Good with Children
Margot Early

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Chris

“The story of one’s life as it is written into the body can be retold and understood in the intense moment of dancing.…”

—Grandmother’s Secrets by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi, translated by Monique Arav

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

Sultan, Colorado

January

RORY GORENZI WAS on time for the 10:00 a.m. meeting with her father. She was usually punctual and she’d never lost a job because of absenteeism or tardiness. She’d lost none of her previous jobs because of incompetence, either. Instead, she had lost them for speaking before thinking—or, rather, for speaking her mind as her thoughts occurred.

It was imperative that she keep her mouth shut now. She wouldn’t say anything unless her father required her to speak.

But she would focus on the conversation at hand, rather than dwelling on her recent loss or on the other minor problem in her personal life. The problem wasn’t really her problem: a disagreement among her fire-dancing/belly-dancing troupe regarding a living creature in the household they shared. A living creature that had long since ceased to be useful to their troupe, a living creature that no zoo or reptile rescue facility had so far agreed to adopt.

It was a bad situation, but Rory couldn’t think about it now.

Nor could she think about her beloved pet, Gandalf, now, or she would break down in tears. The vet had put down the old dog after a long illness only the day before. Now, he was out of pain, at last, and she mustn’t cry about that.

In his office at the Sultan Mountain School, Kurt Gorenzi sat behind a scarred walnut desk, a remnant of Sultan’s earlier mining days. His hair was thick, gray-flecked, wavy, a little long. Rory’s curls, sun-lightened brown and reaching to her waist, had come from him, from her father. As had her nose—straight, lightly dusted with freckles. And her brown eyes.

It was unlikely that her personality had been influenced by him, however, since she’d had little contact with him over the years, despite having grown up in the town of three hundred where he lived.

Kurt Gorenzi wore a plaid flannel shirt, Carhartts and Sorels. The driving force behind Sultan’s recently reborn economy looked like the unapproachable mountain man he was. He stood when she entered, considered her formally, did not invite her to sit—and did the talking. “You’ll be forming the program for Seamus Lee’s family,” he said. “I’ve given them the Empire Street house, and they’re bringing a dog.”

A dog.

Gandalf had been fourteen, old for a German shepherd.

She blinked away the thought of Seamus Lee’s dog. Rory was unlikely to have another of her own—not now, in any case. She lived with the two other members of Caldera, one of whom was allergic to both dogs and cats and had put up with Gandalf only because Rory had refused to live there without him.

“Seamus Lee is a cartoonist and animator,” Kurt continued. “He employs five people full-time in Telluride and is considering moving his business and family to Sultan. He has four children.”

Rory understood the importance of all this. Four children was four children’s worth of funding for the public school. Five full-time employees meant population and economic growth.

“He and I have known each other for—well—a while. We were skiing buddies years back, during a winter I spent in Telluride. He wants to get his kids out of there because he thinks they’re being corrupted by the…” He chose his words carefully. “Atmosphere of affluence.”

She pressed her lips tightly together, finishing his sentence in her mind. The atmosphere of affluence that you hope to bring to Sultan. Her self-restraint made her proud.

“But none of that is relevant. In fact, the family’s enrollment at the school wasn’t his idea. He received an anonymous gift package and he’s agreed to take it.

“They’re signed up for a three-month program, and I need you to plan activities that will give the kids each three months’ worth of school credit. Except for the youngest, who’s just four.”

“Four?” echoed Rory. The Sultan Mountain School provided an outdoor education, as well as academics, for children as young as kindergarten age and up to grade 12, and, in certain cases, even offered university credit. The academic work was tailored to complement outdoor programs and provide school credit for the periods enrolled children would be absent from their regular schools. The longest SMS program lasted three months.

“In this packet—” Kurt handed her a thick ten-by-thirteen envelope “—you’ll find background to fill you in on the Lees’ skills and interests.”

“Is the dad supposed to get school credit, too?” That didn’t sound the way she had intended it to sound. “I just mean,” she said, “what is he looking for?”

“Exactly what the Sultan Mountain School offers. Backcountry experience, tutorials in free-heel skiing and ice-climbing, natural history, mountain science…”

And more. The Sultan Mountain School was dedicated to “increasing appreciation for the mountain environment through education and experience.”

Of course, SMS wasn’t the only local enterprise that bore Kurt Gorenzi’s fingerprints. He was a town council member and he’d even helped create the Sultan Childhood Learning Center—ironic, thought Rory, considering how much he’d had to do with his own child’s early life. He’d led the push for the Sultan Recreation Center and had brought a chairlift to Silver Slope, the town’s small family ski area. He’d helped restore a historical mining tramway up into Eureka Gulch for the use of sightseers and had promoted kayaking and river rafting on the Sultana River. He’d done everything he could to keep the town of Sultan, elevation 9,632 feet, from dying. But this was the first time he’d made Rory part of one of his projects.

He hadn’t sought her out. She’d applied for the job of instructor and assistant director of the Sultan Mountain School. Her father had interviewed her, had made no comment regarding her extensive and varied work history and then he’d hired her. It was the first time in her life she’d ever asked him for anything. She couldn’t remember her mother, who’d died when she was small; she’d been raised by her mother’s mother. Her father had simply cut himself out of her life, although she knew he’d given Gran money every month to support them both financially.

And now, as during her interview, she was grateful to him for not mentioning the reason she’d been fired by the State of Colorado—which the entire town knew. She’d been an avalanche researcher with the misfortune to be in the field when a United States senator from Colorado accompanied a Realtor and a land developer into a backcountry area just outside Sultan. The group of visitors had stopped to ask about her work and she’d demonstrated the volatility of current avalanche conditions, using a snow pit she’d just dug. After they told her their destination, listened to her strenuous advice to avoid the area because of extreme avalanche danger and started forward anyway, she’d said, Are you on crack? Which was probably not the most tactful way to comment on their foolhardy behavior.

The senator, to his credit, had tried to prevent her from being fired—he was a politician after all and no doubt wanted her vote. But the Realtor also had friends in high places, and he had been massively annoyed.

Her previous job had been with the local towing company. Speaking too frankly to customers who told her how to use equipment they’d never been trained to use had cost her that job. Well, actually, it was one snowy night when she’d finally said, Fine. I’ve got other calls. Dig it out yourself.

She had taught skiing at Silver Slope until she’d told one parent that he was spoiling his daughter and turning her into a brat.

She’d taught avalanche-awareness classes over the mountains in Telluride until a wolf dog she was watching for a boyfriend destroyed four beacons and two shovels she’d left in her car. He’d also consumed the passenger seat, but since the avalanche school didn’t own that, it hadn’t figured in the complaint. Rory’d replaced the equipment, which had left her in debt, but it hadn’t mattered.

This time, however, nothing was going to go wrong. She reached for the packet. “Sounds good. When will they be here?”

His lips smiled slightly. “Today.”

Rory nodded. “I’ll get right on this, then. Thank you.” She didn’t say for what, because her gratitude took in so many things. Thank you for giving me a chance. Thank you for believing in me.

Thank you for noticing me.

She was at the door when her father spoke. “Where is the snake?”

Rory bit her lip. Of course her father knew about Lola; everyone in Sultan knew. He probably didn’t know Rory had just put down Gandalf. “At the house,” she said. “She’s…contained.”

“Maybe,” her father suggested, “you three should simply move her home outside.”

“Yes,” was all Rory said. Let Lola freeze in her reptile palace? At the moment, and despite Rory’s recent loss, the suggestion was not entirely unappealing. Besides, snakes were different from dogs, and Rory could not believe that Lola had any feelings whatsoever for her human family. Finally, she said simply, “She’s not my snake.”

Just a member of her household.

SEAMUS LEE HAD a career, money, four children and a recent ex-girlfriend who had left him burdened with a wealth of accusations he was having trouble clearing from his mind.

Every girlfriend you’ve had since Janine died has just been a glorified nanny.

Unfair. He’d always employed an au pair, in addition to Fiona Murray, who was essential to his household, far more than just a nanny or housekeeper.

And it’s not as though you’re any kind of a father. They might as well be orphans, Elizabeth, his ex, had continued.

He should never have gotten involved with one of his artists. Yes, she was a freelancer; and yes, she had income independent from what he provided. In fact, she was loaded and she worked because she wanted to, not because she had to. He’d wondered if she was behind the anonymous gift he’d received of a deluxe term at the Sultan Mountain School. Elizabeth had certainly approved.

The drive to Sultan will probably be the most time you’ve spent with them since their mother died, she’d said.

AND THAT, unfortunately, was true. So he’d accepted the gift without knowing who was behind it. He would spend this time with his children.

He would manage without Fiona.

Well, not the entire time. His seventy-three-year-old household manager would be joining them after a month of sea kayaking in Mexico with her son and his wife.

So alone he was taking the children out of school in Telluride, Colorado, where his own business—the empire of Ki-Rin, the manga and anime character, half-boy, half-dragon—thrived, and over two mountain passes to Sultan to spend three months at the Sultan Mountain School. There, the children would receive school credit while improving their skills as snowboarders, skiers and mountaineers and learning mountain science. The characteristics of aspens and ponderosa pines, the mechanics of avalanches, the rules of water. Four-year-old Belle would learn to ski. And Seamus would demonstrate that “we never stop learning,” by completing the three-month course alongside them.

He would also prove that he was not the stranger to his own children that his ex-girlfriend had seemed to think he was. At least she hadn’t also become an ex-employee.

I have no problem with your art, she’d said. It’s very accessible. But you’re not.

Not emotionally accessible?

Well, there might be reasons.

As there was also a reason—a good reason—why he approached any time alone with his children with extreme caution. There was part of his emotional makeup that he definitely wanted to keep inaccessible to them, for the sake of the family’s survival.

He drove a new Toyota SUV hybrid, the latest in nanny cars. It was his first trip anywhere in the vehicle, which had been the previous au pair’s car while she lived with them.

Now, fourteen-year-old Lauren had claimed the front passenger seat. In the back, twelve-year-old Beau and seven-year-old Caleb took the window seats while Belle, in her special car seat, endured the position of the youngest—the middle of the backseat, with her stuffed animal, a mouse, in her lap. Behind them, in a metal dog crate, rode the family’s new pet, Seuss, a twelve-week-old German shepherd.

The drive to Sultan took seventy-four minutes. It felt like seventy-four days, however, with Belle asking far too often when Fiona would be back.

“I hate this town,” Lauren announced, glowering as they passed the first junk store on the edge of town—The Sultan Flea Market. “The people are, like, backward.”

Another good reason to spend some time out of Telluride, Seamus thought. Sure, Telluride was “a great place to raise kids,” with world-class skiing, good schools, culture, of a sort, and natural beauty. But he’d noticed a tendency in his children to see themselves as intellectually brilliant and world-class athletes. Seamus, born and raised in the Silicon Valley in California, surrounded by exceptional brains, the brother of a cyclist who’d finished near the top in the Tour de France, knew his children to be simply “above average.” And more than a bit snotty.

They were beautiful children. Beau was the only one of the four without a horde of friends. He wore white T-shirts on which he wrote, in magic marker, obscure quotations from obscure texts, sometimes in dead languages. Beau actually might be brilliant, a thought that terrified Seamus. Already, he was studying trigonometry and his first love was chess. He had little interest in snowboarding, skateboarding or skiing, and spent too much time indoors playing video games on his computer. Now, Lauren gazed through the windshield with visible dissatisfaction. She’d been chosen homecoming princess of the freshman class that fall. She was so popular and had so many friends that she hadn’t wanted to leave—not even for three months. Caleb was a soccer star and an easy child. And Belle…

Elizabeth’s words pounded at him again.

He just didn’t know Belle.

Seamus had memorized directions to the historic hotel that was the home base for the Sultan Mountain School. He would meet his old friend Kurt there and pick up the keys to the house.

The hotel was three storeys high, with its historic name, the Hotel Ambassador, painted on the brick facade. A shingle hanging over the street, a block from Main Street, read, SULTAN MOUNTAIN SCHOOL. Seamus parked.

Beau shoved open his door. “I’m going to get Seuss out, okay?”

“Put his leash on him,” Seamus ordered. German shepherds were supposed to be smart, but he hadn’t seen many signs of intelligence in Seuss so far. He did have a startling baritone bark—strange coming from a puppy.

As Lauren climbed out and stalked to the rear of the vehicle, no doubt intending to criticize her brother’s behavior with the dog, Seamus headed for a wood-and-glass door beneath the shingle. It opened as he reached it and a young woman came out, almost colliding with him. She had long, thick hair, curly and tied back in a loose ponytail. Her eyes were brown, her nose straight and lightly sprinkled with freckles. The eyes widened slightly at the sight of him and his vehicle. “You’re…You’re Mr. Lee,” she exclaimed, and shifted a manila envelope, book and a huge, lumpy package, then held out her hand. “You are, aren’t you? I’m Rory Gorenzi.”

“Any relation to Kurt?”

“Ah, yes. Yes. I’m his daughter, actually.” As if the fact surprised even her. “And you are Seamus Lee?” She sought confirmation again.

“Yes.” Kurt’s daughter was beautiful. He’d heard about her from Kurt: she’d been raised by her grandmother, Seamus was fairly certain, and she wasn’t as successful as Kurt wished, though Seamus didn’t know the details. Seamus hadn’t paid much attention to Kurt’s conversation on the matter—he’d been too worried that his own children might not turn out all right because they, like Rory Gorenzi, had no mother.

And if Elizabeth was right, an inaccessible father.

It was over three years since Janine’s death. There had seemed to be no time for his own mourning, not to mention his accompanying feelings, with his youngest child just one and not even weaned when everything changed. With the whole story unfolding around him.

How his wife had come to die that way. And his inner conviction that her death had been her own fault. Her most aggravating traits had led to her dying, and he still couldn’t forgive her—and couldn’t speak to his children because he was afraid he’d tell them how angry he was at their mother for being so fatally single-minded.

Immediately after Janine’s death, the succession of au pairs had begun.

He dragged himself away from his grim thoughts.

Rory Gorenzi wore a black snowboarding jacket, black snow pants, Sorel-style boots and mittens. Both jacket and pants were patched with duct tape, and the boots had seen more than a few seasons. “Look,” she said, “I’ve got the key to your place, and I’ll take you over there. I just need to quickly run down there…” She indicated an area across the street and half a block up, “and drop off this stuff.”

“Can I help you?” He reached out, offering to relieve her of her package, which seemed not only oddly shaped but heavy.

She sidestepped him. “Oh, I’ll get it. It’s, um, pet food. Just let me…Just—I’ll be right back.” She turned away and tripped over a crack on the sidewalk, and the parcel, envelope and book all flew out of her arms and landed in front of her, the brown paper ripping to reveal what were unmistakably dead rabbits—frozen.

Seamus ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek and bent to pick up the book and envelope while she reached for the rabbits.

“My roommate bought these in Montrose,” she explained. “Usually we have them shipped, but we ran out and had to get some while we’re waiting for our next order to arrive. I realize it looks odd. They’re for a snake. It’s not mine.”

The snake must be large, Seamus thought, to eat full-grown rabbits.

He glanced back toward a sound behind him, to find his two oldest children and Seuss, the puppy, all breathing steam in the frigid air and gazing at the scene before them with a mixture of disbelief and puzzlement.

Seuss had one ear up and one ear down, and Rory Gorenzi suddenly swallowed hard and looked away. Seamus had the strangest feeling that she was about to cry.

She said, shakily, “My dog was just put down yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” Seamus responded politely. Though he couldn’t really imagine crying over a dog. He’d never had one until now, and he’d only agreed to the puppy in order to demonstrate, at least to himself, that he did have a relationship with his kids.

Rory seemed to make up her mind about something. She crouched down and looked at the puppy, who immediately came toward her and sat down beside her as if finally he’d found security. “You’re a handsome guy,” she said.

Eyeing the frozen rabbits with disgust, Lauren looked as though all her suspicions about the residents of Sultan had been confirmed. “What are those for?”

“My roommate has a…well, a Burmese python. She’s sort of all of ours, but…”

“Can we see it?” asked Beau, unusually engaged. “Can we watch it eat?”

“Eating’s maybe not the best time to see her,” Rory said apologetically. “She’s a bit unpredictable then.”

“How big is this creature?” asked Seamus, inexplicably fascinated by Kurt Gorenzi’s daughter.

“Well, almost thirteen feet. And she has a nice disposition. It’s just that, well, the disposition doesn’t exactly matter with a snake that size. If you see what I mean. Because she weighs about sixty pounds, we follow a protocol when we clean the vivarium or feed her. There always have to be two of us, and preferably three on hand. Actually, we’re trying to find a zoo or reptile rescue place to accept her, because she’s really gotten too big for us to care for. That’s probably much more than you wanted to know about Lola.”

Lauren picked up Seuss and gazed at Rory as if she were a python who might suddenly decide to eat the puppy.

Seamus wondered just what Rory’s “roommate” was like. A boyfriend with a Harley and a love of gigantic pythons?

She wrested the frozen rabbits away from him and said, “I’ll just go to my house, and then I’ll be right back. After that, I’ll take you to the place where you’ll be staying—it’s right around the corner from where I live. Across the alley, so it’s on the next street, but…I’ll be back.”

Rory hurried away, stepping carefully over the ice on Solomon Street and imagining Seamus Lee and his two children watching her.

He was handsome. She supposed she should have expected he would be one of those Telluride types, probably a regular speaker at the film festival and probably with his own private jet tucked into a hangar at the airport. If he wasn’t rich, he looked like he should be. Those new hybrid SUVs weren’t cheap, in any case.

His hair was a bit long and so dark brown it was almost black; his features angular. He was six feet, definitely, and dressed in Gore-Tex and Carhartts. Very Telluride. Very Colorado. Very ski resort. His eyes were green, a true green and not remotely hazel. Probably around forty, she thought. Probably divorced, she also thought. Damn it, she hadn’t even had a chance to look at the packet her father had given her. She’d just had time to get the rabbits out of the school freezer, where Desert had left them in a rush the previous afternoon on her way to an appointment. Desert, the founder of Caldera, their dance troupe—was a massage therapist at the local hot springs; her current boyfriend worked at the mountain school. Lola belonged to Desert, and Rory could not believe that Desert had just casually left the rabbits in the freezer here. Is she trying to ruin my working relationship with my father before it even begins?

That wasn’t Desert’s style, though. Desert simply felt that, well, people should be able to cope with just about anything. She thought rabbits in the freezer were not a big deal, and they were no problem for Rory; but other people might not feel that way. Desert also thought it shouldn’t have been a problem for the State of Colorado, if Rory was less than polite when speaking to a U.S. senator.

Her roommates were home.

In fact, they were treating the frigid day as good weather, and spinning poi—firelit balls attached to cables—out in their backyard. Rory wished she could practice with them, as she’d planned to do, but Seamus Lee and his family had arrived sooner than expected. She hadn’t even had time to figure out their course work. Samantha, whose white-blond hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head and covered with a tight-fitting ski hat, was the spotter, standing by with a fire blanket, just in case. Without taking her eyes from Desert, Samantha edged to the fence to greet Rory.

Desert, whose head was entirely shaven beneath her ski hat, ignored the approach of her roommate and continued spinning the burning balls. Total concentration was required, and still poi spinners got burned. Samantha asked, “Did you bring the rabbits?”

“Yes,” Rory said, with resignation, letting herself in the back gate. She and Samantha were of one mind about Lola—the python had to go. Samantha now refused to have anything to do with the snake beyond assisting—from a safe distance—at feeding time. She’d been bitten the previous summer and she was convinced the snake would have killed her—by constriction—if both Desert and Rory hadn’t been there to pull it off. As it was, she’d needed sixteen stitches to close the bite.

Rory agreed that the snake might have killed Samantha. In fact, Lola had frightened Rory more thoroughly than anything else ever had in her entire life. And Rory was not afraid of snakes.

She wanted to plead with Desert not to do anything that might jeopardize her job. But Desert wouldn’t welcome an interruption to her practice. And on second thought, Rory didn’t think she was up to coping with Desert at the moment.

Desert, christened Naomi Katz, had come to Colorado at the age of eighteen. She’d immediately rechristened herself and had begun living off a trust fund provided by her grandfather, a diamond broker, and also by her mother’s family. Rich and beautiful, she’d trained in Boulder as a massage therapist and as a fire dancer, had moved to Sultan and bought the two-storey Victorian where she, Rory and Samantha now lived. Its exterior was painted bordello pink.

Sometimes, Rory and Samantha asked themselves why they put up with Desert.

But they loved her. And pitied her. And wanted to help her somehow; help her to not make life hard for herself. Desert’s boyfriend was a recent acquisition—they’d been together nine weeks. Rory and Samantha were holding their breaths, dreading the ending. Dreading it for themselves as well as for Desert, who was sensitive and, well, troubled.

Rory said to Samantha, “Can you take these? I’ve got to go show some clients to the Empire Street house.”

“Sure.” Samantha took the rabbits, clutching the bundle against her with one arm. “Go.”

RORY GORENZI WAS ATTRACTIVE, but Seamus had come from Telluride, where beautiful was the norm. He didn’t want another girlfriend; he only wanted to sort through the things his ex-girlfriend had said. He wanted to attend to the flaws she’d pointed out. And they were flaws. He didn’t want to marry again—his experiences with other women reminded him not that Janine had been the perfect wife and mother, but that she hadn’t been. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d been the mother of their kids and, so, the perfect mother for them.

But she’d always needed to prove something. He’d known she was sensitive beneath her sometimes-abrasive exterior. One of his male employees had once said to Janine, “You have more testosterone than I do.”

She’d said, “Thank you!” and had clearly been pleased by the compliment.

She’d been an athlete, but that wasn’t the only thing that had made her challenging. It was the way she’d presented herself. Her certainty that her way was right. She’d been insecure and determined to hide the fact, and in their twelve years of marriage she’d never revealed the source of that insecurity or the reason for it.

She’d been smart—a legal-aid lawyer employed by the Women’s Resource Center, defending the battered and the terrified. And she’d never struck him as particularly maternal, although she’d nursed each child for at least nine months. She’d spoken of it so casually, saying once, “When I get this one off my tits…”

Janine had been difficult, and since her death Seamus had vacillated between the notion that no relationship could be as trying as his marriage had been and the idea that no woman would be as good for his children as Janine had been. And how good was that, really?

Better than you, Seamus.

But that hadn’t been so true, back when his wife was alive. He’d spent time with his kids, talked with them and listened to them.

Janine had listened, too—long enough to get the gist of situations. Then, she’d pronounced judgment. You’re not going to take that from anyone, she would order the seven-year-old who’d just had his lunch money stolen.

Lauren seemed determined to remember her as a sort of warrior mother, an Amazon who had demanded warrior-like behavior from her children, as well. Even these days, Seamus occasionally heard his oldest say, “Mom wouldn’t have stood for that,” or “Mom wouldn’t have put up with that.”

But actually, she might have. To be as much bite as bark required a certain resolve that she lacked. Janine had been a great skier, a hard-riding cyclist, a distance runner, a strong ice-climber and, above all, a fantastic talker. She had talked big. It was the one quality that had come to define her and that Seamus had eventually found most annoying.

Seamus went inside the Sultan Mountain School to see if Kurt was around. Lauren accompanied him, leaving Beau, Caleb and Belle outside with Seuss.

As they stepped into the lobby of the Victorian building, Seamus spotted Kurt, talking to two men in mountaineering clothes and showing them something on a topographical map on one wall. Seamus saw that the map was composed of many geological survey maps joined together.

“You don’t want to go that way,” Kurt was saying. “Too much avalanche danger. I’d recommend taking the V-Dot Road….”

Lauren said, “There’s not going to be anything to do here.”

“You’re going to have plenty to do.”

“I don’t want to spend three months snowshoeing.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what Ms. Gorenzi has in store for you.”

“Is she going to be our teacher?” Lauren seemed suspicious. Of what, Seamus couldn’t be sure, until his oldest daughter added, acidly, “Or our new nanny.”

“Seamus.” Kurt had spotted them. Tall, gray-haired, unpolished, he joined Seamus and held out his hand. “Roads clear?”

“Not bad. Snow-packed on the pass. The usual. You’ve met my daughter, Lauren.”

“I think she was a few heads shorter back then. Nice to see you.” Kurt shook Lauren’s hand. “Where are you in school?”

Very politic, Seamus observed, as Kurt knew Lauren’s age.

“Still in high school,” she said, taking the implied compliment—that she was perhaps a college student—in stride.

“In the Sultan Mountain School, no less.” Seamus smiled at his friend, now recognizing traces of Rory in Kurt’s features. “We met your daughter.”

“Where is she?”

Any disapproval was well-concealed, yet Seamus wondered if it was there, nonetheless. Father-daughter tensions? Kurt had high standards—for himself and others.

“She went to feed her snake,” Lauren said.

“Her roommate’s,” Seamus corrected, as if it were important.

“Ah.” Kurt made no further comment.

“And she’s coming back to take us to the house.”

The front door swung open, and Rory came in, curls flying loose from her ponytail, expression mildly agitated. “Hi. Ready to go?” she asked without preamble.

Seamus wondered if Rory was trying to avoid her father’s notice for some reason.

Kurt seemed to sense it, too. “Everything all right?” he asked mildly.

“Yes.” A tight smile. “And here?”

Kurt nodded.

The phone rang, and a young man behind the hotel’s old reception counter picked it up. “Sultan Mountain School,” he said. Then, “She’s here.”

“It’s Desert.”

Irritated, Rory walked to the phone and said, “Hello?”

“When are you going to be able to practice? We’re planning to do our new combo with the staffs on Friday, and we still don’t have it right.”

“I’m at work now, Desert.”

“This is a responsibility, too.”

Rory taught belly dance and fire-dancing at workshops approximately once a month and gave two students weekly private lessons. The troupe was a commitment she’d made, but it wasn’t a job. “I can’t talk now. I’ll see you later.”

“Well…okay.”

Kurt turned away from Seamus Lee and his family, saying, “Let me know if you need anything.”

CHAPTER TWO

THEY SAT in the living room of the Empire Street house. That is, Lauren sat at the dining room table filling out a questionnaire regarding her personal goals in connection to the Sultan Mountain School, while Seamus did the same at the coffee table. Caleb was already off with a group of kids his own age at a snowboarding class, and Belle was in the next room happily watching a video. Rory sounded out Beau on what he wanted from the school, on his interests. Seuss, the puppy, lay in his crate, head tilted to one side.

Seamus heard Rory say to Beau, “Part of our curriculum requires involvement with the local economy. This means doing something like a job. I have one possibility that’s really the ultimate spot, you know? But I can only give it to somebody trustworthy, who respects the need for confidentiality. You have to be prepared to act like an adult. I figured because of the work your dad does, you might understand and be able to do that.”

Seamus couldn’t stop himself from glancing in their direction. Beau was sitting on a Victorian footstool and Rory occupied the end of a fainting couch. The teenager’s gaze was focused on the floor. Janine had been blond, but only Lauren had inherited her coloring. The boys all had dark brown hair, like his, and so did Belle.

Without looking up, Beau asked, “What is it?”

“It’s working for a woman who makes custom skis. This is a highly competitive industry, and designs and manufacturing methods are closely held secrets. But she’s agreed to take on a Sultan Mountain School student. With your background in math and science, you might be some real help to her.”

“Okay,” Beau said, still not lifting his head.

Rory felt Seamus Lee’s eyes on her. She already knew he found her interesting as a woman. It was clear in the way he looked at her and in his behavior toward her. She found him attractive, as well, but that was beside the point. Seamus was a participant in the Sultan Mountain School, and she mustn’t offend him, or worse, become entangled with him. The latter would certainly cause her father to brand her unprofessional and she didn’t need that.

She wasn’t keen for a relationship, in any event. Though she had had more success keeping boyfriends than holding a job, the men she’d been closest to inevitably had disappointed her. She was tired of men who considered skiing as much as possible to be a life goal. They seemed, well, immature. Seamus Lee, being a father, being the person he seemed to be, was probably relatively mature. He had a real life, and a significant vocation as an artist. And any success whatsoever at raising his children meant that he thought of someone other than himself at least part of the time.

She liked this man for spending time with his children, for knowing his children.

But his interest in her just now was inconvenient.

And she had already begun to wonder exactly what his relationship with his children was like. In her presence, he’d revealed his ignorance of the name of his youngest daughter’s stuffed animal. To Rory, Belle had introduced her “stuffy,” as she called it, as Mouse—and she hadn’t bothered to tell her father its name at all.

They were like a family, and not. The children seemed to tiptoe around Seamus, seemed to want to please him, and yet…well, it was a bit strange, that was all.

In any case, she’d never experienced a truly successful parent-child relationship. Her parents’ marriage had been brief and it was still a mystery to her. And, well, her grandmother was one way and her mother had been another, and her father was different, still.

Rory knew that her mother had been athletic, as her father was, and comfortable in the outdoors. Her grandmother said that Rory’s mother had been into everything natural. Rory thought she herself was probably more like Gran. Gran had been a lounge singer, had worked on cruise ships, had been worshipped by many men—admittedly, Rory hadn’t yet experienced that—and was a true free spirit. Rory’s mother, Kristin Nichols Gorenzi, had died after skiing into a tree. Rory’s father hadn’t been there. Another man had—her mother’s lover. Gran had told Rory this.

Rory’s mother had been pretty, small and blond, with a bright, wide smile. Rory couldn’t even imagine what her mother had been like. But she could believe that the fact she’d died while skiing with another man had helped drive Kurt Gorenzi from his daughter’s life.

“Why don’t I call the ski shop,” Rory said to Beau, “and if the owner’s keen, I’ll take you over tomorrow to meet her. She has one other employee. He’s college age, and he’s really nice. He actually helps my fire-dancing troupe a lot.”

“Your what?”

It was Seamus who’d spoken. Rory glanced up. His green eyes were long-lashed, and his sharp, elegant features and wavy long black hair reminded her of Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings.

“Oh, my roommates and I are fire dancers. Actually, we belly dance, too. It’s both. We call it fire fusion. Our troupe is named Caldera.”

Seamus continued to gaze at her intently, as if he were trying to see inside her. “A woman of unusual talents. How did you get into that?”

“In college…Well, when I was in college—” another failed enterprise “—I saw a troupe perform. And then I took some classes and I was hooked. I actually preferred belly dance and fire-dancing to school.”

The puppy cried and Beau stood up. “I’ll take him out.”

“Thank you, son,” his father said and forced his eyes back to his questionnaire.

Again, Rory caught it—that hungry look, this time on Beau’s face. It was a hunger for words from his father, anything resembling attention from his father.

“What exactly do you do with fire?” Seamus asked.

“Poi and staff twirling. Poi are balls that are attached to tethers—cords. We swing them in patterns, making them go around each other. It’s…quite difficult. But fun. Poi comes from New Zealand, originally, but I don’t think they light the poi on fire. Maybe they’re percussion instruments of some kind there? I’m not sure. Fire-dancing is practiced all over the world. The belly dance we do is called American Tribal Style, which was developed by a woman in San Francisco.”

“Aren’t you afraid of being burned?” asked Seamus, abandoning his questionnaire entirely.

I’m perplexed by how little attention this man is paying to his kids. What is wrong with him? Obviously, her original assessment of him as an involved father had been somewhat off the mark. She was reminded of her own father; and, consequently, she felt for the Lee children.

“Well—I’ve been burned. It happens.” She pulled up her sleeves to display minor scars on her forearms. “We try to avoid it. And we’re extremely good at first aid. But we practice and practice and practice, repeatedly, without fire, before we ever light up.”

Seamus tried to shift his attention away from Rory’s heart-shaped face, which struck him as elfin and mysterious. She plays with fire….

Too much like Janine.

But completely unlike his wife, too.

Because he could tell that Rory wasn’t a boaster. She was clearly…just Rory. Already, he felt completely at ease in her presence.

Beau had opened Seuss’s crate, and the puppy rushed out, wiggling all over. He jumped on Beau and the boy petted him enthusiastically.

“Don’t do that,” Rory said before she could stop herself. Engage brain, then mouth, she reminded herself too late.

“Why not?” Seamus asked.

“Because soon that dog’s going to be eighty pounds or more, and you don’t want anything that size jumping on people. So don’t reward him with attention for it now.”

Beau looked up at her, with his father’s eyes. He stopped petting the puppy and tried to hold him by his collar.

The puppy’s lead lay on top of the crate, and Beau fastened it to his collar. They headed out the front door.

Seamus gazed at the questionnaire. What are you hoping to get from your experience at the Sultan Mountain School?

He bent over the coffee table and wrote, I’m doing this for my kids. I want to get them away from Telluride, from the atmosphere of entitlement there. I want them to live someplace where things are a bit different and to understand that they’re not better than other people, just luckier than most of them. Maybe I should’ve taken them to Rio de Janeiro instead, to the favelas. But I thought a town here that hasn’t yet been spoiled by money might be the answer. For myself, I’d like to feel more competent in the outdoors and more aware of my environment. Some avalanche knowledge would also be a good thing.

The next question: Anything special you’d like to do during your time at the Sultan Mountain School?

He reminded himself that Kurt might read his answer. See Rory Gorenzi fire dance, wouldn’t be the most tactful response. He wrote, Surprise me, and then put down his pen.

Lauren finished filling out her questionnaire, brought it to Rory and sat down on a stiff velvet couch.

“Well, he’ll be good protection,” Seamus finally said, thinking about the dog.

Rory reminded herself that saying too much tended to get her in trouble. But she had to say this. “Actually, that’s one of the biggest misunderstandings people have about dogs. In truth, we protect them. We’re their only protectors. Yes, a trained protection dog can bite and hold on to an assailant. And, yes, some people will think twice about messing with you, if you’re accompanied by a big, powerful dog. But our role with all pets is that of their protector. The best way to protect dogs is by obedience training them.” As she spoke, Rory thought of Lola. Yes, in taking Lola into her home and her life, Desert had agreed to be the snake’s protector. It didn’t matter that Lola was a reptile and would never have a special attachment to Desert, and that the python might kill any of them randomly, for reasons unknown to them.

Rory turned her attention to Lauren Lee. The girl was tall, coltish and blond. She carried herself in a way that suggested she was used to being admired, used to popularity.

Rory picked up her questionnaire, skimming the answers.

Since I’m here, I’d like to improve my snowboarding, progress into backcountry snowboarding, become more self-sufficient.

Since I’m here?

Lauren, perhaps, would have preferred to remain in Telluride.

“Tomorrow,” Rory said, “avalanche conditions willing, you and I can go up to Colorado Bowl and snowboard.”

“You snowboard?” Lauren asked, possibly the longest sentence she’d yet uttered to Rory.

“I do. We’ll snowshoe up, packing our boards. Why don’t you have your stuff together at eight? We’ll check our packs to make sure we have everything.”

THAT EVENING, while Beau stayed with Caleb and Belle, Seamus and Lauren walked the puppy around the block and returned through the alley between their house and what turned out to be Rory Gorenzi’s home. Seamus knew where they were when he and Lauren saw swirling fire inside the pink house’s chain-link fence. The fire seemed to streak through the air as two women made tethered fireballs swing and arc around each other. The young man Seamus had seen that morning at the Sultan Mountain School sat drumming. He was dressed for frigid weather, but his hands were covered only with thin fingerless gloves. The women wore winter athletic tights and jackets, and their heads were covered with hats.

Their walk had been quiet, with observations related to air temperature (frigid), the amount of ice on the streets (lots), and Seuss’s strength (considerable). A conversation for strangers. Seamus knew his daughter—and yet he didn’t. They lived in the same house, and yet their paths almost never crossed.

Elizabeth’s right, he thought. I don’t know them.

It had always seemed right for his children to have full schedules. Lauren spent many weekends and summers away at camps—soccer camp, dance camp, cheerleading camp. So did the others, all but Belle, and Belle had a nanny. They all, of course, had Fiona, too, that remarkable woman who had entered their lives like Mary Poppins the year before Janine’s death. The children all had Fiona, always.

Except at the moment.

His name’s Mouse, Belle had told Rory. He’s a stuffy.

Stuffy. How long since he’d heard that word? Belle must have learned it from Lauren. The kids were much closer to each other than they were to him. Protective of each other, as well.

Lauren gazed at the three fire-spinners. “I’d like to do that.”

Seamus thought it looked dangerous and remembered what Rory had said about getting burned. But he didn’t discourage his daughter. Hadn’t he brought the children to Sultan to embrace a different lifestyle? Though, of course, there must be a fire dancer or two in Telluride. Certainly, such troupes had performed there.

Janine would have wanted to try spinning poi, just to prove she could and that she wasn’t afraid. Everything she did was intended to illustrate her strength, her independence.

Including the damned gun.

Seamus and Lauren lingered at the fence, watching. Seamus’s mind shifted to Ki-Rin, to the character he had created—the character who was his livelihood. He could easily develop an anime character like Rory to fit into the world of Ki-Rin. Perhaps a fire goddess of some kind…Fifteen minutes later, the women finished dancing and extinguished their poi.

Rory glanced up and saw them. She walked over to the fence.

Seamus said, “Very impressive.”

“It was a good practice. Everything went right.”

“Can we hope for a glimpse of the snake?” he asked.

“Beau would be disappointed,” Rory told him, “if you got to see Lola and he didn’t.”

Of course, she was right. Understanding his kids better than he did.

She told Lauren, “I better get to bed, so I’m ready for snowboarding tomorrow.” And to Seamus, she said, “You’ll be starting avalanche school. It will be a four-day session, with classroom activities in the morning and field practice in the afternoon.”

“The kids should have it, too,” he remarked. “At least, Lauren and Beau.”

“They will. Just not on the same schedule as you.”

Watching her smile, Seamus wondered if she had some surprise up her sleeve. “I thought you would be teaching all of us,” he said.

“I will—on different days. All the instructors rotate. I’m your program coordinator.” Her breath steamed as she spoke, and Seamus thought again how pretty she was.

There was no reason for his attraction to Rory Gorenzi to feel so inappropriate. Except that this was the first extended amount of time he’d spent with his children—all of them together—since Janine’s death. He feared that the temptation to pursue Rory was just another way to avoid their company.

I need to avoid them.

He had found Janine after the accident. Forensic evidence had proved that neither he, nor anyone else, had killed her—and had established that it wasn’t suicide.

No way would it have been suicide, in any case. Janine would never have taken that way out, and she hadn’t wanted to go.

It had been an accident. A stupid accident. Because she’d decided she needed to carry a gun. Because she’d wanted to carry one. Because she’d needed to prove to the world how tough she was.

The anger simmered within him all over again, and he tried to block it out. And hoped that none of his children would mention the subject of their mother for the next three months.

“I WANT FIONA!”

Belle’s sobs were something Seamus hadn’t anticipated. Even less had he anticipated that his own daughter would not be comforted by his arms.

Lauren reached for her. “Baby Belle, it’s okay. Look. You’re upsetting Mouse. He’s going to cry, too.”

“He misses Fiona!” Belle said.

Seamus thought in amazement of the slim, sure elderly woman now kayaking in Baja. Fiona, with her long white braid and her love of poetry and opera and ballet and openness to learning about all that was new.

Seamus surrendered Belle to his oldest daughter. The four-year-old turned and gazed at him with what looked like a combination of suspicion and curiosity. He could still smell the child scent of her and marveled that it should seem foreign to him, instead of familiar.

“Mouse wants you to sleep with us,” Belle told Lauren. “Please.”

Seamus’s reaction was to forbid it, on the impulse that Belle should be taught independence. Then, as if from long ago, he remembered the fears of his other children when they were younger, back in the days when he had known them. He would have to be a monster not to want this child, with her small tear-streaked face, to feel safe and comforted.

“Is it okay?” Lauren asked hesitantly, looking at him.

He realized that she didn’t call him Dad. She didn’t call him anything. “Of course.”

Lauren smiled and told Belle, “We can’t let Mouse feel lonely. I’ll sleep in the other bed.” She nodded to the room’s second twin. “We’ll share. Okay, baby?”

“Mouse loves you,” Belle told her sister.

CHAPTER THREE

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Rory and Lauren strapped on snowshoes over their snowboarding boots. They carried packs made by CamelBak, with water reservoirs, as well as emergency blankets, and small first-aid kits. Rory also wore an avalanche beacon and carried her shovel in her pack, though they were not going into any avalanche zone.

“This looks pretty tame,” Lauren pointed out, although she was breathing hard from the hike uphill.

“Good. We’re just starting out with this. The country around here has a lot of avalanche danger, so I don’t want to take you anywhere hairier until you’ve gone through the course and learned to use a beacon.”

“I wish I could take a course in fire-dancing,” Lauren said.

“I don’t know how your dad would feel about that. And I’ve never taught a minor with fire. Of course, you don’t actually learn twirling or poi with fire. You learn without. It’s essential to practice for months, to get really good, before you bring fire into it.”

“I’d practice without fire,” Lauren told her. “But I’m not afraid of fire.”

Rory glanced at her, noting the remark. She turned the comment over in her mind, knowing it would have relevance to snowboarding and everything else this girl did.

“I am,” Rory said. “I’m afraid of getting burned and I’m afraid of breaking bones snowboarding and skiing, and I’m afraid of being buried in an avalanche. It doesn’t stop me doing any of the things I like to do, but it does make me determined to do things the right way. Fear is what helps us stay alive.”

“I guess,” Lauren said without conviction. “Our family’s not fearful, though. I’m not, in any case.”

Why did she keep pointing that out? Rory wondered. What was wrong with a little healthy fear?

They made the run together, Rory following Lauren. Lauren was obviously an accomplished snowboarder. Her form was excellent. Probably, she’d had the best teachers in Telluride.

Rory led her up another slope, breathing hard as she made her way over the powder in her snowshoes. They snowboarded together for three hours, then headed back to the Empire Street house in Rory’s car, a black Toyota RAV4 that she’d bought used. As they turned down Main Street, however, Rory spotted a familiar shape wearing a day pack and walking with the help of an ornately curved walking stick. Her grandmother wore black wool pants and an imitation ermine coat, and her still-thick white hair was swept up in a French twist beneath her matching fake fur hat.

Snow fell heavily as Rory pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. “Gran, do you want a ride?”

“Of course not, Rory.” Her mother’s mother frowned with interest at Lauren. “I will fall apart if I don’t keep up with my walking.”

Walking, dancing, singing, yoga, Rory filled in. The way Sondra had raised her—good grief, she’d learned to ski by being guided down slopes between her grandmother’s legs—seemed to have determined that she pursue an active, healthy lifestyle. Part of her love of fire-dancing and belly dance had come from her grandmother’s enthusiasm when she’d learned of Rory’s new interests; without being told, Sondra had seemed to understand that what Rory liked was the peaceful concentration required to work with fire.

Feeling a surge of love for Sondra, Rory told the woman, “This is one of my dad’s clients, Lauren Lee. This is Sondra Nichols,” she told Lauren, “my grandmother.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Lauren said dutifully.

As they went on their way, Lauren asked, “Is your grandfather alive, too?”

“No. He died before I was born. She’s been widowed thirty-five years, and as long as I can remember, she’s always said that she’ll never marry again.”

“Like my dad.”

Rory glanced over in interest.

Lauren said, “He has girlfriends, of course. In fact, don’t be surprised if he tries to make you the next one. But he never marries them.”

Rory couldn’t read the teenager’s tone—not with accuracy. “Do you wish he would?”

“I don’t really care,” Lauren said. “It’s not like he has that much to do with us, anyhow.”

The reply shocked Rory, and bothered her. She knew what it was to have a father who didn’t “have that much to do” with her. She’d never held it against her father, believing he was devastated by her mother’s death—and by her betrayal. But in Seamus Lee, who had four children, one of them just four years old, noninvolvement seemed criminal.

“I thought he had the kind of job…” Rory stopped abruptly.

“Oh, he could spend time with us. And he used to, before my mom died. But not anymore.”

“How did your mother die?” Reflecting that she and the Lee children shared motherless status, Rory pulled up outside the Lees’ temporary home. Lights were on inside, illuminating the Greek Revival house against the gray afternoon, making it warm and welcoming.

“A handgun accident. The forensic people figured she was loading it and didn’t know it was already loaded or something like that. I don’t really know how handguns work.”

Neither did Rory. She wondered why Seamus Lee’s wife had been loading a handgun in the first place.

“She didn’t take shit from anyone,” Lauren said.

Assertiveness through firearms? thought Rory. No fear, handguns…There was something amiss with this family, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

And it’s none of your business, anyhow.

Rory longed to ask why—about the handgun—but it seemed a delicate question to put to this girl. Instead, she said, “I want to get you into an avalanche class as soon as possible. But, in the meantime, how would you feel about teaching snowboarding to kids at the ski area?”

“To little kids?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” Lauren seemed to be thinking it over. “I could do that.”

“I think you could, too,” Rory agreed.

“What about fire-dancing?” she asked Rory. “Can you teach me?”

“Without fire. Possibly so. Let me look into it.”

Leaving Lauren at the house, Rory drove out to San Juan Ski and Snowboard to check on Beau and see how he was getting along in his new part-time job. She found him happily learning to use a jigsaw and not at all keen to return to Empire Street. Nonetheless, he was in an afternoon telemark class.

Telemark, an old form of free-heel skiing, allowed the skier freedom from the necessity of chairlifts and greater access to the backcountry. The style of skiing emphasized controlled turns, the proper execution of which was an art form.

Gigi Parks, the ski designer, pulled a pair of telemark skis off the wall and pushed them in Beau’s direction. “Give these a try and tell me what you think.”

Her assistant, Rory’s friend Woody, called goodbye to Beau as he and Rory left.

Rory was still preoccupied by the fact that the children’s mother had died in a handgun accident. She wanted to know the facts, and there was only one family member she could ask. The two of them had time booked for an hour of telemarking that afternoon, after he finished avalanche school.

Beau broke into her thoughts. “I like that place. I feel like I’m learning to do something useful.”

Rory considered this remark. “I’m glad you like it. I thought that might be a good fit for you.”

“Is it a group telemark class?”

“I think there are two other students.” She braked at a stop sign, then glanced over at him. “Is that okay?”

“I hate group lessons.”

Rory didn’t ask why. When people said that, there was usually one reason: fear of ridicule.

“Try it today,” she said, “and I’ll check with you tonight and see how it went. If it’s no good for you, we might be able to manage a solo lesson or two.”

The look he shot her was one of naked gratitude.

What a group these children were.

On Empire Street, Rory found Caleb outside on a snowskate. The seven-year-old was clearly a skateboarder. The snowskate consisted of a skateboard deck balanced on a short, wide ski, creating something that was a cross between snowboard and skateboard and perfect for transportation on Sultan’s icy streets.

However, Caleb was not wearing a helmet, and this wouldn’t fly with her. “Where’s your dad?” she asked as she got out of the car.

“He’s not back from avalanche school yet. Lauren’s watching us.”

“Well, you need to have a helmet on, Caleb.”

He made a face that promised lack of cooperation. “I don’t have to,” he said. “I don’t fall.”

“Congratulations on not falling, but while you’re here in Sultan, you’re learning safety from the Sultan Mountain School. That means wearing a helmet.”

“It’s my snowskate.”

“And no one makes you wear a helmet at home?”

He’d clearly been caught out. He glared at Rory and stalked inside. Caleb, age seven, might turn out to be the rebel of this lot, she thought. He wore his hair below his shoulders, and even at seven he had the confidence of someone who knew himself to be a capable athlete.

Rory followed Beau inside the house and found Lauren rubbing the German shepherd puppy’s nose in a puddle on the floor. Lauren started to drag the dog back to his crate, and Rory said, “Actually, what you want to do now is take him outside to wherever you want him to pee. Then, you’ve got to clean up with carpet stuff that will neutralize the pheromones. There’s some in the cupboard beside the sink.”

Lauren cast her a look that seemed to weigh all these instructions. She said, “Beau, take Seuss outside. You have your boots on already.”

Beau grabbed the leash and said, “What am I supposed to do?”

Teaching children how to train their puppy was beyond the call of duty, and Rory had hoped to grab a snack before telemarking with Seamus Lee. Instead, she gave the two siblings better ideas for corrections than “rub his nose in it,” made sure Caleb was wearing his snowboarding helmet and instructed Lauren and Beau that this was strict school policy.

THIS TIME, they took his car and drove to the head of a trail and out onto a long, gentle slope where they could practice turns.

Rory remembered how determined she was to know more about the handgun, but there were too many other things to attend to in the meantime. First—Caleb and the helmet.

“He knows he’s to wear a helmet,” Seamus said. “The woman who works for me always makes him wear one. She’s an older lady who, well, runs my household, if you will. She’s something of a renaissance woman. If my kids have any good values, it’s because of her.”

“Good values, such as…?”

“Well, she has many interests. She loves ballet and poetry. She gets them reading classics and has actually gotten them listening to opera, at times. And, of course, she encourages them to spend time outdoors. Climbing trees, skiing. Enjoying nature. And she’s gotten Beau to do some writing. She’s kayaking in Baja right now.”

“It sounds as though you’re fortunate to have her working for you,” Rory said carefully.

“Yes.” Seamus fell silent, frowning as he considered the road ahead.

Lauren tells me your wife died in an accident with a handgun. As Rory played this over in her mind, she knew she could not put it to him that way. Feigning ignorance? Yes, that was best. “Are you divorced?”

“No, my wife passed away when Belle was one.”

“I’m sorry. How did she die?” Rory hated the fact that her need to know the why of the handgun was stronger than any wish to save this man the pain of discussing his wife’s death.

“She was checking her handgun and it fired, and she was hit by a ricocheting bullet. At least, that’s what the forensic experts thought.”

“Was this in Telluride?”

“Yes, believe it or not. Janine represented battered women, and she’d been threatened by some of her clients’ spouses. So, she took to carrying a gun. It wasn’t…” He stopped.

Rory glanced at him, her eyes lingering on his cleft chin. He was a mystery, and she felt her interest piqued by what she could not reach within him.

He didn’t continue, so she finished the thought for him. “It wasn’t what you would have done?”

“No. It wasn’t.”

Rory didn’t know how to convey what she needed to get across. Maybe you don’t need to say it, Rory. Saying too much is what gets you in trouble. But there was nothing bad about what she wanted to say. “Lauren seems utterly fearless.”

“Nobody’s utterly fearless.”

The man was remote, Rory decided. Why? Possibly, Seamus Lee was simply unfriendly and uninterested in his children. But hadn’t Lauren said that he used to be different before his wife had died?

“I apologize for bringing up a painful subject,” she said at last.

“It’s better you know,” he replied shortly. “You’re spending time with my kids, after all.”

They spoke little after that. Rory directed him to a turnout near the trailhead, and they climbed out of his SUV and snugged up their boots and put on their skis. “You’ve telemarked before,” Rory clarified.

“Not as much as I’d like. My work is time-consuming.”

“Can you make a tele turn?” she asked.

“Barely.”

She grinned. “Just so we know where we’re starting.” It occurred to her that rather than putting Beau in a group telemark class, she could teach him and his father together. That would let Beau spend some time with his dad—and probably relax many of his fears about group classes.

They put skins on their skis—adhesive cloth trimmed to the dimensions of each ski. Skins allowed the skis to glide forward but kept them from sliding backward, making it possible for the skier to climb slopes.

Seamus followed Rory as she started up the route she’d chosen, onto a steeply climbing trail. She moved confidently, as he painfully remembered skiing with Janine. As soon as the memory surfaced, the anger came, too. He saw in his mind her pugnacious jaw, heard her voice and her conversation, scattered with surfing and snowboarding slang. Her tough act. He’d been attracted to her in part because of the vulnerability he’d been certain lay beneath that tough exterior. He’d seen a wounded woman with a wounded child trapped inside, and he’d never stopped wanting to reach the vulnerable person beneath.

And he had reached her. But seldom. And by then, too, he’d known better than to let her know what he’d seen.

Lauren seems fearless.

He’d known that what Rory had said was not what she believed. Rory had seen Lauren repeating her mother’s tough act. And she’d seen something amiss, as he did. Did Rory have any idea what to do with a teenager who had chosen self-destructive toughness as her guide in life?

Because the real Lauren was not that tough. She was the loving older sister who gave up her own room to make sure Belle felt safe at night. After he’d said good night to Lauren and Belle the night before, when he was lying alone in the double bed in the master suite, he’d realized he should have praised Lauren for her kindness to Belle.

They climbed the trail for a mile, and Seamus began to wonder when Rory would stop and if he’d have to ask her to take a break. But suddenly she slowed, turned her skis slightly and looked at him. “Still breathing?” she asked with a grin.

It was not Janine’s type of challenging grin, the kind of grin that noted her own athletic superiority. Rory’s grin seemed more like an invitation to have fun; a way of saying, It’s downhill all the way now and you’re going to love it, and so will I.

“Breathing hard,” he admitted.

“Let’s put our skins away and have some water,” Rory suggested. “Then, we can make some turns.”

Seamus studied the slope she’d chosen, leading off the trail and ending in a gentle bowl.

“Are we agreed,” Rory said, “that it’s better to be safe than speedy?”

“We’re agreed.”

“Are you comfortable with this slope?”

“It looks perfect for my level.”

She nodded with satisfaction. The sun had come out and they peeled the skins off their skis, stowed them and stood in the afternoon sun, drinking water. Then, Rory suggested, “I’d like you to go first, if you’re comfortable with that.”

She gave him a few pointers, advising him to let his skis choose the most natural course and to slow himself before he found that he was going too fast.

Impressed with her guidance, Seamus pushed off, following the instructions, letting his skis pick the fall line and remembering advice he’d received in previous telemark classes. He made two not-very-pretty turns and pulled up on the edge of the slope in the shade of the trees to watch Rory descend.

She skied gracefully, seeming part of the snow, one with her skis, her motion fitted exactly to the terrain.

When she stopped, he said, “You’re good. Did your dad teach you?”

She wore sunglasses, but he felt the intensity of the gaze behind them as she looked at him. “No,” she replied. For a moment, he thought she was going to add something, but instead she spoke to him about keeping his weight forward and also about letting the distribution of weight on his skis make each turn for him.

They skied together, and there was an immense and peaceful quiet in the snow and trees, with the mountains above them. Though he was more tired physically than he could remember being for months, Seamus also felt rested. What was more, he was looking forward to returning to the Empire Street house and seeing his children.

At the bottom of one run, Rory realized he was gazing at her intently. “What?”

“I want to put you into Ki-Rin’s world,” he said.

Rory blinked, remembering his vocation.

“Each of my children has a character,” he said. “In Ki-Rin’s world.”

“That’s beautiful,” she exclaimed, trying to downplay the implications of his making a character for her. The thought made her feel warm, set her off-balance. This can’t happen, she thought. The job, Rory. Keep your job.

When they returned to the car, Seamus put their skis on the overhead rack. Rory, he noticed, didn’t object to the courtesy. He turned to find her watching him and she immediately blushed and turned away.

Seamus felt a small smile forming on his lips. “We’re making pizza tonight. Would you like to join us? If you’ve had enough of the Lee family, I understand, but it would be great to have you.”

Rory checked her watch without glancing at him again. “I teach a class at six. Belly dance and fire dance. By the way, your daughter has asked to learn fire dance, and I could teach her to spin poi and twirl staffs without anything on fire. You’d have to come with her to the Sultan Recreation Center and sign a release.”

Seamus pondered Lauren’s sometimes tough act, which reminded him of Janine at her worst. Would the activities Rory was referring to increase his daughter’s need to prove that she was fearless? “Without fire,” he repeated.

“Yes. I never teach with fire this time of year, anyhow. We don’t have a facility in town that is insured for it. But, in any case, Lauren would need lots of practice before that stage.”

“She’s not reckless,” he admitted, almost as though arguing a point—though with whom he couldn’t have said. “Sure. I’ll come and sign the waiver, and you can bring her back afterward and join us for pizza. How long does the class last?”

“Till seven-thirty. Half of it is belly dance. The other half is poi spinning and staff twirling.”

INCLUDING LAUREN, Rory had four students. It seemed a small class, but Sultan was a small, remote town. Though tourism was reviving the local economy, Seamus could tell from its sleepy winter streets that Sultan still struggled. He signed Lauren’s waiver and then headed back home, where Beau was watching Caleb and Belle during his brief absence.

The Sultan Mountain School provided day care for Belle when Seamus couldn’t be with her and when she wasn’t in ski school. At four years of age, she couldn’t be expected to be outside or in classes all day. Tomorrow, he knew, Rory would supervise Lauren teaching his youngest daughter’s ski class. He saw the pitfalls of this already. Belle would cling to Lauren and make it impossible for her to work with the other children in the class.

Not my problem. He felt guilty for the thought. If his children caused problems, it was his problem.

When he got home, he checked the pizza dough, which Beau had kneaded in his absence. Half an hour before Rory and Lauren were due back, he and Beau put the dough onto two pizza pans and began assembling toppings. Belle was playing on the floor in the other room with Caleb and the puppy.

From the kitchen, Seamus heard her shriek and then howl.

He hurried to the living room, Beau right behind him, and found Belle hugging herself and sobbing, “He bit me!” Seuss was cowering under the dining table.

Seamus saw, with something like horror, that indeed there was a small puncture mark on his daughter’s arm.

“You were bugging him!” Caleb said.

Seamus didn’t know what to do about a puppy bite. What if this meant he had a vicious dog on his hands?

He said, “Let’s put Seuss in his crate.” He walked to the dining room table and scooped the puppy from beneath it.

Seuss looked as if he didn’t understand at all what it was that he’d done.

Seamus reached for Belle and picked her up. I’ve hardly held this child, he thought, as he had so many times in the past forty-eight hours, since Fiona had left for Baja. “Now, calm down and tell me what happened. Then, we’ll wash off your arm.”

Belle’s sobs became hiccups and finally stopped. Seamus examined the bite again. Just one tiny puncture wound. Did he need to take her to the clinic? It was an animal bite, after all. Seuss had received all his shots, but still…

“He probably was teething on her,” Beau said. “He does that to me a lot.” He held out his hand and pointed to a small scab. “His teeth are sharp. They’re puppy teeth, and that’s why they’re so sharp.”

Seamus wondered what his son’s authority was for this statement.

Caleb said, “Belle was climbing around and jumping over Seuss and stuff, and he was excited, and he growled a little and bit her. It looked like he was playing.”

“He probably was,” Beau said.

“Well, let’s go wash your arm, Belle,” Seamus decided.

He was just applying a Band-Aid when the front door opened.

Belle followed her father down the hall to the front room. “Lauren, Seuss bit me!”

“He did what?” Lauren asked.

Rory sank down on the couch to listen to the story of the puppy bite.

Seamus turned to her. “Should I take her to the clinic?”

Rory eyed the wound, which Belle was showing Lauren, and shook her head. She was exhausted, and hungry, but she couldn’t ignore the situation that had presented itself.

Seamus Lee had chosen to acquire a dog that would grow to be large and powerful. That meant he was going to have to train the dog and his children, and he was going to have to supervise his children with the dog during the process.

Dog training is not part of my job description, she thought with some irritation.

But could she turn her back on this?

She remembered her beloved Gandalf.

She could not stand to see such a dog ruined by not receiving the training he needed. So many dogs ended their lives in shelters because no one had helped them learn rules for living with people.

“He needs to be in obedience class,” she said.

“There probably isn’t one in Sultan,” Seamus remarked. “Is there?”

I can’t do it all. I can’t do everything! But she probably knew more about German shepherds than anyone else in Sultan. “I’ll see what I can find out. Look, all of you have to discourage him from chewing on people. He probably nipped Belle, and those milk teeth are sharp.”

“Like I said,” Beau put in.

“Here, let’s let him out.” She sat on the floor and opened the crate. The puppy tumbled out, scrambling into her lap. He began licking her hands, then teething on one of them. Rory firmly and gently closed his jaw with her hand, lifted his head so that his eyes met hers, and growled, soft and low. Then, she released him. When he sat comfortably in her lap again, she petted him and said, “Good boy.” Briefly, she gave them some guidelines for correcting the puppy, then said, “But I’m not a dog trainer, and you need to take this puppy to school. I recommend lots of obedience lessons. Dogs usually like them, and the training helps all of you learn to be consistent.”

Seamus said ruefully, “I didn’t realize a dog would be so much work.”

She shouldn’t say it. It was too opinionated. They wouldn’t like her if she said it.

But she had to say it, because Seuss was a good puppy and had a chance of becoming a great dog. “If you’re not prepared to put in the time, you should return him to the breeder. It’s not fair to him, and you just can’t have an animal like this and not train him.”

“I’ll train him,” Beau said. “We’re not taking him back. I’ll train him.”

Rory believed him. There was a steadiness to Beau that she liked and admired. But she knew the conversation about the dog was not over. Someone also needed to speak to Seamus about supervising Seuss with his children and their playmates and with teaching his children how to treat the puppy.

Her instincts told her to stay out of the situation, to keep her mouth shut. But this wasn’t for the usual reason—that saying too much tended to get her in trouble.

It was because, as Seamus Lee had put her skis on the car that day, she’d felt that mysterious whisper of being cared for, being looked after, being cherished. The whisper had suggested a future—an imaginary future, just happy thoughts in her mind, about a man like Seamus caring for her. Wanting to make a Ki-Rin character for her. Yet she couldn’t afford to think that way, even casually. She wanted so badly to succeed at this job, to earn her father’s esteem.

She needed to back off from Seamus Lee and his family—from their emotional lives.

Yet, damn it, someone had to talk to him about the dog.

CHAPTER FOUR

EVEN BELLE WANTED to see Lola, the Burmese python, so after pizza the entire Lee family followed Rory back to her house. On the way, she considered how to segue from acknowledging the inappropriateness of a Burmese python in a household with children, to responsible dog ownership.

Stay out of it, Rory.

Samantha was working—she waited tables at one of the two restaurants in Sultan that remained open during the winter—but Desert was home. Rory found her housemate painting her toenails.

“Desert, these are some of SMS’s new clients. Seamus Lee and his children—Lauren, Beau, Caleb and Belle. Seamus, everyone, this is Desert Katz. They’ve come to look at Lola.”

Seamus watched as Desert stood up, her long flared pants skimming the Victorian floor, one of those authentic patterned floral floors, obviously restored with care. Rory’s roommate’s head was shaved; her skin bore many tattoos, and her nose, eyebrow and lip were all pierced. Ears, too.

She was beautiful—with model good looks, cheekbones, figure and all.

“Oh, I’ll take you down,” she said. “We can get her out.”

“No,” Rory said quickly. “We’ll just look at her through the glass. Let’s not bother her.”

“She ate yesterday. She’s going to be pretty lazy, in any case,” Desert argued.

Rory shook her head, her expression clearly anxious.

Desert said, “Well, whatever. Come on downstairs.”

The basement was lined with stone and surprisingly warm. Seamus noted that Rory kept close to her housemate—as if to prevent her from opening the large vivarium that stood in the center of the basement. It was a floor-to-ceiling unit—a glass room—and inside, a huge white-and-yellow snake with red eyes lay atop a boulder.

“Lola is an albino Burmese python,” Rory said.

“Awesome,” exclaimed Beau, coming closer.

“Would you like to hold her?” Desert asked.

“Sure!”

Rory said, “Actually, let’s not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Desert told her.

“Desert, there are too many people here. It’s too stressful for Lola.”

Seamus said, “Beau, let’s not do that.”

“She’s really gentle,” Desert insisted.

Seamus could see that Rory was infuriated by her roommate’s obstinate refusal to listen.

Rory faced his family. “Beau, the reason we’re not taking Lola out is that she is a wild animal—a large one. She weighs more than fifty pounds, and last summer she bit our other housemate and might have tried to kill her if we hadn’t been there. That’s why we keep her safely inside her vivarium.”

“She wouldn’t have killed Samantha. She was just confused,” Desert insisted.

Caleb said, “I want a snake, Dad. Not a big one. A little one.”

Rory blinked and Seamus wondered why. But he, too, heard the strangeness of one of his children actually calling him Dad. Twenty-four hours around his family, and Rory had noticed that his own children were like strangers to him—and they treated him as a stranger.

“They’re a fair amount of work,” Rory said to Caleb. “But there are plenty of smaller snakes that make good pets. You definitely don’t want one that will grow as big as Lola. But corn snakes are gentle and fairly inexpensive. Here, check out this book, Caleb.” She went to a bookcase against one wall and selected a large colored encyclopedia of snakes.

Watching, Seamus felt enchanted—by her kindness toward his children, he supposed. Simply by her. She was pretty, but he had known more beautiful women. Hell, her off-balance roommate was more beautiful than Rory. But the roommate didn’t have Rory’s attentive presence, her instinctive caring—at least that was what he thought he saw in Rory Gorenzi. That when his children were present, her motivation was to listen, to attend, to care.

Desert seemed immature, in comparison to Rory—and less of the real world. He wondered why Rory lived with a woman like that, with a rather frightening zoo animal for a pet.

“What happened with your roommate?” Lauren asked, gazing through the glass at the python.

“Well, Lola may not look like a lot of work, but it takes three of us to move her. We used to take turns feeding her, and then one day, we don’t know why, she grabbed Samantha’s leg and wouldn’t let go. We didn’t even know how to make her let go at that time. Now we keep some cold water ready in the refrigerator. We bring it out before we have to go into the enclosure. Supposedly, running cold water in her mouth will make her let go. Anyhow, Samantha needed stitches.”

“It was that essential oil she was wearing,” Desert insisted.

Rory shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, now we never open the enclosure unless there are three adults present.”

Belle stood beside Lauren and reached her arms up. “I don’t like the big snake.”

Seamus felt rejected by the preschooler and wasn’t sure why. It was natural that Belle should turn to Lauren, since she knew her sister better than she knew him.

But before his oldest could pick up Belle, he himself raised her into his arms. Belle seemed momentarily surprised—and wary. But then she leaned against him sleepily, gazing up at his face.

Watching, Rory smiled, and Seamus felt his heart leap. She was smiling at the two of them; at the sight of him with his youngest daughter.

Desert fell into step behind Seamus as he carried Belle upstairs, accompanied by the other children. Belle stared at Desert and asked, “Why don’t you have hair?”

“I shave it off because I like how I look this way. Want to feel it?”

As they reached the kitchen, Belle stretched out a hesitant hand to touch Desert’s head.

A young woman with glasses was just coming in the front door. “Oh, hi.”

Seamus started, recognizing her face but unable to place it.

Rory introduced Seamus and his children to her second housemate, Samantha, who said to Seamus, “We’ve met. I interned as a legal aide at the Women’s Resource Center one summer when your wife was there.”

Ice chilled his veins. She’d known Janine.

“I thought I knew you,” he managed to say.

Rory told his family, “Well, I’ll see all of you tomorrow. Practice with your broom handle, Lauren, so you don’t forget what we learned tonight.”

Fire staff practice, Seamus thought, as his daughter smiled in response. The reminder of Janine and how she’d died faded away, leaving only a faint chill. Seamus guided his children out into the dark and the cold, but felt as if he was carrying some memory of warmth with him.

And perhaps that of Rory Gorenzi, too.

“YOU KNEW HIS WIFE?” Rory whispered the words, anxious they not be overheard by the people walking away on the other side of the door.

Samantha nodded with a sad half smile. “She was my boss.”

“That’s the summer you were in Telluride.” And now Rory remembered Samantha returning to Sultan and saying her boss had been shot and had died, although she’d never said any more than that. Samantha had hated Telluride, though she’d liked the work. Rory was torn between demanding to know everything and showing a little restraint. It’s just morbid curiosity, she thought. Anyhow, Seamus already told me what happened.

“What was she like?”

Samantha’s blue eyes grew curious. “You like him?”

Rory waved a hand casually, indicating indifference.

Expression skeptical, Samantha said, “Well, Janine didn’t talk about him much. In fact, I’d worked for her three weeks before I even knew she had kids. And she was nursing the littlest one then. When she talked about any of them, it was her oldest daughter; then her daughters, plural. So it was a while longer before I knew she had boys.”

“What did she talk about?”

“Work. Batterers. Perps. Domestic terrorists, as she called them. Psychopaths, sociopaths. Big into psychology. Very…Almost masculine. Though I don’t know why I’m saying that. She used slang a lot. Lots of profanity, too. She could be pretty abrasive, but she was also sweet with her clients. You got the feeling she’d been through some stuff herself somewhere in the past.”

Rory considered that, weighing it with what Seamus had told her.

“Did she say anything about him?”

“Well, the gun was an issue. I mean, when I knew she was carrying it, I asked her if she was okay owning a gun with kids in the house. She said, ‘Look, I don’t let my husband tell me what to do.’ Then, she went through all the safety precautions she used and said she was teaching her oldest daughter to shoot. And that girl must have been, like, ten. She also said, ‘But we’re not telling him. He doesn’t get it.’”

I don’t get it, either, Rory thought. Had Seamus ever learned that Lauren’s mother had given her shooting lessons? “She must have been through an assault or something herself,” she mused aloud.

“If she had been, she never told me. Janine was convinced this one client’s ex-husband was insane and was going to kill her. I mean, he did threaten her, in pretty disgusting terms, and she had a restraining order against him. He was a scary guy.”

Rory wondered if Seamus had been frightened for his wife. Or had he discounted her fear. Had the accident with the gun been an accident?

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