of the cable sports stations.

“Basketball season hasn’t started yet.”

Brian glanced at her. “It’s a rerun.”

“We do have a large-screen television set in the family room.”

“We were waiting for you.”

Valerie set the bags of food on the counter, going to a cupboard for glasses and paper plates. She dropped a kiss on each boy’s head as she passed.

Every day without fail, since their father’s death, she’d found the boys waiting for her when she came into the house through the garage door that led to the kitchen.

They were good boys. She paused, hand in midair over the shelf of glassware, as Brian leaned his shoulder into his brother. Blake accepted the extra weight.

They were the best.

Which didn’t mean that raising them alone was an easy task.

“How was your day at school?” she asked them five minutes later. Television off, they sat together at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Takeout was always eaten there.

“Good,” Brian told her. “We’re trying out—”

“For basketball,” Blake finished. “Tryouts are—”

“Next week.” Brian jumped in as his twin took another bite of egg roll. Brian didn’t have to deal with the problem of a full mouth. He wasn’t eating much.

The boys talked more about the tryouts and Valerie delighted in their enthusiasm.

“How was your day in court?” Brian again. Her little nurturer.

“Fine,” she told them, making herself think about the great job Leah was doing so she wouldn’t be telling them a lie.

Before she was sworn in as one of the youngest female Superior Court judges in the state of Arizona, she’d promised herself that she would not bring her work home.

Her day in court. The hostile teenager who’d spit at her when she’d given her ruling, committing him to a secure facility due to his repeated failures to follow the terms of his probation; the fifteen-year-old girl seeking an abortion against the will of her parents—these were not things that belonged in the home she’d built for her boys.

“Come on, Bry, eat up,” she said. “There’s still enough light to shoot some baskets before you do your homework.” And before she tackled the load of jeans that was waiting for her, the bills she’d been putting off for almost a week, a call to the landscaper to tend to the sprinkler head that was spraying wide and a return call to her parents back home in Indiana. At some point she had to get to the grocery store, too. This was the third night that week for fast food.

“I’m not hungry.”

Brian’s reply was not a surprise. “Did you guys have a snack when you got home?” she asked. Please let his lack of appetite be because he’s full.

“Naw. There’s nothing here to snack on,” Brian said, pushing rice around on his paper plate.

Valerie’s appetite suddenly matched her son’s. “Did you have a big lunch?”

Blake dropped his fork with a sigh. Refusing to look at his twin, he pinned her with green eyes that were so like their father’s. “He hasn’t eaten lunch all week, Mom.”

Brian continued to arrange little mounds of rice.

“Is this true?” she asked him, the tension gathering in every nerve.

Blake looked at Brian, who finally lifted his head and stared back at his brother. “I guess.”

“Brian Alan Smith, do you mean to tell me you’ve been going without meals again?”

The boy opened his mouth, but she didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

“You looked me in the eye and promised me you’d eat!” Her voice, trembling with disappointment, had almost reached shouting volume.

He tried again to speak.

“You lied to me!” Her throat hurt with the force of her yell.

Both boys stared at her. Silent. Their eyes wide. And sad.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked her youngest—by six and a half minutes—son.

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you want to die, Brian?” She wasn’t yet capable of sounding calm.

He shook his head.

“Do you?” she yelled at him.

“No!” A healthy dose of life accompanied the declaration.

“Well, you’re going to,” she told him, hating the derision she heard in her voice. Hating even more the sense of panic that was driving her to treat her son so abominably. Hated the fact that there were times when the weight of raising these two all alone overwhelmed her.

“No, I’m not, Mom,” Brian said, his tone soothing.

His twin sat silent, face straight, eyes revealing a hint of fear.

“You heard the doctor, Brian,” Valerie said, forcing herself to speak at a normal level. “Three times in six months, you’ve heard the doctor. You’re borderline anorexic and if you don’t eat you’re going to kill yourself.”

“I’ll eat.”

“Then do it.”

“Okay.”

“Now.”

“Mom…”

“Now! Brian.” Her voice started to rise again. And then, as though she’d used up all her anger, her heart softened. She looked at the young boy who’d needlessly burdened himself with an adult’s concerns—with the responsibilities he believed his father had held.

“You’re going to stunt your growth, Bry,” she said gently. “You and Blake are just entering your biggest growth years. He already weighs ten pounds more than you do. And if this keeps up, he’ll spring right up—but you won’t.”

With pinched cheeks Blake turned to his brother. “Eat a couple of egg rolls, Bry, and then we can go shoot some hoops.”

Giving a troubled nod, Brian did as he was told.

CHAPTER TWO

KIRK HATED Friday nights. They meant a whole weekend ahead with nothing to do but lecture himself.

He particularly hated this Friday night.

Letting himself into his plush Ahwatukee home, in a secluded Phoenix neighborhood set into the base of South Mountain, he tossed his keys on the antique cherry-wood table by the door, caught the alarm before it went off and headed straight for the phone.

He ignored the blinking red dot that signified messages. Saw on the LED screen attached to the blinking machine that there were twelve calls waiting for him and still ignored it. It was the same every day.

He’d push the playback button sometime that evening. And half listen to the messages. It was a form of treatment—to listen and remain calm, unaffected.

Sometimes he needed a drink first.

Tonight, he needed the phone.

Corporate attorney Troy Winston always picked up Kirk’s calls immediately. Even now.

“What’s up, buddy?” Kirk’s right-hand man of ten years greeted him.

“Susan had a baby.” Kirk could barely get the words past the stiffness in his face. He’d run into an acquaintance of theirs at the Corvette dealership when he’d gone in for an oil job that afternoon.

“Okay.”

No surprise there. Kirk felt the stab of disappointment.

“You knew.”

“Yeah. I ran into Bob Morrison a few months back.”

A name from his past. His ex-brother-in-law. Kirk didn’t respond.

“And you didn’t bother to tell me.”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

Susan’s gone on with her life, Troy’s tone of voice told him. He stood, feet apart, the muscles of his thighs straining against the legs of his jeans.

“The baby’s a month old.”

“Let it go, buddy,” his attorney, the only person still on Kirk’s payroll, advised him. “Give up this idiotic plan you’ve locked yourself into and get on with your life. Go out. Call someone. Date. You could have a new kid, too.”

“I have a kid.”

“Kirk, you’re really starting to worry me. I went along with this whole school guard thing because I thought you needed some time off. But I didn’t think it would last a week, let alone three months. All this isolation is starting to get to you.”

“I slept with Susan ten months ago.”

“You guys weren’t speaking to each other ten months ago. As a matter of fact, as I remember it, the woman freaked out anytime you were close enough to breathe the same air.”

He could always count on Troy to tell him the truth. That was why the man had quickly risen to the seat right next to Kirk Chandler, CEO of one of the nation’s most controversial, well-known and financially successful acquisitions firms.

Of course, all of that was over. Done. Kirk had closed the company almost a year ago. And Troy, while still handling Kirk’s personal affairs, was enjoying the good life.

Kirk took a deep breath. And another. He concentrated on the fingers holding the phone, refusing to allow them to clamp the thing so tightly it bruised his hand.

“I ran into her one night at the cemetery. She didn’t freak.”

“Not freaking at a cemetery bears no resemblance to having sex. None. At all. Let me swing by, take you out for a beer. I know a couple of women who’d—”

“It was late. I was there when she came walking up. We were both too tired to make sense of anything….”

“Not good enough, Kirk. You forget who you’re talking to. This was the woman who, after your divorce, not only had her own name changed, but changed your daughter’s as well. Hell, I was there when Susan turned into a raving lunatic at the funeral just because your car was close by.”

Sliding his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, Kirk flexed the muscles in his shoulders and down his back. The flannel shirt he was wearing still felt odd to skin more used to silk.

“I was crying. That night.”

Silence hung on the line.

He’d left Troy Winston speechless. At a different moment, there’d be some satisfaction, maybe even humor, in that. Another moment in another lifetime.

“She walked straight into my arms, broken, needy. Hurting so bad she was craving death….”

Kirk knew he had to stop. To think about his fingers on the phone.

Loosen up, man. Loosen up. It’s in the past. It can’t be changed. The future can be changed.

They were the only words that kept him sane.

“The woman I’d married, planned to grow old with, was in my arms. I walked her home. And when she didn’t want me to leave, I stayed.”

“I’ll make some calls.”

Troy’s voice was deadly serious as he rang off.

And Kirk was satisfied.

BY SUNDAY NIGHT, all the boys could talk about was the basketball tryouts coming up that week. There was a practice Monday after school and the actual tryouts were on Tuesday. Throughout the weekend they’d alternated between half killing themselves in the driveway, attempting to become shooting stars in two days, and driving her crazy with energy that only seemed to grow the more they expended it.

“Larry Bird flicked his wrist right as he threw the ball. That’s the trick,” Blake said, rolling the die but forgetting to move his little metal car along the Monopoly board.

“Dan Majerle was the best-three point shooter in the league. I think he flicked his wrist, too,” Brian added, staring at the board. “We need to flick our wrists…”

“And we didn’t practice that at all.”

Neither boy seemed to notice that the game in which they were currently engaged had stalled.

“Mom? Can we go shoot—”

“No!” Valerie laughed. “It’s pitch black out there, guys. You have tomorrow’s practice and you’ll have time before dinner tomorrow, too.”

“Do you think we’ll have to do one-on-ones?” Blake asked his brother.

The die still lay, double sixes, on the Monopoly board. Valerie was quite proud of her six red hotels and twelve green houses.

Her boys, who were usually land magnates, owned the utilities and a few of the railroads.

“I’m sure,” Brian said, frowning. “You don’t have to worry, though. Just steal the ball and blow them away.”

Picking up the Community Chest and Chance Cards, she put them in their storage slot on top of the one-dollar bills. Then she cleared off the rest of the board and folded it to fit inside the box.

The real estate didn’t really mean that much. She’d had no competition.

The twins continued to discuss everything from shoes and socks to ways they could maintain control of the ball, completely oblivious to the game’s disappearance.

“Let’s go get some ice cream,” Valerie finally suggested.

In tandem, the boys looked at her. At the empty table. And then back at her.

“Sorry, Mom.” Brian spoke for both of them.

She grinned. “It’s okay, guys. I’m glad to see you so jazzed about something.”

And she was. Overjoyed, actually. Brian had been eating all weekend. She realized this was just a temporary fix, but it seemed pretty obvious that basketball could be the thing they’d been searching for to help her son with his flagging self-esteem.

Talk of basketball continued as all three ate their ice-cream cones, filled with the strangest concoctions of vanilla ice cream and mix-ins they could come up with, stopped by the store for the week’s groceries, and then tried to focus on the boys’ homework. Brian hauled out a disgusting-looking object he’d been hiding, unbeknownst to her, wrapped in a towel under his bed.

“It’s my science project, Mom!” he’d protested when she insisted he throw it away immediately.

“What is it?” Valerie wasn’t convinced.

“A piece of bread I dipped in fabric softener. There’s another one dipped in diet soda.”

“Yeah,” Blake piped up from his spot on the living-room floor. “His theory is that one will be preserved and the other will be eaten away by the acid. Cool, huh?”

Yeah. Cool. She should’ve had girls.

“Mom?” Pen in his mouth, Blake was frowning as he looked up at her. “Dad would be really happy if he knew we were trying out for the team, huh?”

Valerie straightened the cushions on the couch. “Of course he would.”

“And he’d come watch every single game, wouldn’t he?” Brian asked, stopping on the way back to his room to return the experiment.

Blake chuckled. “Yeah, he’d be one of those dads who know every kid’s name and stats and shout from the stands like a maniac.”

It was clear the boy meant that as a compliment.

Valerie agreed with only one part. The shouting. But it wouldn’t have been from the stands in a junior-high gym.

“He wouldn’t have missed a single one,” she told the boys, leaning over to pick up some lint from the off-white carpet.

She was saved from any further sojourns down fairy-tale lane when, apparently satisfied, they returned to more immediate concerns. Algebra problems that were due in the morning.

Thomas Smith was dead. Leaving behind a memory that was mostly not bad to his sons. Valerie knew that was because the boys’ memories had become selective—the human mind protecting itself, she supposed. So wasn’t it kinder to let the myth perpetuate itself?

Or was she just weak? Choosing the easier way of pretending all had been well, rather than being honest with the boys.

Some things could remain buried forever, but there were others the boys would eventually have to know….

Not now. Not yet. They were still children. Her little boys.

And Brian was already treading such dangerous ground.

KIRK TOSSED his cell phone from one hand to the other and then back, looking down at the elegant kitchen tile again; 6:00 a.m. Arizona time meant that it was eight o’clock in Virginia. He’d put off the call all weekend. Another hour and it would be time for him to head in to work. He liked to be on the corner long before the first kid arrived at school, and there was an early choir practice that morning.

Another hour and he’d make it. He could do this—follow through on his decision to abandon his old life as CEO of Chandler Acquisitions, the career that had consumed him to the point of heartlessness. He could outlast the temptation of making a final perfect deal. He was actually gaining a measure of peace in the job his old friend, Steve McDonald, had offered him during a painfully dark night several months before. Back then he’d been slowly killing himself—with hard truths and liquor. These days, taking care of the children as he’d promised Alicia he would, he actually slept at night.

He could put down the phone; the number implanted in his memory would eventually fade, along with the rest of Friday night’s messages begging him to handle just one more deal.

Someday, maybe even his uncanny ability to remember them at all would disappear.

The Gandoyne company produced aluminum cans, specifically for food products. Aster Sealants owned the patent on a material that would seal and reseal aluminum lids. This sealant had various uses, but if it was put together with food-product storage it could make both companies wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

The caller who’d left the number was Gandoyne’s son, who had no interest in taking over the business, who was worried about his father’s health and who had heard of Kirk’s win-at-all-costs reputation. He’d gone on to say that both companies were family-owned, headed by stereotypical patriarchs intent on doing business in the same way as their fathers and their fathers before them. They refused to sell stock options. Refused to let anyone else have any say in their businesses or give up the least measure of control.

“Leave them to it,” Kirk told the cup of coffee he’d poured, which had grown cold. He dumped out the offensive liquid, rinsed the mug and put it back in the cupboard.

“You can’t do that,” Susan used to say. “It wasn’t washed.”

“My mouth never touched it,” he’d tell her.

“But the coffee did.”

“And coffee is just what it’ll have in it the next time I use it.”

“It’s still wet,” she’d say next.

There wasn’t a lot Kirk managed to do right around the house. Of course, you couldn’t blame him much on that score. He’d never spent enough time around a house to learn.

And he’d tell her, “It’ll be dry by tomorrow morning when I need it again.”

She’d quit arguing, but her eyes would be speaking loud disapproval. And he’d bet his living trust that she’d go back afterward and wash the mug. Probably the whole cupboard of mugs in case any of the others were contaminated by his inadequate sense of what was sanitary—and acceptable.

Leaning against the counter, staring at the cell phone on the tiled island across from him, Kirk felt satisfied that, at least in this imagined exchange between him and Susan, he’d had the last word.

Gandoyne and his family were going to lose his empire if he didn’t reinvent his business practices. Aster Sealants would get an offer too good to refuse. Or if they said no, they’d lose out altogether when some young upshot fresh from Podunk College U.S.A. found a way to make the edges of an opened aluminum lid nonsharp and resealable. If Aster could do it, so would someone else.

And that someone would sell to another someone who made aluminum cans. Those two someones would get filthy rich while two old men went bankrupt.

The cell phone rang.

“Chandler.” Some habits died hard.

“Douglas’s name is on the birth certificate.”

Alexander Douglas. Susan’s new husband.

“I expected as much.”

“In the state of Arizona, that makes him the kid’s father.”

Kirk lowered the hand holding the phone. Watched the coffee in the pot. Put the phone back to his ear. “The bastard has my wife. I’ll see him in hell before he gets my son, too.”

“Arizona laws are pretty clear.”

“File whatever you have to file to get me a paternity test.”

“You aren’t thinking straight, Kirk.” Kirk knew Troy Winston only dared say the words because he couldn’t see Kirk’s face. That muscle in his jaw started to tic.

“I’ve never been thinking straighter,” he said softly. “That child is mine, and I will do whatever it takes to be a part of his life. If I have to sue, I’ll sue. Just get me that paternity test.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Kirk was pleased as he disconnected the call—in spite of the offended tone he’d heard in the voice of his most trusted associate.

He was sorry he’d been rough on Troy. Maybe even sorry that this would rock Susan’s world. But he was going to do this.

He was determined.

And he was Kirk Chandler.

Thumb on the keypad of his cell phone, Kirk dialed the direct line to Edgar Gandoyne. It was now almost eight-thirty in Virginia. And Kirk had half an hour to get to work.

“ALL RISE.”

Valerie walked through the hall door leading from her office to the courtroom after a five-minute break, taking a deep breath as she went through the change from emotional woman to detached judge.

“You may be seated.”

The six other people in the small room sat as she took her seat on the bench. Smiling at Ashley, the court clerk who usually worked with her, Valerie checked the day’s files.

Mona, the bailiff working this morning’s schedule, announced the first case in the same clear, unemotional voice Valerie had been hearing since her first day on the bench.

As Ben White’s name was announced, Valerie glanced up, looking at the four people sitting on the dais eight feet in front of her and six feet below. Behind them was a hard wooden bench that could seat maybe four visitors. And an upholstered, sound-buffered wall.

An intimate setting for their little party.

The visitor’s bench was empty.

Ben was looking down. She waited.

A couple of seconds later the twelve-year-old boy gave a surreptitious and very hesitant glance in her direction.

She smiled at him. And forced herself to ignore the catch in her lungs. Ben might be the same size as Blake and Brian, but his life was not theirs.

He was the most important person in that room and she wanted him to know it.

Those eyes were trained in her direction for only a second, but she read the fear there.

She called for those present to introduce themselves.

Debbie Malcolm, state prosecutor on the White case, went first.

“Gordon White, father to the juvenile.” Ben’s father had been in her courtroom before.

“Leslie White, mother.” As had she.

Ben was next. He stated his name, looking at her briefly, and then lowering his eyes.

Ben’s attorney, Tyson Hunter, a public defender Valerie saw often, was next. During the difficult first minutes of this proceeding, everyone in the room, with the exception of Ben, was occupied with whatever papers were in front of them.

There wasn’t a lot of eye contact in Valerie’s working life.

With a crease in his forehead that had grown more pronounced over the months Valerie had been seeing Ben, the boy was peering at the papers in his lawyer’s hands. His papers.

The file was thick.

Valerie had a version of the same file in front of her.

Without looking at the boy again, she began with the legal protocol, turning Ben from a twelve-year-old child to a case number. For the record she asked if Ben’s biographical information was correct. His attorney stated in the affirmative, both of them going through their notes during the exchange.

Detachment was critical to her. She was about to make a decision that was going to change, one way or another, the rest of this all-American-looking boy’s life.

Debbie Malcolm, for the state, recommended, in light of the evidence before them, that Ben be detained.

Valerie had known coming into the room that this would be the recommendation.

Ben’s attorney spoke next, trying to explain away repeated truancies as no danger to the community. In great and passionate detail, he told the court about the boy’s scholastic abilities, his remarkable IQ that was blamed for a boredom that drove him from classrooms. The misdemeanors the lawyer dismissed in much the same way, managing to assert more than once that detention was for those who were a danger to the community. He believed that there were other, more beneficial ways to handle the case before them and asked for a lesser sentence.

Six months ago, Valerie would have been swayed by the arguments. They were solid. Sound. As good as anything she’d ever done during her life on the other side of the bench.

Looking at the boy’s parents, she asked, “How’s he doing at home?”

Ben’s father said fine.

His mother wiped away the tears that were sliding slowly down her face.

Valerie glanced at Ben. His face was impassive, which sent alarms to her nerve endings. At twelve years of age, the boy was unmoved by his mother’s anguish. Anguish that he had caused.

His mother’s statement was rife with confusion, helplessness, an engulfing desire to do what was best for her son and the honesty to admit she had no more ideas.

“Do you have anything to say?” she asked Ben, pinning him now with her most serious stare. Unless something happened in the next thirty seconds to convince her otherwise, Ben White had just sealed his fate.

“No, Your Honor.”

“Okay.” Valerie scanned the pages in front of her once more, making absolutely certain she’d seen everything—every note, date, justification, charge, recommendation and previous disposition. She was warm in her robe. Warmer than normal. She was aware of the heavy circular metal plaque on the wall behind her, almost as though it were radiating heat. Its words were emblazoned on her mind. Great Seal of the State of Arizona. 1912.

The state of Arizona had entrusted her with this decision.

“Ben, based on the number of times I’ve seen you in this court, and based on the fact that you’ve violated the terms of your intensive probation, I am going to have you detained, here at Juvenile Detention for a period of ninety days.” In spite of the sharp intake of breath she heard from the dais, Valerie continued, explaining legalities, conditions. “Do you understand what that means?”

She gazed at the boy. Not at his parents. His mother’s tears were not going to help Valerie do her job.

The boy was stone-faced, as usual. Until he opened his mouth to speak.

“No! Your Honor, no! Please don’t send me there! I’ll do everything just like you say, I promise.” With tears streaming down his face, he looked frantically over to his parents. “Please, don’t let them take me away from you….”

Basketball tryouts. Today Blake and Brian had basketball tryouts.

“Please!”

She read him the rest of the disposition.

Detention was this boy’s only hope.

She believed that.

The thought carried her from the room and down the hall to her office, but it didn’t erase the sight of that terrified face from her mind’s eye. Or stop her from imagining the next hour and the way the boy’s life was going to be drastically changed.

Ben had reason to be terrified. Juvenile detention stripped a kid not just of his freedom, but of any false pride he might retain. Her hope was that reducing Ben White to the most basic aspects of existence, he’d be able to begin again, to rebuild his life, to find a positive direction.

Her other hope was that neither of her sons ever had reason to look like that.

CHAPTER THREE

LEAH LOOKED UP from her desk outside Valerie’s office when Valerie entered their suite. “Did you detain him?”

“Yes.” She didn’t stop to chat.

In her office, hanging up her robe, Valerie concentrated on detaching herself from the image of Ben White. She couldn’t do her job if she didn’t. Nor could she be a good mother outside the job….

“What’s the little smile for?” Leah asked, walking into Valerie’s office a couple of minutes later.

She told her J.A. about the boys’ basketball tryouts that afternoon. And how their enthusiasm had completely consumed them. They just had to make that team.

“Do you know who the coach is?”

“Yeah, he’s that crossing guard I told you about.”

“The one who looks far too sexy to be a crossing guard?”

“I never said that!”

“Not in words, maybe!” Leah grinned, dropping into the chair in front of Valerie’s desk.

“What I’ve said is that it’s hard to believe someone who moves with his confidence is content standing on a street corner with a stop sign.”

“Do you have any idea how many times you’ve said it, though?”

Was she really talking about the man that much? She made a mental note to stop.

“It’s just that something about him strikes me, you know?” she said now, thoughts of the smile he’d given her that morning starting to replace the memory of the look in Ben’s eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” Leah said, her grin growing wider.

“Not like that.” Valerie picked up a pen, drew some lines on the top of a small pad of sticky notes. “He represents everything I haven’t known in a man,” she continued slowly. She and Leah had never spoken about anything like this before. “He sees the incredible value in children. He gives his time to them.”

“Isn’t that what Hal and the other male judges and probation officers and C.P.S. workers and attorneys do every day?”

“Of course.” Valerie glanced up. She couldn’t explain what made the guard different. He just was.

“So you think the boys will make the team?”

“I pray that they do.” She’d been offering up little prayers for days. “Neither of them is particularly tall or talented at handling the ball, but Brian’s a great shooter.” She chuckled. “I can vouch for that. We spent more time on the driveway this weekend than we did in the house.

“Besides, it’s just a junior-high team. At that age they let everyone who tries out have a place on the team, don’t they?”

Leah didn’t know.

Valerie didn’t, either. She just hoped to God the boys were chosen. Basketball was going to be Brian’s lifeline.

“You had a call from someone named Susan Douglas.” Leah passed a note she’d been holding across the desk. “Said she’s a friend of yours and needs to speak with you today. She was hoping before your morning calendar.”

Susan Douglas. It was turning out to be a day for difficult situations. She reached for the note. “I’ll call now.”

Leah stood. “I’ve never heard you mention her before.”

“I told you my husband died two years ago, in a car accident….”

“Yeah.” Her eyes filled with compassion, Leah sat down again.

“The accident was his fault.”

“I’d heard that.”

“Did you also hear that he was drunk?”

“No!”

Valerie nodded, fighting other mental visions she’d spend a lifetime trying to erase. “I’m friends with a couple of reporters who wanted to protect me and the boys, so the accident didn’t get much press coverage. Also, it happened shortly after 9/11….” She paused. “He hit a little girl….”

She stopped abruptly. The morning she’d had, the life she was having, had briefly gotten the better of her. She would not cry.

Tears didn’t help. She’d already shed so many and they never eased the pain.

They couldn’t change the past. They couldn’t bring that little girl back.

Leah was staring at her, an odd mixture of horror, shock and compassion on her face.

“Was she badly hurt?” she asked hoarsely.

Valerie nodded. Scrambled frantically for the detachment that would see her through. “She lived for almost a week, but there was never really any hope….”

“Oh, God, Val, I heard there was some kind of tragedy involved, but I never guessed… I’m sorry— I had no idea… I’m so sorry.”

And this was one reason Valerie didn’t talk about that part of her life. People had no idea what to do or say. After the accident, even though the tragedy had been kept out of the papers, Valerie had found that the friends she and Thomas had shared slowly stopped calling. And she understood why. No one knew what to say.

Because there was nothing to say.

A year later, she’d received her appointment to the bench. She’d started a new job, a new life and was trying desperately to let go of the most painful parts of the old one.

“Susan is the little girl’s mother.”

“You know her?”

“I got in touch with her after…I’d seen Alicia’s obituary. It listed her mother’s name, said she was survived by a loving family and friends, and that was all. But there’d been this picture….”

She drew some more lines. Evenly spaced, even in length and thickness. Parallel in every way. Perfectly balanced.

“I knew there was nothing I could do, but I had to try to help.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Leah’s smile was sad. And full of love.

“She was so kind,” Valerie told her assistant. “Even in the face of her own grief, she was concerned about me and my widowhood. As we talked, we found we had something else in common—our poor choice in husbands. Apparently, the little girl’s father was out of the same mold as my husband. Except that Susan and her husband had already been divorced when Alicia was killed.”

“Oh my gosh! That poor woman!”

“Yeah. She had it pretty rough for a while there. She’ll never completely recover from her daughter’s death, but…” Valerie paused, feeling again that horrible stab of guilt about all the things she hadn’t done that might have prevented the senseless tragedy. “She remarried shortly after the accident and although I haven’t spoken with her, I heard not too long ago that she’s had a new baby. I sent a little outfit.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s calling, then,” Leah said, standing again. “To thank you.”

Valerie hoped so, thinking of the nearly broken woman she’d known. God, she hoped so.

SUSAN DOUGLAS COULDN’T think straight. Alex had been so good to her. The only good thing in her life at a time when she’d thought she’d never be capable of feeling good again. He’d saved her life. Literally.

And then spent many, many months slowly putting that life back together. Handing her the pieces as she was ready to receive them.

And never once, during all of that, had he made her feel as though she couldn’t do it without him. He’d never diminished her. He’d nurtured her.

She owed him everything.

She’d chewed the nails of both hands by midmorning that last Tuesday in October. She’d left the message for Valerie at eight, hoping the judge would call before her morning session started. And now it was ten-thirty.

The baby had been up, eaten, had his bath, occupying her for several hours. But now he was asleep again, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Far too alone…

The phone rang and she jumped, knocking it off its cradle. With a glance at herself in the mirror, she grabbed the mobile receiver from the floor.

She looked fine. Her shoulder-length dark hair was perfectly styled, her makeup exquisite, her slacks and sweater the epitome of fashion on a body that was model-slim just a month after her baby’s birth. If one overlooked the bleeding cuticle on her right index finger, she could easily pass for the rich socialite she’d always wanted to be.

“Hello?” She caught it on the fifth ring.

“Susan?”

“Valerie, hi!” Susan lifted her middle finger to her teeth. “Thanks for calling back so soon.”

“Of course! I’m always here for you, you know that.”

Tears filled Susan’s eyes. It happened a lot.

“I need your opinion.” If she hoped to get through this, she’d have to make it quick. She could read the warning signs.

“Sure, what about?”

How did Valerie always manage to sound cheerful? She’d suffered a hell of a lot, too. In some ways more than Susan had. Yet, try as she might, Susan couldn’t find the pure goodwill that infused Valerie Simms’s voice.

“It’s complicated.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“I just had a baby.”

“I know! Congratulations! Did you get the outfit I sent?”

“Yes.” Susan paced the kitchen floor, stepping only on the diamond-shaped markings in the pattern. “I’m late with thank-you notes and I’m really sorry. Alex mailed the last of them this morning.”

“Then you’re way ahead of where I was!” Valerie laughed. “The twins were six months old before I got around to even thinking about thank-you notes.”

Susan didn’t feel “ahead.” As a matter of fact, she was sliding back so fast she was terrified. Everything confused her.

Except that she had to protect Alex. And baby Colton.

“My ex-husband is trying to challenge Colton’s paternity.”

“What!”

“He says the baby is his and not Alex’s.”

“Is the man insane?” Valerie asked, and then continued, “No, wait, we know he’s insane. But he can’t be that insane! You’ve been divorced for three years!”

“I know.” She was blowing it. Wasn’t putting enough indignation into her voice. Valerie was her only hope of winning this.

“Is there some reason for him to think the child is his?”

“Colton is Alex’s son.”

“But is there some reason your ex might think otherwise?”

“No, of course not,” Susan said, trying to collect herself. “We slept together once, after the divorce, and he’s claiming that as the reason he’s doing this, but the timing’s all wrong.” God, she wished that was so. Still… “He doesn’t want Colton, Valerie. Think about it. Think about him. He’s just doing this to get back at me. It’s a control thing, you know that.”

She sank down to the kitchen floor, and pulled hard at the cuticle of her middle finger with her teeth. Valerie just had to believe her. She had to.

Alex didn’t know about that night she’d found the bastard crying at the cemetery. And she’d die rather than hurt Alex. Besides, Colton was Alex’s son.

At least, it was possible that Colton was his son. If she’d been late before she got pregnant.

Alex was in the delivery room when Colton was born. He’d been the one to bring her home, care for them both, support them both. He was home every night, helping with baths, watching Susan feed their baby, planning for his future.

Alex was Colton’s father. His name was on the birth certificate.

Valerie asked a couple of pointed questions. And then rang off, telling Susan not to worry. The jerk didn’t have a leg to stand on and Valerie was going to knock it out from under him, anyway.

Arms wrapped around herself, Susan left the phone on the floor and let all the tears fall.

She’d hoped the pain was behind her.

And was beginning to believe it would never be.

HER AFTERNOON CALENDAR behind her, Valerie picked up the phone to make a couple of calls on behalf of Susan Douglas, but it rang before she could punch in a number.

“Hello?”

“Mom, it’s Blake.”

“Hi, Blake!” Valerie’s heart jumped. “Tryouts over so soon?”

Sitting there at her desk in her navy silk suit with the matching two-inch-heeled pumps, her judicial robe on a hanger not three feet away, she crossed her fingers like a little kid.

“Yeah, we just got home.”

Blake didn’t sound heartbroken, but…

“So?”

“I made the team.”

“Oh, Blake, I’m so proud of you guys! I knew you’d get it.” With a grin so big her cheeks hurt, Valerie breathed her first easy breath of the day. “When do practices start?”

“Right away. Coach thinks we can win a lot but he says we have to practice hard.”

Sounded good to her. Brian was going to have to eat if he wanted to play.

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

She had some leverage. Something to give Brian motivation. Something to begin building the self-esteem his father had done so much to destroy, although neither boy had been fully aware of the damage.

And Blake! He’d finally put forth the effort to get something he wanted. And been rewarded.

She could just kiss the crossing-guard coach.

“What’s your coach’s name?”

“Kirk.”

“Kirk what?”

“I don’t know. He told us to call him Kirk.”

Kirk it was. She could hardly wait to drop the boys off in the morning and give the man her utmost thanks.

Maybe there was something she could do for him? Give him a step up to a job that would pay more than the minimum wage a crossing guard made. She knew a lot of people and—

“Mom.”

“What?”

“Brian didn’t make the team.”

KIRK CHANDLER WAS the crossing guard’s name. She’d read it on the paper Blake had brought for her to sign the night before.

He was a nice guy. It was obvious he had a real affection for kids. She’d go see Mr. Chandler, explain the situation and he’d let Brian on the team. Valerie was so certain of that she sent Blake to school with the signed form in his book bag. And told both boys to show up for practice that afternoon. Everything would be fine.

She’d promised them.

The school’s lunchroom was cavernous without the cacophony of sound and movement created by hundreds of young people with half an hour of freedom in the middle of the day. She’d only been there once before, when Blake had forgotten a science report that counted for fifty per cent of his grade, and she’d had to run home between calendars, get the report and meet him during his lunch break to give it to him.

Though there were still several people milling about—a few lingering kids, a janitorial crew pulling large trash cans on wheels from table to table, some cafeteria workers—she spotted Kirk Chandler right away. Dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he was over in a far corner of the room, engaged in what appeared to be a serious conversation.

With Abraham Billings.

Not wanting the boy to see her, she backed up and waited until he’d left the room before approaching her sons’ basketball coach.

“Mr. Chandler?”

He turned immediately.

“Mrs. Simms.”

Completely out of character, Valerie hesitated for the briefest moment to take the hand he held out, but that moment was long enough to make her feel self-consciously foolish. His skin was warm, the size of his palm making her feel small, fragile. His grip was firm.

“Ms. Simms,” she said. “I’m Ms., not Mrs.”

Great, Val, any other imbecile remarks you’d like to throw out there?

“Blake and Brian went back to class half an hour ago. Were you looking for someone?” he asked, his eyes alight with appreciation. Probably because of the figure-enhancing black pantsuit she was wearing.

“Yes. You.” She walked beside him to the door of the cafeteria. “I wanted to speak with you before basketball practice this afternoon.”

“I’m on playground duty next door at the elementary school in a couple of minutes,” he said, starting slowly down the hall. “We can talk there.”

His voice was…calming. Masculine, but not too deep. Smooth without being smarmy.

“What does playground duty entail?” She could easily see him out there shooting baskets with the boys. Or refereeing a game of Red Rover.

The clacking of her heels seemed inordinately loud against the tile floor.

“A lot of standing, mostly,” he said, sending her a sideways grin as they walked.

The halls were deserted, quiet, as they passed one classroom door after another, all of them closed. Still, with the low ceilings and colorful banners placed every few feet on the walls, the air felt a bit close.

“You don’t organize activities?”

“Not for recess. The kids aren’t out long enough. We’re just there to make sure no one leaves. And that they don’t kill each other.”

Sounded like a boring job for someone with so much intelligence shining from his eyes.

And yet she was drawn to the way this man who had apparently dedicated his life to serving children.

She wanted to ask why he’d done that. And, of course, couldn’t. Kirk Chandler’s life choices were absolutely none of her business.

“I came to talk to you about the basketball tryouts yesterday.” They’d reached an outside door. Chandler held it open for her.

“Was Blake excited to make the team?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a good little player. And he’ll get better as the year progresses.”

Proud of Blake, pleased that her son was succeeding, Valerie accompanied Kirk Chandler toward the playground several yards away.

Blake’s success was a wonderful balm to her heart.

“He’s going to be a starter,” Chandler was saying, telling her about Blake’s aggressive footwork on the court.

Valerie frowned, confused. The man didn’t seem to realize that they had a problem here. He hadn’t asked about Brian at all, or even expressed any kind of regret for having to leave Blake’s twin off the team.

“I’m curious,” she said slowly, flicking a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Why didn’t Blake’s brother make the team?”

“He can’t keep up.”

“What does that mean?” Detachment, Val. “I shoot ball with my boys, Mr. Chandler,” she said, softening her tone. “Brian’s a much better shot than Blake.”

“Possibly.” Kirk Chandler stopped outside the gate leading to the playground, leaned his forearms on the top bars and looked over, silently assessing her. And then he spoke.

“Basketball takes energy, Ms. Simms. Lots of it. Brian has none.”

She pressed her lips together, as though blending her lipstick, although she’d chewed it off on the way from her car to the cafeteria.

“I can’t put him on the team because I can’t play him in a game.”

“He needs to be on that team, Mr. Chandler,” she said, trying to tone down her emotion. “I’ll make certain that his energy level is up to par.”

Being on the team would take care of that. It would make Brian eat.

Chandler glanced out at the still-empty playground. And shook his head.

“I told Brian he could practice with the team. And as soon as I see his strength and speed improve, I’ll consider letting him on. I still have an open spot.”

With a calm she didn’t feel, Valerie folded her arms across her chest. “I appreciate the offer, but being there with the boys, being constantly reminded that he isn’t good enough, won’t help Brian.”

She shook at the thought. Low self-esteem was at the root of Brian’s problems. There was no way she could expose him to something that would make that worse.

“You’d be surprised,” Chandler said, his conciliatory tone rankling her. “A lot of times it’s something like this that becomes a significant turning point in a boy’s life. If Brian wants to be on the team badly enough, he’ll get himself there.”

“No, he won’t, because I can’t let him do this.” Her words were sharper than she wanted. “Brian’s borderline anorexic, Mr. Chandler. Putting him out there every day, in front of his peers—as someone who can’t make the grade—could kill him.”

“The choice is yours,” he said, his gaze steady as it held hers. “But I think you’d be making a mistake. Brian wants to play basketball. If I thought there was any chance he could keep up, I’d have put him on the team for his heart alone. Instead of ‘killing him,’ as you say, this challenge could very well be what saves him.”

“Do you have children, Mr. Chandler?”

It was something she’d wondered more than once.

“No.” His gaze had returned to the swings and slide and open field ahead of them.

“I didn’t think so.”

“I was a boy once, though.” With the soft words, an odd tone had entered his voice.

“I’m guessing, however, that you didn’t have problems with low self-esteem.”

“Every kid experiences some of that.”

“The normal bouts, yes. Brian’s bout isn’t normal.”

“The only way he’ll ever play on my team is if he comes out to practice and shows me he can keep up. Yesterday he couldn’t.”

“If Brian doesn’t play, Blake won’t, either.”

“What?” He turned, frowning, his eyes filled with such intensity she was shocked. There was a lot more going on inside this man than the world saw. “You’d actually hold Blake back, punish him, because his brother has problems?”

“Of course not…”

His eyes cleared. And that mattered to her.

“Blake made that decision.”

“And you’re going to let him?”

“You obviously don’t understand twins, Mr. Chandler,” she said, suddenly weary. So often it felt like life was Valerie and her boys against the world. Trying to find their own place…

“What’s to understand? They’re two kids with the same birthday.”

If she had more time, she’d tell him how wrong that was. She’d tell him how, when the boys were little, one would always know when the other didn’t feel well. When Blake had the flu, Brian—at three years old—refused to leave the room and sat quietly beside his brother, eating only the soup that Blake ate, until his brother was better. She’d explain how the boys knew what the other was thinking, completing sentences and thoughts for each other as naturally as if they were their own.

She’d tell him, but she had a feeling he still wouldn’t get it. Kirk Chandler was turning out to be an irritating man.

“My boys do everything together,” she said now. “They’ve been in the same classes every year, they play the same sports, they have the same friends. I’ve got nothing to do with this. It’s a natural outgrowth of the bond they share. And,” she said with emphasis when he took a breath as though he was planning to interrupt with more of his unfounded opinions, “it’s been a gift, giving them the strength and security to weather whatever challenges come along. Including the death of their father.”

“And that’s why Brian is borderline anorexic, because of all this strength and security.”

It wasn’t a question.

And Valerie didn’t have any more time. She had to get back to Mesa for her afternoon calendar.

“The boys are coming to practice today,” she told him, “but don’t expect to see them tomorrow.”

“The choice is yours,” he told her again. “But, for both their sakes, I wish you’d reconsider.”

“And I wish you would,” she told him, then turned and walked away, leaving him standing there staring out over an empty playground.

An unusual man, a poorly paid servant with a mind of his own and a will of iron.

A man who apparently had the power to ruin her son’s life.

And an open spot on his basketball team.

Open spot being the operative words, Valerie reminded herself as she climbed in her Mercedes, put it in gear and accelerated, turning out of the lot.

She’d take care of this somehow. She always did.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT HIS CORNER early as usual the next morning, the day before Halloween, Kirk sipped from a paper cup of coffee and enjoyed the quiet. He had another fifteen minutes before he needed to don the orange vest and take up his sign.

The air was a little chilly, not that he minded. By midmorning, he’d be rolling up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. A lone car pulled up. Stopped. Moved on. Kirk enjoyed these stolen everyday moments. Somehow they never failed to instill a sense of peace in him, along with the assurance that he was on the right course.

Another car approached. This one stopped at the curb a few feet behind Kirk and someone got out. Odd. It was too early for the kids. But he recognized the car. Pulling on his vest, Kirk watched from the corner of his eye.

Abraham Billings didn’t wait for his mother’s kiss on the cheek. And she drove off before he’d even shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders. Kirk frowned. The woman always waited to watch her son walk into the school.

She always brought him right before the first bell, too. This morning there wasn’t another kid in sight.

Head down, the boy, in his customary freshly laundered jeans and T-shirt, ambled to the corner. Kirk held up his sign, although there was no traffic. Abraham didn’t seem to notice.

“You got something to do before school?” Kirk asked as Abraham stood there.

“No.”

Abraham was looking down the street in the direction his mother had gone, his features drawn into a sullen mask. Still, he made no move to cross the street.

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’.”

Eyes narrowed, Kirk nodded. There was a job for him to do here; he knew it. He just had to figure out what it was.

And he would.

“Practice is at three today.”

Abraham’s head swung toward Kirk. “So?” The word was almost thrown at him.

Was that liquor he smelled on the boy’s breath? Or something else? Abraham could have gotten into his father’s cologne. This was the age for potentially embarrassing experiments.

“I want you there.”

The boy’s chin tightened. “I didn’t try out. I’m not on the team. I can’t play.”

Three sentences, Kirk mused. He was getting somewhere.

“Come, anyway.”

“What for?”

“I left a spot open. Today’s practice can be considered your tryout.”

Abraham didn’t respond. Just stared down the street where he’d last seen his mother.

“You think your mom would mind if you came?”

“No.”

“We could go to the office and call her at lunch, just to be sure.”

“She won’t be there.”

“She at work?”

Abraham’s body signals were telling Kirk to shut up and leave him alone, but he wasn’t going to. Not while the boy was finally talking to him.

“No.”

“I see her drop you off here in the mornings. Is it usually on her way to work?”

“No.”

Kirk nodded. He had a stay-at-home mom. That was good. Unusual. But good.

“How about your dad? What does he do?”

“I don’t know.”

Had Alicia known what her daddy did?

“I don’t know who my dad is.”

With the worst possible timing, a couple of kids came up the street. One on a skateboard, one on in-line skates. Bobby Sanderson and Scott Williams.

Seeing them, Abraham stepped off the curb. He should have called the boy back, warned him to wait until he’d raised the stop sign.

Kirk watched him go instead, hoping the kid showed up at practice that afternoon.

“Hi, guys,” he said, signaling that Bobby and Scott should cross the street. But his mind wasn’t on the loud and rambunctious seventh-graders.

If Abraham Billings didn’t have a father, that probably hadn’t been his dad’s cologne Kirk had smelled.

Fifteen minutes later, Valerie Simms’s Mercedes stopped across the street, farther down than usual.

“Katie, Cassandra, you have orchestra today, I see.” Kirk smiled at the two Japanese-American friends who were standing with him, each toting a violin case.

Looking at each other, they giggled, nodded and, as he signaled, ran across the street, their violin cases banging against their knees.

“Hi, Coach.”

He turned, smiled at the twins, took a quick look at Brian.

“Hi, guys. Sore from practice?”

“I sure am.” Blake grinned, wrinkling his freckle-covered nose.

“Yeah, he’s a lot worse off than I am, Coach,” Brian said, elbowing his twin. “Our legs hurt, but his arms hurt, too.”

“That’s good!” Kirk stepped out into the street. “Your bodies are getting conditioned.”

The boys nodded enthusiastically. “See you this afternoon,” he called.

And then he wondered if he should have. If the twins’ mother had told them they couldn’t be associated with the team, he had to abide by that.

Even if he disagreed with her completely.

But perhaps she’d changed her mind. The boys hadn’t given any indication that they weren’t allowed to play.

“Hi.”

Turning, surprised, Kirk saw the subject of his thoughts. Her presence on his corner explained why she’d stopped the car farther down. She’d actually parked it.

“Good morning,” he said. It was the first morning since the beginning of the school year that he didn’t smile at her. He had a pretty good hunch this wasn’t a smiling moment.

If she was going to capitulate—let the boys play—he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.

Like giving any hint of gloating….

Standing there, watching the kids as they walked up, waited and then crossed when he signaled, the boys’ mother appeared the epitome of patience. He admired that.

“Brian didn’t eat last night.”

The kids were gone. And so, apparently, was her composure.

“And you’re going to blame that on me.”

“No, of course not.” He wondered how she could make him feel as though he’d been reprimanded without ever changing the tone of her voice. Must be the judge thing.

He’d been surprised when the boys had told them their mother was a judge.

In juvenile court.

Kirk knew more about that whole scene than he cared to remember.

“Brian’s problem existed long before basketball tryouts came along,” she continued after another group of kids had passed. “But I’m absolutely sure that being on the team would help him more than anything else. I’m begging you to reconsider your position on this, Mr. Chandler. Give Brian that open spot.”

Begging. Strong word.

“Please,” she said when Kirk played the negotiation technique that almost always won—remaining silent. “It’s a junior-high team. It’s not like their ranking is going to matter.”

“Tell that to the boys who spend every afternoon in the gym working their butts off.”

Kirk was watching the kids coming up the street, but he caught the slight movement of her high heels beneath the calf-length navy dress as she shifted on the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, then sighed loudly, showing a definite lack of patience as another group of youngsters came to the corner.

As always, Kirk called them by name. Joked with them. Remembered something about them so they’d know he paid attention. And cared.

“I can’t let Brian on the team,” he said as soon as they had the corner to themselves again. “For the reasons I’ve already given you.”

“Mr. Chandler—”

“Ms. Simms,” Kirk interrupted. “I just saw your boys. They were both smiling, eager. Brian was bragging about being less sore than his brother. And they were both looking forward to practice this afternoon.” He met her gaze—and ignored the thread of something personal that seemed to pass between them. “They didn’t seem to be aware that they were quitting basketball.”

“I didn’t tell them you’d refused to have Brian on the team.”

“He was at practice yesterday. He knew.”

“We didn’t discuss basketball last night.”

“Could it be that the boys want to continue with Blake on the team and Brian practicing but are afraid to tell you so?”

She shook her head, breaking eye contact with him, sending an uncharacteristic bolt of compassion straight through him.

He didn’t allow himself to feel when he went after what he knew was right. He just went.

“My boys always expect me to do what I say I’m going to do. I’m sure they’re certain I’ll get Brian on the team.”

“You won’t.”

Another group of kids approached. She looked at her watch. He wondered if court still started at eight-thirty. If so, she’d need to hurry.

“Brian’s the only one who can get Brian on that team. If you let him.”

The thirteen-year-old girls gathered at the corner, discussing some outrageous-sounding gossip about a boy and girl making it in the girls’ bathroom, were obviously completely unaware of the adults sharing their space.

“At another time, I might be willing to try your little experiment, Mr. Chandler, but there’s too much resting on this for me to take a chance—”

“They’re coming to practice this afternoon,” he interrupted automatically, going in for the close without conscious thought.

“I’ll tell them tonight.”

“Why don’t you come to practice?” Kirk delivered the alternative that his instincts were telling him would finish this off. “See what we’re doing, what Brian’s doing. Watch him on the court with the other boys. And then make your decision.”

She glanced at her watch. Flipped a curl over her shoulder. Met his gaze.

“Okay.”

He wasn’t surprised—had known she’d capitulate. And hated that he’d known. Hated that he could so easily manipulate people. Perhaps Steve McDonald had made a mistake when he’d given Kirk this opportunity to fulfill his promise to his daughter.

“But I’m going to be watching closely, Mr. Chandler.”

“I hope so.”

Kirk suspected he didn’t just mean her son’s behavior on the basketball court.

And he suspected she didn’t, either.

VALERIE FOLLOWED the sounds of squeaking shoes and bouncing balls thundering up and down hard-wood to the gymnasium that afternoon. At four o’clock she was later than she’d wanted to be, but a calendar she’d expected to be light had run longer than she’d anticipated. She’d missed the first hour of practice.

Kirk Chandler looked over as she slid in the side door and walked softly on her two-inch navy pumps to the row of bleachers pulled out from the wall. She tucked her dress beneath her and sat. Other than nodding acknowledgment, he didn’t miss a beat, blowing a whistle and yelling at the boys to pass.

“Dribble! Pass!” he hollered again and again as the boys went repeatedly through a pattern spread out in pairs across the gym floor.

She spotted both twins immediately. Their black curly hair made them easily distinguishable, even though they were dressed just like every other twelve-year-old boy there. In the middle of the room, Blake faced a boy who was half a foot taller, but somehow managed to keep the ball from the other player as he dribbled. It was the footwork, just as Chandler had said.

“Good, Brian,” Chandler called out. “Nice pass.”

Brian was on the end. Partnered with—Abraham Billings.

Almost instantly, Valerie was transported outside herself, outside the experience, detached. There was a gym. Boys at practice. Her sons working hard.

As far as she’d been aware, her boys didn’t know Abraham. Not that she’d asked. She didn’t bring her work home with her.

And in her year on the bench, she hadn’t run into even one of her kids outside the courtroom.

“Eduardo, like this!” Chandler palmed a basketball and dribbled quickly, showing the boy how to control the ball. He watched as the young man tried it himself. “That’s better!” he said, moving down the row.

Eduardo had been at a last-day-of-school swim party the boys had held one Saturday the previous May.

“Good footwork, Blake. Now watch Shane’s ball-handling. Shane, you watch Blake’s feet.”

Valerie observed. Assessed.

And waited.

During the last fifteen minutes of the hour, Kirk Chandler split the boys into two teams and let them scrimmage with each other while he walked up and down the sidelines taking notes and yelling out to them. Only encouragement at that point—earning him Valerie’s begrudging admiration. This was the man from the crossing corner. Compassionate. Dedicated to the children he was there to serve.

Abraham Billings was everywhere. He made more shots than any of the other boys combined.

When practice ended, the entire squad gathered around their coach, faces eager, all eyes pinned on the man before them, all ears tuned to whatever he was saying. The gym was silent except for the hum of his voice. He was grinning, nodding and sweating as much as any of them. Fair in all her judgments, Valerie had to admit that from what she’d seen, Kirk Chandler was a good coach. Maybe even a great one.

And after watching the time and effort he’d spent on her son, she was fairly confident Brian would get his place on the team.

She met her boys at the side of the court as they walked off with the coach after everyone else had left through the far door of the gym.

Brian, lagging behind the other two, with his dark curly hair plastered to the sides of his head, looked from his mother to Kirk Chandler and grinned.

“So I’m on the team, too?” he asked Chandler.

As Blake moved beside his twin, nodding and staring up at their coach with adoration, Valerie held Chandler’s gaze.

Don’t let me down, she told him as forcibly as she could although she didn’t say a word.

He’s just a little boy who’s struggling with things that are bigger than he is. She knew better than to try to appeal to the man in front of her with that sentiment.

After long seconds, Chandler broke eye contact with her and glanced down at her son, a hand on Brian’s shoulder, a ball wedged between his other wrist and his hip. “How many times were you first down the court today, Brian?”

“None.” Brian continued to gaze up at the coach, his green eyes earnest.

“How many times did you have to stop because you couldn’t keep up?”

“A couple.” The boy’s expression changed from rapt to tentatively hopeful.

Valerie’s stomach tightened. The bastard wasn’t going to do it.

“And how shaky were your legs when we finished?”

Brian looked down at the offending appendages. Bony-kneed and far too skinny, his little boy legs stuck out from beneath the silky silver shorts she’d bought them the weekend before for tryouts. And then he turned his attention back to his coach. “Pretty shaky,” he said with a shrug.

He knew what was coming. Valerie blinked back a surge of emotion. Why did life have to be so damn difficult? Her sons were good boys. They tried hard and stayed out of trouble. Was it so wrong to want this break for them?

“I’m not on the team, am I?” Brian asked, his voice perfectly even.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Chandler asked. He held the ball between both hands, lightly spinning it.

“No, Coach.”

“I don’t think so, either.”

Brian nodded, chin jutting out, maintaining eye contact with Chandler, obviously trying to take it like a man.

“Come on, Bry, let’s go get our stuff.” Blake elbowed his brother, and the two boys headed across the gym floor to the locker-room door. Valerie didn’t miss the quiver in Brian’s chin as he turned away.

“How can you be so cruel?” Valerie asked softly. She didn’t get it. Tough love was great in a lot of circumstances. Not this one. “Do you honestly not realize that I’m not a parent who just wants to see my son play basketball? Or even a mother who wants her son to get his own way? Can’t you see that what I am is a parent who’s found a way to help her son be healthy when nothing else has worked?”

“Has Brian been in counseling?” The ball between his hands was still.

“Yes, they both have. Their father’s unexpected death left some unresolved issues.”

His life had left some, too, although the boys weren’t yet old enough to understand the extent of the damage their father’s neglect had caused. Still, they’d been awakened more than once in the middle of the night to the sounds of horrendous drunken yelling.

“What about now, for the anorexia?”

“That’s all part of it, but yes. Specifically for the anorexia for the past six months.”

He paused, and Valerie thought, once again, that he was finally going to do the right thing. He had to redeem himself. He was the crossing-guard man who’d done more to lift her spirits with his morning smiles these past months than anyone else she could think of.

Purse slung over her shoulder, arms around her waist, she waited.

“Have you talked to his counselor about basketball? Or his doctor, for that matter?”

“I called both. They were encouraging, hopeful that the basketball experience would help.”

He dropped the ball he’d been holding, stepped closer as he bent to pick it up, leaving Valerie with a whiff of his musky scent. Sweaty though he was, he didn’t smell of it.

Closer now, he nodded at her, but didn’t say anything else. Infuriating man!

Silence seemed to be typical for him. And left Valerie with too much to say and a need not to say it.

“You may know basketball, Mr. Chandler.” She said it anyway. “But I know my son. If you allow him to play, he won’t let you down. But if you don’t, you’ll be letting him down.”

He rested the ball against his side, tucked beneath his elbow. “Have you ever been a man, Ms. Simms?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Chandler. I’ve never done a past-life regression.”

It was his emphasis on the Ms. that had taken a lot of the anger out of Valerie’s reply. That and the quietly serious light in his eyes. He was making a point. She didn’t get it. And she honestly wanted to understand what he was thinking. Why he was being so difficult? He was an intelligent man. He cared about the kids. What was she missing?

“The way I understand things, it’s not a need to play basketball, in particular, that’s the problem here. It’s Brian’s self-esteem.”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “But basketball is the issue, too. It’s the only thing that’s lit a fire under him in a long time. The boys’ father had a hoop installed for them several years ago and Brian’s always been a good shot.”

Not that Thomas had ever known that. He’d arranged for the hoop for Christmas one year. But he hadn’t been home to see his sons’ reactions when the surprise arrived. Nor for any other part of that Christmas holiday. He’d never once seen either of the boys shoot the ball.

“I understand Brian has an attachment to the game,” Chandler said, meeting her gaze head-on. “But it will be worse for his self-esteem to give him something he hasn’t earned. Something he isn’t yet qualified to do.”

“Brian has worked as hard or harder than anyone else out there.”

“At shooting, maybe.” The coach’s eyes narrowed. “But being an athlete requires much more than ball-handling skill. First and foremost, he needs to take care of his instrument—his only real tool—his body.”

For a second there, Valerie was reminded of various times on the bench when one defense attorney or another brought to light something the prosecutors missed. She’d look at the file in front of her, the sheaf of papers and reports that were her constant guides, and suddenly see a hole in information that had seemed concrete and actionable.

“It will be much worse for Brian in the long run if things are given to him without his having earned them—given to him before he’s ready for them,” Chandler repeated.

It was a valid point.

CHAPTER FIVE

“BRIAN’S SEEING a counselor, Mr. Chandler.” Afraid to lose such a critical confrontation, Valerie stepped up the heat. “I’ve been privy to the counselor’s findings.”

The ball was back between his hands. Spinning slowly.

“Right now, through his own self-sabotage, Brian’s physiological needs are not being completely met,” Valerie said honestly. “Until those needs are met, nothing else matters. Life lessons of the kind to which you’re referring, simply pass him by. If we can’t get him to eat, we can’t get him to a place where those lessons will make any difference. Practicing with the team is not enough incentive to get him to eat. But I really believe that being on the team would.”

He spun the ball. Bounced it a couple of times. Opened his mouth to speak.

“You have to understand,” Valerie interrupted. “For months we’ve been looking for something, anything, that’s important enough to Brian to coax him to eat. We’ve finally found something he’s passionate about, and your decision is standing between us and Brian’s cure.”

“Basketball doesn’t even matter at the moment,” Valerie concluded with the rush of adrenaline she used to get when, as a defense attorney, she knew she’d won over the jury.

Catching the ball between his palms, Kirk Chandler held it there.

“The game matters, though,” he said softly, but she heard the determination behind his words. “The game of life, if you’ll pardon the cliché. And Brian’s playing it. Winning isn’t everything, Ms. Simms. Getting him to eat will mean less if he’s bribed to do it. He has to eat because he makes the decision, because of something he wants to achieve. With the first, you’re giving control of his life, his eating, to others. With the second, the control rests with him.”

Eyes narrowed, Valerie wondered if Kirk Chandler had been a lawyer in his previous life. It was sure as hell obvious he’d been more than a crossing guard, lunchroom monitor, playground cop or basketball coach. She’d lost very few cases during her years in court, but occasionally an opposing attorney would outmaneuver her, as Kirk Chandler had just done.

“If he loses one more pound, I’m going to get letters from Brian’s doctor and counselor, bring them to Mr. McDonald and have him put my son on that team.” Steve McDonald, now the principal at Menlo Ranch, had been the boys’ second-grade teacher.

“Then you’d better make sure he comes to practice,” Chandler said, apparently not the least bit moved by her threat.

Valerie had more to say but the boys exploded out of the locker room and zoomed across to her.

“Ready, Mom?” Brian asked.

“Yep!” An arm around each of them, she turned with her little family to leave.

“See you tomorrow, guys,” Chandler called out.

“Yeah, see ya, Coach,” the boys chorused in perfect unison.

They were out in the Mercedes before Valerie realized she’d just lost what might prove to be one of the most important cases of her life. Somehow, without her having consciously agreed, Brian was going to be practicing with the team.

Confused as to how that had happened, Valerie was the one who didn’t have much of an appetite that night.

AT FIVE IN THE MORNING on Halloween Friday, Kirk was at his desk, having already sent out enough faxes to keep his line tied up for almost an hour. Paperwork had been signed, sealed and delivered for the Gandoyne/Aster merger on Tuesday of that week, a three-day negotiation from open to close. The rest—well, he wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing.

He’d told Troy that Gandoyne would be his only deal. Yes, he could have Chandler Acquisitions up and running again at little more than a moment’s notice. Yes, his reputation was still garnering him business opportunities on a daily basis. But he was finished. Had a new life. New goals and priorities.

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