Can you ever escape your past?

Jon Swartz is an adult recipient—the second one—of a scholarship awarded by an anonymous donor. A single father, he comes to Shelter Valley, Arizona, to begin his life anew. He’s a man with a secret past, a past he has to hide to protect both himself and his two-year-old son, Abe.

Lillie Henderson, a child life specialist, has her own history of loss and betrayal. She and Jon are brought together by Abe—and by an attraction they can’t deny. They have to decide not to let the emotions…and mistakes…of the past sabotage their hopes for the future. Abe’s happiness depends on it. And so does theirs!

“Are you coming on to me?”

Jon’s question was soft, intimate.

There was a two-year-old sleeping a couple of feet away. A child Lillie couldn’t take any further into her heart.

“No.” Was she? “At least, I don’t think I am. I’m just…the other night you said…we both acknowledged…” For someone whose entire life was dedicated to finding the right words to help people, to soothe them, Lillie was failing miserably. “But I really don’t want anything more than friendship….”

She couldn’t take on Jon’s son. Not as her own. She’d smother him with her love and constant concern. Worry herself sick over every little hiccup.

She honestly did not want to marry again. Ever.

Dear Reader,

We get to spend more time together in Shelter Valley! I love it here and love that so many of you do, too. I hope we’ll be able to keep meeting like this!

Jon’s new to Shelter Valley this semester. He’s a man who was on the periphery of my mind after his appearance in It’s Never Too Late; the real story in Second Time’s the Charm was going to be Lillie’s.

Lillie first came here to attend college. And then, when tragedy took away everything that was dear to her, she came back to Shelter Valley to live. She’s a child life specialist who’s had a very successful private practice here for the past five years. She knows what she’s doing, what life is about and she believes she has all the answers—or knows how to find them.

Then Jon shows up. He has answers, too. But he raises questions. Jon needs Shelter Valley as much as anyone who’s ever been there. He doesn’t know that yet, but it’s as if Shelter Valley was made for Jon. He has secrets, though. And because of that, our town might not be safe with him in it....

It seemed to me, while I was writing this book, that I was going to have to choose—between a town that’s come to mean so much to me and to many of us, and a man who’d sacrifice everything for his two-year-old son. And I learned, right along with Lillie, that I don’t have all the answers.

I hope you enjoy this visit! And remember to plan time in your schedule for another Shelter Valley vacation. We’ll be here again later this fall in The Moment of Truth.

I love to connect with my readers. Please like Tara Taylor Quinn on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter so we can get better acquainted! You can also reach me at tarataylorquinn.com.

Tara Taylor Quinn

Second Time’s the Charm

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With fifty-nine original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is the winner of a 2008 National Reader’s Choice Award, four-time finalist for an RWA RITA®Award, finalist for a Reviewer’s Choice Award, a Bookseller’s Best Award and a Holt Medallion, and she appears regularly on Amazon bestseller lists. Tara Taylor Quinn is a past president of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on its board of directors. She is in demand as a public speaker and has appeared on television and radio shows across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. Tara is a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and she and her husband, Tim, sponsor an annual inline skating race in Phoenix to benefit the fight against domestic violence. When she’s not at home in Arizona with Tim and their canine owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara spends her time traveling and inline skating.

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For Mindy

Thank you for all the parts of your life that you share with me. And for having the strength and endurance to do what you do every day for those children. You are not only my inspiration, but my heroine.

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 Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER ONE

Five years ago

HOT AND HEAVY with baby, Lillie Henderson knew the pains would pass. She wasn’t going to deliver for another month, at least. False labor was common. Birthing class said so. The pains weren’t acute enough to be labor. They were symptoms of dread. Alone in the elevator, she held the basketball-like protrusion that used to be a flat tummy and pushed the button for the eighteenth floor.

“We have to talk, Lillie,” Kirk had said when he’d asked her to meet him at his office—a top-floor suite with a windowed view of Camelback Mountain in his father’s Phoenix PR firm.

Jerry Henderson, Kirk’s father, and his third wife, Gayle, were out of town for the summer. Which made Henderson Marketing Kirk’s sole territory. He’d called a meeting on his ground—not on mutual or neutral ground. Lillie didn’t miss the ploy. In the almost three years they’d been married, Lillie had figured out that many of Kirk’s actions were strategically devised to get the results he wanted.

The elevator slowed to a smooth stop and the door opened, showing her the plush blue-gray carpet that covered every inch of the Henderson offices except the kitchen and bathrooms. Original Picasso sketches lined the walls in between solid mahogany doors that remained open—unless private business was being discussed—to get the maximum benefit from the walls of windows inside the rooms. The entire floor had been designed to convey a sense of openness that was meant to translate to an atmosphere of trust.

Lillie had been breathlessly nervous the first time she’d visited the offices as Kirk’s fiancée. She’d been a college senior then, studying child and family development.

In the three years since, she’d graduated and become employed as a child life specialist, but the nerves were as bad as ever. Some things didn’t change.

Her long, chocolate-brown hair curled loosely down her back and she could feel its weight on her shoulders. She’d left it down for the interview, in spite of the triple-digit heat outside. And she’d donned her one pair of expensive maternity dress slacks, purchased before Kirk had learned that the baby she was carrying was going to be born with serious birth defects.

The nice thing to do would have been for Kirk to meet her at the elevator. She’d texted to let him know she’d arrived, just as he’d instructed. He’d texted back, telling her to come on up.

Since the doctor’s distressing diagnosis two months ago, Kirk hadn’t shown any deference to her pregnant state. He hadn’t spent many nights in their mountain-view home, either, leaving her to tend to her grief and worry and growing discomfort alone in their elite gated community.

He’d spent a lot of nights away before the doctor’s pronouncement, too. Just not as many.

Kylie, the firm’s latest blonde receptionist, smiled from behind the massive, curved desk directly across from the elevator.

“Good morning, Mrs. Henderson,” she said in her lilting saccharine voice. “He’s expecting you.” Kylie’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, but Lillie had never felt any animosity from the receptionist, who was likely a year or two older than Lillie’s twenty-three. What she felt coming from the other woman was more like pity.

She was sick of pity.

Kirk’s was the third office on the right—directly across from his father’s. His door was the only one closed. And, based on the rooms she’d passed on her way in and the morguelike silence of the space, his was the only one occupied, too. Not unusual for July in Phoenix. Half of the population left the scorching desert temperatures in the summer for cooler climates.

Standing in the hall in front of that closed door, her black Coach purse hanging from her shoulder, Lillie contemplated turning around and heading back the way she’d come. She was not a possession, or a pet, who had to perform on command.

It was possible Kirk wasn’t alone, but not likely. Kylie didn’t usually make mistakes.

That closed door was as deliberate as everything else Kirk did. As orchestrated as his smooth-talking charm had been during their senior year of college when he’d wooed her—an orphan without a home to visit during holidays—into his bed.

He was making her knock on her own husband’s door. Making her ask for permission to enter his abode. Treating her as little more than a stranger.

He was going to ask for a divorce.

She’d come because she didn’t want the conversation to happen at home, where she’d found a measure of peace.

Knocking, she thought about one of her patients, little Sandra, the six-year-old who’d recently undergone surgery to fix the damage done to her back in a car accident the previous spring. Employed by a local children’s hospital, Lillie had supported Sandra through every procedure since the accident, and had learned far more from the spirited redhead than she’d been able to impart as Sandra’s child life specialist.

No matter how much pain she was in, Sandra never lost the smile on her face—even when there were tears in her eyes. She never backed down from her willingness to take life head-on.

Kirk kept her waiting a full minute. She heard him clear his throat once as he approached from the inside.

“Lillie, come in,” he said, pulling open the door.

Without meeting his gaze, she entered, taking in the spectacular view, the pristine room and the uncluttered desk before settling in an armchair on the other side of the room. She’d be damned if she was going to be dumped sitting like a client in front of his desk.

Couldn’t he have waited until after the baby was born?

Her husband, dressed impeccably in the gray suit he’d purchased the summer before and a deep maroon shirt she didn’t recognize, stood, hands in his pockets, just to her right. He walked to the window and over to the bar.

“Can I get you something to drink? A glass of wine?”

Glancing at her stomach, at the evidence of the baby Kirk had already written off, she said, “I can’t drink. You know that.”

He had the grace to look chagrined—and she had a feeling that his remorse, the regret that shadowed his eyes, was sincere. “I just figured...you know...with the way things are, it wouldn’t matter....”

Her chin ached with the effort it took to keep her expression placid. “His heart is malformed, Kirk. He isn’t dead. Alcohol consumption could cause brain damage.”

This time the pity was in his eyes. “The doctor gave him a ten percent chance of living through gestation. And no chance at all of surviving more than a year outside the womb.”

“He also said they won’t know for sure what we’re dealing with until he’s born and they can run more thorough tests.”

As a child life specialist, a trained and certified child development advocate who helped children and their families through times of crises, she’d witnessed medical miracles. Some things weren’t up to professionals.

And he hadn’t summoned her to this lunchtime meeting to discuss their son’s fate. “I’d like some cranberry juice, if you have it.”

Nodding, he filled a glass with ice from the bucket on the bar and, reaching underneath, pulled out an individual-size bottle of juice, opening it to fill the glass.

Pouring himself a shot of Scotch on the rocks, he brought both glasses over to set them on the table next to her and sat in the armchair on the opposite side. Taking a sip of his drink—a stiff one even for him—he leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, hands clasped, and turned toward her.

“You know about Leah.”

His mistress. “Yes.” She’d suspected, when Kirk had started coming home late, that he had a lover. She’d confronted him about it and he’d told her the truth. He’d also told her that the woman meant nothing to him and that he’d already ended the affair. He’d sworn that he loved Lillie. That she was his life. He’d agreed to go to counseling. He’d had tears in his eyes.

She’d just found out she was pregnant.

And she’d believed him.

“She’s pregnant, Lillie.”

Pain shot through Lillie’s lower stomach. She stared at Kirk, her mind completely blank.

“The baby’s mine.”

“How far along is she?” She should be feeling something.

“Three months.”

He hadn’t ended the affair.

“I wanted you to hear it from me.”

She nodded. Made sense.

Braydon Thomas—named for Lillie’s father, who, along with her mother, had been killed in a car accident when she was nineteen—kicked against her, the feeling faint, almost like air bubbles, in spite of the fact that she was at thirty-two weeks’ gestation.

“She asked me to move in with her.”

“She knows you’re married.”

“Yes.”

The girl had no scruples. No ethics.

“I told her yes, Lillie.”

“You’re married,” she said again, numb. Fueled by whatever force it was that got her through the hard times, she sat there.

“I know.” His brows drew together and his eyes shadowed. “I feel horrible about this but she loves me and I love her.”

One usually asked for a divorce before falling in love and starting a family. She’d have liked to point that fact out to him, but didn’t see any good that would come out of doing so.

“Is that where you go when you don’t come home at night?”

She’d kicked him out of her bed when she’d found out about his affair—until she could welcome him back with an open heart.

“Yes.”

What more could she say?

“It’s not as if you’re head over heels in love with me,” he blurted into the silence.

He was right. She’d married him because she cared about him deeply. Because she loved his father and Gayle. The family they all made together. Because they had so much in common, enjoyed being together. Because they’d wanted the same things out of life. Because he’d been her first lover and she’d found him incredibly attractive.

She didn’t want her marriage to end. But she couldn’t live with infidelity. Couldn’t be in a relationship without trust.

She couldn’t settle.

“I’m not going to file for divorce,” Kirk was saying. “You’ll have full insurance coverage throughout the rest of your...term.”

He was having another baby. Presumably a healthy one.

“Leah has her own insurance,” he said, continuing to fill her silence with information she didn’t want.

And had to have.

“I’ll still be paying the bills, the house is all yours, the car...”

“I cover my own car payment,” she reminded him, just to keep the facts straight. She paid the utilities on the house, too. Kirk might live like a wealthy man, but the money belonged to his father.

The elder Henderson kept his son on a tight budget. For Kirk’s own good, Lillie had discovered.

“Braydon’s medical bills are going to be exorbitant,” she said. “We’ll have co-pays.”

His upper lip puckered. “Do you really think it’s wise to run up bills when the doctor says there’s no hope? Why put ourselves in debt, or put him through all kinds of tests, if there’s nothing they can do?”

“Until he has the tests, we don’t know for sure that there’s nothing they can do.”

This was her field of expertise now. She spent her days advocating for and providing for the needs of children who were suffering in a long-term care unit at one of Phoenix’s largest children’s hospitals. She was there during treatments, to see that the patient suffered as little as possible, to make certain that environments were best suited to the comfort of the child. To be soothing when pain was impossible to avoid.

But with her degree, she was qualified to work in schools, in the court system, even at funeral homes to help children cope with the trauma of losing loved ones. She was trained to make sure that everything possible was done for the good of the children. Her own included.

With a heavy sigh, Kirk stood, hands in his pockets again, his mostly untouched drink on the table.

“You haven’t said anything about me moving in with Leah.”

“I don’t want you home with me if you don’t want to be there.”

“You’re okay with it, then?”

“No, Kirk, I’m not okay with my husband moving in with his pregnant lover,” she said, her shaky voice evidence that she must be feeling something. She stood, too. “How could I possibly be okay with that?” she asked, tears in her eyes as she finally faced him. Stood up to him.

“I’m also not foolish enough to believe anymore that you want me or our marriage, and I know that you always get what you want.”

That didn’t come out as she’d meant it to. “I...don’t want you in my home wishing you were with someone else. Thinking about someone else.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Lillie.”

She believed him.

And two months later, on the day Braydon breathed his last, she filed for divorce.

CHAPTER TWO

Present day

JON SWARTZ KNEW everyone in the room was looking at him—with horror not admiration. He might have cared. If his heart hadn’t been fully engaged with his red-faced little man. Two-year-old Abe was clearly not planning to have a good time at day care that Thursday in October. The boy’s screams had reached at least eighty decibel levels—a feat even for him.

“Noooooo!” The shrieks were continuous.

Jon, struggling to pry his son’s small but surprisingly strong arms from their locked position around his neck, was speaking continuously, as well. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.” But he was fairly certain that Abraham Elias Swartz couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t even hear himself.

Pumpkins bearing smiling faces hung on the walls around them. A larger lit up jack-o’-lantern sat on the counter behind which sat a young woman with a frown on her face. Four women with various-aged children stood in front of him.

“It’s okay, son,” Jon said again.

He had to be at work in less than an hour and could not afford to be late. Jobs with flexible hours for students who were also single parents in a town as small as Shelter Valley were not easy to come by.

Holding on to Abe’s butt and back with one arm, he reached up to pull his son’s hands down from his neck with the other—disengaging the death grip without bruising the toddler’s tender skin.

“Abie baby, let go. Daddy wants to talk to you,” he said directly into his son’s ear.

“Nooooo!”

Tears soaked Jon’s neck. He knelt down, putting the boy’s feet on the floor.

“Noooo!” Abe picked his feet back up, kicking as Jon tried to take hold of one of the boy’s ankles and put his foot back on the floor.

What in the hell was he going to do?

When he’d first brought Abe to Little Spirits Day Care a couple of months before, his little guy had whimpered a bit, but he’d been happily engrossed in playing before Jon had made it to the door.

“Noooo!” A tennis shoe caught him in the groin, taking Jon’s breath away. Abe’s red short-sleeved shirt had come loose from the beige cargo pants he’d chosen from his drawer that morning and the skin on Jon’s arm was sticking to his son’s sweat-slicked back.

“Abraham,” he spoke again in the boy’s ear as soon as the pain in his lower region dissipated enough to allow conversation. He spoke more firmly this time. As firm as Jon got. “Daddy has to go and you have to stay. It’s not negotiable.”

Abraham kicked. And wailed.

Jon picked him back up, encased once again in a death grip.

“Let’s go in here.” A female voice sounded from just beside him.

An angel’s voice?

With a hand on his elbow, a jeans-clad woman led him through a door off the day care reception room—a door that had been closed every other time he’d been there.

Abraham quit kicking and screaming long enough to look around.

“Hey, little guy.” The woman’s smile was warm, her tone nurturing, as she offered a finger toward Abe’s hand.

The boy snatched his hand into his chest and whined—a sure sign that more histrionics were on their way.

“My name’s Lillie.” The beautiful, long-haired brunette who’d rescued them from the day care lineup apparently hadn’t received Abe’s imminent tantrum memo.

“Noooo!” Abraham said, the word breaking on a wail. Jon would be damned glad when his son’s vocabulary progressed beyond the three or four words he’d been using clearly to express himself over the past six months. Even a slight progression, a one-word addition—yes—would be nice.

“The itsy bitsy spider climbed up...”

The woman started to sing. Abraham’s cries were building back up to full force—and the strange woman was singing.

Standing in the small room with a cluttered desk and a couple of chairs, Jon had no idea what to do. Who the woman was. Or if he should have automatically followed her just because she’d told him to do so. At least in here Abe wasn’t upsetting the other kids.

The toddler’s fingers were digging into Jon’s neck as Abe engaged in full-out wailing.

The woman continued to sing. Her voice was good. He’d give her that. And rising in decibels equal to Abe’s. But...

“Down came the rain and...”

Abe stilled long enough to turn around and look at Looney Lillie.

“Out came the sun and...” Her volume lowered but she didn’t miss a beat.

The toddler stared at the strange woman. Jon did, too. Who the hell was she?

Jon had never seen her before. But she had the most compelling violet-blue eyes.

“Climbed up the spout again.”

Letting go of Jon’s neck Abraham pinched his little fingers together on both hands and, holding them out in front of him, twisted them together.

“That’s right,” Lillie said, matching her thumb and index fingers from opposite hands and switching them back and forth in a crawling motion. She started to sing again.

Abraham watched her, his little fingers moving. By the time the song was done he was sitting calmly on Jon’s hip—looking around as though waiting for the adults in the room to figure out what they were doing so he could get on with his day.

“Thank you.” Jon didn’t know what else to say.

Lillie smiled, rolling up the sleeves of her white oxford. “Abe and I met last week,” she said. “Didn’t we, buddy?”

Abe stared.

The slender woman, only a few inches shorter than Jon’s six-foot height, held out her hand.

“I’m Lillie Henderson.”

“Jon Swartz,” he said, meeting her gesture with his free hand. And...getting a stab to his gut. It had been too long since he’d touched a woman’s skin. In any capacity. “You work here?”

“Yes and no.” The woman’s smile was unwavering. And all-encompassing. He just didn’t have time to fall under her spell as his son had done. He had to get to work.

“I’m a freelance child life specialist,” she said, as though he knew what that meant. “I have a small office at the clinic in town, as they pay the largest part of my salary and take up the brunt of my time, but I work out here at the day care and with some other private clients in the field, as well.”

“In the field?” He didn’t have time to be ignorant, either.

“Doctors’ offices outside of the clinic, the funeral home, schools. I go anyplace a child might need support getting through trauma.”

He nodded. And noticed that the entire time she’d been talking, she’d been softly rubbing the top of Abe’s hand.

“You ready to come with me and play for a while?” she asked the boy, switching her focus from father to son without missing a beat.

Prepared for the next onslaught, Jon tensed. And felt his son lean toward the arms outstretched in front of him. Without so much as a peep, the little boy made the switch from Jon’s arms to Lillie’s.

Acting as though he and Abraham had intercessions from heaven every day, Jon nodded and slid his free hands into the pockets of his jeans. Did he just leave now?

The woman, Lillie, was running a finger along Abe’s lower lip. “Let’s see if we can find you some juice, shall we?” she asked, and as the toddler nodded, she turned and headed through a door on the opposite side of the office leading into the day care. Just before the door closed behind her, she glanced over her shoulder at Jon, winked and was gone.

With no time left to spare, Jon hurried out to the front desk, confirmed that Lillie Henderson was permitted to have physical custody of his son and left.

But not before making one very clear determination.

He had to see her again.

* * *

LILLIE PULLED INTO the parking lot of the Shelter Valley Clinic a little past three on Thursday afternoon. She was early. Bailey Wright’s blood work wasn’t scheduled until four, but she wanted to make certain she was there to greet the six-year-old when her mother brought her in.

Bailey’s doctor suspected the little girl might be anemic and the six-year-old was deathly afraid of needles. Lillie’s job was to explain the blood draw procedure to the little girl in nonthreatening, nonfrightening terms―the pinch and pressure she would feel―and then to support her through the procedure, distracting her from anything and everything that upset her.

If Bailey tensed, the procedure would hurt. Lillie was there to see that the child stayed relaxed.

Her cell phone rang and she answered immediately, as always. “Lillie Henderson, can I help you?”

“Ms. Henderson, Bonnie Nielson gave me your number.” Bonnie, the owner of Little Spirits Day Care, had her permission to pass out all of her contact information. “This is Jon Swartz. You helped my son, Abraham, this morning.”

The gorgeous guy who’d had his ass whupped by a two-year-old.

“Yes, Mr. Swartz.” She and Bonnie had talked about Jon and Abe over lunch. Bonnie thought Lillie could help the single dad. Lillie wanted to try. For Abe’s sake. “Thanks for calling.”

“I owe you a huge thank-you,” the man said. “Abe’s going through a rough time with separation anxiety right now, but his pediatrician says it’s all part of the terrible twos. He assures me we’ll get through it.”

“Of course you will.” Grabbing her bag, she locked her car and, entrance card in hand and ready to swipe, headed toward the service door at the back of the clinic.

“I just didn’t want you to think he’s like that all the time.”

The man was on the defensive, she ascertained, distracted by the even timbre of his voice when she should have been 100 percent focused on his son’s issues.

“I’ve seen Abraham a couple of times over the past week,” she assured the harried father who, in all fairness, sounded completely calm. “He’s a very sweet, responsive boy,” she added, because it was true. “Except when he’s, as you say, exhibiting anxiety.”

“Usually he’s a prince,” Jon Swartz said as though they had all the time in the world, which she didn’t. Curiously, she didn’t tell him so. “He does whatever I ask of him.”

“He’s not a discipline problem at the day care, either, if that’s what’s concerning you. He does what he’s told, when he’s told. He doesn’t have altercations with the other children. But he has been experiencing seemingly inexplicable moments of extreme anxiety.”

Tantrums that in no way seemed to be a result of temper upsets. And because, a couple of times, they’d happened in the middle of the day, she wasn’t sure they were separation related, either.

“Mrs. Nielson suggested that I call you. She says that, as part of your work for her, she asked you to observe Abraham. She says you’re certified at what you do. And I need to know, do you think my son has a problem?”

“I think he’s struggling and I’d like to help, Mr. Swartz.” Holding her phone with one hand while she swiped her card and quickly pulled open the door with the other, Lillie lowered her voice in deference to the office suites opening up off both sides of the hallway.

From a therapeutic masseuse to an orthopedic surgeon, a dentist, several general practitioners, counseling services and three pediatricians, the Shelter Valley Clinic was home to more than forty health care professionals—including Lillie.

“I’d like a chance to speak with you. Is there a time we could meet?” she asked the father who’d been on her mind for much the day.

“With or without Abraham?”

“Without would be best, but either is fine. I understand that you don’t have a lot of free time. I will make myself available to fit your schedule. Early morning, late evening...”

She didn’t mind the long hours. She didn’t mind time off, either.

“I’m a little in the dark here about what we have to discuss.”

She’d reached the small room designated for Bailey’s procedure and had to go. Had to get the room ready for Bailey. She didn’t have time to explain what she, as a child life specialist, did.

“I’m trained to help little ones deal with anxiety—from trauma, separation or even just the stress inherent in learning to share. I’m at the day care a few hours every week, and Bonnie calls me in more when she thinks I can help. She’s noticed Abraham’s escalating stress in your absence and asked me to observe him. I have some ideas where he’s concerned,” she said, still on the phone when she shouldn’t be. Pulling stuffed animals out of her bag, she placed them around the room.

“You want to talk professionally?”

“Yes.” Her work was her life. Professional was pretty much all she was. The purple bear with the heart on his chest toppled over and she righted him.

“I can’t afford another bill right now. If he’s sick or exhibiting some symptoms that concern you, I’ll get him to his pediatrician immediately.”

“I don’t think your son is sick.” She was fumbling this entire conversation. Which wasn’t like her at all. “I’m talking about observations, not symptoms...” Placing the portable music player in a corner of the room, she scrolled through songs until she found the lullaby she wanted—soft, soothing.

“...and Bonnie pays for my services,” she added. Occasionally she took on private clients, but she made most of her money from the clinic, which used her services on behalf of its young patients. Shelter Valley schools called her in on occasion. And she got the weekly stipend from Little Spirits, too, but only because Bonnie wouldn’t let her work there without pay. Lillie had more than one client that she’d helped on a pro bono basis. And that was nobody’s business.

Turned out Jerry Henderson, Kirk’s father, had had different ideas than his son regarding Kirk’s mistress, Leah. And Lillie, Kirk’s wife. Lillie’s divorce settlement had been generous.

Which was nobody’s business, either.

Lillie could hear voices at the end of the hall. It sounded like Bailey’s mother.

“I have to go right now, Mr. Swartz. But I’d love to talk more if you’re interested.”

“I’ll be at the university in the morning,” he said. “I have a break between classes from nine until ten. We could meet there if you’re free.”

She had a procedure at the clinic at eight. And another, a PICC change for a little preemie who’d been released from a hospital in Tucson, at ten-thirty. “I’ll do my best,” she told him. She could make the date if the procedure at eight happened on time and without problems, and if she left the university by a quarter to ten.

Arranging to meet him outside the student center at nine, or to call him if she couldn’t, Lillie shoved her phone into the pocket of her rainbow-colored scrub top just as an extremely frightened-looking blonde sprite came hesitantly around the corner.

A genuine smile on her face, Lillie moved toward the girl and took Bailey’s small hand in hers. She spent the next half hour engrossed in the six-year-old’s trauma and doing everything she could to make the experience better for her.

Bailey made it through without shedding a tear.

CHAPTER THREE

“GOGGLES ON,” JON said as he stood back from the apparatus he and his lab partner, Mark Heber, had just built inside a safety-glass room at Montford University. If all went well they would soon know how quickly glass would craze when set five feet from a fire started by nail polish remover, and if, in the same amount of time, the same type of standard window glass would craze from a ten-foot distance.

“On,” Mark said, grinning as he joined Jon. “Light the fuse.”

Shaking his head, Jon motioned toward the long piece of fuse protruding from the puddle of accelerant. “It’s your turn,” Jon said.

A little more than halfway through the semester, the two “old men,” as they’d been dubbed in the freshman chemistry lab, had gained a bit of a reputation for the ingenuity, scale and success of their experiments. Jon’s lab partner, Mark, who’d worked as a forensics safety engineer for years without the title, and who was now in school to get the degree that would allow him to officially work in the field, deserved most of the credit.

Mark stepped forward, lit the fuse and ducked as a whorl of flame exploded from the puddle, bursting in front of them.

“Whoops.” Mark wasn’t smiling.

“Guess our calculations were a little off on this one.”

“The velocity of the fire was greater than we’d calculated for the amount of polish remover,” Mark said.

Straight-faced, they looked each other over.

“No singeing,” Jon declared.

“Make a note that idiots should not be allowed to play with fire,” Mark said as they stood, watching their piece of window as the fire burned down.

On the upside, the glass at the five-foot distance crazed—bearing spiderweb-type cracks that would allow arson investigators to determine that the fire had been set by an accelerant and that the glass had been close. The point of their experiment was to help arson investigators determine how long the fire had burned.

The glass at ten feet did not craze.

Another correct prediction.

“Nice experiment, gentlemen.” Professor Wood came up behind them. Several students had found their way to the room at the back of the lab to take a peek.

“A little less velocity,” Jon said, “and we’d have been perfect.”

“At least it didn’t burn out of the controlled area, or burn anything other than the intended substance,” Mark added.

Professor Wood nodded and, without another word, turned and left. “I’ll bet he’ll have some choice words for us when he tells his wife about this one,” Jon said.

“Is he married?”

“Hell if I know.”

Marriage wasn’t something he thought a lot about. Didn’t spend much time thinking about women at all these days. Or he hadn’t until the past twenty-four hours.

“Abe threw another fit yesterday at the day care,” he offered casually as he and his lab partner set to work cleaning up the mess they’d just created. He had half an hour before he was supposed to meet up with Lillie Henderson to find out what she had to say about his son.

“Yesterday was Thursday.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought he only threw fits on Saturdays. When you went to work instead of school.”

Jon had told Mark about the first fit. More than a month before. At work at the cactus jelly plant outside town where Mark, a supervisor, had gotten Jon a job as a janitor. They’d been having lunch.

He hadn’t seen Mark much at the plant since then. After one of the plant’s machines had broken down and Jon had been able to repair it and get it back up in time to make shipment, he’d been promoted to maintenance engineer. A fancy title for a guy who could fix things.

“That theory, that his tantrums were the result of an extra day of day care, proved to be false,” Jon admitted.

Frowning, Mark sprayed water on the metal piece that had held the puddle of accelerant. “You didn’t mention that you’re having more problems with him.”

Jon shook his head and, with gloved hands, lifted the crazed glass and put it in the trash receptacle. “I’m not,” he said. “Doc says it’s just the terrible twos, and from what I’ve read, we’re getting through it a lot easier than some.”

The room was half-clean. He had another fifteen minutes before he had to leave.

He’d pulled on his nicer pair of black jeans that morning and had been thinking about looking responsible, respectable, as he’d buttoned up the oxford shirt and rolled the cuffs to just below his elbows.

“He’s never had a problem when you leave him with us,” Mark pointed out. The thirty-year-old, together with his fiancée and grandmother, watched Abe one evening a week, giving Jon time to do whatever the hell he pleased.

Which usually meant homework but he was good with that.

“Maybe it’s the day care,” Mark offered. “Must be something there upsetting him.”

“Tantrums are normal. All I have to do is stay calm, not give in to him and this phase will pass. He’s testing his limits.”

Mark glanced his way for a long minute and then shrugged. “If you say so.”

His doctor said so. And he trusted his doctor.

* * *

JON DIDN’T TRUST Lillie Henderson. He found her attractive. But he didn’t trust her. He didn’t believe in angels. She’d told him that his son was not a discipline problem—Abe followed instructions and got along well with others.

But she’d said they needed to talk.

Like Abraham’s terrible twos were different from everyone else’s?

She’d also said that she’d met Abraham the week before, yet he hadn’t been told about a child expert being called in.

And that had his mind spinning noises he didn’t like.

Was someone making charges behind his back? Questioning whether or not Jon—a single guy in his twenties who worked and went to school full-time—was capable of providing for the needs of a two-year-old child?

Someone outside Shelter Valley?

Had Lillie been hired by someone other than Bonnie Nielson? Hired in secret by an older woman she wouldn’t ever mention?

An older woman with enough money to stay at Jon’s back until she got what she wanted?

The thought could be considered paranoid. He might even be able to convince himself of that if he hadn’t learned the hard way, more than once, about the duplicity of women.

At least, the women in his life.

Even then, he wasn’t afraid of the power of the opposite sex. What scared the shit out of him was his own culpability.

He’d made mistakes. Big ones. He wasn’t kidding himself. His past could be used against him—but only if his present supported the theory that he was still the loser he’d once been.

Had Lillie been hired to watch him? And his handling of his son? Could Abraham’s crying bouts—and Jon’s ineffectiveness in controlling them—be used against him?

One thing was for sure, university scholarship or not, he’d leave Shelter Valley immediately if anyone thought they were going to take his son away from him. Clara Abrams could follow him forever and he’d just keep moving one step ahead of her. She was not going to get Abraham.

Abraham. Named for the mother who didn’t want him, Kate Abrams. Jon’s first mistake as a parent.

His second had been in offering to let Abe’s maternal grandparents meet their grandson.

Abraham might not have everything life had to offer—he might not have designer clothes, or a mother who wanted him—but he did have a biological parent who would go to the grave for him.

Kids needed that.

And Jon was going to see that Abraham got it.

He’d learned a thing or three during his years of growing up in a system that didn’t always listen to the children in its care. He’d learned that the best way to find out what was being planned for you was to pretend to cooperate.

He had to meet Lillie Henderson. He had to appear to agree with her suggestions, whatever they might be—to accept her at face value. He had to pretend he had no suspicions regarding her sudden advent into his life.

And all the while, he’d be watching his back. His and Abraham’s. And be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

He’d pack the bag again. The one Kate had helped him pack when she’d come to him over a year ago to tell him that her parents—mainly her mother—were planning to take Abraham away from him. She’d only found out herself in enough time to give him a few hours to skip town.

He’d played the disappearing act before. He knew the score.

He’d had to leave another town before Kate had managed to blackmail her mother into leaving him alone.

But Clara was crafty—her daughter had come by the talent naturally—he’d give her that. She could be on the warpath again.

After all, as Kate had told him on more than one occasion during the months they’d lived together, Abramses didn’t give up.

He’d pack the bag. Keep it ready in the closet. He’d put aside enough money to get them by on cash for a while if necessary. With the toddler, he’d need diapers and nonperishable food, too. And a warm blanket.

His mind spun, plans forming with a familiar clarity.

Running wasn’t new to Jon.

He’d just been fool enough to hope it was over.

* * *

WITH ONLY A minute to spare to get from the back of the public parking area to the Montford University Student Union, Lillie ran the entire way, thanking her joy of jogging and the serviceable rubber-soled shoes she wore to work for allowing her to sprint half a mile without passing out. She’d texted Jon Swartz, letting him know that she was on her way. She didn’t expect him to leave. She just hated to make people wait.

Spotting him leaning against the trunk of a paloverde tree, she slowed to a walk and took a second to smooth the blouse and jeans she’d put on when she’d changed out of her stained scrubs twenty minutes before. Her hair, in a ponytail, thankfully was still presentable.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, her breath even as she approached.

“No problem. I have an hour.”

Less than that, actually, if he wanted to get to class before it started. At least according to what he’d told her.

Not that it was her business.

Nor were those big brown eyes or the ease with which he held his body. The man was...all man.

And she wasn’t one who generally noticed. Or cared. Except in the most superficial sense.

She would walk away from this meeting and have nothing more to do with him, except as it pertained to his being Abraham’s father. The little guy had been on her mind all week. She couldn’t shake him. Which meant that she had a job to do.

“We can walk toward your class if you’d like,” she said, and without a word, he fell into place beside her. Not too close. But closer than he might have if they hadn’t been on a busy campus sidewalk thronging with students heading to and from classes.

“Bonnie tells me this is your first year at Montford,” she started. She had to get a feel for him if she was going to help him. Her job extended to family support as well as client support. Children needed healthy families.

“That’s right.”

He didn’t sound defensive so she continued. “What are you studying?”

“Premed. I’d like to be a doctor.”

“So you’d transfer after you get your undergraduate degree?”

He shrugged, his satchel riding against his denim-clad hip with ease. “I’ve looked at University of Arizona’s medical school in Tucson, but that’s a long way off. My first consideration is Abraham. He’ll be almost six by the time I graduate. I’m not going to uproot him if he’s settled in. I can always go to medical school when he graduates from high school.”

“So why major in premed?”

He turned, and she had no explanation for what his brown-eyed gaze did to her. “How much do you know about my situation?”

“Not much.” Lillie almost missed a step. Something else she didn’t usually do. “I just know that you’re raising Abraham by yourself. And that your son obviously means a lot to you.”

Jutting his chin, he nodded, his gaze turned in front of them again. His hands in his pockets, he continued to head across campus with the ease of a man who knew where he was going.

“I know that you work at the cactus jelly plant,” she added, wanting to be completely up front with him. The files of the children enrolled at Little Spirits contained the names of their parents’ employers. “And I know that you live in an apartment not far from my house,” she added. The complex was less than a mile from the home she’d purchased the previous year.

“That’s more than I know about you.”

“You’re right, it is. And that can change,” she told him. Her current life was an open book. “I admire what you’re trying to do,” she told him.

Was that why she couldn’t get the two Swartz men off her mind? Why thoughts of little Abe—and his dad—continued to pop up throughout her day?

She hardly knew them.

And here she was pushing services that he clearly didn’t want. Like she needed the work. Which she didn’t.

Another direct glance from him, and she reminded herself to put herself in his shoes, to seek to understand, to listen and find out what he needed so she would know if there was anything she could do. She was not only well trained, she was experienced.

And she knew she could help make his job easier. If he’d let her.

“What exactly is it that you think I’m trying to do?” he asked.

Students jostled against them on both sides, snippets of their conversations filling the air around them. The sun was uncharacteristically absent overhead. Lillie was aware of her surroundings—and not really. The man beside her was an enigma.

“Raising your son, getting a degree and working. It’s admirable.”

“It’s life,” he said. “I fathered a child. I was offered a scholarship—a chance to better myself—and I have to work to buy diapers.”

“Right. You didn’t have to accept the scholarship.”

Another glance. Were they growing sharper? “You’re kidding, right? You’d expect me to turn my back on an opportunity to be able to provide my son with more advantages as he grows up?”

“Of course not! I’m not saying I thought you should have passed it by. I’m saying that many people in your situation wouldn’t have dared to accept the opportunity.”

“Oh.”

“Especially since you have to work, too.”

“The scholarship actually provides living expenses, but only for one. And in addition to Abe’s living expenses, I have to pay extra for the student health benefits that are provided to me to cover my son.”

“Like I said, I think what you’re doing is admirable.”

“I don’t want to be admired.”

She was missing the boat on this one. And running out of time.

“I want to help you.” Bonnie paid her to help children adapt to day care life. Not to help single fathers raise their children.

But she knew she could make a difference here. Abe was a motherless baby boy who could benefit from her services and she didn’t care about being paid.

“I don’t need help.”

“Hey—” Slowing, she touched his wrist and stepped out of the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. He followed her, standing facing her, both hands in his pockets. “I’m not judging you, Jon.” And then quickly added, “May I call you that?”

“Of course.”

“Call me Lillie.”

“Fine.” He glanced over her shoulder. Presumably at the sidewalk they’d left. He seemed eager to be on his way, but still had time before he was due in class.

“Have you ever worked with a child life specialist before?”

“Never heard of one until yesterday.”

“Which makes you like a lot of people,” she said, offering him the first natural grin she’d felt since their meeting began. “Child life specialists have college degrees, generally in a child development field. After college, they complete a practicum, followed by an internship, usually at a hospital. Finally they take a national, several-part exam and, upon passing, receive certification. Our goal is to reduce the negative impact of stressful situations on children and on their families. Most commonly, we’re found in hospitals or in the medical field, supporting kids and their families through procedures or long-term illnesses, but we work in schools, with the courts, and even in funeral homes.” She spoke like a parrot in front of a classroom. Not at all like herself.

And wasn’t happy about that. She’d like to have walked away, to put this man, and his son, out of her life, but something was compelling her to press forward.

“Abraham’s not sick or in court. He doesn’t go to school and no one’s died that I know of.” Jon started to walk again.

“You just moved to a new town, a new apartment. You’ve started school and working at a new job. Your situation could be having a negative impact on him.”

That stopped him.

“What kind of impact? He’s throwing tantrums like a normal two-year-old.”

She shook her head. “That’s just it. He’s not. Other than his bouts of panic, Abraham is probably the most well-behaved two-year-old I’ve ever met. His tantrums don’t seem to be a product of testing his boundaries like you’d normally see at his age. They aren’t temper related. He doesn’t throw tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. He doesn’t have problems sharing. To the contrary, he lets the other children take things from him. His tantrums appear to be emotionally based. A symptom of stress, as opposed to part of his normal development process.”

“Are you suggesting that I quit work? Or school?”

“What I’m trying to suggest, Mr. Swartz—” Jon just didn’t do it “—is that you let me help you. Or at least let me try.”

She’d never pursued a client before. Why was she doing so now?

Her schedule was kept plenty full with the clinic and Bonnie and the school, and the once-or-twice-a-year call from the local funeral home.

“How can you help?” He didn’t slow down. Or look at her. She wasn’t sure if he was just humoring her or not.

“I’d like to spend some time with you and Abraham. To observe you together. I’ve got some things I can show you to help him to calm down, little things. Easy things...”

“Like singing.”

“Music therapy is good, yes,” she said, relaxing for the first time since she’d seen him standing by the tree. “I’m not sure what’s causing Abe’s stress, but I think that if you gave me a little time, I might be able to figure it out.”

“You’re some kind of shrink, then?”

“Psychology classes were part of my degree, but no, I’m nowhere close to being a psychologist.”

Veering off the main path, he approached a classroom building, stopping at the foot of a wide staircase up to a row of doors. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to hang out with us, give me some ideas, and that’s it?”

“That’s it.” She had no idea if that would be a good thing or bad thing as far as he was concerned.

“And Bonnie’s paying you for this?”

“She pays me to help her clients adapt to preschool and Abe’s stress is preventing that adaptation,” she said carefully. Money didn’t matter here. Abe did.

“Fine.”

It was Lillie’s turn to stare. “Fine?”

“Yes, fine.” That was it. Nothing more. Her heart rate sped up, anyway.

“Okay, then, I’ll call you tonight and we can discuss schedules. If that’s okay with you.”

“I can tell you right now. I’m working tomorrow until three and then Abe and I are going to go to the park and out for a hamburger before coming home to have a bath, read books and get ready for bed. And no, I don’t feed him fast food every night. Once a week for a special treat is it.”

The next day was Saturday. Traditionally a light day for her as only the emergency clinic was open in Shelter Valley after noon. “Unless I’m called in on a medical emergency, I can meet you at the park at four.”

“Fine.”

Wow. What had appeared to be a mountain she was going to have to scale had turned out to be a curb. “Fine,” she repeated, smiling, getting lost in his gaze when she should have just been getting lost. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said and, turning, hurried away from the strangest encounter she could ever remember having.

First rule of child life—the specialist did not become personally involved with the patient or the patient’s family. She was there to support. Not to experience.

The designation fit her life to a T.

CHAPTER FOUR

JON TOOK THE last half of his peanut butter sandwich in two bites. A machine had gone down that morning and he’d lost half an hour getting it back up again so the plant didn’t miss shipment. Every minute a line was down cost the company five hundred dollars in employee salaries that weren’t producing product.

The emergency put him behind on his regular Saturday maintenance work—checks and balances that had to be done on schedule to meet regulatory standards—and he couldn’t leave until he’d completed every one of them.

He never liked to be late picking up Abe, but today, with Lillie Henderson meeting them in the park only an hour after he clocked out, he couldn’t afford to be running behind schedule. How would that look? A dad who couldn’t even get to the day care to pick up his kid on time?

So, Jon was outside on the patio at the cactus jelly plant, standing with his foot on a boulder, gulping down a five-minute lunch, with plans to work through the rest of his scheduled break time.

“Hey, man, I heard you saved the day in there. Good work.” Jon’s lab partner, Mark Heber, leaned against the boulder next to his, facing the miles of desert and mountain behind them, pulling open a brown paper bag.

He shrugged. “It was a tension issue, mostly—stretched belt that caused a kink in the chain.” Mark, a shift supervisor, and three years his senior, would already have known that.

“Management’s pleased with your work,” Mark said. “I thought you should know.”

Nodding, Jon opened the cup of fruit he’d brought along, dumping half of it into his opened mouth. There was a spoon in the bag, but he wasn’t out to impress anyone at the plant. He was in a hurry.

“Addy and Nonnie are baking cookies today. You and Abe want to stop by later?”

Mark’s outspoken, wheelchair-bound grandmother and his hotshot lawyer fiancée were in love with Abe. Jon figured his son could do worse.

“How about I bring Abe by after dinner and the two of us will visit with Nonnie while you and Addy go out on a date?”

Nonnie lived with Mark. At eighty years old and in the late stages of multiple sclerosis, she was sometimes a handful.

“You got a deal.” Mark’s grin wasn’t masked by the bite of sandwich he’d just taken. And then he sobered. “I assume you heard about the break-in?”

“What break-in?” Jon stared, his urgency to get back to work put on hold.

“I just figured you’d heard,” Mark said, dropping his sandwich back into the little plastic bag from which he’d removed it. “It was less than a mile from your place. Sometime last night. A guy lifted the sliding glass door out of the track, took a bunch of cash and left the door leaning up against the kitchen wall. The couple were in Phoenix seeing a play and called it in when they got home. Everyone was talking about it this morning in the break room.”

Jon didn’t shake his head on the outside, but inside his mind was reeling. Would he ever get used to living in a place like Shelter Valley? It was so different from the neighborhoods he’d grown up in, where a dead body under a bench wasn’t much in the way of news, that he sometimes felt as if he were living on another planet.

A break-in would be a big deal here. As would the knowledge that a new guy in town had done time for robbery.

“I guess they don’t get much crime around here, do they?” he said, reminding himself that this was the life he wanted for Abraham.

Shrugging, Mark dug out his sandwich again. Took a bite. “One thing about this town—people watch out for one another here. And the sheriff, he makes it his business to get to know everyone.”

Wishing he hadn’t just eaten, Jon kept the expression on his face neutral.

“A real autocrat, huh?” he asked, mentally calculating how much he’d have to pay back in scholarship monies if he packed up and skipped town with Abe. If they came after him for the money.

“Not at all,” Mark said, finishing one lunch-meat sandwich and pulling out another. “He’s open-minded and fair. But he’s also a great cop, ready to help anyone who needs it.”

The statement made him curious. “You’re as new to this town as I am. How come you know so much about the sheriff?”

In his world, guys kept their distance from cops. Mark finished his sandwich, bunched the bag into a ball shape and tossed it into a can six feet away. “Addy was born here,” he said, as though testing the waters. “She knows him.”

Walking with his friend back to the shop, Jon forgot about time, about his impending meeting that afternoon, and frowned as Mark mentioned his fiancée, the woman who watched Abe once a week. “I thought she was new to town, too.”

“She’s only been back for a couple of months. She moved away when she was six.”

There was more to the story, Jon could sense as much. But Mark didn’t elaborate, and Jon didn’t ask.

* * *

LILLIE WAS RUNNING late. She’d been called to the clinic to assist with setting the arm of a ten-year-old boy who’d fractured it playing football. It had been almost one o’clock before she’d been free to change into her jeans and tend to the paperwork and reports that had built up during the week, and she hadn’t eaten yet that day.

Which was why she was at the Shelter Valley Diner at three, grabbing a bite before walking over to the city park across the street for her four-o’clock appointment with Jon Swartz.

“Hey, woman, how are you?” The familiar voice greeted her as she stood at the counter, trying to decide what she felt like eating. Salad or sandwich? Or maybe just a cup of soup?

“Ellen? I didn’t know you were in town!” There was nothing about the pretty blonde that suggested the trauma she’d lived through almost ten years before.

“Jay and I are dropping Josh off at Mom’s. We’re heading up to Jerome for the night.”

Jerome, an authentic old mining town built into the top of a five-thousand-foot mountain, was a couple of hours north of Shelter Valley. These days, the bustling roadside town was an artists’ haven and boasted several B and Bs in addition to a well-preserved twenty-five-room hotel that dated back to the 1900s.

“Are you taking the motorcycle?” Lillie asked, noting the happy glint in Ellen’s brown eyes, the shine to her natural blond hair. Marriage to Jay had done wonders for the woman Lillie had first met through Ellen’s son, Josh, when Lillie had first come to town. She’d supported Josh through a routine procedure at the clinic. And bonded with his grateful mother in the process.

Ellen, who’d been born and raised in Shelter Valley, had been a regular to the clinic back then—visiting the counselor whose office was just across the hall from Lillie’s—as she fought her way back from the hell of having been raped.

Jay, a masseuse at the clinic, had been central to Ellen’s recovery. In ways no one could have foreseen.

“Of course we’re taking the bike.” Ellen’s grin stretched across her face. “Jay’s been great about taking the car when we have Josh in tow, so I insist on taking the bike anytime it’s just the two of us.”

“Admit it—” Lillie grinned back “—you just want to spend the entire trip with your arms wrapped around that husband of yours.”

“I also happen to love the wind in my hair, the feeling of flying and the rush of speed....”

Ellen looked happier than Lillie had ever seen her. And for a brief second, she was envious.

Nancy, a mother of six who’d been working at the diner since she was in high school, approached them from behind the counter. Ellen ordered a cherry pie to go. “Jay and Josh are in the car,” she told Lillie. “Mom’s having the ladies over this afternoon and I told her I’d pick up the pie on my way there.”

Ellen’s mom, Martha—who was married to one of the preachers in town—and her friends, some of them from as far back as high school, got together every week. They were well-known throughout town because anytime anyone needed anything, the ladies inevitably found out about it and went out of their way to help. It didn’t hurt that Becca Parsons, mayor of Shelter Valley, was among their ranks.

Nancy turned to Lillie and she ordered a sandwich—easy to eat in the park—and waved as Mrs. Wright and Bailey walked in, hand in hand. Bailey’s lab work hadn’t come back yet.

“Did you hear about the break-in?” Ellen asked as Nancy went to the back to collect the pie and put in Lillie’s order.

“At the Conklins’? Yeah, Dr. Mueller mentioned it this morning. They just took cash, right?”

“Mom said they think it’s one guy working alone. Something about a size-ten footprint. They aren’t sure if he was only after cash, or if the Conklins got home while he was still there and scared him off. He left the sliding glass door leaning against a wall.”

“I was here four years for college and I’ve been back for five and the only break-ins I ever heard of were on campus.”

“I know what you mean. I read the police report in the weekly paper Mom sends to me in Phoenix and there have been a few accounts of people walking out of stores with things,” Ellen said. “But mostly the calls are due to domestic violence or traffic accidents or someone having a heart attack.”

But they both knew that, even given Shelter Valley’s low crime rates, bad things did happen there. Ellen was living proof of that.

“I’m sure Sheriff Richards will catch whoever did it,” Lillie told her friend, and hoped she was right. Knowing that there was a thief living among them was creepy. Shelter Valley was a unique little place on earth. It had been founded by a man who’d sought shelter from a world that condemned him for a mixed-race marriage at a time when such things weren’t accepted. The town’s growth had been guided by the belief that all good people deserved shelter from life’s storms.

And everyone who came to town seeking shelter and stayed was ready to offer shelter to others who needed it.

After saying goodbye to her friend, Lillie paid for her sandwich and focused on her upcoming appointment.

The child. Not the father.

She could get through anything life had to hand her by focusing on work.

* * *

“THROW THE BALL, son.” Kneeling next to Abe, Jon showed the toddler how to give the plastic orb an underhanded toss. And with a sprint, he made it in front of the ball to grab it as it fell and toss it back toward the little boy. Abraham followed the ball and, tripping over Jon’s feet, fell against him. Standing immediately, Abe reached for the ball with both hands and placed them just as Jon had demonstrated, tossed the ball and went running after it again.

“Wait, son,” Jon said. “Stay right there and Daddy will throw it back to you.” For two Saturdays now he’d been trying to teach the boy the concept of playing catch. Trying to get Abe to wait for the ball to come back to him. And just as Jon was determined to teach him, Abe was determined to play the game his own way.

Still, Jon continued to try. He waited while Abe tossed the ball and then went after it, trying to get the ball heading back to the toddler before Abe’s small legs got to it.

“Watch,” he said. “Daddy will throw the ball and then you catch it,” he said. Backing up, he tossed the cheap dollar-store toy gently in Abe’s direction. The boy ran toward it, waited while it dropped and then grabbed it with a laugh.

“Now throw it to me,” Jon said. Abraham tossed. And ran. Jon reached the ball first and, scooping it up with one hand, tossed the ball back in his son’s direction. Again. And again.

“I’m going to back up farther now,” he said as Abe once more picked up the ball. Turning, he hurried a few steps away before Abe had time to straighten. “Nooo!” His heart in his throat, Jon swung back around at the sound of his son’s terrified scream.

If...

Abraham stood there, right where he’d been, screaming his head off. No one was around. The ball was still in the boy’s hands.

“Abe?” He ran forward. Grabbed the boy’s hands, letting the ball drop to the ground as he checked for bee stings. Abe’s legs were next, and Jon scrutinized them fully while the toddler gained the attention of everyone else in the park with his full-bodied screams.

Jon glanced quickly around, fearing that Lillie Henderson would observe this latest display, but only saw unfamiliar faces staring back at them. Some were tinged with curiosity. An older woman on a bench several yards away was frowning.

But there was no sign of Ms. Henderson.

Jon picked the boy up and Abe quieted almost immediately.

“Put him back down,” a soft voice said from directly behind him.

His first instinct—a strong one—was to ignore the child-life-whatever-she-was. He wanted nothing more than to avoid another screaming match in public. He also wasn’t completely convinced that Abe was okay. Something had clearly upset him.

And then he thought about losing Abe. Because the woman who’d just directed him to put his son down might be a spy—someone employed by Abe’s maternal grandmother to observe Jon’s parenting skills.

And even if Lillie wasn’t a spy, she was clearly someone who knew a lot about raising children. He wanted whatever help he could get. He set the boy back on his feet.

Before his feet had even touched the ground, Abe opened his mouth and started to cry again.

And Lillie Henderson was down on her knees in front of him, shaking her head. Abe, apparently startled to see her, quieted enough to hiccup through his sobs. Lillie put a finger on his lips.

“No more screaming, Abe,” she said. “Remember what we talked about? Use your words.”

Abe only had four words. Jon started to tell her so, but figured he’d let her find that out on her own.

The boy studied Lillie’s mouth. His lower lip was still jutting out and quivering, but he wasn’t crying.

“Your Daddy and I—” she turned and smiled up at Jon “—can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

Yes. That was completely true. And as soon as Abe got old enough to comprehend the concept they’d be home free.

“Instead of screaming, use your words to tell us what’s upset you,” Lillie said. “Okay?”

Abraham nodded. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t give Jon a clue as to what had caused his distress, but the tantrum had apparently passed.

Jon wasn’t as confident that he’d passed the parenting test.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY SPENT AN hour at the park. Abe tripped over a root and fell and started to cry. Jon picked him up and faced the woman who’d just given up an hour of her day to explain various coping skills to him.

Things he hadn’t found in any of the numerous child-rearing books he’d read. Things like encouraging Abe to use his words, even though he didn’t verbalize any yet. According to Lillie, the boy had a full understanding of language, and they had to give him a reason to vocalize his thoughts.

“Time to go,” he said, looking at Lillie, hoping to hell that she wasn’t a spy. He was grateful to her. “That particular whine means he’s hungry.”

She looked at Abe. “All you had to do was tell Daddy that you want to eat,” she said simply. “Eat.” She drew the word out. Said it again. Abe watched her mouth.

He grinned.

And shoved his fist in his mouth.

“Would you like to join us for a hamburger?” Jon asked, and was shocked when she nodded.

“I’d like that, thanks.”

Twenty minutes later, after a quick diaper change in the front passenger seat of Jon’s small, four-door truck, they were seated across from each other in a booth at the fast-food hamburger place just outside of town. Lillie, who’d followed behind them in her car, had insisted on paying for her own grilled chicken sandwich.

Abe, in a booster seat next to him, was happily shoving French fries in his mouth.

Lillie made a face at the boy. He laughed out loud. She chuckled.

And Jon was struck by how much he was enjoying himself.

Which posed a major problem.

“I have a question,” he said, leaning forward over his opened container with a quarter-pound burger inside.

“Ask anything. That’s what I’m here for.”

“You married?” Not the question he’d meant to ask.

She blinked. “No.”

“You said, the other day, that your life was an open book. I’m apparently not much of a reader. You know about me. I know virtually nothing about you.”

And he wanted to know. Which was why he had to ask her.

“I graduated from Montford eight years ago. I married a business major I met my senior year. I’m divorced. And I’ve been back in Shelter Valley, practicing child life full-time, for the past five years. I live alone and am on call 24/7. My choice. Because that’s the way I like it.”

“No children?”

“No.” Something moved in and out of her expression so quickly he couldn’t make it out. Sadness, maybe.

Had she wanted children?

Or her husband had and she hadn’t?

It seemed kind of strange that a woman who knew so much about kids, and who clearly adored them, didn’t have any of her own.

“That wasn’t my question.”

She grinned. “Whose was it?”

Bowing his head, he tried to hold back his own grin, and lost the battle. “Okay, it was mine. But it wasn’t the one I’d meant to ask. Before. When I told you I had a question.” If he sounded anywhere near as idiotic to her as he sounded to himself, he should just hang his head and go home.

“What’s your question?” Grabbing a napkin, she wiped a drop of ketchup from Abraham’s mouth.

“Are we working?”

Frowning, she took a bite of her sandwich. Chewed and swallowed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Right now. What we’re doing here. Is this work?”

“As opposed to what?” She really seemed confused.

Breaking more pieces of bread and hamburger patty, Jon put them on the paper in front of Abraham.

He felt stupid. “I don’t know. Two people becoming friends...” It sounded as though he was hitting on her. Which he wasn’t. At all. Not that he hadn’t noticed how those jeans of hers hugged her long legs and a backside that— No. He was better than that. “Am I a client? I mean, I know you said I don’t have to pay you, but—”

“I’m happy to help you with Abe, Jon. Don’t worry about it.”

He wasn’t worried, exactly. Except when paranoia set in and he thought she might be a spy. “I’m not too sure about protocol for child life specialists.”

His burger was getting cold. He loved burgers. And since becoming a father he only got one a week.

“Are you allowed to be friends with your clients?”

“Not according to the books,” she said, and then shrugged. “And certainly in some situations, life-threatening medical procedures, for instance, I have to keep my professional distance, but in a small town like Shelter Valley it would be impossible not to be friends with my clients. Most of the parents of young children are my age and I wouldn’t have any friends if I couldn’t be friends with them. Or conversely, I wouldn’t have many patients if I couldn’t tend to the children of my friends. I’ve got a skill set, you know, like a plumber or a doctor. If your pipe bursts and your buddy’s a plumber, he comes over to help, right?”

“So you and I—” he gestured toward her with his hamburger-holding hand “—we could be friends. If the idea was mutually satisfying, of course.”

“If the idea was mutually satisfying, yes...” She’d withdrawn a bit. Wasn’t smiling like she had been.

He got nervous again. “Hey, you do understand I’m not hitting on you, right?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“But you are now.”

“Yes.” She nodded once, slowly.

“Good, because I’d like to offer my services. In exchange for what you’re doing here for me. And Abe.”

“Your services?”

The idea had occurred to him during the hour she’d spent giving him back some semblance of control where his son was concerned. “I’ve got some skills, too. I’d like to offer them to you.” Especially now that he knew she lived alone. “For instance, do you have a sliding glass door?”

“Yes, why?”

“Does it have a security lock on it?”

“It’s got the lock on the door handle. I’m sure it’s secure.”

He shook his head. “There was a theft in town last night.”

“I heard. And I’m sure the thief, if he’s still around, will be caught.”

What was it about the people in this town? Did they have no street smarts at all? They didn’t live behind a locked gate. Shelter Valley was accessible from the highway. All kinds of people took the highway.

“I’d like to install a secure lock on your sliding glass door. If you’re okay with that.”

“Sure. It never hurts to be safe. I’ll pay you for it, of course.”

“You’re missing the point,” Jon said. “This is a trade-off. You help me with Abe and I’ll help you.”

Being in debt gave people control over you.

She eyed the uneaten food in his container. “But...”

Abraham held up a French fry, looked from Jon to Lillie, grinned and nodded.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Lillie grinned at the toddler.

Abe’s nod encompassed the entire top half of his body. And then, still grinning, he chewed, French fry showing between his teeth. He picked up another and handed it to Lillie.

“You want me to have it?” she asked, when Jon would have just taken the fry.

Abraham, studying her with seriousness now as he held out his gift, nodded again.

She took the potato from his sticky fingers, said, “Thank you,” and popped it into her mouth.

Abe went back to the sections of burger Jon had cut for his son, picking one up and taking a huge bite out of it. He chewed, swallowed and kicked his feet. It occurred to Jon that he looked like a healthy, happy, well-adjusted kid.

One who was communicating.

“Do you want a pickle?” Lillie asked the boy, picking up the discarded vegetable from her take-out container.

“No!” Abraham said emphatically.

Smiling, Jon looked across the booth at their gorgeous companion. “I don’t buy that Bonnie Nielson pays you to spend hours on Saturday with the parents of her clients,” he said. “Being at the day care, to help them adjust, makes sense, but this?” Sitting back against the booth, he motioned at himself and Abe and the food in front of them.

Lillie’s gaze dropped before she once again looked him in the eye. “You’re right. I’m on my own time.”

“I don’t accept charity.”

“I understand.” She gathered her trash together and Jon thought she might be about to walk out on them.

“But if you’d allow me to return the favor—professional skills in exchange for professional skills...”

Her hands stilling, Lillie studied him and his son. “I have to be honest with you, Jon. I’m not sure why I’ve been so persistent where the two of you are concerned. It’s not my usual way.”

So he hadn’t been completely paranoid in thinking she’d singled him out. Just erroneous—okay, paranoid, maybe—in his conclusions that she was out to get him.

Maybe. Clara Abrams could afford to hire people who were highly skilled at acting.

“Tell me this,” he said, “are you here because you’re genuinely interested in helping me help my son?”

“Absolutely.”

She hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t looked away. “Then that’s enough for me,” he said. “Assuming you’ll allow me to reciprocate in kind. Service for—”

“I know, professional service for professional service,” she finished, a small smile on her beautiful face. “I agree to your terms.”

“Good.” He smiled. Her grin grew wider.

Something was going on here. He wasn’t sure what. And he was fairly certain he didn’t want to know.

“Good,” she said.

“Dada?” Abe’s voice sounded between them.

He’d forgotten that his son was still eating. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to watch Abe right next to him.

“Yes, son?” he said, wrapping an arm around Abe’s tiny, fragile shoulders as he surveyed the ketchup-smeared table. Abe had pushed what was left of his food-filled paper across to the other side of the table.

“Uh,” the boy grunted, bobbing up and down in his chair and pointing toward the door.

“He’s ready to go.” Jon gathered up the debris from their meal and retrieved a couple of packets from the back pocket of his jeans. The individually sealed antibacterial wipes he’d learned never to leave home without.

“Use your words, Abraham,” Lillie said softly from across the table as Jon tended to his son’s chubby little fingers and face first before starting on the table.

“Tell us what you want.” Lillie’s attention was intent on the boy. “Tell us you want to go,” she said.

With a small frown marring his brow, Abe’s big brown eyes studied the woman.

Jon wiped the table. He knew what Abraham wanted without needing to be told.

“Tell us you want to go,” she said again. “Go.”

“Gah,” Abe responded, bobbing up and down some more. “Gah.”

Jon grinned. A new word. Gah. It meant go.

“Gooo,” Lillie said, drawing out the long O sound. “Gooo.”

“Gah,” Abe repeated, grinning. “Gah.” The boy stood up on the bench and almost fell backward as his booster seat got in the way.

Jon reached out and steadied his son, feeling as though he’d just been given a new lease on life. He picked Abe up and set him on the ground.

“I was making it easy for him not to learn to talk,” Jon said to Lillie as they made their way through the restaurant. “He didn’t have to speak to get what he wanted.”

“That’s probably part of it. And he’s just turned two.”

“I do try to teach him words.” With Abe holding on to one hand, he held the door open for her.

“I don’t doubt that, Jon.” Lillie’s voice was soft. Tender. And, inside, he softened toward her.

“We’re working on potty training, too,” he added, still proving himself, just in case.

“Not too vigorously, I hope,” she said. “Boys generally train later than girls, closer to three than two. It takes that long for them to feel the sensation that they have to go. And trying to get him to understand what you want when he can’t recognize the feeling inside his body yet will only lead to frustration. For both of you.”

He’d read all of that.

“But sometimes they’re ready early,” he said. “I just wanted to give him the chance to move forward if he was ready. It’s not an everyday thing. Just an occasional invitation.”

He was talking about peeing with a woman he was attracted to.

“So—” Jon cleared his throat “—make a list of things you’d like done around your house,” he said, getting back on track. “Tomorrow is Sunday. I have the day off.” Except for cleaning the bathroom, washing the sheets, picking up groceries and studying. “I could come over and fix that door for you.”

They’d reached their vehicles, sitting side by side in the parking lot. Her newish dark blue Malibu next to his quite a bit older, four-door Ranger.

He wasn’t ready to leave her.

And he’d promised Mark that he and Abe would sit with Nonnie so Mark and Addy could have a night out.

“Tomorrow would be great.” Lillie leaned into him and, for a second, Jon thought she was going to kiss him.

And knew he’d kiss her back.

She kissed Abe on the cheek. “Anytime after noon would be fine,” she said.

What was she doing before noon?

He told himself it was none of his business as he watched her drive off.

Alone with Abe once more, Jon opened the back door of his truck, fastened the toddler securely in his car seat and settled himself in for the drive to Mark’s.

All in all they’d had a good day. Fun in the park. Good food.

And Abe had five words now instead of four.

Jon turned the truck toward Mark’s house, looking forward to a couple of hours of sparring with Mark Heber’s recalcitrant grandmother.

Hopefully Abe would fall asleep soon and Jon and Nonnie could get in a game of penny poker. The old bat had five dollars of his money.

CHAPTER SIX

JON HAD ASKED her to make a list of things she’d like done around her house. She did so, mentally, as she drove to Phoenix on Sunday morning. Overall, she loved the little house she’d bought close to the center of town, but a few of the rooms needed ceiling fans.

He’d have to bring Abe along when he installed them. It wasn’t like he could leave the toddler home alone.

She really wanted to have new faucets in the master bathroom. And one in the kitchen, too, with a pull out sprayer....

She’d need to baby-proof her home. She still had the cupboard safety catches she’d purchased when...

Maybe Jon could undermount her kitchen sink—a style of mounting that put the counter on top of the edge of the sink. She had granite countertops, which she’d had in her home in Phoenix and loved, but the sink was traditionally mounted. She’d grown used to undermounting. Preferred not to have to worry about water and other debris spilling over, wetting her outfit as she leaned against the edge of the counter as she worked.

A little boy in her home. Wandering from room to room...

The electrical outlet in her living room, the one behind the couch, didn’t work. Could Jon do electric?

She had brand-new sippy cups, still in their plastic. Was Abe too old for those?

There was the sticky latch on the window in the office. And she’d been meaning to get quotes on having a front porch put on....

Wait.

Taking the 202 to the 101, Lillie headed north toward Scottsdale and the little café that made breakfasts good enough to compel rich and famous people to wait for a table.

This thing with Jon. And Abraham. She wanted to help them because she knew she could. Because something about Abraham, the serious way he looked at her, as though he was trying to tell her something, haunted her.

But the time she was spending with them was nowhere near equal to the time that would be required to complete the list of jobs she was compiling.

She had to scale herself back. Way back.

Maybe just the ceiling fans. And the faucets.

Or just the ceiling fans.

And they could see about the faucets....

* * *

ABE WOKE JON up at six. Laundry was done by seven. Two loads was all it took. One with jeans and pants, the other with the rest of their clothes.

Sitting down with his son for a bowl of nonsugared cereal with fresh bananas and a piece of toast at the little four-seater, faux butcher-block table that had come with the furnished, two-bedroom apartment he’d found for them, Jon checked the strap on Abe’s booster seat one more time and, reaching under the table, pulled it more firmly up to the table before placing Abe’s plastic bowl within sight, but not reach.

“Eat,” he said clearly, holding the big handled little spoon. “You’re hungry,” he said, leaning down just a bit so that his lips were right in Abe’s line of vision. “You want to eat,” he said, keeping his voice steady, kind. But firm, too. “Tell Daddy you want to eat.”

Abe grunted, looking at the bowl of cereal, and kicked Jon’s knee under the table. Repositioning himself so that his legs were together and angled away from the little boy, he leaned forward a little more. “You’re hungry,” he said again. “Tell Daddy you want eat.” And when Abe grunted again, he repeated the process a third time, putting more emphasis on the word eat each time.

Abe’s face puckered and Jon could see a bout of tears on the horizon. “I’m not giving in, Abraham.” He almost smiled. But this wasn’t a game. “It’s just you and me, buddy, and if you want to scream to he―Hades and back, you go ahead.” In his former life he’d used more colorful vocabulary. It came naturally to him. But he was working on not slipping up. “You want to eat. I understand that. I just need you to tell me.”

Slamming his hands on the table, Abraham started to cry. Jon moved the boy’s cereal bowl a little farther out of reach. He’d cleaned up enough spilled milk.

And he took hold of his son’s little hand, rubbing it lightly.

Abe stared at him.

“Your breakfast is here, son,” he explained slowly. “So is mine. And I’m hungry, too. I just need you to use your words. Tell Daddy you want to eat.”

With drops of tears wetting his lashes, Abe stared.

“Eeeeaaat,” Jon said again. Slowly.

“Eeeeeuh!” The word wasn’t offered gently at all.

Jon didn’t give a damn about that. He almost spilled the cereal himself in his haste to reward Abe’s milestone.

The boy was not stupid. He’d just had a father who’d been too good at reading his mind and not good enough at forcing him to do for himself.

* * *

“SO...WHAT DO you think?” Lillie stared back and forth between the two people she loved more than anything in the world—her stand-in parents, Jerry and Gayle Henderson, who’d taken her into their hearts long before they’d become her in-laws, and kept her there in spite of the divorce.

“I think you look happier than you have in a long time.” Gayle’s soft-spoken words settled a bit of the unease deep inside of Lillie.

She turned to Jerry. “What about you, Papa?” Not Dad. Or Daddy. Lillie couldn’t give another man that name. But neither could she call Jerry anything but a variation of it.

“I trust you, Lil. You’ll do the right thing.”

She’d told them about Jon and Abraham. Every Sunday morning over breakfast, she gave them a rundown of her week and they did the same. They were her family.

The only close family she had.

“What does that mean?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’m asking for your opinion, Papa. That’s when you tell me what you think even if I’m not going to like it.” They’d been over this point before. She needed Jerry’s honesty. She wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what he said to her.

“I think that you obviously feel something for this little boy. And it could be a bit personal. Frankly, I can’t imagine that your personal experience doesn’t play some part in the work you do. How could it not? What happens to you becomes a part of you. You can’t just leave it behind. No matter how badly you want to.”

There was a message in there for her. Unrelated to Jon and Abraham Swartz.

“You think I’m trying to leave my past behind? I thought you approved of my move to Shelter Valley. You encouraged me to branch out on my own.”

Gayle’s blue eyes were filled with concern. “We did,” she said. “We do.”

“Papa?”

“Gayle and I fully support your move—and your career choice,” he said, his words coming slowly, as if he was choosing them carefully.

Gayle. It was what Kirk had called his father’s third wife. So that was what Lillie called her, too, although she’d always been closer to Gayle than to Kirk’s biological mother—Jerry’s first wife, who’d left him for a man richer than he was back when Jerry had been fresh out of college and starting his own PR firm.

“We thought you’d have found...someone...by now,” Gayle’s gaze was direct. And filled with love.

Shaking her head, Lillie looked between the two of them, her broccoli quiche and fruit untouched on her plate. “I don’t understand.” Either they thought the move to Shelter Valley had been a good decision, or they thought she was running away. It couldn’t be both.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that she’d asked for this conversation. That she wanted—no, needed—their insight and perspective.

Everyone needed a sounding board.

“Your career choice, your location, isn’t the problem, Lil,” Jerry said. “It’s your lack of close relationships that concerns us.”

“You want me to take a lover?”

What did this have to do with Jon and Abraham? She’d asked them if they thought she was crossing a line getting involved with the Swartzes.

During the final months of her pregnancy, Lillie and the Hendersons had had many frank conversations. Gayle had been present during the birth.

Gayle’s smile was too knowing, but Lillie wasn’t sure what the older woman thought she knew.

“No, Lil, we don’t mean you should take a lover,” she said. “Unless you meet a man you’re in love with and want to sleep with, of course,” she added.

“We just want you to open your heart and let people in again,” Jerry said.

Oh.

As far as she was concerned, the conversation was over. “Hearts break.”

“When you first came to us, your parents had only been gone for a year,” Jerry said. “You had a broken heart then.”

She remembered spending nights alone in her dorm room when she’d been so filled with pain that she’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to pull enough air into her lungs to sustain her until morning.

“But you were still you, Lil. A woman with a generous heart who has a special awareness of people and their needs. You’re very perceptive to other people’s feelings,” he added.

“Are you saying I’m no longer generous?”

Reaching across the table, Gayle covered Lillie’s hand. “We’re saying that while you’re busy giving every hour of your life to other people, you aren’t allowing yourself to get close to anyone,” she said.

“We were talking about Jon and Abraham Swartz. About whether or not I’d overstepped a professional boundary by making that absurd agreement with him—trading skill set for skill set. Letting him in my home...”

“And we’re telling you that isn’t even an issue, Lil,” Jerry said, more serious than she’d heard him in a long time. “What you’re doing for that man and his little boy is marvelous. Generous. It’s classic you, understanding that in order for him to accept your help he had to be able to give in kind. My worry is that you had to ask if you were overstepping. Are you really that afraid of letting anyone into your heart?”

“Jerry and I have been worried about you for a while,” Gayle said. “You’ve got a town full of friends, but you don’t let any of them into your heart. At least, not that you tell us about.”

“You two are in there.”

Jerry’s gaze softened, moistened, as he added his hand atop Gayle’s and hers on the table. “And you are first in ours, Lil. Don’t ever doubt that. But you need more than two old folks in your life. You need a partner who is worthy of you. Who will look out for you as much as you look out for him. I’m just worried that if he comes along, you won’t be able or ready to open your heart and let him in.”

Kirk had bolted her heart shut and thrown away the key.

But Papa and Gayle knew that. Lillie was at a loss for words. She’d accepted her lot in life. Had found a way to be happy.

And she didn’t want to screw it up by making a professional mistake from which it would be impossible to recover in a town as small and close-knit as Shelter Valley.

“Have you heard from that damned son of mine?” Jerry asked.

Kirk still worked for his father. But they didn’t socialize.

Or even chat much beyond clients and accounts. And Kirk dropping his son off to spend an occasional day with them.

“No,” Lillie assured him. She didn’t need Papa thinking he had to rake Kirk across the coals another time. It hurt Papa and served no purpose. “Of course not.”

A couple of years before, when Kirk had come to Lillie pressuring her for a change to their divorce decree that would give him more money, Jerry had given his son an ultimatum. If Kirk bothered Lillie again he would be cut off. Period. From the firm and from his inheritance.

“He left Leah,” Gayle said softly.

“I thought they were getting married.” Their son was five now—not that Kirk spent much quality time with the boy, according to Papa and Gayle.

Papa and Gayle did more with him the couple of times a month they saw him then Kirk appeared to.

“He said he didn’t love her enough to marry her.”

Kind of late to be figuring that out. Lillie counted her lucky stars that she’d gotten out before wasting all of the best years of her life with him.

She had to admit, she felt a small thrill of satisfaction, too. Did that mean Kirk really had loved her as much as he’d said he did? He had, after all, married her.

“Maybe if Leah hadn’t let him move in with her, if she hadn’t had his child without expecting anything in return, he would have married her,” she said, just to show Jerry and Gayle that she could speak rationally, unemotionally, about the man who’d ripped her apart at the seams during the darkest hours of her life. To show them that it didn’t matter to her a whit whether Kirk was with Leah, or Kayla or Marcie or anyone.

Jerry and Gayle were like parents to her.

Their son meant nothing.

Period.

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