Romancing the
Teacher
Marie
Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Rocky,

for twelve years of

love and loyalty and

a bunch of sleepless nights.

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 One

When he realized that the darkness was of his own making because his eyes were shut, Ian Malone struggled to pry them open.

The world was a blur.

Inch by inch, he became aware that the darkness that he now saw was the natural kind. It was the warm, cocooning darkness of night, not the hazy dark world of unconsciousness he had tumbled into what seemed like only a moment ago.

Not the netherworld either.

Damn.

His surroundings came into focus in almost comic slow motion. Snippets gradually telegraphed themselves through his brain. His fingers were no longer wrapped around the steering wheel of his car. In fact, he wasn’t in his car at all.

Somewhere in the distance was the ever-annoying sound of crickets looking for one another. Looking to mate. Looking for a family.

Good luck with that, he thought sarcastically.

Ian groaned as he tried to raise his head. He felt as if an anvil weighed it down, like what you saw in Saturday morning cartoons.

Did they still have Saturday morning cartoons? He’d stopped watching when he was ten. When he stopped being a kid.

His head was too heavy. He let it drop back down. It made contact with something damp. He was too out of it to care.

He became aware that someone was standing over him. Someone wide enough to block out what light was coming from the moon, breathing as if the smog was battling for possession of his windpipe—and winning. Whoever it was sounded a little like Darth Vader.

Or was that the grim reaper hovering over him, checking for signs of life? Finally there to collect his debt.

God, he hoped so.

“I’m not dead yet, am I?” Ian’s mouth felt like baked cotton as he formed the question. The traces of regret in his voice were punctuated with another groan.

The face glaring down at him was craggy and appeared worn. And annoyed. The man wore a uniform of some sort.

Black.

No, dark blue.

Of course, the police. It was a police uniform. Sooner or later, the police always came to the scene of an accident or a disaster, didn’t they? Sometimes they came too late, he thought. Like the other time.

The anvil shifted from his head to his chest, pressing down. But nothing was there.

The policeman leaning over him frowned in disgust as he shook his head. “No, you’re not dead yet. Better luck next time, buddy.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Ian said, biting back another groan. He continued to lay there. His head felt as if it would split in two. For all he knew, his body already had.

The officer straightened up, one hand braced against his spine as he examined the wreckage. His car was a mangled scrap of machinery intimately locked in an eternal waltz with the bark of a coral tree.

The officer took off his hat and scratched his balding head.

“You’d think a man who could afford a fine machine like that would have more sense than to go driving around with Johnnie Walker as a companion.”

But bottles of Johnnie Walker were far in Ian’s past. That had been his grandfather’s poison of choice, not his.

“It was vodka, not whiskey,” Ian corrected hoarsely. “And definitely not enough to get me in this state.” That had been the fault of his medication, he thought. Maybe he’d been a little careless, taking too much because of what day it was. These days, they had a medicine for everything. Everything but the guilt that came with each breath he took.

Because he could take a breath. And they couldn’t. Not for a very long time.

With effort, Ian pulled his elbows in against his body and propped himself into a semi-upright position on the lawn.

It wasn’t easy. The world around him alternated between pitch black and a fragmented cacophony of colors that swirled around his aching head. He didn’t know which he disliked more, the colors or the darkness. All he knew was that both made him incredibly dizzy.

Gingerly, he touched his fingers to his forehead and felt something thick and sticky. Dropping his hand back down to eye level, he looked at it and saw blood.

Blood.

Brenda, don’t die. Please don’t die! Don’t leave me here. Please!

The terrified high-pitched voice—his voice—echoed in his brain, taunting him. Reminding him.

Through sheer willpower, Ian managed to block it out.

The way he always did.

Until the next time.

Ian raised his head and looked up at the officer. The man’s dark blue shirt was straining against his girth. The third button from the top was about to pop, he noted vaguely.

Ever so slowly, the rest of his surroundings came into focus. And the chain of events that brought him here. Ian remembered the drive through the deserted campus back roads. He’d taken the route on purpose, lucid enough despite his grief and the inebriating mixture in his system, not to want to hurt anyone.

Except for himself.

A surge in his brain had him calling the sudden turn that sent him skidding. And the oncoming tree that had appeared out of nowhere.

He remembered nothing after that.

Dampness penetrated his consciousness as well as his trousers. Dew. What time was it? Three a.m.? Later? He didn’t know.

Ian scrubbed his hand over his face and winced as vivid pain swirled through him like a club covered in cacti spines. A thousand points along his body hurt at once.

“You pull me out?” he asked the policeman.

“Not me. You were out when I got here. Maybe you crawled out.”

A thin smile touched the policeman’s lips. “Looks like some part of you still wants to go on living.”

A dry, humorless laugh melded with the night noises around Ian. Nearby there was the sound of something rustling in the ground cover, as if a possum was scurrying away from the scene of the crime.

That’s right, run. Run for your life. I’d run with you if I could.

“News to me,” Ian muttered. He never wished for life, not for himself. For the others. For them he’d prayed, until he’d realized that the prayers came too late. That they were dead even as he laid there next to them, pinned down and helpless.

Hands splayed on the ground on either side of him, Ian attempted to push himself up to his feet. Every bone in his body screamed in protest, telling him to lay back down.

“Why don’t you just stay put?” It wasn’t a suggestion coming from the officer, but an order. “I’m going to call this in and get another squad car on the scene.”

Because his limbs were made out of recycled gelatin, Ian remained where he was.

“Reinforcements?” A cynical smile curved his mouth. He never thought of himself as dangerous, although Ryan had once described him that way. But then, his publicist was afraid of his own shadow. “Why? I promise not to resist arrest.” He couldn’t even if he wanted to, Ian thought.

“You sound pretty coherent for a drunk,” Officer Holtz commented.

“Practice,” Ian replied. In truth, there were more pills in him than alcohol, and maybe he was a little dangerous. Reckless even. Most nights—because nights were when it was the hardest—he could keep a lid on it, could go on. But tonight the pain had won and all he wanted to do was still it. Make it stop.

But it was still there. The physical pain would go away. This never did, no matter what face he showed to the world.

There was a street lamp not too far away and Ian could make out the officer more clearly now. His face was redder than it had been a moment ago.

“Think you’re immortal?” the officer jeered.

“I’m really hoping not.” His voice was so calm, Ian could see that he had rattled the man.

“Wipe that damn smile off your face,” Officer Holtz ordered. “Calling this in is procedure.”

Ian gave up attempting to stand. He needed to wait until his limbs could support him. Or maybe until his head stopped bleeding.

Very gingerly, Ian laid back on the damp grass, his head spinning madly like a top off its axis. Oblivion poked long, scratchy black fingers out of the darkness to grab hold of him.

Ian laughed shortly. “Wouldn’t want to mess with procedure.”

It was the last thing he said before the abyss swallowed him up.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Marcus Wyman’s question reverberated about the small, clean square room within the police station where lawyers were allowed to talk to their clients in private. Anger swelled in his voice and glowed in his small, brown eyes as he regarded his client and friend.

Ten feet away, on the other side of the door, a guard stood at the ready, waiting for the minutes of their allotted time to be over.

Ian leaned back in his chair, tottering slightly on the two back legs. He sat on the far end of the rectangular table. His face was turned from his lawyer as he stared out the window.

That side of the building overlooked a large parking lot that was landscaped with ficus trees that some gardener had shaped like beach umbrellas, an example of city life attempting to appear rustic. City life would win out in the end.

The bad always ate the good, Ian mused, detached.

When he finally responded to Marcus, he sounded oddly hollow. “As a matter of fact, I was trying not to think.”

Marcus was a short, stocky man with the nervous habit of massaging his chest, moved restlessly around a room. The man knit his thoughts together in a slow, plodding fashion until they emerged into a complete, meticulously constructed whole. He claimed his nervous habit helped him think. Graying at the temples, his mouth lost in a perpetual frown, it was sometimes hard for people to believe that he was only a year older than Ian.

Having Ian for a friend, he claimed, had aged him.

They’d known each other for close to twenty years, since Ian was eleven, and Marcus liked to think of himself as Ian’s one true friend, even though, any so-called in-depth article would claim that Ian Malone—otherwise known as B. D. Brendan, the bestselling author of fifteen science-fiction novels—had a squadron of friends.

Hangers-on were all they were and Ian knew it. His dark good looks, bad-boy reputation and razor-sharp wit lured people, especially women, by the legions. Ian attracted crowds wherever he went. But within his dark, somber soul, Ian Malone was very much alone. Deliberately so.

His friend, Marcus knew, was punishing himself. Punishing himself for something he’d had no control over, no hand in planning. Fate had spared him while taking his parents and his older sister in a devastating earthquake two decades ago. And he never forgave himself for surviving, never stopped asking why he wound up being the one to live while they had died.

Knowing all that, there were still times when Marcus wanted to take the much taller Ian by the shoulders and shake him until he came around. This afternoon was one of those times.

He’d been unceremoniously woken out of a deep sleep at five this morning. Ian, calling from the city jail. He’d been on the case since six.

Ignoring Ian’s reply, he went on to make his point. “I had to pull a lot of strings, but I think I’ve managed to keep this out of the newspapers.”

He was talking to the back of Ian’s head and it annoyed him. Worried about Ian, he’d snapped at his wife as he hurried out of the house and had skipped breakfast entirely. Neither of which put him in a very good mood.

Receiving no response, no sign that he’d even been heard, Marcus raised his voice. “And I think I can get the standard sentence commuted.” Even first-time offenses for DUIs were strict. The courts had made it known that this wasn’t something to be viewed lightly. Licenses were immediately suspended, stiff fines and penalties imposed. Not to mention the threat of jail time. “Ian, are you even listening to me?” he asked impatiently.

Ian had heard every word. He remained exactly where he was, staring out the window. “Do you know what yesterday was, Marc?”

Marcus sighed and moved his hand over the everwidening expanse of his head. Up until four years ago, his hair was as black and as thick as Ian’s. But then nature decided to take back what it had so generously given and now there was only a fringe around his ears to mark where his hair had once been.

“The day you wrecked your Porsche?” Marcus guessed wearily.

“No.” Ian paused, as if it physically hurt to utter the words. “It was the twenty-first anniversary.”

Marcus stiffened.

“I forgot,” Marcus admitted, his voice small, apologetic. Had he remembered, and knowing what his friend could be capable of, he would have spent the day with Ian.

Ian exhaled. The small huff of warm breath clouded the window pane. “I didn’t.”

Crossing to him, Marcus placed his hand on Ian’s shoulder. Despite his girth, Marcus was a gentle man and compassion was his hallmark. His wife referred to him as a giant teddy bear. He was the only one, outside of Ian’s grandparents, who knew the story. Even so, Marcus always suspected that there was more to it, that Ian had kept back a piece of his grief to torture himself with.

“Ian,” Marcus began softly, “you have to let it go sometime. Don’t you think that twenty-one years is long enough to wear a hair shirt?”

There was an anger raging within him, but Ian kept it tightly wrapped. Marcus didn’t deserve to be lashed out at. He meant well and only tried to help. But Marcus didn’t understand what it was like. What it meant to be buried alive, to have the people you loved dead all around you.

Ian moved his shoulder so that Marcus was forced to drop his hand. As he did, he could feel Ian’s smoky-blue eyes boring into him.

“No,” Ian replied. The word was uttered softly, but there was no missing the underlying passion beneath the word.

Marcus suppressed a sigh. Returning to his end of the table, he slowly ran his hands over the sides of the expensive briefcase Ian had given him when he’d passed his bar exam. At the time, Ian had scarcely been able to afford to pay rent on his rundown studio apartment. But by hocking the gold watch his grandfather had given him, Ian had gotten the money together to buy him the camel-colored leather briefcase. Whenever he lost his temper with Ian, Marcus always looked at the briefcase.

And cooled off.

“Look, this is your first offense, thank God—” Quitting while he was ahead, Marcus didn’t ask if there had been other times, times when his friend managed to avoid detection. What he didn’t know wouldn’t keep him up at night.

“There’s a reason for that,” Ian said.

He’d never driven under the influence before. When the need to blot out the world overwhelmed him, he’d always drowned his grief at home, alone. Away from prying eyes. Last night represented a crack in his control. And he didn’t like it.

Marcus didn’t wait for him to elaborate. “I think things can be worked out.” He wanted to suggest rehab or a psychiatrist. Neither suggestion would fly with Ian because Ian couldn’t admit to the world that there was a weakness underneath his armor. “We’ve drawn a reasonable judge. The Honorable Sally Houghton. Word is that she has a strong mothering instinct. Just straighten up, look contrite and remember to flash that thousand-watt smile of yours.” He snapped his briefcase closed again. “It appears as if your guardian angel is still looking out for you.”

Ian chuckled. He could do without guardian angels who saw fit to prolong his suffering. “Yeah.”

The word was uttered entirely without feeling.

Then, to Marcus’s overwhelming relief, Ian turned around from the window and gave him just the barest of smiles. The one Marcus knew could melt stones at fifty paces and hard-hearted female judges’ hearts at ten. And Houghton was a softy. That gave them a definite edge and more than a fighting chance. Ian had a magnetic personality when he wasn’t sparring with the ghosts from his past.

Maybe this whole incident was even to the good. Ian might finally put this behind him and get on with the business of living.

And maybe, Marcus thought as he signaled for the guard to unlock the door, while he had been in here talking to Ian, pigs had actually learned how to fly.

Chapter Two

There were times when Lisa Kittridge wondered what she was doing here. And why for the last eighteen months she continued to return to Providence Shelter, week after week, when she really didn’t have to. At least, not because of some court order, the way so many others who passed through here did.

God knew it wasn’t because time hung heavily on her hands. Absolutely every moment of her day was accounted for, what with thirty-one energetic third graders to teach and a five-year-old and a mother to care for.

Not that Susan Kittridge actually needed looking after, despite the bullet to the hip that had taken her off the police force and brought a cane into her life. Her mother was one of the most independent women Lisa knew. But every so often, Susan’s soul would dip into that black place that beckoned everyone, that place that called for surrender and apathy. During those times, Lisa was her mother’s cheering section, drawing on the endless supply of optimism that she’d somehow been blessed with.

Optimism that saw her through her own hard times.

Optimism she felt obliged to share here at the homeless shelter, to pay back a little for the personal happiness she had in her own life. Working at the shelter also accomplished something else. It made her too busy to think about Matt. Very much.

But then, there were days like today, when her cheerfulness seemed to go down several levels. She worked harder then. Longer.

Her work wasn’t excessively difficult. Not that she minded hard work. She thrived on it, her late father liked to boast. And if all that was required of her to help out here was a strong back and endless energy, then working at the shelter would have been a piece of cake.

But it wasn’t all. There was more. A great deal more.

Every so often, the hurt she found herself facing grew to such proportions that it became too much for her to endure emotionally. Looking into the faces of the children sometimes tore at her heart so badly she didn’t think she could recover, certainly not enough to come back.

But she always did.

She’d initially volunteered at Providence Shelter in order to make a difference in these people’s lives. Instead, the people she interacted with had made a difference in hers. They made her humbler. More grateful. And more determined than ever to help.

Help people such as the little girl on the cot.

Lisa had walked into the long, communal sleeping area with an armload of fresh bedding that needed to be distributed. She saw the girl immediately—there was no one else in the room and the little girl was a new face. A new, frightened face.

She was sitting on the cot, her thin arms braced on either side of her equally thin body, dangling her spindly legs as if that were her only source of entertainment, the only thing she had any command over.

As Lisa came closer, the little girl looked up suddenly, suspicion and fear leaping into her wide, gray eyes.

Oh God, no child should have to look like that, Lisa thought. Her son was around this girl’s age.

The mother in her ached for the little girl. For all the little girls and boys who’d found themselves within the walls of homeless shelters because of some cruel twist of fate.

Very carefully, Lisa laid down the bedding she was holding and smiled at the little girl. “Hi, what’s your name?”

The wide eyes continued to stare at her. There was no answer.

Lisa sat down on one edge of the cot. The girl quickly moved to the opposite corner, like a field mouse frightened away by the vibration of footsteps.

“You don’t talk to strangers,” Lisa guessed. The little girl nodded solemnly, never taking her eyes away. “That’s very good. You shouldn’t. I’ve got a little boy just your age and that’s what I tell him, too.” She smiled warmly at the child. “My name is Lisa,” she told her. “I’m a volunteer here.” Lisa extended her hand toward the small fingers that were clutched together in the little girl’s lap. “I help out here at Providence when I can.”

Lisa had an overwhelming desire to wash away the smudges on the small, thin face and brush the tangles out of the thick, brown hair. But first she had to win the girl’s trust and, depending on what the child had been through and what she had seen, that might not be very easy.

“If you need anything,” she told the girl, “just ask me.”

The small hands remained clasped together.

Lisa rose to her feet. She didn’t want the child to feel crowded or pressured in any way. “Remember, if you need anything, my name’s Lisa.”

Picking up the bedding, she began to distribute the folded, freshly laundered sheets. She’d just placed the last one down when she heard a small voice behind her say, “Daddy.”

Lisa turned around, not completely certain whether she’d actually heard the word or imagined it. “Did you say something, honey?”

“Daddy,” the girl whispered again in the same soft, timid voice.

Lisa’s mind raced. Either the little girl was telling her that she was afraid of her father—so many women and children here had been abused—or that she wanted her father. She couldn’t tell by the girl’s expression, which had not changed. Lisa took a chance and focused on the fact that she had used the word “need” when she’d spoken to the little girl.

“Do you want me to find your daddy for you?”

The dark head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”

Was the man here somewhere at the shelter? Or had he abandoned his family before they ever found their way to this place? She needed more input, but right now, there was no one else to ask for details. “Can you tell me what your daddy looks like, honey?”

Before the little girl could answer, a tall, thin woman with premature lines etched into her face entered the room. She looked relieved to see the little girl sitting there. And then she looked angry.

Crossing to her, the woman wrapped her arms protectively around the child’s shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She pressed the girl to her, as if to absorb her. Or at the very least, keep her out of harm’s way.

“There’s no sense in you looking for him,” the woman snapped at Lisa. Her anger at the invasion, at being stripped of everything, even pride, pulsated in the air between them like barely harnessed electricity. “Monica’s daddy left us almost two years ago. Couldn’t stand watching us do without anymore. Like leaving helped.” Bitterness twisted the woman’s pinched mouth. “He’s the reason we’re here. Monica thinks he’ll come back even though I keep telling her he won’t.”

Lisa knew all about hanging on emotionally even when logic dictated otherwise. “Everyone needs to be able to hope,” she said, gently touching the little girl’s cheek.

“What everyone needs is to be prepared for disappointment,” a deep male voice rumbled behind her.

There was no malice in the voice, no overwhelming cynicism. Only resignation to the facts.

Swinging around, Lisa found herself looking up at a tall, darkly handsome man with intense ice-blue eyes. The sensual smile never reached his eyes or any other part of him.

She’d never seen him before.

He was dressed casually, but the dark-blue pullover and gray slacks looked expensive. The man seemed as out of place here as a genuine pearl necklace in a drawer full of costume jewelry.

Here comes trouble.

She had no idea where the thought had come from, but it flashed across her mind the second she saw him. The second his eyes touched hers.

“Who are you?”

Her voice sounded a little sharp to her own ear, but she didn’t like his philosophy. Liked even less that he expressed it in front of a child.

Behind her, she heard Monica and her mother leaving the room. She made a mental note to bring a small doll with her for Monica the next time she came.

If Monica was still here. Every little girl deserved to have a doll.

She looked at the stranger, still waiting for an answer. Was this some kind of a game for him? She was aware of his scrutiny. As if she was someone he needed to evaluate before answering. Just who did he think he was?

“Well?” she asked.

She had a temper, Ian thought. Probably helped her survive what she had to deal with in a place like this. “Ian Malone, at your service.”

He waited a moment to see if there was a glimmer of recognition. He didn’t write under his own name, but it wasn’t exactly a state secret that Ian Malone and B. D. Brendan were one and the same.

But there was nothing in the woman’s face to indicate that the name—or he—meant anything at all to her. Good. Even though writing was the only lifeline that he still clung to—and even that had been failing him for the past nine months—there were times when fame got on his nerves. It made him want to shed his skin, a snake ready to move on to the next layer.

She wasn’t saying anything, so he added, “I was told to report to you for instructions.” Marcus had dropped him off here, promising to be by later to pick him up. Marcus had made it seem like a feather in his cap, getting him this community service gig. Looking around, he was beginning to think a little jail time wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. “You are Lisa Kittridge, right?”

“Right,” she fired back at him. She didn’t like his attitude, she didn’t like him. One of the privileged who’d come here, slumming, to atone for a social transgression. She’d seen his kind before. “Who told you to report to me?”

“A little bird-like woman at the front desk.” He turned in that general direction. “British accent, bad taste in clothes.”

“That would be Muriel.” She took offense for the other woman. Muriel ran the shelter and had a heart as large as Dodger Stadium. “And for your information, I think she dresses rather well.”

“Can’t help that,” he murmured under his breath, then asked, “Is she a friend of yours?”

He asked a hell of a lot of questions for someone who’d been sent here in lieu of jail time, she thought. She felt her back going up even more. “We don’t go on retreats together or braid each other’s hair, but yes, you could say we’re friends.”

“Then I’d clue her in if I were you. Better yet,” his eyes washed over her and there was a glint of appreciation in them, “you could take her shopping with you the next time you go.”

She wasn’t flattered. She was annoyed. “Is this an effort for you, or does being obnoxious just come naturally?”

The smile gave no sign of fading. If anything, he looked even more amused. “It’s a gift,” he told her dryly.

“One you should return,” she countered. Because she was short of funds and long on work, Muriel had gotten to the point where she relied on Lisa heavily, so Lisa knew she had to make the best of this conceited misfit they’d been sent for however long he was here. “Let me guess, community service, right?”

Ian inclined his head, giving her the point. “The lady gets a prize.”

The shelter saw its share of first-time offenders whose sentences were commuted to volunteering a number of hours working for either the city or a charitable organization. Most of the time, the men and women came, did what was required of them and left without any fanfare, wanting to get it over with as quickly, as quietly as possible.

This one was different. This one had an attitude. Terrific.

“And just what was it that they found you guilty of?” she asked.

The answer came without any need for thought. “Living.”

“If that were the case, the shelter would never be shorthanded. What did the judge say you did?” she pressed. The sooner she got him to admit accountability, the more readily he would move on. Or, at least she hoped so.

He shrugged carelessly. He’d never liked giving an account of himself. It reminded him too much of being grilled by his grandfather. “My car had a difference of opinion with a tree. They both wanted to occupy the same place. The tree won.”

Her eyes swept over him. There were no signs that he’d even been in an accident. He had one small scar over his left eye, but that had long since healed and grown faint with time, so she doubted that he’d sustained it in an accident. “You don’t look any the worse for it.”

His mouth twisted in a semi-smile. “Too bad my car can’t say the same thing.”

Her eyes darkened like a sudden storm sweeping over the horizon. “You were drunk.”

He watched, fascinated by the transformation. She looked as if she would have thought nothing of grinding him into the ground. “Kitty, what I was—and am—is my business.”

“Lisa,” she corrected coldly. “My name is Lisa. Or, in your case, Miss Kittridge. And since you’re here, you’ve become my business.”

The smile was warm, disarming. It startled her how quickly it all but filleted her clear down to the bone. “Sounds promising.”

Lisa mentally rolled up her sleeves. “Okay, Malone, the first thing you’re going to have to understand is that this isn’t a game and that you’re not slumming. After your time here, you get to go home at the end of the day. For most of these people, this is home. You will treat it—and them—with respect and do what you can to make the experience of being here less painful for them.”

She was almost barking out the orders. “You a drill sergeant in your spare time?”

Her eyes narrowed again. Damn, but they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. “No, a human being.”

“Ouch.”

She didn’t return his smile. She meant to get a fair amount of real work out of him. The shelter was always in need of some sort of repair. The boiler didn’t sound as if it was going to make it through another winter and there were holes in the roof the size of well-fed rats. The rainy season was just around the corner, right after Thanksgiving. That didn’t give them much time to get into shape.

Lisa glanced down at his shoes. “Your Italian loafers are going to get dirty here.”

Their eyes met as she looked up again. She found his smile really unsettling. “You know quality.”

Lisa looked at him pointedly. “Yes, I do.” The way she said it, her meaning was clear.

Ian laughed. Most of the time he dealt with people who fawned over him. People who wouldn’t know an honest emotion if it bit them.

She, obviously, did not fall into that category. “I like you, Kitty.”

She started to correct him again, then decided it wasn’t worth it. Maybe if she just ignored his attempt at familiarity, the man would eventually give it up. He didn’t look as if he had much of an attention span. “How are you with a hammer?”

He’d built his own sailboat once. Actually, he and Marcus had. Marcus had talked him into it the summer before they graduated college. Marcus from Yale, he from NYU. But this woman looked like she’d probably consider that bragging, so instead, he shrugged. “I know which end to use.”

She sighed. Not handy, either. This was just getting better and better. “It’s a start,” she allowed.

“That it is,” he responded.

Ignoring the comment, or the chipper way he delivered it, she made a quick assessment of his body. He was muscular and lean, although she doubted he’d actually ever done any physical labor. He didn’t seem the type. Too bad, but he’d learn.

She thought of the most pressing repair item on her list. “Do heights bother you?”

His eyes slid over her body. She had the impression of being weighed and measured. It surprised her that there was a part of her that wondered, just for a moment, what his conclusions were.

“That depends on what I’m doing,” he finally answered.

Why did she feel as if she’d just been propositioned? “Nailing shingles,” she bit off.

His smile just widened. And burrowed into her despite her resistance. “Any chance of that being a euphemism?”

“None whatsoever,” she replied evenly.

“Didn’t think so.” It would feel good to do something physical for a change, he thought. Something to work up a sweat. “I can give it a try.”

“You need to do more than ‘try,’” she informed him, barely hanging onto her patience.

This wasn’t going to work, she thought, not with the attitude she saw. Granted she didn’t draw a salary here and her time was limited, but she felt part of something at Providence, something that went beyond a paycheck. And these people deserved better than having some bored blight on society doing halfhearted penance because he’d gotten caught going too fast after parking his judgment.

“Look, Malone, you either take this job seriously or have your hotshot lawyer get you reassigned to something else.”

The term made him laugh. If there was anything that Marcus wasn’t, it was a hotshot. “Marcus would really get insulted by that last remark.”

“Marcus?” Who the hell was Marcus? Or was he just trying to distract her?

“My lawyer. My friend,” he added. “He’s really a very dedicated person.” Ian’s mouth curved. “Not like me at all.”

She’d heard his voice soften, just for a moment, when he’d mentioned the man. Maybe this Marcus he mentioned really was a friend. If so, that meant that he was capable of maintaining a relationship with something other than his own photograph. Maybe there was hope for him.

Maybe all this was just bravado because being around the homeless and downtrodden made him nervous. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

“He’s as solid as a brick wall,” Ian continued.

“And he’s as far from a hotshot as you are from possessing a sense of humor.”

He’d had her going there for a minute, thinking that maybe she’d been too hard on him. First impressions were usually right. And her first impression of him—good looks or no good looks—was far from favorable.

Ian watched in fascination as he saw her eyes flash. They turned from a light green to something he had once seen during a squall. He had a feeling that when she really got going, she was something else. The part of him that dissected and explored, that looked inside of every word, every sensation, every feeling, experienced a curiosity to discover what the woman before him was like when all of her buttons were pressed.

“I don’t laugh very much here, Mr. Malone.”

The retort just came out. It was, in actuality, a lie. Whenever possible, she tried very hard to bring laughter into these people’s lives. If not laughter, then at least a smile. But somehow, with Malone, that laughter seemed synonymous with a joke. And there were precious few jokes here.

“I don’t suggest you do, either,” she added. Lisa drew herself up, painfully aware that she was at least a foot shorter than this annoying man. It made her feel as if she were at a severe disadvantage and she didn’t like that. “Now if you’re through making observations, I’ll take you to that hammer.”

She turned on her heel and began to walk quickly from the room. Taking a second to admire the view from where he was, the way her hips subtly moved with each step, Ian fell into step with her. Because of his longer stride, he caught up within a moment.

“Looking forward to it,” he told her.

And she was looking forward to his hours of community service being over, she thought. Absently, she wondered just how many hours he owed the city. At the same time, she thanked God that she wouldn’t have to be here for most of them.

Chapter Three

Lisa glanced at her watch. It was almost seven. She’d stayed longer than she’d intended. Again. Whenever she came to Providence Shelter, time melted into this distant dimension and she lost all sense of it. One thing led to another and she would never seem to finish. But that was life. Ongoing. Neverending.

But right now her life was waiting for her back at her house and if she didn’t hurry, she was going to miss reading Casey his bedtime story. He was pretty out of sorts with her over the last time she’d come home late, only to find him fast asleep. She’d had to bribe him by letting him stay up an extra half hour on Friday night in order to get him to forgive her. She didn’t want that to become a habit.

Not to mention she still had papers that needed to be graded. She really owed it to her students not to fall asleep over them the way she had last time.

That’s what she got by trying to make do on five hours sleep, she silently upbraided herself. As her mother had pointed out to her more than once, she wasn’t a superwoman. There was no point in trying to act like one.

Just before she left, Lisa swung by Muriel’s office to get her purse. The room was empty. Just as well, Lisa decided. She didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation at this hour. Muriel was a lovely person, but she could go on indefinitely without ever reaching her point.

Crossing to the old desk someone had donated to the building, she opened the bottom drawer and took out her purse. Lisa closed the drawer and slung the purse strap onto her shoulder. She was ready to leave.

But she didn’t.

Whether it was a sense of responsibility or just plain old-fashioned curiosity, she couldn’t honestly say, but instead of leaving the building, Lisa found herself retracing her steps and going outside, where less than two hours ago, she’d left Providence Shelter’s latest penitent perched on a ladder, ready to make the necessary interim repairs to the roof.

Or so he had said.

Closing the door behind her, she looked around the back. Part of her expected to find Malone sprawled out on the ground, unconscious, a victim of a sudden attack of vertigo or some such paltry excuse.

Granted she might have been a tad too hard on him, but something about him reminded her of the last man she’d had the misfortune of dating. Thad, the divorced father of one of her students, had been charming on the outside, hollow in the inside. In the end, she honestly didn’t know who she was more disappointed in, him for stepping out on her or herself for being such a poor judge of character.

She knew better now.

Apparently not, Lisa silently amended the next moment as she circled around to the rear of the building and found the ladder just where she’d left it. Malone was definitely not where she had left him. Not on the ladder, not anywhere in sight.

Lisa could feel her jaw tighten. The man had fled the coop. Already. Blowing out a breath, she swallowed an oath. She might have known.

It was obvious that Malone couldn’t stick to a commitment. But she would have thought he’d at least last out the day. Frowning, she went back inside to see if she could find one of the older boys to move the ladder and put it away. It obviously couldn’t stay where it was. Thanks to Casey and her teaching position, she was well acquainted with the way the minds of the under-four-foot set worked. The ladder and all it represented was far too much of a temptation for the smaller residents of Providence Shelter.

As she turned the corner, she nearly bumped into Muriel. Lost in thought, the older woman was humming to herself. Lisa couldn’t remember ever seeing the woman look anything but sunny and optimistic.

“Leaving, dear?” Muriel asked.

Lisa nodded. “I’ve got to be getting home.” She hesitated for a second, debating saying anything. Technically, it wasn’t any of her business. But she had never operated that way, keeping out of her fellow man or woman’s business. Doing so would have made the world a very cold, isolated place as far as she was concerned.

Besides, Muriel deserved to know. She was far too busy to be aware of every little detail that went on at the house.

“Look, that new guy, the one the court sent here because of a DUI,” even saying the acronym constricted her throat. “I really don’t think that he’s going to work out.”

The look on the woman’s face told Lisa that Muriel knew instantly who she was referring to. “You mean the one who makes me wish I were twenty years younger?” The wistful smile on Muriel’s lips was unmistakable. “What makes you say that?”

Muriel was the kind who would find redeeming qualities in Genghis Khan, Lisa thought. “Well, I told him to replace the shingles that flew off the roof in that storm we had last month.”

“Good, good.” Muriel nodded, then seemed to realize that there was obviously more. “And?”

Lisa spread her hands wide. “And I just looked and he’s not there.”

Muriel glanced out the back window automatically, even though there was no way she could see the area under discussion. In addition, twilight had long since sneaked its way across the terrain.

“When did you tell him to do it?”

Lisa thought for a moment, trying to remember the time. “A little less than a couple of hours ago.”

Muriel’s expression all but said, Well, there you have it, but she added audibly, “Maybe he’s finished.”

Lisa didn’t have to get on the ladder to know the answer to that one. An expert might have completed the job, but Malone was no expert. “I doubt it. He’s not the handy type.”

The smile on Muriel’s lips turned positively wicked as it reached her eyes and made them sparkle. “That probably all depends on what you mean by handy.” The smile widened as Muriel’s thoughts took flight. “He strikes me as someone who could be very handy under the right circumstances.”

Lisa could only shake her head. Muriel spent most of her time here. It was obvious that she needed to get out and socialize more. “Muriel, you’ve been a widow too long.”

The woman’s dark brown eyes met hers. “You should talk.”

This wasn’t about her. Not in any manner, shape or form. “I’m not a widow,” Lisa reminded the other woman. “Casey’s father and I never got the chance to get married.”

Not that there hadn’t been plans, lots of plans. Plans that never had a chance to become a reality because the weekend before the wedding, Matt was struck by a drunk driver. He’d died instantly at the scene.

It had taken her a long time to recover and make her peace with what had happened. Having Casey in her life had helped most of all. But even that caused her to ache a little in the middle of the night. Ache because she had never gotten the chance to tell Matt that she was pregnant. He’d died without ever knowing that they had created a son.

“You know,” Muriel began slowly, running the tip of her tongue along her bright-red lips, “this Ian fellow might—”

“Stop right there,” Lisa warned abruptly, raising her hand like a traffic cop. “You have the same glint in your eyes that my mother periodically gets.” The one that would come into her mother’s eyes when she’d talk about friends’ unattached sons or nephews who just happened to be in town for the week. “And I can tell you right here, right now, that not even if Ian Malone were the last man on earth and tipped in gold would I entertain the idea of hooking my wagon to his star.”

“Interesting way of putting it,” a male voice interrupted.

Caught, Lisa could only look at Muriel’s face. The older woman didn’t bother suppressing her grin as she nodded her head. Malone. Somehow or other, the man had managed to sneak up behind her.

Okay, this wasn’t the time to look guilty. Instead, she summoned the indignation she’d felt when she’d first happened upon the unattended ladder.

Swinging around, Lisa went on the offensive. Her late father, a football coach for a semipro team, had always been a big believer in using offense rather than defense.

“I thought you went home.”

Ian summoned an innocent expression, enjoying himself. “My time wasn’t up yet.”

He might fool Muriel, but he wasn’t fooling her. “Then why didn’t you finish putting up the new shingles like I asked you?”

“You didn’t ask,” he corrected her, “you told. And I did.” Before she could open her mouth to challenge his answer, he had a question of his own. “Did you bother looking at the roof?”

She seemed annoyed, which gave him his answer. “From the ground,” Lisa said grudgingly.

He infuriated her by shaking his head. “Can’t see the new shingles from that angle.”

Ian found the suspicion that clouded her eyes oddly attractive. There was chemistry here, he noted, wondering if she was aware of it. Probably the reason she was snapping his head off.

“So you finished.”

Ian inclined his head and then saluted smartly. “Yes, ma’am, I did indeed.”

She’d believe it when she saw it, Lisa thought, but for now, she let that argument go. “So where were you?”

“I was in the activity room.” He nodded in the general direction of the room he had just vacated. It was also known as the common room and was where everyone gathered in the latter part of the day. “I didn’t realize that I had to ask anyone for permission before I walked anywhere.”

“You don’t,” she shot back, feeling like a shrew even as she went on talking. Muriel, she noticed, seemed content just to stand by the wayside and observe. “But there were other things you could have been helping with.”

“I know,” he said. His eyes shifted toward Muriel and he smiled. “I was.”

Muriel was too softhearted for her own good and she wasn’t about to stand around and watch her being manipulated. So she became the other woman’s champion and challenged Malone. “Like what?”

“I read a story,” he said simply.

Did he think he could just sit back and relax because he happened to be better looking than most movie stars? That didn’t give him a get-out-of-jail-free card. Not in her book.

“You can read on your own time, Mr. Malone,” Lisa informed him. “The court didn’t send you here to entertain yourself.”

“I wasn’t,” he contradicted. “I was entertaining your little friend.”

Lisa narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t the slightest idea what this man was talking about. “What little friend?”

“The little girl you were trying to bolster when I found you earlier.” It took him a second to remember the name the girl’s mother had used. “Monica. She looked lonely when I walked by, I stopped and gave her a book.” A whole stack of worn children’s books sat on one of the tables. The girl had looked embarrassed and had just held the thin book. That was when his suspicions had been aroused. “Except that somewhere along the line, public education failed her because she can’t read.” As quickly as his anger rose, it abated, hiding behind the shield he always had fixed in place. “So I read to her.” He looked at her intently and directed his question to Lisa rather than the woman who was paid to run the shelter. “Or is that against the rules?”

Lisa shifted, feeling uncomfortable. What’s more, she felt like an idiot. Maybe she was being too hard on Malone. After all, she didn’t really know him. His attitude just rubbed her the wrong way and had led her to certain conclusions.

To jump to certain conclusions, she amended, chagrinned.

“No,” she said, “that’s not against the rules.” Lisa paused, pressing her lips together. “I guess I owe you an apology.”

There was amusement in the blue eyes. They weren’t icy, she decided, changing her initial opinion. They were warm. Maybe a little too warm.

“It might sound more convincing if you didn’t act as if your mouth were filled with unappetizing dirt when you said it.”

“As opposed to the appetizing kind?” she guessed.

Ian laughed. She’d gotten him. Words were his stock and trade, but of late, in the last nine months, it felt as if he’d just closed up shop. Nothing was coming. No ideas, no snippets of plots, no stray dialogue flashing through his brain at odd moments, begging to be written down before they were forgotten. It was as if his fictional world, the world he often sought out for solace and in which he often took refuge, had completely deserted him, leaving him to fend for himself and deal with what was around him without the crutch he had come to rely on so heavily.

This with a deadline breathing down his neck.

For now, he smiled, his eyes on hers. “I stand corrected,” he allowed.

He looked over Lisa’s head at the woman he had checked in with when he’d first walked through the doors. He couldn’t help wondering if she was very shrewd or very vacant. Her expression could be read either way.

“Has anyone thought about setting up a few informal classes to teach the kids while they’re staying here? If most of them are transient, then enrolling in the local schools doesn’t sound like anything their parents are going to be looking into. Whole chunks of these kids’ educations are falling through the cracks and nobody’s noticing.”

Lisa looked at him, surprised by the observation. Was he actually deeper than that brilliantly blinding smile of his? “You sound like you’ve given this matter some thought.” She studied him for a moment, looking to be swayed one way or the other about him. “Like you’re familiar with it.”

The shrug was careless, tying him to nothing. “In a manner of speaking.”

Given the glimmer of a hint, Lisa wasn’t about to back off easily. “What manner of speaking?”

“Mine,” he replied.

The single word just hung there, suspended in space. Ian didn’t feel like sharing anymore, didn’t feel like telling this woman or her superior that he’d once been one of those kids who’d had sections of his life carelessly lost in the shuffle because no one was looking out for him.

After his family had been killed in the Palm Springs earthquake, it had taken Social Services more than six months to locate his mother’s parents. His grandparents, Ed and Louise Humboldt, lived on a small operating farm in Northern California, close to the Oregon border. Estranged from their daughter because of her marriage to a man they didn’t feel was good enough for her, they had no idea that anything had happened to her or to her husband and daughter, until Alice McKay from the Orange Country Social Services office had taken it upon herself, on her own time, to locate his only living relatives.

They were little more than strangers to him when Alice brought him up to the farm. He hadn’t wanted to stay with them, had wanted instead to go home with Alice because she was kind and her smile reminded him of his sister’s. But that wasn’t possible. So he had remained with his grandparents, who took him in out of a sense of duty.

They fed him, clothed him and gave him a roof over his head. In exchange, he did chores on the farm before school, after school and practically until he dropped at night.

Ed and Louise were good people, they just weren’t good grandparents. He knew they didn’t love him. They didn’t concern themselves with his education other than his getting one. He thought of running away several times, but instead, he remained. And then, as he settled in, a funny thing happened.

A whole new world opened up for him whenever he was around books. A world where there was no weight on his shoulders, no pain waiting for him around every corner and no guilt ready to spring up at him without warning. He read everything he could get his hands on, especially science fiction.

When he wasn’t doing chores or studying for school, he was reading. Morning, noon and night.

Around the time when he turned fifteen, he discovered that he could not only read about those worlds that existed between the pages of a book, he could create them. Create worlds where things happened the way he wanted them to. He wasn’t a victim anymore. Instead, he became a god. A god who presided over invisible worlds that existed first only in his mind and then on paper as well.

He finished writing his first book at seventeen, fashioning a strange world where people were ruled by their nightmares. Twenty-seven publishers rejected it. And one made him an offer.

He was on his way.

None of it would have happened if Alice McKay hadn’t taken it upon herself to hunt down his mother’s parents. Because if she hadn’t, if she had been content to do her job and nothing more, he would have gone on being sent from one foster home to another, one school system to another and, because of his progressively rebellious nature, never remaining anywhere long enough to learn anything or find any peace.

He’d dedicated Nightmares to her, paying her the highest compliment that he could by making her the godmother of his firstborn.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Muriel decided, after thinking about the idea of classes for a moment. Her eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them, finally resting on Lisa. “Why don’t the two of you see what can be worked out?”

Lisa frowned. She didn’t want to be pulled into this. Redeeming idea or not, she didn’t like the thought of working too closely with Malone. One altruistic moment did not a saint make.

“It’s his idea,” she protested, looking at Muriel pointedly.

The expression on Muriel’s face was mild. But once she’d made up her mind, nothing could dissuade it. “Yes, but you’re the teacher,” she reminded her.

That shouldn’t be held against her, Lisa thought, irritated.

Ian looked at her with mild surprise. “You’re a teacher?”

Lisa unconsciously squared her shoulders. “Yes.” She braced herself for some sort of crack. She wasn’t disappointed.

His mouth curved slowly, lazily. Wickedly. “No wonder I kept having the strange sensation of having my knuckles rapped.”

“Very funny.” She looked at him pointedly and decided—again—that she didn’t like his attitude. “If I were to rap something, it wouldn’t be your knuckles.”

He didn’t back off. She hadn’t thought he would. “Tell me more, this is getting to sound interesting.”

Lisa caught herself growing angrier without being entirely sure why. “Is everything a joke to you?”

“If you don’t laugh, you cry,” he told her with more solemnity than she thought possible.

And then that engaging grin of his took over, turning everything in its path to jelly. Or worse.

He glanced over her head through the window and his expression changed. It made her think of a prisoner who had just seen his parole papers placed on the warden’s desk. “Looks like my ride’s here.”

“Your ride?” she echoed, turning around to see for herself. She saw a light-blue Corvette pull up right before the front steps.

He nodded, rolling down his sleeves and buttoning them at his wrist.

“The state of California doesn’t want me driving around right now. Something about people not being safe on the streets. See you, Kitty. We’ll talk more next time.” And then he winked at her just before he left the premises.

She tried not to notice that something in her stomach fluttered in response.

Chapter Four

“I know, I know,” Lisa called out even before she made it across the threshold, her key still in the lock. Removing the key and closing the door behind her, she dropped her purse beneath the coatrack and kicked off her shoes, an indication that she was officially home. “I’m late. Sorry.”

The words were addressed to her mother who she knew would be somewhere within the vicinity of the front door. Widowed, Susan Kittridge had moved in with her just after a bullet to the hip had terminated her career with the Bedford police force. Unable to remain on the sidelines, her mother had gotten a job with a nationwide security firm, taking the evening shift so that there would always be someone home for Casey.

Lisa flashed her mother an apologetic look. She knew that the woman was due at work soon.

Without missing a beat, Susan crossed to the entrance and picked up both the purse and the shoes. Depositing them in the hall closet, her mother feigned innocence.

“I didn’t say anything.” Susan closed the closet door firmly.

Lisa gave her mother a knowing look. “But you were thinking it.”

Susan laughed softly, shaking her head. “My daughter, the mind reader.” Because she didn’t really have to leave for another twenty minutes, Susan paused and gave herself a few minutes just to talk. Conversations were rare between them lately. Words were tossed around on the fly as Lisa hurried off in the morning and she at night. “You know, the FBI probably has a great opening for someone with your talent.”

Maybe she was feeling edgy, but she took her mother’s words as a criticism. She was in no mood to defend herself or get into a verbal battle. “It’s been a long day, Mom.”

“And this makes it different—how?”

About to retort, Lisa stopped herself. There was no reason to take offense. She knew her mother hadn’t intended her question that way. She was just being testy. It was all Malone’s fault, she thought. From start to finish.

“You’re right. But the shelter got saddled with one of these community service people this afternoon…”

Which meant that she got saddled with him, Lisa thought grudgingly, her voice trailing off. After all, Muriel could only do so much and since the funds had been cut, there was no money for a full-time assistant. The powers that be expected Muriel to do it all, or to depend on volunteers and court-ordered penitents doing atoning servitude.

Like Malone.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t even give the community service people a second thought. But Malone had not only gotten a second thought from her, but a third and fourth one as well. The very fact that he kept preying on her mind bothered her more than she could say.

Susan waited. When her daughter didn’t say anything further, she coaxed, “Yes?”

Lisa shrugged. “There’s just something so irritating about him.”

Susan smiled and shook her head. She knew that Lisa sometimes grew impatient with people who weren’t as dedicated as she was. She was like that about teaching as well. As much as she loved her daughter sometimes, Lisa took herself too seriously. “You just have to remember that not everyone is as holy as you are.”

About to go upstairs to check on her son, Lisa stopped dead and swung around to look at her mother. That made it sound as if she looked down her nose at everyone and that just wasn’t true. “Mom!”

“Well, you try to be,” Susan replied matter-of-factly. There was affection in her eyes, as well as concern. “I’m still trying to figure out what you’re trying to prove, but then, I was never very good at puzzling things like that out. Probably why I never made detective,” she added philosophically.

“You didn’t make detective because you never studied for the exam. You liked being out on the street too much,” Lisa reminded her, then added with a touch of indignation, “And I’m not trying to prove anything—”

Now here they had a difference of opinion and of the two of them, Susan thought, she was the one who had the clearer picture.

“Other than the fact that you’re superwoman disguised as the not-so-mild-mannered Lisa Kittridge?” Before Lisa could protest, Susan cited the positions on her daughter’s unwritten résumé. “Super-mother, super-teacher, super-volunteer. On the daughter front,” Susan held out her hand and waffled it a little from side to side, “not so much, but as for the rest of it—”

Lisa sighed, running a hand through her straight black hair. She supposed her mother had a point. She was an overachiever. But then, she always had been.

“So I’m enthusiastic. Is it so wrong to be enthusiastic?”

There was enthusiasm and then there was compulsion. Susan worried that her daughter was leaning toward the latter. She had been ever since Matt had been killed by that drunk driver. “24–7? Yes, it’s wrong. Baby, you’re burning the candle at both ends.”

Susan saw a familiar look slip over Lisa’s face. The look that said her stubborn daughter was shutting down. And that no trespassers were welcomed. “My candle, Mother.”

“Yes,” Susan agreed. “And Casey’s,” she reminded her quietly.

At the mention of her son’s name, Lisa’s eyes widened. “Casey. Omigod, Casey.” For a moment, she’d forgotten all about him. A wave of guilt washed over her. “Was he very upset when he found out I wasn’t going to be home in time to read his story to him before he went to bed?”

Susan allowed herself a smile as she shook her head. “No.”

That didn’t sound like her Casey, Lisa thought. Was he coming down with something? “No?”

“No,” Susan repeated. “Because Casey didn’t go to bed.”

“He didn’t?” Lisa didn’t finish as she looked over her shoulder and up the stairs. It was almost eight o’clock. Casey has a seven o’clock bedtime. Occasionally, seven-thirty. “He’s still up?”

Susan nodded. She went to the hall closet and retrieved her purse, which looked like a smaller version of a knapsack but served her purpose well. “In his room, waiting for you to tell him what happened to the Indian in the Cupboard.”

Lisa sighed. That was the title of the book they were currently reading each night. Her son could be very willful when he wanted to be. But she’d thought that her mother could deal with that, given the strength of her personality. Obviously she hadn’t factored in the grandmother-pushover component. “Mom, why didn’t you get him into bed?”

“Oh, he’s in bed all right.” Susan passed the strap over her head and onto the opposite shoulder, messenger fashion. “Sleeping is another matter. He’s his mother’s son,” Susan told her daughter pointedly. “As I recall, I could never make you do anything you didn’t want to do even at that young, tender age, either.”

Lisa didn’t bother wasting any more time discussing who was the adult here. Besides, her mother had to leave for work. And she had one young man to put in his place. Taking the stairs two at a time, she raced up to the small bedroom that was opposite hers.

The door to her son’s room was ajar and she looked in. Casey was sitting in bed, propped up by the three extra pillows that were up against his headboard. His eyelids were drooping but they flew open immediately as the door opened.

When he saw his mother, a smile flashed across his lips, gone the next moment as he struggled to be a miniature adult instead of a five-year-old.

“You’re late,” he told her in a voice that sounded way too old to please her.

“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry.” Crossing to his bed, she turned the lights down a notch, bringing shadows out from the backyard and casting them onto the ceiling. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“How come you always help all those kids but you forget about me?”

Sitting down on the bed beside her son, Lisa slipped her arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. Casey’s hair was straight and the color of newly minted gold. Like his father’s had been, she recalled. But Casey’s smile, his eyes, his manner, they all belonged to her side of the family. To her.

“I don’t forget about you,” she insisted in a voice filled with love and patience. “It’s just that those kids have nobody and you have me, you have G-Mama, you have Uncle Frank. You have lots of people who love you very much,” she emphasized. “The kids I see have next to nothing and no one.” She went on stroking Casey’s hair. The soft, silky feel was soothing. “I met a little girl today. She’s around your age. And she can’t read.”

“Can’t read?” her son echoed, his eyes widening. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Lisa replied. In the distance, she heard the front door close. Her mother had left for the night. Now it was just Casey and her. “Nobody ever took the time to teach her.”

Casey screwed up his face, trying hard to understand. “Doesn’t she go to school?”

Everything was so simple at Casey’s age. She wished she could keep him this way forever, protect him from a world where disappointments outnumbered triumphs, at times by frightening numbers. But in the long run, she knew it would be doing him a disservice.

So instead, she tightened her arm around him just for a second, loving him as much as she could. “She’s homeless, honey. Homeless kids don’t always get to go to school like you do.”

He nodded, accepting his mother’s word. “Are you going to teach her to read, Mommy?”

“Maybe.” If Monica wasn’t gone by the next time she stopped by the shelter, she added silently.

Before she could say anything else, Casey scrambled out of bed. “Hey, where are you going, cowboy?”

Instead of answering, Casey dropped to his knees in front of the long, double-tiered bookcase that ran along the opposite wall. After finding the book he was looking for, he pulled it free of the others and brought it back to her.

Casey was beaming when he handed the book to her.

Lisa read the title. “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now?” Surprised, she looked down at her son. Casey was wiggling back into bed, pulling the covers up over himself. “This is the first book you ever read by yourself.”

She remembered how he kept asking her to read the popular Dr. Seuss story to him over and over again and how, the first time he read it out loud to her, she was certain he had just memorized the words. He was, after all, barely four. She’d been both surprised and pleased beyond words when he picked words out of context to prove to her that he actually could read the book.

Casey nodded. “It’s easy,” he told her matter-offactly. “Maybe you can teach her with this.”

Overwhelmed, Lisa blinked back tears as she hugged the little boy to her. “You really are a special, special boy, Casey.”

Casey tried to wiggle out of her grasp. “Mommy, you’re squishing me,” he protested, his voice muffled against her side.

“Sorry,” she laughed, releasing him. Setting the Dr. Seuss book aside for the moment, she looked at him. “Ready to find out what happened to our friend the indian?” Silken hair bobbed up and down as Casey nodded vigorously. “Okay then, let’s get to it.” She reached for the book that Casey kept on the nightstand, the official resting place for each storybook she read to him. “When we left off…” she began.

“So, how was it?” Marcus finally asked as he brought the sports car he’d bought for himself against Marjorie’s objections. At his age and success level, he felt he deserved at least one toy.

He’d picked Ian up at the shelter at the appointed time. His friend had gotten in without saying anything. Now several blocks had gone by and still nothing. Marcus didn’t know if Ian was lost in the revelry of creation, or in the depths of the black depression that on occasion overwhelmed him.

Because he cared about Ian, Marcus pushed rather than retreated, even though the latter would have been his natural inclination.

After a beat, Ian looked at him. The shrug was casual. “All right, I guess. Hell of a wake-up call, being among the have-nots again.” Ian laughed softly to himself. Even the words sounded as if they were meant for him alone and not the man beside him. “Wasn’t all that long ago I was there.”

“You worked your tail off not to be stuck at that level,” Marcus reminded him, thinking back to the lean and hungry days his friend had endured. Unlike him, Ian had not been born to money. “You pulled yourself up by sheer grit alone.”

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