He kissed her

He pulled her to him and tipped up her chin. And kissed her.

She forgot resistance, reserve and all her careful plans. She sensed the breadth of his shoulders and chest, his sheer masculinity. She breathed in a combination of the spicy scent of the cologne he must have put on this morning and the clean sweat from his just-completed workout. Man, that scent said. And everything about her hormone-driven body shrieked woman.

“Dad, Dad.” A pounding of feet on the stairs and through the front hall.

Abruptly Mitch broke the kiss. “Stay here,” he whispered. He took a few long strides to the door and vanished from sight. She heard muffled voices—Mitch’s and those of his sons.

Jenny smoothed her blouse. Her hands were shaking. It was a good thing the kids had come home just then.

A very good thing, because if Mitch meant what she thought he meant…

He doesn’t want to marry you, for heaven’s sake. He’s talking about starting a relationship. As in dating.

But she couldn’t date him. What Mitch didn’t realize was that he was kissing a woman who was pregnant with another man’s baby.

Dear Reader,

All my life I’ve been surrounded by the male point of view. I had two brothers—no sisters. When I was a kid, my dad and brothers would sit around the dinner table and talk sports, sports, sports. My mom and I would look at each other and roll our eyes.

Then my career put me squarely into the male world. In the late seventies and early eighties, women were just beginning to enter the legal profession in significant numbers. And trial law—my choice—wasn’t a popular specialty among women lawyers at that time.

My household now consists of males: one sweetheart of a husband and a wonderful son who will be a teenager soon.

So I think I know something about men. And I like men. I like the differences between us and them. I like the male protectiveness, their focus, their pride, their loyalty…and their struggles to “understand women.” I like how they laugh, how they tease, how they kiss.

I hope you do, too, and that you get a kick out of Mitch and his rowdy household of boys. I loved writing this story, as man’s man Mitch struggles to deal with one little girl and one feminine woman. One very pregnant feminine woman…

Linda Markowiak

P.S. I love to hear from readers. Please write to me c/o Harlequin Enterprises Limited or e-mail me at lindamarkowiak@superauthors.com.

And Baby Makes Six

Linda Markowiak

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

MITCH OLIVER WAS FAST on his feet, could face down a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound bully, give a glib talk on national television and handle being a hometown hero with class.

So he certainly shouldn’t be scared of an eight-year-old girl.

Remember, she’s got to be a lot more scared than you are, pal.

The social worker went ahead of him down the hallway to the office. It was here that he’d sign the final papers, and bring Crystal home with him.

The funny thing was, his niece hadn’t cried much when they’d had her mother’s funeral yesterday. Mitch had thought he’d have to do more…comforting somehow, but…the kid had just sat there with that Litton woman, staring straight ahead. And afterward she’d hardly said a word to Mitch.

It had been that way over dinner last night, too. The only person the child had talked to was Jenny Litton, who hadn’t had too much to say to Mitch, either.

The social worker paused at the closed door to her office.

Mitch said, “It’s just that it took me so long to get here.” Seeing the look of puzzlement in the woman’s eyes, he clarified. “It would have been better for Crystal if I’d got here sooner. I could have helped with something. Made…you know, arrangements. The funeral.” After all, his own wife, Anne, had died four years ago. He knew there was a lot to do, sad decisions, kids’ tears to wipe.

That thought got him back to Crystal and those dry eyes of hers.

Alma Winters sighed. “I don’t know, Mr. Oliver. Miss Litton took care of everything. I mean, I don’t know if a day or two earlier would have made any difference.”

“Mitch. Please call me Mitch.” He’d told her that a couple of times now, but he knew people were more formal down here.

He’d never visited his baby sister in South Carolina. He’d never been close to Kathy, even though she was the only family he had anymore outside of his kids. In fact, he’d only seen Crystal once. About six years ago Kathy had made a short visit to Ohio. He and Kathy had loved each other, he guessed. But he’d already been on the road by the time she’d hit junior high, and as an adult she’d always lived so far away…In fact, he’d seen little of Kathy even before her young husband died and she’d moved to South Carolina to raise Crystal alone. A sense of loss filled him. His baby sister was gone and he hadn’t really known her. Now he wouldn’t have the chance. His memories were from long ago, childhood ones. Armloads of lilacs, Kathy going out to the big old bush by the pond and picking more than she could carry up the hill.

He raked a hand through his hair. No use in sugar-coating it. He’d been too busy for his kid sister, and now it was too late.

Once he’d been too busy for them all—playing professional hockey, managing his endorsements and his investments. He’d become a rich man, but he’d missed out on family life. Four years ago he’d made a promise that that would change.

“If we hadn’t been camping so far out, and if I hadn’t had to make an unscheduled stop in Memphis, I would have been here sooner.” Mitch stopped. He had to quit explaining.

The older woman smiled at him, her eyes warm black-brown, her skin a shiny mahogany. “You can’t help the fog. It’s like that on Hilton Head. It’s an island. We get fog.”

Kathy had liked the South Carolina island for the warm climate and proximity to the seashore. Crystal had a real southern drawl that made her seem even more strange to him.

“I’ll do my best with Crystal,” he promised suddenly.

The social worker sighed. “I believe you. But it’s always a sorry time when a baby’s momma dies. Fortunately, she’s had Miss Litton. Miss Litton has been a good friend, done the right thing by taking Crystal in and arranging for Kathy’s funeral. I want you to remember that.” Her eyes crinkled with kindness even as she hesitated. “Look, Mr. Oliver—”

“Mitch.”

“Mitch. Thank you. Mitch, I need to tell you something before you go in there. Crystal keeps saying she doesn’t want to go with you.”

Ah, hell. The greasy breakfast he’d eaten went sour in his stomach. “She doesn’t even know me.”

The social worker put a light hand on his arm. “Right. I understand that. She needs to give you a chance.”

He swallowed. “What if she isn’t in the mood to, ah, give me a chance?” He needed to know exactly what he was up against.

“Try not to worry too much. Just take her home, ease into things.”

“I’m good at going with the flow.”

She smiled again. “Listen to her, maybe try to do things in your home that will make her feel welcome. Your sister named you guardian in her will, and you’re the only close family Crystal has. Her father died about eight years ago, and his parents were never really involved with Kathy or Crystal. In fact, I gather they’re relieved to have you handle the situation.” There was a slight pause. “We’ll have a social worker in Ohio stop in and do a couple of quick checks of your household, but it’s just a formality, really.”

“A formality?”

She hesitated again, and Mitch got impatient. “Just break it to me. What are you trying to say here?”

Alma Winters touched him on the arm again. “All right. Jennifer Litton has raised the issue of whether you’re the proper person to care for Crystal. That’s why we’re having an Ohio social worker check. You see, Miss Litton was under the impression that Kathy’s will named her guardian.”

Mitch stared at her, bewildered. He and Kathy might not have been close, but they’d stayed in touch. She hadn’t trusted him to care for her daughter?

The social worker said, “Miss Litton claims Kathy had mentioned changing her will a couple of times.”

“Well, she never did it, did she?”

“No, she never did. Look, I’m a southerner, and nobody believes in family like a southerner does. You’re blood. You’re kin. But you have a lot of responsibility. It’s not too late to change your mind. If you can’t see your way to providing a home for your niece, Miss Litton would—”

“No. I believe in family, too.” He looked her directly in the eye.

There was a second’s pause. Then she said, “Ready to take your niece home?”

“Sure.” Crystal was just a little kid. A little girl.

A little…girl. He stepped through the door Alma Winters held open.

Crystal was sitting on a chair by the window. She wore her hair long and wavy, and was dressed in shorts that made a yellow bib kind of thing over a T-shirt. Sandals on her feet, those feet swinging up and down as if she were on an imaginary swing. Mitch’s sons’ legs were full of scars, scratches, insect bites in the summer, but his niece’s weren’t. A scrap of a cat, as orange as her hair, lay curled in her lap. A cat so small his dog, Face-off, was likely to have it for lunch and then look for more.

She was just a little kid.

His gaze was caught by the blonde who stood with a hand on his niece’s shoulder. Jennifer—Jenny—Litton. Miss Jenny Litton was real pretty, like some high-class southern belle right out of an old movie. He’d had trouble not looking at her last night at dinner. He glanced away now. After all, he was used to looking—and then not looking—at attractive women.

He addressed himself to his niece. “Hi, Crystal.”

Her legs swung higher. The kitten woke up and stretched.

“We’re going home today. On the airplane, remember? You haven’t ever been on a plane.”

Those bare legs kept swinging. He clenched a fist in his pocket, painfully conscious of the social worker behind him, and the silent woman next to Crystal. The pretty, uppity woman Kathy might have preferred to him to raise her kid.

“You’re going to like it in Ohio. We talked about it last night. We live in an old farmhouse and we do a lot of fun stuff, like sports. In the spring, you can use that mitt and baseball I got you last Christmas.”

The cat turned to stare at him.

Jenny spoke for the first time. “Crystal doesn’t like sports.”

“Oh.”

“Kathy used to say you were a big hockey star. Rich and famous.” There was no admiration in her voice. That voice was low and feminine, and she drew out the syllables until she sounded as southern as fried chicken and biscuits. Mitch frowned. No, not fried chicken. More like a cool glass of iced tea.

He wasn’t a big hockey star anymore, and he wasn’t that famous anywhere outside of North Shore, Ohio, these days, but his sporting-goods store, Serious Gear, was doing well and he didn’t have to answer to this woman.

Belatedly, Mrs. Winters came forward. “Crystal, maybe you’ll learn to enjoy baseball, and here you are with your own mitt and ball.”

Her voice was so falsely cheerful that even Mitch winced.

Crystal shrugged, and her movement must’ve startled the cat. It leaped to the floor. “Jewels,” she called and scrambled down after it.

But Jenny was quicker. She took a couple of steps and bent to keep the cat from scurrying away. “Here, Crystal. Your baby landed on its feet.” Jenny ran her fingers down the kitten’s head and back, her long, polished nails scratching behind its ears. The cat set up a purr so loud even Mitch could hear it.

The floor was dusty, but she got down on her knees despite those expensive-looking silky stockings she wore, and petted the tiny animal. Crystal sat beside her. Jenny stroked along the kitten’s backbone, and its hind end came up as her fingers reached it, its skinny tail in the air like a flagpole. Crystal turned and looked up at Mitch. “My momma named him Jewels because I’m Crystal.”

Huh? Well, at least she was talking to him. “Ah, that’s a good name. For a cat. Jules.” He tried harder. “He’s a cute cat.”

“He’s a she.”

Jules was a weird name for a girl cat, but Mitch decided to let it go. He said, “Okay, a she then.”

But he must have said something wrong, because his niece turned then to Jenny. “Do I have to go with him, Miss Jenny?”

Jenny’s fingers on the cat stilled. In her position on her knees, her jacket was hiked up a notch, showing the fullness of her curves beneath. The fact that he noticed so…intently made him more uncomfortable than ever. Maybe he should have been the one to get down on the floor. But somehow today he had a hockey stick for a spine, and so he stood there like an idiot, looking down at them both.

“Well, then,” he said to Jenny when the silence got so long he couldn’t stand it. “We’ll pick up Crystal’s suitcase and be on our way a little early. The plane leaves in a few hours.”

A really heavy silence fell over the room. Mitch finally added, “I want to thank you for helping out until I could get here.” He really was grateful for that part. He tried a smile on her, though nothing about her manner encouraged one. “You…did a good job. You had things Kathy would have wanted. I knew she liked lilacs. She always did.”

Emotion flickered in Jenny’s eyes for the barest second, so quickly that he almost missed it. But he knew in that moment that his sister had meant a lot to this woman.

Crystal had been scratching the cat. Now she looked up from the floor. “I want to stay with Miss Jenny,” she whispered.

Oh, hell.

Instinctively now, he squatted. At his movement, the cat leaped up in the air and took off. Crystal jerked, wrapping herself around Jenny. Jenny hugged her, whispered something into her ear that Mitch couldn’t catch.

The social worker cleared her throat. “Your uncle is family, sweetie. He lives in a big house in Ohio, which is a very nice place to live, and you’ll have four cousins.” She spread her hands helplessly. “He loves you. He told me so.”

Mitch had told her that, over the phone when he’d got the shocking news of his sister’s death in an auto accident. Had that only been two days ago? Saying he loved his niece wasn’t really a lie. He was sure he would love her…just as soon as he got to know her.

Jenny gently disengaged from Crystal and stood. “Why don’t you find your kitty and see if she’s hungry? You know how hungry she gets, and how much she relies on you to take care of her.” Surprising Mitch again, she pulled a little plastic bag of cat treats from the pocket of that yellow outfit.

“Can we talk?” It was Jenny Litton again, her eyebrow raised in polite inquiry.

He nodded, out of his league. He wanted to do what was best for Crystal.

Jenny stroked Crystal’s hair. “Will you be all right with Mrs. Winters for a while? Just for a minute? I need to talk to your uncle Mitch.”

“Do I have to go with him?” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

Jenny hesitated.

Mrs. Winters said, “Sweetie, we’ve talked about this.”

Mitch seized on a sudden inspiration as the kitten munched on a cat treat. “I have a dog at home.”

A flicker of interest crossed his niece’s face.

“And ponies.”

“Ponies are big.” She frowned.

Mitch figured it was best not to mention that Face-off was about as big as one of the ponies. “I also have a hamster, and some fish. They aren’t big.”

Crystal no longer looked as ready to burst into tears as she had a moment ago. He was just mentally congratulating himself when Jenny Litton motioned him toward the door.

He got to his feet, too, but thought about not following her. He was in no mood to be ragged on for not being a better brother. But the alternative was for her to speak her mind in front of his niece, so he followed her out. The hallway was hot—the air conditioner in the social worker’s office didn’t cool the air out here. Hard to believe it was October.

Jenny motioned him toward the window, out of the way of the few passersby. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said politely. “Kathy—” She stopped and moistened her lips, and Mitch realized she wasn’t as cool about this whole situation as she pretended to be. “I was your sister’s best friend.”

“Like I said, I appreciate your handling the funeral.” He’d been camping with his sons in Colorado, when he’d got the news of Kathy’s death. It had taken a while to get to an airport and book the kids on a flight home with nineteen-year-old Luke in charge.

She smoothed back her already-smooth hair. The sun caught a little gleam from her round gold earrings. She had a nice chin and dainty ears—don’t look.

She said, “From what I know about you, your life is pretty complicated. Like you said at dinner last night, you’re a widower. You have three teenage boys and an eleven-year-old. I can make things easy for you. I’m prepared to take custody of Crystal today. She’ll have a good home, and your conscience will be clear.”

“I’m her uncle.”

“Crystal doesn’t know you. And quite honestly, Kathy didn’t talk about you much. As far as I know, you never came for a visit.”

Guilt pinched him. “I didn’t have time.”

Her chin tilted in a sort of southern belle arrogance. “You didn’t have time?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“What makes you think you’ll have time now?”

“I’ll make time”

“I have the time. I live alone—” Abruptly, she bit her lip.

“Crystal is my family.”

“She doesn’t want to come with you.”

“As you said, that’s because she doesn’t know me. Yet. She’s family. I’m sorry if you had…plans to keep her. I don’t know how much time you actually spent with Crystal—”

“I’ve known her for three years. I’ve baby-sat. I’ve spent days at the beach with both Kathy and Crystal. I’ve had dinner at their house—I’ve had them over to mine. We’ve rented videos—I got her Mulan last week. Your interaction with Crystal was to send her a ball and glove that she’s never used.” Though her voice was carefully polite, he heard the criticism in it.

He told himself not to react—either to her tone or the fact that she knew a lot more about Crystal than he did. There must be a book or something out there on how to raise little girls.

She looked him full in the eye. “Kathy intended to change her will.”

“But she didn’t. Or are you going to try to prove in court that she did?”

Her mouth went slack. There was a long pause. “No,” she said softly, so softly it was almost a whisper. “Not now…” Her voice trailed off.

He was going to win. Suddenly, on what should have been a surge of satisfaction, Mitch felt like a bully. Jenny Litton cared about his niece and she knew about little girls. Mitch only knew about raising boys. On top of that, Crystal liked her.

“Look, I…” He shut his mouth before he could admit his insecurities aloud. “Listen, you don’t have to like me. But think of Crystal. It’s obvious she trusts you. If you tell her things will be okay with me, I think she’ll feel better.”

She shifted her little purse from one hand to the other, and there was a long, uncomfortable pause. “She loves the kitten. You’re going to let her keep her kitten, aren’t you?”

“Of course. I’m not a jerk, no matter what you think.”

She flushed a very becoming pink, a wash of color on her perfect, pale skin. “I can help you take her to the airport.”

He was impressed. The woman was a good loser. “Thanks.”

“I’m doing this for Crystal. Not for you. I mean—”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

She blushed harder. “I’ll give her my phone number. She can call me anytime. Collect.”

“She doesn’t need to call collect.”

“Collect,” she said firmly.

Whatever. “Okay. That sounds like a plan. Let’s go.” He turned to head back into the office to break the news to Crystal.

He held the door to the office open. As she passed by him on her way inside, she whispered, “Listen. If I hear there’s a problem, either from Crystal or the social worker in Ohio, I’ll be on the next flight to come and get that little girl. And believe me, if I have to, I’ll take you to court and fight you for her.”

They were almost in the office. She added, “I’m only giving her up because my lawyer and Mrs. Winters are telling me that’s what I have to do. But it won’t take much to push me into changing my mind.”

Her voice was soft, a drawling whisper, like a slow fall into dusk on a hot summer night. But her words were fighting words, and he respected that. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else, Miss Jennifer Litton.”

JENNY LITTON HAD BEEN true to her word, talking with Crystal, hugging her, reassuring her. If she resented Mitch, she didn’t show it in front of the girl.

When they were finally on the plane, Mitch let out a long breath of relief. So far, so good. There had been one bad moment when Crystal had discovered that her cat had to ride in the cargo area. But there’d been no crying from the little girl, which would have been bad, because then Jenny would have looked at him in that prissy, judgmental way.

But he didn’t like how quiet Crystal was now as she looked out the window of the plane. His kids always crowded around, making jokes about how small the cars down below looked, and talked loudly and happily about the prospect of aircraft trouble. This kid just sat there.

“Can you see the clouds?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even shrug.

“The trees looked real green when we took off. All pines, like Christmas trees, and now we’re so high we can’t see them at all.”

Nothing. Her head was turned away; he couldn’t read her expression.

O-kay. He was getting a little desperate when he had a sudden thought. “I’ll buy you a dog.”

She turned to him. “A dog of my own?”

“Sure.” Although he was elated that she’d spoken at last, he groaned inside. Another dog. Yeah, that was sure an inducement to get a housekeeper to stay more than a week.

Crystal said, “When you get me my dog, I want one of those with a ball of fur on its head and little balls on her ankles.”

That stumped Mitch for a second. Then he said, “A poodle?”

She wrinkled her nose, thinking. “Yeah, a poodle. A white one, one of those little ones. The real tiny kind.”

“Ah, honey? I think you might want a bigger kind of dog. Our house is sort of rowdy—”

She got a fierce frown on her face, and he stopped.

An awkward silence fell. Mitch searched desperately for things to say. She’d put on a pair of jeans, and sneakers had replaced the sandals in preparation for the colder Ohio weather. But even in these clothes she seemed small and frail.

They traveled in silence, and by the time they landed, Mitch felt so uncomfortable his throat ached. Maybe he should have left her with Jenny Litton.

No! He’d make this work, he wouldn’t take the easy way. Never again. He’d promised Anne he’d take care of everyone, and that meant taking care of them all.

Luke had used Mitch’s Jeep to take his brothers home from the airport. So Mitch rented a car for the short ride. As they climbed the hill to his house, he said, “There’s where you’re going to live.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and he saw her bite her lip.

“It’s big.”

He didn’t know if that was good or bad in the eyes of this kid. The old, rambling farmhouse, white with green shutters, had seen many additions by the time he and Anne purchased it. The land hadn’t been farmed in years, and had been seeded to grass. Behind, out of view, was the pond where he’d learned to skate as a kid. If you stood in the backyard and looked across the pond, you could see the small house where he and Kathy had grown up.

In the front, the yard sloped down to a huge old red barn that he’d had converted into a garage and stable, with a new tack room attached to it. In the pasture were the kids’ ponies.

Crystal said, “Those are your horses?”

Thank God for animals, Mitch thought. “They’re not horses. They’re the ponies I told you about. I can teach you to ride them.”

“No thank you,” she said in that southern drawl. “They look too big.”

“Maybe when you get used to them—”

“They’re too big.”

“Okay,” he said quickly.

As they pulled into the driveway, the boys spilled out of the house. Jason was first, eleven, with dark hair like Mitch, an anomaly in that he was small and wiry in a family of big men. Behind him were the fifteen-year-old twins, Ryan and Tommy. The twins were blonder, like their mother had been. The oldest, Luke, was dark, too.

Jason jogged up to the car, Ryan right behind him.

Crystal scrunched up in the seat.

Mitch reached over to ruffle her hair and stopped at the last minute. He settled for a pat on the shoulder.

“They’re big,” Crystal said. Tommy and Luke, who was big by anybody’s standards, had followed Jason and Ryan. All four boys came to a halt in front of the car. There was some shoving as they peered into the car. Without looking, Ryan reached behind him and put an elbow in Tommy’s gut. Then Ryan tried to push Jason aside. Crystal scrunched up even farther.

Mitch sighed. At least there was no sign of Face-off.

He touched his niece’s arm again. “They’re nice boys, once you get to know them.”

“I don’t like boys.”

“I live here, honey. We can sit in this car for a while, but sooner or later you’ve got to get out and meet your cousins.” At that moment, Jules let out a mew from her cat carrier in the back seat. “Jules needs to get out of that carrier and explore. It’s not good for a cat to be locked up too long.”

Crystal bit her lower lip and nodded. Then she reached around and pulled the carrier toward her. She got the little wire door open and scooped the cat into her arms. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“It’s going to be fine.” Mitch reached over to her side and flipped her door handle open.

He got out of his own side of the car as Crystal opened the passenger door. “Listen, guys,” he said to his sons. “Give the kid a break. No roughhousing for a minute, you hear?”

“Sure, Dad.” As usual, Luke, his oldest, was quick to size up the situation. He said to his brothers, “Now shut up and make nice for your cousin.”

Crystal slowly got out.

Jason said, “You don’t look like Dad.”

Ryan said, “Uh, hi.”

Tommy said, “A cat.”

And Luke, bless him, said, “It’s going to be okay. We’re not as bad as we sound.” He gave Crystal his million-watt smile, the one that always worked on the girls of North Shore, Ohio. It apparently impressed eight-year-old girls, too, because Crystal took a tentative step toward him.

Just then the front door exploded and a blur of black came blasting out. Face-off ran toward them at breakneck speed, ninety-five pounds of fur and mutt, barking like the beast he was.

Crystal screamed.

Jules sprang from her arms.

Face-off headed straight for the little girl. As she cowered and screamed, the dog caught sight of the kitten and veered.

Jules tore off across the lawn, Face-off at her heels.

“Shit,” Mitch muttered, hampered for a moment by the fact that he was still on the far side of the car. “Get that dog!” he shouted.

Luke had already begun the pursuit. Jules made a dizzying circle around the huge lawn, followed by dog and four boys. Around and around, faster and faster, Face-off barking his head off, Luke and Mitch shouting, the other boys yelling in glee, Crystal standing by the car screaming, a shrill, high wail that went on and on.

Mitch veered right, trying to block Face-off. The dog saw him and put on the brakes, skidding toward Mitch in the wet grass. Mitch tackled him. Jules skittered under the wire fence and into the pasture, where she was lost in the tall grass.

The kids skidded, too, ending up in a messy tangle.

Face-off licked Mitch’s face. Ice-cold mud seeped through his jeans.

Slowly, Crystal’s wailing tapered off into silence.

Mitch got to his feet. The dog jumped up, planting a couple of muddy paws on the front of his jacket. “Down!” Mitch said, and the dog—reacting to the no-nonsense tone—obeyed. “Sit.” A quivering sit. “Jason, come get this dog!”

Jason untangled himself from the other boys and grabbed Face-off by the collar. “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said quietly. “I thought I had him locked in the laundry room, but the door doesn’t work too well since Tommy broke it last week.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Mitch said. He turned to look at Crystal who was sobbing quietly. “You guys are going to have to do better. She’s not used to boys. She’s a little girl, and she’s just lost her mom. Don’t you remember how that felt?”

“I remember,” Jason said in an even quieter tone, and suddenly all the anger left Mitch. He walked over to Crystal and picked her up. She felt skinny, warm and fragile, and her hair spilled over his arms.

Despite the mud, she threw her arms around his neck and sobbed in earnest. “Jewels is lost.”

“No, she isn’t. She’s just hiding, because she doesn’t understand that Face-off only wants to play. Listen, we’ll lock up Face-off better this time, and put a bowl of milk on the stoop, and Jules will come home. I promise.”

There was a pause. “I hate your dog,” she finally sobbed.

She might as well have said, I hate you. I hate your family. I hate that you’ve brought me here.

Mitch held her tightly. He was still breathing hard from chasing the dog, but that didn’t explain the peculiar ache in his chest.

CHAPTER TWO

TWO WEEKS LATER, what was left of Jenny Litton’s world fell apart.

She stood at the sink in the ladies’ room at Kyle Development and pressed a cool, wet paper towel to her cheek. That helped some. A moment before, she’d been in the toilet stall with dry heaves, and her whole face was flushed. She swallowed, trying to quell the nausea. As the manager of the real-estate development company, she had no time to be sick.

Perspiration was beaded on her upper lip and she dabbed there, too. Then she wadded the paper towel and took out her lipstick. She smeared Plantation Rose across her lips with a hand that quivered slightly.

Giving in to a sudden impulse, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to the glass of the mirror. Cool and smooth, it felt comforting. She opened her eyes and stared at her own face a fraction of an inch away. Apart from the redness in her cheeks, she looked much the same. Her makeup understated and carefully blended, her silver-blond hair well cut and turned under at the ends. Small studs in her ears. Nothing flashy for Jenny Litton. Nobody from here to Savannah would ever accuse her of flash.

But even as she looked at her own reflection, even as she should have felt satisfaction at that last thought, her eyes filled with tears.

Sad tears, because she missed Kathy. Kathy had been her best friend, the only one who’d known about the baby. And she missed Crystal. She’d talked to the little girl every night by telephone. Crystal didn’t have too much to say, and the words unsaid bothered Jenny a lot.

She straightened, wishing she hadn’t let Crystal go with Mitch Oliver, even though Jenny’s lawyer had insisted it was the only thing she could do. You don’t have a case. You’ll hurt the child more if you fight for her—let her think she’s going to stay—and then lose her anyway. If Kathy really hadn’t wanted Mitch Oliver to be Crystal’s guardian, she would have changed her will. The lawyer had reminded Jenny—as if she’d needed any reminders—that she had enough to worry about in her own life.

Jenny’s stomach gave another quick heave, and she pressed a hand to it. At any moment one of the other women who worked at Kyle Development might walk through that door, and it wouldn’t do for the polished-up and buttoned-down Jenny Litton to be standing in front of a mirror watching herself cry.

She pasted on a smile and headed out the door.

“Oh, there you are.” Her secretary, Yvonne Rolland, looked up from her desk as Jenny passed. “It’s eight o’clock. I thought maybe you weren’t in yet. That would be strange, non?” Yvonne had a French mother and was given to sprinkling in a little of the language.

Jenny nodded, taking a stack of mail Yvonne handed her, wondering when Yvonne would notice how much time she was spending in the ladies’ room. In a few weeks it wouldn’t matter anyway; everyone would know her secret.

She’d told Kathy. Kathy, I’m pregnant and I’m scared. Delane doesn’t want the baby. Kathy had looked shocked for less than a second and then she’d hugged her friend. Well, I never thought this would happen to you. Okay, I know how much you loved Delane. It’s going to be tough seeing him at the office, but you’ll be okay. Women have babies on their own these days.

Well, maybe other women made those kinds of mistakes, but Jennifer Litton didn’t, and the shame of it washed over her.

She’d slept with her boss.

She bit her lip, took a few steps away and pretended to sort through her mail. As office manager, Jenny supervised a relatively small staff—just a couple of secretaries, the payroll clerk and the eight-person sales crew that sold upscale properties in Hilton Head. Her co-workers knew she’d broken up with Delane a month ago, but not why.

“Uh, Jenny?” Yvonne hesitated, then said, “I thought you’d like to know. Delane is back in town. He’s coming by the office today at ten. He wants to have a meeting with everyone. It’s important, he said. You’ll need to be there, too.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Not today, she thought.

“I’m sorry,” her secretary said softly.

“It’s all right.” She’d fallen out of love with Delane Kyle for good the day he’d offered to pay for an abortion, but not offered to take any responsibility for their baby. Reflexively, she put a light hand on her belly. Don’t worry, baby, I want you very, very much.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not mooning over him. I know it’ll be awkward.” Yvonne averted her eyes.

Jenny put her chin up. “I can handle it.” She’d known that if she kept her job at Kyle Development, she’d certainly see Delane from time to time.

She wanted more than anything to turn tail and run, to go someplace where nobody would ever need to know about the circumstances of her pregnancy.

But she was hanging on to her job. Overseeing the Hilton Head office was a respectable job, one with good pay and benefits. Benefits the baby would need.

Besides, she wasn’t the only one who ought to be ashamed. Let Delane Kyle feel the good hot scald of it. Let him watch her belly grow and go home and try to sleep at night!

The thought of his discomfort gave her some satisfaction, and by the time she and her co-workers gathered in the large conference room, Jenny felt more in control.

“Wonder what’s up?” That was Rick Caldwell, one of Kyle’s best salespeople. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took his seat at the shiny conference table facing Jenny. “I mean besides the obvious.”

Sales of the expensive condominiums ringing Hilton Head’s newest golf course had hit a bit of a snag.

Rick stroked his mustache. “I can’t understand it. The economy’s good, and the population’s aging and playing more golf. Hilton Head’s been overbuilt, but hell, when hasn’t it been?”

No one answered. People stirred their coffee or shuffled papers. Jenny finally spoke up. “Things will work out. I really think this slump is just a hiccup.”

Rick gave her a thumbs-up. “Yeah, you’re right. Not like me to be so down, and really, I do think with some more time, some more advertising in the bigger newspapers…Hell, maybe if Delane would stop being such a playboy in Charleston and pay a little more attention to what’s going on down here—” He stopped abruptly.

“That’s all right,” Jenny said quickly. She looked around the room, and realized people were watching her while pretending not to. “Don’t worry about it. I told you, Delane and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.” She swallowed. She was respected at the office, but she knew what people thought—she was a good manager, fair and organized, but a little cool, a little unapproachable. Even though she’d got used to it, the realization sometimes hurt.

One of the sales staff, an older man, cleared his throat. “I wish Delane didn’t have so much on his plate. So many projects going forward so fast, we could use him here…”

There was some generalized grumbling, and Jenny was grateful she was no longer the center of attention. She checked her watch. Ten after ten. Delane was late as usual. The conference room was glass on three sides, bright with a nice view. But the sun streaming in made it warm. That was the reason she had perspiration on her lip again. She took a quick swipe with her finger and her eye caught the portrait that hung on the one solid wall.

Delane Kyle, the youngest son of one of Charleston, South Carolina’s, premier families. He’d apparently been considered a bit wild in his younger days, but when he’d come into his trust fund, he’d turned into quite a businessman, with holdings here and at Myrtle Beach to the north. Kyle Development, the company he’d founded, had grown very fast.

Delane Kyle was handsome in a lean, smooth kind of way.

Not like Mitch Oliver.

Jenny’s mind conjured Mitch. He was not smooth. He was tall, with shoulders as wide as the island, and everything about him was big. Dark hair, a little shaggy, an emphatic wedge of a nose, a faint scar below his eye. Though his features were blunt, they were as regular as if they’d been carved by a sculptor who’d really known what he was doing. She pictured his unmanicured, competent-looking hands, that masculine, barest stubble of a dark beard—

For heaven’s sake! She’d been thinking about Mitch Oliver for two weeks. Didn’t she have enough on her plate without mooning over a man she barely knew? She pulled out the schedule of the week’s sales presentations and made herself concentrate.

At ten twenty-five, Yvonne opened the door and stuck her head in. “Sorry, folks. I just got word. Delane isn’t coming.”

There was some low-key grumbling before Yvonne continued, “His lawyer’s here.”

At that moment, Timothy Suddington stepped around Yvonne and into the room.

The staff exchanged glances as Suddington went to stand directly in front of the portrait of Delane.

He plunked a briefcase down on the table, and an eerie kind of quiet settled over the room. “I think y’all know who I am,” Suddington said. “You know that I handle Delane Kyle’s legal work, both business and personal. This morning, Kyle Development filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court, Bankruptcy Division, in Columbia, South Carolina.”

There was silence. Hot shock ran through Jenny, and she pressed a quick hand to her lower belly.

Then everyone spoke at once.

“Hell, I knew we were down on sales but—”

“How can he be bankrupt? He’s got a Ferrari and a yacht docked right here in Harbor Town—”

Jenny’s thoughts were racing, but she managed to put up a hand. “Wait, everybody. Wait, this can’t be as bad as it sounds—”

“Easy for you to say,” one of the women said. “You don’t have a kid to watch out for.”

This isn’t the time for another trip to the bathroom! Jenny told her stomach firmly. “Nobody’s said anything about our jobs. Tim, you need to tell us more. I happen to know Delane came into his trust a few years ago. It was a lot of money.”

They were all looking at Timothy Suddington now. He said, “Jenny, you know I can’t talk too much about Delane’s personal matters. I’m his lawyer. Just his lawyer.” He looked genuinely sorry to be fulfilling that role today, and in that second, Jenny realized that any money Delane had had was gone.

She pressed a protective hand to her stomach again.

Suddington made a fist, brought it down lightly on his briefcase. “I’m sure you all know that appearances can be very deceiving. Delane—with good intentions—tried to play with the big boys. He expanded Kyle Development too quickly. The business was fundamentally sound, but no matter how hard he tried, Delane had cash-flow problems—”

“Skip the bullshit.” It was Rick, the man who had been concerned about sales. “What’s happening here?”

“The office will close at four today. Please make sure that when you clean out your desks, you take your personal belongings home. Anything left here at the close of business today will be tagged and taken by the court as a business asset.”

There was a roaring sound in Jenny’s ears. She managed to say, “At least I have the payroll checks done.”

Suddington said, “I’m sorry, Jenny. You can’t distribute those checks. I’m sure if there are any assets, the bankruptcy court will eventually see that everyone’s paid—”

Dear God, the man was saying they couldn’t even meet the last two weeks’ payroll. As the reality of that sunk in, people gasped. One of the women started to cry.

Jenny felt like weeping, too. She had a big mortgage and a baby on the way.

Emotions zoomed through her: anger, fear, determination, fear, fear, fear. Shame again—after all her work and planning, she was out of a job! Then for a second, she felt hysterical laughter well in her, and she fought the sensation down, scared anew at how out of control she was.

It was a good thing after all that she’d let Crystal go with Mitch Oliver. At least he could give the little girl a place to live. Which was more than Jenny might be able to do.

WHEN CRYSTAL GOT HOME from school, she saw that Jason was in his room. Jason wasn’t as big as the other boys. And he was pretty nice except he didn’t like it when her cat sat on his desk and looked at his hamster. He always said, “That cat looks hungry. Get that cat outta my room.”

But the kitten wasn’t around today. Crystal thought maybe she was hiding from Face-off again. So maybe it was okay to look in Jason’s room now, and see his hamster. She really liked Nosy. Nosy had eyes like shiny black beads and fur that was very soft. Jason let her pet him sometimes.

She stopped in the doorway to see if Jason would ask her to come in. All the boys went in and out of each other’s rooms, but she didn’t know if she should. Her momma always said to knock, but here if the door was shut and you knocked, the door would probably come open just from your knocking. Most of them were busted.

She stopped in the doorway. Jason was sitting there looking at the computer real hard. Then he looked up at her and said, “Whatcha looking at?”

That was just his way of talking. Crystal said, “Can I see Nosy?”

“So, like what’s stopping you?”

She came into his room. Jason was kind of her friend. Uncle Mitch was nice, he let her call Miss Jenny every night. Crystal was happy to call Miss Jenny, but sad too because she didn’t know when she’d get to see her again. Miss Jenny had said Crystal had to come here and Mrs. Winters had said Crystal had to come here, and once, she heard Mrs. Winters telling Miss Jenny that the judge would say Crystal had to come here and live, and so she knew it didn’t matter if she wanted to stay with Miss Jenny.

Uncle Mitch said maybe Miss Jenny could come for a visit some time. Crystal was happy and sad about that. She didn’t want to cry when Miss Jenny left and she was pretty sure she would.

She was trying and trying not to cry about anything.

Besides, Uncle Mitch was nice, and when he came home from work at night he always asked her about what happened that day, just like her momma used to. It wasn’t Uncle Mitch’s fault that even if she felt like talking, one of the boys would talk first.

Luke was nice, too, but he played hockey and that seemed to take a lot of time for a game. The twins were big and wild and she didn’t like them at all. But that very first night when she came here, Jason had said, “My mom died, too, and I was sad,” and then Crystal knew he would be her friend even though he was a boy.

Now she looked into Nosy’s cage, but he wasn’t running on his Ferris wheel or sniffing at his wood chips. He was just sitting there breathing. So she looked at Jason. “Are you doing your homework?”

“Nah, sending e-mail to my friend who lives in New York. I’m good on the computer. See, I’ll show you.”

Jason sounded like he was bragging, but she looked anyway. E-mail looked boring, not like the games they played on the computer at school, but when Jason said you could write things and send them and they got there in seconds, she changed her mind. It was neat how you could send stuff to your friends.

“See, this is the address line. It looks weird but it works. Want to try it?”

So Crystal tapped out the address and pushed the buttons that Jason told her to and then she pushed Send and Jason said in a second his message would be in New York.

“Hey, hey, hey! We’re playing football. Come on, Squirt.” Ryan was standing in the doorway with Tommy, and Tommy pushed him into the side of the door, but Ryan only laughed and punched him in the stomach. Squirt was what they called Jason.

Jason jumped up and bumped Crystal’s chin real hard and didn’t even say he was sorry. Crystal said, “You hurt me.”

“Oh. Sorry.” For a second, he looked as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Come on. We need another body to crush.” That was Ryan, who was bigger and had blonder hair than Tommy, and a bigger nose, and that was how you could tell them apart. Because other than that, they acted the same. Two big boys who were always pushing each other.

“I’ll whip your butts,” Jason said, bragging again.

“Oh, did we say we were going to let you on a team?” Ryan laughed. “We’re going to let you be the football, Squirt.”

Jason said, “Cut the crap.” Crap was a bad word, but nobody paid attention.

Jason grabbed his sweatshirt. When he pulled it over his head, it was like he noticed Crystal again. “Hey, guys. Remember what Dad said. We gotta be nice to our cousin.” Then Jason looked at her and said, “Do you want to play? We’ll go easy on you.”

Crystal couldn’t believe that. Nobody wanted to play with her here, not even Jason. Her chest kind of pounded. They wanted her to play. But they were all so big and football was rough. She said, “I don’t know how to.”

“We’ll do touch. No tackling. We’ll go easy and then when you get tired and quit we’ll do tackle.”

“But I’ll get knocked down.”

“She’ll get knocked do…wn,” Ryan said in this voice that made fun of the way she talked, and then he and Tommy laughed.

All of a sudden, Crystal couldn’t stand it. She said, “Cut the crap.” Her face went hot but it felt good because Ryan and Tommy stopped wiggling and they all stared at her. She knew her momma would be mad that she’d said a bad word, and Miss Jenny wouldn’t like it, either. But her momma was in heaven, and Miss Jenny was in Hilton Head, and Crystal was in Ohio, and even the judge said she had to live here.

It seemed like a long time that they stared at her, and Crystal felt so funny with them looking at her that she almost took it back. But she didn’t.

Tommy finally said, “Well, okay, you can be on Squirt’s team.”

They went downstairs, and Jason said stuff like it’s not fair to have the big kids against the little kids, but it didn’t seem to really bother him a lot. When they got out in the yard, Jason said, “Tommy, you’re on Crystal’s team.” Tommy came right over to Crystal. She couldn’t believe it.

Tommy stood behind her and held her arms and showed her how to hold the football. The football was big and hard. Then Tommy showed her how to pass the football. He stepped away and Crystal tried it. The football went up sorta high and then it squiggled and fell down not very far from her. The boys laughed. Crystal thought about saying cut the crap again, but decided once a day was enough.

They told her the rules, which didn’t make sense. But that almost didn’t matter—now they weren’t laughing at her any more and they were playing with her. She felt better than she had since she came here. The sun was shining even though it was cold, and the sunshine felt good, making the top of her head warm.

Ryan and Jason went into what they called a huddle, and then Ryan came running. Before Crystal could blink her eyes, Tommy had touched him, which was a tackle when you played touch football. Well, Tommy did more than touch—he grabbed Ryan on the arm and twirled him around.

Football was rough.

They played some more. Once Crystal got the football and she held it to her stomach even though it was covered in mud, and ran as fast as she could. It took a long time until Jason touched her and she had to stop. That felt good, especially when Tommy said, “All right, kid. You gained us some yards.”

Then the football was up in the air, and it was spinning, spinning down toward her. Tommy yelled, “Catch it,” and Crystal held up her arms.

Wham!

Something hit her hard in the shoulder. She fell and went skidding along the stiff, frozen grass. She finally stopped and was lying on her side, her cheek in the grass, staring across the yard.

All these feet were coming toward her. Big feet, running.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you all right?”

“Hey, kid, are you hurt?”

She sat up, though she felt weird, like shaky inside.

Tommy was looking down at her. “Ryan hit you.”

“Well, I was trying to get the ball, you dork. Not hit the kid.”

Jason got down by her. “Are you hurt?”

She looked where he was looking, and saw that the sleeve of her sweatshirt had come up and her arm was all full of cuts. When she touched them, they hurt.

“Oh, man, Dad’s gonna be pissed this time.” Ryan stood there, and he was shaking his head at Tommy. “You knew she was too little to play football. How could you have been such an idiot?”

“Well, you wanted to play, too.” They went on arguing, and Jason said what Ryan said, that his dad would maybe get mad. Crystal just sat there on that horrible rough grass in the cold. All she wanted in the world was to be back home.

“She’s not hurt that bad,” Jason said, pushing at her arm and making it hurt more. “See? She can bend her elbow.” He bent it back and forth.

They all looked at her, all those big boys, and she thought of saying cut the crap again, but she didn’t feel as though she could right now because it was so hard not to cry.

“I want my momma,” she said instead, and her voice didn’t sound like it had when she’d said cut the crap. Now it sounded tiny.

“Listen.” Jason got down beside her. “You aren’t hurt that bad. We were only playing. The thing is, we might get in trouble if you tell Dad.” He stopped for a second. “You don’t want us to get in trouble, do you?”

She didn’t care. She wanted her momma. She wanted Miss Jenny!

Tommy got down by Jason, and he had this kind of frown on his face. “Jason’s right, kid. There are things Dad doesn’t have to know, and we don’t rat on each other. We just get even when we can. If you live here, you’ve got to learn the rules.”

That was a bad rule. “He’ll find out. My sweatshirt is all torn.” She was not going to let them see her cry!

“Nah,” Ryan said. “Just throw it out. Dad’ll never notice.”

That was maybe true; some lady came in and washed the clothes and put them away. But Crystal didn’t know what to do. If she told Uncle Mitch, he would maybe get mad, and she didn’t know what he’d do if he got mad. He was big; she didn’t want to find out. Would he maybe blame her for playing with the boys? Or would he be mad at the boys, and then they’d get even with her?

She looked down at her arm, and now the most terrible thing was happening. The red scratches were starting to bleed. Did that mean she was really hurt?

She started crying, and she jumped up and ran to the house. They followed her, so she ran up to her room and shut the door. Her door shut fine. The boys stayed outside the door, calling to her, but she sat on the bed and watched her arm bleed. Finally she said, “Go away! I won’t tell!” and after a while they went away. In a few minutes, she looked out the window and saw them out in the pasture by the ponies. Face-off was out there, and she saw her kitten sneaking around the bushes.

She felt so alone. Everything was quiet, and she didn’t think it had been quiet since she got here. She almost wished the boys were still outside her door. She touched her arm and blood came off on her finger.

That scared her, and she went down the hall to the phone and tried to call Miss Jenny even though she always called Miss Jenny at night before she went to bed. Nobody answered, and her arm kept bleeding. Wasn’t it supposed to stop?

Her momma had been in a car wreck and been so hurt she died.

Something squeezed her in the chest then, and she started crying harder and tried to think what to do.

Miss Jenny would come and get her. She just knew it, and if Uncle Mitch and the judge knew that she was almost dying they would let her go home, wouldn’t they? If she could just talk to Miss Jenny!

Then she had an idea. She went down to the kitchen and got this piece of paper off of Uncle Mitch’s desk. The paper was Miss Jenny’s paper from work. It had her address on it, and then some stuff at the bottom that had never made sense until today. Now she looked at it again. Just what she thought. It was an address like Jason’s friend had.

She took the paper and went to Jason’s room. His computer was still on. She did everything he’d told her to do. She thought about how e-mail was kind of like magic, and she wished you could send e-mails to heaven. But instead, when the square came up, she carefully typed in Miss Jenny’s address. Then it got to the part where you could write the message.

Mis Jenny they hurt me. im bleeeding From Crystal.

Then she found the Send button and pushed.

CHAPTER THREE

MITCH WAS running late again. He had an eight-thirty appointment this morning with one of the high-school coaches to discuss the possibility of Serious Gear supplying all the sporting equipment for next year’s football program. Setting the meeting so early this morning had seemed like a good idea when the guy had called yesterday. Mitch had figured to get a jump start on the day, make a good sale before he’d even opened for business.

But last night, he’d been out until after 2:00 a.m., working on Luke’s slap shot and helping Luke’s minor league team, the Northern Lights, with practice.

Now he stood in his kitchen and raked a hand through his hair and tried to shut out the sounds of his kids. They were arguing again—or goofing around—who could tell the difference?

“Gotcha, Squirt.” Ryan put another Froot Loop on his spoon and flicked it at Jason. The bit of cereal hit Jason on the nose.

“I’m gonna get you for that.” Jason jumped off the counter stool and grabbed the open box of cereal. Dancing away, he held the box out temptingly, then snatched it to his chest when Ryan made a grab. “I’ve got the ammo.”

Ryan dodged Tommy, who was going to the refrigerator for another gallon of milk. Ryan grabbed Jason by the shoulder and swung the younger boy around. Jason kept up the taunts.

Mitch had finally had enough. “Cut it out,” he said at the same time Luke said, “Quit that.” Mitch looked up from where he was loading the dishwasher and shrugged at his eldest son as Jason and Ryan kept at it. Neither Mitch nor Luke were big on mornings; too many late-night practices at the rink had done in mornings long ago.

The kitchen floor was sticky; Mitch had felt it on his bare feet. The kids must have spilled milk again. Someone must have turned down the furnace; the air in the house felt chilly on his bare chest.

Weren’t millionaires supposed to live better than this?

Jason was still teasing Ryan. When Jason’s elbow hit Tommy’s cereal bowl and sent the empty bowl skidding across the counter, Mitch finally said, “That’s enough!” He marched over and held out his hand for the cereal box.

“Aw, Dad, I was finally getting to him,” Jason pleaded. Face-off was begging at his feet. Face-off loved Froot Loops.

Mitch ruffled the hair on his youngest. “You’ll get him next time.”

Ryan did a sneak attack and grabbed the box. Cereal flew. Face-off gleefully chased the windfall. Crystal’s kitten—which had been observing the shenanigans from the safety of a chair back—puffed out her tail and took off.

Mitch turned to Ryan. “Give me the box. Now.” After a couple of moments to see if Mitch really meant it—why did they always do that?—Ryan finally handed it over.

He peered inside. “You guys are done here. You’ve eaten your way clean through two boxes, and you’re going to be late for the bus. Luke doesn’t have time to drive you, and neither do I.” Absently, he scooped up the crumbs of cereal from the bottom of the box and fed them to Face-off, who’d finished his vacuum routine and sat before Mitch with his big wet tongue hanging out. Then Mitch crumpled the box and tossed it toward the trash.

As he started for the stairs, it dawned on him that Crystal was missing. “Hey, where’s Crystal?”

For a second, the boys, arguing about something, didn’t seem to hear him. Then the room got very quiet.

Not a good sign. He looked at the boys, who were looking at each other.

Luke said quietly, “Okay, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“No clue.”

“How would I know?”

They were looking everywhere but at Mitch or Luke. From the bottom of the steps, Mitch bellowed, “Crystal!” She didn’t answer, and alarm ran through him. Before he even realized where he was going, he was halfway up the stairs.

She appeared at the top of the stairs. Slacks and a flowered sweater, a toothbrush in her hand.

He stopped dead. She looked so normal. “Are you all right?” he asked foolishly.

She nodded, but she had this fearful, pinched look on her face, the one she often got around him.

“Oh. I just wondered—” She was still looking at him. He said, “You’re running late.”

Her face crumpled. “I slept too long,” she said in a small voice, and Mitch had the horrible thought that she was going to cry.

“That’s—uh, okay.” Don’t cry. “Listen, I can drive you if you miss the bus.”

“You’re not mad? You yelled.”

“I didn’t yell at you.”

“Yes, you did. I heard it from the bathroom. You yelled real loud. Crys-tal. I dropped the toothpaste.” Her lower lip wobbled.

“That was to see if you were okay,” he tried to explain. She didn’t look convinced, and he didn’t know what else to say—they seemed to have no conversation, no common ground at all, and she was so sensitive.

The doorbell rang.

Barking from Face-off, a call to the dog, the closing of the laundry-room door. Heavy, clumping feet heading for the hall. Then one of the boys called, “D—aaa—d.”

He was so relieved to have a reason to escape his niece’s scrutiny, he didn’t even consider the oddity of someone at the door at eight in the morning. He turned and headed back down the stairs.

“It’s some lady,” Tommy called as Mitch passed the kitchen doorway on his way to the front hall.

He had an appointment with a woman who was applying for the job of full-time housekeeper, but that interview was supposed to be at the store later. The door was agape a fraction. He pulled it open.

Jenny Litton stood on his doorstep, a small carry-on bag in her hand.

He froze, his hand on the doorknob.

“Is she all right?”

He blinked. “Huh?”

She said impatiently, “Crystal. Just tell me, is she okay? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Crystal.” Hadn’t he determined that not two minutes ago? What in hell was Jenny Litton doing on his doorstep?

“Was she in the emergency room? What did the doctor say?”

Her southern drawl was hurried. He realized belatedly that the woman looked white as a ghost, and that her eyes were round and intent. That previously smooth-as-glass hair of hers was in tumbled disarray. She was wearing a suit, but the jacket was unbuttoned, and a silky scarf had come loose from some mooring or other and fluttered in the breeze. She looked like a pale butterfly.

A pretty butterfly. A sexy butterfly, if butterflies could be sexy.

An angry butterfly.

She was so pretty. That made him suddenly conscious of the fact he was bare-chested and bleary-eyed, and that he needed a shave. Besides, he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

“Please.” She held out a hand. “I won’t get you in trouble with the court. Just let me see her.”

When he didn’t immediately respond, Jenny seemed to make up her mind about something. Then she…charged him. She marched on him like a rookie defenseman, determined to send him flying into the boards. Stunned, he held open the door, certain that if he hadn’t, she would have shoved him aside.

Once in the doorway, she called, “Crystal. Crystal!”

“Miss Jenny!”

There was clatter through the house. Commotion. Then his niece was in the hallway, running so fast she skidded on the hardwood floor.

Jenny dropped her bag and knelt and grabbed her, hugging hard. “Oh, my Lord, you’re all right. Oh, my Lord…”

Mitch raised his eyes. All four of his sons were in the hallway now, and all of them were watching Jenny and Crystal. Jenny was rocking her, and there were tears on her cheeks. “Oh, sweet baby, I was worried sick. The phone was busy all night…I almost called the police…I caught the first plane I could…You’re okay…”

There was something about the scene that gave Mitch a stab of pure guilt. “Of course she’s okay,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t seriously think we’d hurt her, did you?”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes capturing his. “I didn’t think so, but when I got her e-mail—”

“E-mail. Crystal sends you e-mail?”

Crystal looked up at him fearfully, but when she spoke, she sounded just a touch defiant. “You never said I couldn’t send e-mail.”

He stared at her.

“It was only because I thought I was dying,” Crystal explained.

Dying?

He said, “Uh, Jenny, why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about this.”

Even as she straightened, he saw Ryan and Tommy start to slink away. “All of us.”

Before he could suggest the living room, which was the cleanest room in the house because nobody used it, Tommy motioned Jenny Litton into the kitchen.

He followed his sons, Crystal and Jenny, and then stood behind Jenny in the doorway. He was standing so close to her he could see the distinct colors of gold in her hair. Its disarray had exposed part of her neck. He saw the clasp of her pearls on skin that looked tender and white.

Quickly, he raised his eyes. That was a mistake, too, because he found himself seeing his kitchen through her eyes. A kitchen that probably horrified Miss-Perfect-Pearls. There was a scratching sound intermingled with whines as Face-off begged to be let out of the laundry room.

Six cupboard doors were open. Four bowls of milk were on the counter. Splashes everywhere. Errant Froot Loops. A crumpled cereal box. Two teaspoons, upside down in little puddles of milk. An empty cardboard box that had held last night’s pizza—it was too big to fit in the trash can, so the boys always waited for him to carry it to the garage. Schoolbooks, backpacks on the table. Lunch fixings—peanut butter and an open jar of jelly, chips, yogurt—he’d learned that it was best to pack the kids’ lunches the night before, but who could remember? One of the cords that held the draperies back on the big sliding doors in the eating area had come loose, and the draperies just…hung there on that side. When had that cord come undone?

Jenny moved into the kitchen, and any minute now those high heels of hers would hit the sticky patch…

He was going to mop the floor as soon as he had a chance. He was going to make the boys pick up after themselves. He really was going to make lunches the night before, from here on out.

But first he had to find out why Crystal had thought she was dying.

Jenny refused his offer to sit. He introduced her to the boys as a friend of Crystal’s. They hovered around the fringes of the room like groupies hanging out at the locker room after a game, looking everywhere but at Jenny and Crystal.

Mitch lounged against the counter, a deceptively casual pose. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Why did you think you were dying, Crystal?”

She took another look at Jenny, who squeezed her shoulders.

In a small voice, she told about the football game of the day before.

“It was touch,” Ryan said quickly, and Mitch made a slicing motion with his hand to cut his son off before he could explain further.

“It was touch,” Crystal agreed. “But they touched real hard. They made me bleed. Then they made me promise not to tell. But before dinner, my arm stopped bleeding. I sort of forgot I sent the e-mail. But before I went to bed I wanted Miss Jenny to come. I want Miss Jenny to come before I go to bed every night.”

That guilt came again, along with pressure in his chest. She still wanted Jenny to come and take her away? Crystal called her every night, but Mitch hadn’t known she went to sleep wanting anybody other than her mom, and he couldn’t bring back Kathy.

He raked a hand through his hair again. Where was that absolute certainty that he was doing the right thing that had gripped him all the way to South Carolina, the sensation that had gotten him through his sister’s funeral and the decisions that followed?

“Let me see your arm,” Jenny said in her slow southern drawl, a drawl that by its very slowness seemed comforting. She sat Crystal in a chair and knelt beside her as she carefully pulled up the girl’s sleeve.

“It’s scratched,” she said in the same tone he imagined she’d use for “It’s broken.”

He peered down.

“It bled and bled,” Crystal said earnestly. “Or I wouldn’t bother Miss Jenny.”

Jenny gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Sweetheart, you’re never bothering me.”

Mitch looked the boys over real good. “Okay, which one of you had the lamebrained idea of playing football with a little girl?”

“It was touch,” someone said again.

“Touch or not, which one of you came up with this one?”

Tommy pointed at Ryan, Ryan pointed at Tommy. Mitch sighed and said, “I thought I told you to be nice.”

Tommy said, “We were nice. It’s how we’re nice. We play with the Squirt, we play with the kid.”

Mitch quelled the urge to throttle him. Then Jenny got a tight-lipped look about her that irritated him. He’d just bet that Miss Jenny Litton didn’t like his kids any more than she liked him. In a flash, he went from wanting to throttle his sons to wanting to defend them in front of this judgmental woman. If she walked across that sticky spot on his floor and dared to say anything—

“Dad? There goes the bus.” Luke, who’d been silent up till now, pointed out the window.

Damn. “Luke, can you drive the boys? I’ll take Crystal to the elementary school before I head for the store. I’ve got a meeting there, but I’ll ask the guy to reschedule. I won’t be long,” he said to Jenny. “Then I can come back and we’ll talk.”

She seemed to perk up a little at that. He tried not to sigh. His experience with women was limited, but he remembered how Anne had always liked to talk about stuff like this. He went up to grab a sweater, deciding he’d have to shave when he got home. He swiped a hand across his chin and felt the stubble there. Great. He sure hated mornings.

When he got back downstairs, Jenny was helping Crystal into her coat. “Will you be here when I get home from school?” Crystal asked Jenny, her eyes bright with hope.

Jenny looked up at Mitch. He nodded.

“Sure. You bet I’ll be here.” Crystal threw her arms around Jenny’s waist, and Jenny bent and hugged her tight, before releasing her to Mitch.

“Can you manage to get her to school in one piece, or would that be too much to ask?” she whispered as he was walking out the door.

“The boys were just playing.” But he shut up after that. He understood that she was upset. The e-mail must have really scared her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Oh, by the way, don’t open the door to the laundry room. The dog’s in there. He’ll probably just go to sleep.”

As he turned the key in the Jeep, he thought of how Jenny looked, pretty and fragile. But that was deceptive. She had a will and a mouth to follow up on that will. He was going to have to do some real smooth talking.

He frowned and looked in the rearview mirror at Crystal. She was sitting in the back seat, and she was smiling a little, looking out the window.

When had he last seen her smile? Not since she’d left South Carolina, he realized.

JENNY THOUGHT briefly about trying to create some order in this kitchen, but quickly changed her mind. Cleaning up here would be…presumptuous, not that she guessed that would be a word they’d use in this house. Not that she’d bet Mitch would even notice. He hadn’t even noticed that Crystal had cut herself playing football. Football! So what if he hadn’t been home? He should have seen that Crystal was upset when he’d got back last night.

She looked around the kitchen. What had they had here, anyway? A food fight?

She was still fuming about Crystal, about the scare that had brought Jenny halfway across the country without much more than the clothes she wore. She picked up a sponge and squirted some soap on it, then began to attack the kitchen counter with short, vehement strokes. She was probably going to ruin her nails on his kitchen counter. And her stomach was doing the usual morning flip-flops.

And she couldn’t stop thinking about a certain man’s bare chest, those clearly defined muscles, the dark hair that glistened and curled, about the goose bumps on all that bare skin. He looked so…physical. Male.

Not her type, of course.

Her sponge knocked a piece of cereal off the counter. Glad for the diversion, she picked it up and threw it into the disposal.

Over the past two weeks, she’d tried to picture Mitch Oliver’s house. He’d described it to Crystal. An old farmhouse that’s been added on to a lot. She’d had her own mental picture of that house—white and meticulously cared for, a green roof and shutters, kind of like the houses rich people had in the Hamptons. Pretentiously unpretentious.

Jenny’s mother had been a maid in a house that was pretentious, a little Tara, big white pillars and all. It was fake, just as these rambling farmhouses were fake in their own way.

Fake, she told herself. Fake.

She hadn’t had a really good look at the outside of Mitch’s house. She’d been too worried about Crystal, too afraid that she’d miss the turn, that the directions she’d got at the gas station were wrong.

But she’d got a bit of a look. The house was big, and it was white, and the green shutters were surely there. But there was something so unpretentious about it that it hadn’t registered until now that Mitch’s house appeared to be the genuine article—a big old farmhouse.

Okay, it wasn’t pretentious. But it was a mess. Why would someone with all his money want to live like this? She forced herself to stop picking up bits of cereal. Let him clean his own kitchen.

She tossed the sponge into the sink and took a look around. It was very odd, being alone in a house of a man she hardly knew. There was a hush. The dog in the laundry room must be sleeping; she didn’t hear so much as a sigh.

A few of Mitch’s cabinet doors were open; she closed them. She wandered into the family room, tucking the breakfast-room curtain into place as she went.

The house had good bones. In the family room, there was a big stone fireplace that took up most of the end wall. Built-in bookshelves stood on either side of it, but there weren’t many books there. Instead, there were photographs, and there were lots of trophies. The big hockey star was obviously proud of his trophies and not much of a reader. There was a big-screen television, some comfortable leather chairs, a set of barbells askew on the floor in front of the fireplace. The whole place needed a good dusting.

She saw open French doors to her left, and a lot of sunlight shining through them. She wandered over and stood in the doorway looking in. It was a huge room, modern and light, apparently new. Various exercise machines—expensive, professional-looking models, were arranged in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. There was a weight bench and even more weights. At the rear, a wall of sliding glass doors led to a deck and hot tub. Beyond the deck, a lawn, white with frost, sloped down to a pond, which was brilliant blue in the early-morning sunshine.

Well. Mitch’s house might be messier than she’d expected, but it was expensively fitted just the same, and those trophies—and this room—showed plenty of ego.

Just because some judge put blood and money over love, Mitch had been given the opportunity to raise Crystal…and he was making a mess of it.

She heard an automatic garage door opening. Finally. She heard him open the outside door, then a friendly whine of the dog. When he opened the door to the kitchen, she was already walking back to meet him there.

He was leaning down, with a big hand on the collar of the dog…horse. The animal strained, whined again, looked at her. Mitch said, “I guess this is as good a time as any to meet Face-off.” He nodded toward the dog.

“Okay.” She stopped in her tracks, her gaze riveted on the dog. She swallowed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that big.” Crystal, you poor thing, having to deal with this beast, on top of everything else!

Mitch’s head was bowed. One hand still held the dog’s collar, another scratched behind its ears. The dog quieted some, but still eyed her. “He’s big, but he’s gentle. He’s never growled at the kids, let alone bitten anyone.” The scratching continued, big, competent hands, blunt fingertips buried in the dog’s glossy fur.

“Well, as long as he doesn’t bite,” she said uncertainly, taking a few cautious steps forward. “But if he doesn’t bite, why do you have that death grip on his collar?”

She was almost upon him, so close she could smell the sharp cold that radiated off his leather jacket. He looked up, and she found herself staring into his eyes.

Brown eyes. She remembered those eyes. As deep and rich as dark, polished wood, set in that arresting face of strong features. She looked away quickly.

Mitch said, “Face-off doesn’t bite, but he doesn’t seem to know how big he is, either. If he gets the chance, he’ll knock you down and lick your face.”

She shuddered, and he gave her an odd look. “You don’t like dogs?”

“Well, I’ve never owned one.”

She was close now, and she could see the weave of Mitch’s sweater, revealed in the open vee of his partially unzipped jacket, and her traitorous mind conjured that bare chest. Quickly, she bent toward the dog, put out her hand. The dog made her nervous. That’s why her stomach was doing double flip-flops now.

Mitch said, “Every kid should have a dog.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She gave Face-off a tentative pat. At the contact, the dog quivered, sniffed. She forced herself to pat his head again. Her hand was close to Mitch’s now. Oh, yes, the dog was making her nervous, all right. “Dogs are so messy.”

“Messy is okay sometimes.”

I guess you’d know.

She continued to pat Face-off. Slowly, Mitch relaxed his grip. The dog started to surge; she jerked back. Mitch pulled him back in line.

Face-off submitted to the restraint. But he looked up at her with a droll expression on his face, as if ready to make friends in the only way he was permitted, given Mitch’s hand on his collar. His tongue came out, pink and wet and soft-looking, and something in Jenny went suddenly, unexpectedly soft in response. The tongue looked twice as wide as his face; despite her unsettled stomach and the close proximity of a very large, attractive man, that lolling tongue was suddenly comical. She looked down into the dog’s round, friendly eyes. “Is that dog…” She hesitated. “Is that dog smiling at me?”

Mitch looked up, obviously startled. “You see it, huh? It’s the weirdest thing, a dog smiling, but he does. When we were looking around at the shelter for a pup, I didn’t really want this one—I knew with those paws, he was going to be huge. But he smiled at the kids, and that was all it took for them to want him, so…” His eyes met hers, and he was suddenly grinning.

Oh, he had a great smile, sure and confident, with strong, square white teeth. It set off the regularity of his features, sent lines arcing from the corners of his eyes. Caught by that grin, she started to smile back. Another little skitter of nerves, of awareness of his closeness, brought her up short. “We need to talk about Crystal,” she said quickly.

“Sure. Right.” Mitch’s smile disappeared. “Let me lock up Face-off again.”

“If you don’t mind.” The animal might be smiling, but she didn’t need paws on her good silk blouse.

He put the dog in the laundry room, and Jenny quickly recovered her composure.

He came back into the kitchen. “Okay, time to talk. Would you like to sit down? Would you like a cup of coffee? Hey, how about some breakfast? I bet you didn’t have breakfast, and if the kids have left any cereal, or eggs, I could take a stab at frying a couple of eggs—”

Even the thought of something frying in the morning was enough to send her looking for the bathroom. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

It occurred to her that Mitch might be nervous, too. But he had little reason to be. He had Crystal, and this incident, bad as it had been, would be hard to prove. The girl’s e-mail had arrived at Kyle Development yesterday, a few hours before the door had been shut on orders of the bankruptcy court. Lord only knew where her computer had gone. Besides, she was pretty sure this one incident wouldn’t be enough to get a judge to change custody.

“Would you like to sit here or in the family room?” Mitch asked now.

Was he stalling? “Here’s fine,” she replied.

“Oh, okay, now about that coffee…” His voice trailed off as he stood in the kitchen, looking around with a slightly bewildered expression on his face. “Did you clean up?”

“A little.”

He frowned. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“Somebody needed to.”

The frown got deeper. “I was going to handle it.”

She felt her eyebrow rising.

He noticed. “Okay, we’ll skip the coffee and get right to it.” He came over to the table and took the chair opposite hers. “You’ve obviously got your back up about this. I understand you were upset, and I know the trip up here isn’t easy—I just made it myself two weeks ago. I feel bad you felt you had to come, and I sure wish Tommy hadn’t left the phone off the hook all night long, or you could’ve called, and a five-minute conversation would have taken care of everything.”

His voice picked up speed. “The kitchen was a mess this morning. But we weren’t expecting visitors.” His back was straight, his broad chest rising above the table, his hands resting, palms down, on the surface.

She was very aware of him, but she forced herself to respond calmly. “It’s none of my business how you live, except that it has an impact on Crystal.” Her own voice was crisper than his. His had had a sort of reasonable, aw-shucks quality to it, as if he was inviting her to make light of what was a very serious situation. “This is a very serious situation,” she told him. She sounded good and prim, just like her mother, but good and prim was called for in a…serious situation like this.

A line formed between his eyes.

“I don’t think the kitchen was actually unsanitary, but added to the real problem here—”

“Crystal is okay,” he said quickly.

“This time, but that’s not the point. There are, as I see it, two points here. First, that the boys were too rough with her. Either they haven’t been told what the rules are for playing with a little girl, or they disobeyed them.”

He started to speak, but she lifted a hand and cut him off. “The other issue is more important. How is it Crystal got that upset and you didn’t know about it? She’s just lost her mother. She’s scared and vulnerable. Are you talking to her?”

“I talk to her.”

“Then how come you didn’t know that she was this upset? She was bleeding, she felt bad enough to send me an e-mail, of all things, and you didn’t even know about it.”

He got up abruptly. The chair skidded hard on the floor. He turned and walked a couple of paces toward the window. Instead of looking out, he turned to face her. She realized again just how tall he was.

“Look.” He shoved a hand into the pocket of his jeans. “It happened after school yesterday. Like most people, I work in the afternoons. It’s no different than if she got hurt after school and you were at work. It was such a nothing incident that she’d forgotten about it by the time I got home last night. She ate dinner, she did her homework, she didn’t mention a thing. I’m not a mind reader.”

“Was she quieter than usual?”

“Crystal’s always quiet.”

No, she wasn’t. Crystal was a chatterer. She chatted about Barbie and books, about the sunshine and the smell of a hot screen door after a rain, about lightning bugs and princesses with diamond tiaras. “Oh, Mitch,” Jenny said softly.

She saw him take in a breath before he turned quickly toward the window. In the little silence that followed, he noticed where she had replaced the drapery. His hand ran along the tieback in a gesture that seemed oddly vulnerable. And that vulnerability mixed her all up inside. One part of her wanted him uncaring, unfeeling, so that she’d have to find some way to take Crystal back with her.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Mitch wasn’t about to give up the child, so Jenny had to set him straight. “You’ve got to be talking with her. You’ve got to try to understand her, give her a chance to express herself. You work, but you’ve got to make time for her, you’ve got to make sure the boys aren’t making so much noise that you can’t check on her.” Her voice started to shake. “You owe her that, after bringing her here and changing her life, and if you can’t see that, or if you can’t handle that—”

“I’ll handle it. I am handling it.” His grip tightened on the tieback. “This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. The kids didn’t mean anything. Crystal will adjust, she’ll see that the kids just play a little rough.”

She heard the conviction in his voice, and she was puzzled. He had everything money could buy, he had three teenagers and a younger son, a life that might be easy materially but was hard in other ways. Surely he didn’t need a little girl.

What drove him to insist on claiming Crystal? Despite herself, she couldn’t help admiring his unexpected commitment when it came to Crystal.

He turned from the window and shrugged, as if he hadn’t been white-knuckled on that tieback after all. “If it would make you feel better, why don’t you stay a few days?”

“If that would make me feel better.”

“Yeah.” He put a hand back in his pocket, a casual pose again. “I don’t think this is a big deal. But you do, so why don’t you stay a few days and look us over? Maybe you’ll see we aren’t that bad.”

Everything about this place was that bad. Worst of all was that she was so conscious of him as a man. Conscious in a way she didn’t remember feeling about Delane, or even about her first love as a teenager. That puzzled her, too. She’d always been attracted to the smoothly handsome type, the kind who knew how to dress and what wine to order. She had a feeling Mitch would be happiest with a beer.

He gave her a grin and said, “After all, we’ve got a dog that smiles, so how could we be that bad?”

He paused, but before she could speak, he added, “You could spend time with Crystal. I know she’d really like it if you stayed. I realize you have a job with a lot of responsibility, but maybe you could get a few days off, now that you’re up here.”

She decided she didn’t want to tell him she was out of a job. “Sure. I could set things up. While I’m at it, if I could use your telephone, I could make reservations at the nearest hotel.”

That would cut into her suddenly constricted budget, but Mitch was right; she should stay. Crystal had been traumatized, whether he wanted to admit it or not. The social worker was supposed to be submitting her report, but Jenny would just as soon see with her own eyes how things were really going in this household.

Mitch said, “You could stay here.”

“Here? At your house?”

“Why not? It’s big enough. And there’s the whole guest wing, with Crystal using only one of the bedrooms.”

Somehow, she couldn’t imagine staying in his house. And he certainly couldn’t want her here, toting up stray Froot Loops in order to be able to tell the judge what pigs the Oliver men were. What was his game?

But he was looking right at her, straight and sincere, and she thought maybe it was no game, that he wanted her here for the reason he’d told her: for Crystal. She had to admit that staying here would be better for her finances. Besides, if she wanted to, she could tote up the Froot Loops, in case this custody issue wasn’t really settled after all.

“Thank you. I’ll stay, perhaps for a week or so if that’s all right.”

He nodded, one graceful nod from a handsome, athletic man. He let out another long breath, and she found herself doing the same, as an odd sort of prickle went up her spine.

A quick vision formed, of him rumpled and sleepy-eyed, in his sweatpants and nothing else, goose bumps highlighting muscles that were toned and…sexy.

Did he look that way every morning?

As he’d said, the house was big…but perhaps not big enough.

CHAPTER FOUR

THAT NIGHT Mitch brought home fried chicken and coleslaw, and discovered Jenny had set the table already. “Jason helped me, showed me where everything was,” she explained. “Crystal helped, too.”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

Wouldn’t mind? He sure didn’t mind. When was the last time he’d come home to find the table set? Really set, with the napkins folded, with a fork on the left, and a knife and spoon on the right, and glasses that all matched? Not very many times since Anne had died. They went to restaurants for things like that.

Jason said, “It wasn’t that hard. I remembered where everything went.” When they sat down to eat, Mitch noticed that the boys had better table manners than usual.

It made him feel a bit warmer toward the cool blonde who sat across from him, eating her fried chicken.

When dinner was over and the twins were loading the dishwasher, Jenny waylaid him on his way to the study, where he was taking the paperwork he’d brought home.

“It occurs to me,” she said quietly, “that we didn’t resolve one point this morning.”

Mentally, he groaned, but he made sure to smile at her. “What point was that?” Ma’am.

“Are you going to punish the boys for playing so rough with Crystal?”

He kept up the smile, though it was hard. He pressed his back to the hallway wall. The hallway seemed narrower than usual. Everything seemed a little odd, a little different with a woman in the house.

“I talked to them. I told them not to play so rough with Crystal.”

“And that’s all you did?”

He nodded.

“You aren’t going to discipline them?”

Discipline wasn’t his strong suit, and he certainly didn’t see the need for it in this case. “I don’t think so.”

She pursed her lips as prissy as could be. “It was fortunate that Crystal wasn’t badly hurt, but it could be a whole lot worse next time.”

“I talked to them, okay?”

“But some sort of consequences—”

He lost patience. “When did you get to be an expert on parenting?” Wrong approach, because her lips got tighter than ever.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with Crystal—”

“But you don’t have kids.”

There was a kind of charged silence. He felt bad, then, and added, “I know that not having kids doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion, but believe me, I’ve learned in the past four years that parenting day in and day out gives you a whole different perspective.”

She spoke finally. “You’re right, of course. They’re your children, and I’m only visiting. You know best.”

He felt an urge to explain. To tell her that his kids had been through too much for him to be a heavy-handed parent. He could have said that it was easier, too, to ruffle their hair, to throw an arm over their shoulders, to just love them the way she did Crystal. But he didn’t. If she was going to judge him, he didn’t owe her anything.

Instead, he said, “Well, okay, if we’ve got all that straight, I’m going to the rink. I promised Luke’s coach that I’d help with the drills. Tommy’s in charge of the kids tonight.”

“I’ll be here.” But she said it a little timidly. As if being left with the boys was more than she’d bargained for. He winced as he heard a loud crash from the kitchen.

He made good his escape then, to the hockey rink, where it was definitely a man’s world.

THE ZAMBONI CAME OUT and started circling the rink as slowly as a street cleaner, smoothing the ice after a full practice session of the Northern Lights. Though it was nearly midnight, a youth league of smaller boys would be playing soon.

Mitch sat on the bench and shoved his hands in his pockets. It was cold out here so close to the rink.

Once upon a time, it hadn’t been cold around a hockey rink. Once, he’d been so warmed by each ninety-second session of play that his hair had been soaking wet, and he’d trickled sweat under his arms and on the inside of his palms in their gloves.

Once, sitting with the other first liners on a bench like this had been all he’d ever wanted out of life.

“Hey, guy, how’s it going?” The Northern Lights coach, Buddy Campbell, put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder and squeezed lightly before flopping into the seat beside him. A little puff of air escaped him as he sat.

“It’s going,” Mitch said briefly. The Zamboni was finishing now, lumbering almost silently off the ice. Some of the younger boys—kids Jason’s age, began to take the ice for their session.

“Can you sign this?” Mitch looked up. Most of the kids were used to seeing him here, but this one was new. A boy of about twelve was holding out his sleeve and a marker.

“Sure thing,” Mitch said, signing his name on the kid’s sleeve—the kid turned bright red and breathed Wow—and giving him a thwack on the shoulder.

The boy blushed again. “Thanks.” He took off, over the boards instead of through the doorway, hitting the ice with a burst of speed that ended in an ice-churning dead stop.

“They never ask me for my autograph,” Buddy grumbled good-naturedly. “I’m too damn old. Finished my career before most of these kids were born.”

“Sooner or later we’ll all be too old for these young guys to remember.” Regret pierced him. Five years ago he’d been well on his way to becoming a hockey legend. Then he would’ve been remembered.

That was the same time they’d discovered Anne’s cancer, and there’d been no question about playing hockey. His family had needed him home. There had been a hardship clause in his contract. The team owners had argued, but legally he’d been able to leave.

After Anne’s death, he’d longed to bury himself in the sport, pounding out his grief on the ice, numbing his sharp sadness with a fierce concentration on hockey, hockey, hockey. But there had been the boys to consider. He’d known the day she died that he wasn’t returning.

If only he didn’t miss the game so damn much! If only he hadn’t lost them both.

“Dad?”

It was Luke, with his friend, David Chandler. Luke was the star shooter for the Lights; David was a talented defenseman. They’d grown up together playing on the ice on Mitch’s pond. “Ready to go?” Mitch asked.

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