The boy was not stupid. He’d just had a father who’d been too good at reading his mind and not good enough at forcing him to do for himself.
* * *
“SO...WHAT DO you think?” Lillie stared back and forth between the two people she loved more than anything in the world—her stand-in parents, Jerry and Gayle Henderson, who’d taken her into their hearts long before they’d become her in-laws, and kept her there in spite of the divorce.
“I think you look happier than you have in a long time.” Gayle’s soft-spoken words settled a bit of the unease deep inside of Lillie.
She turned to Jerry. “What about you, Papa?” Not Dad. Or Daddy. Lillie couldn’t give another man that name. But neither could she call Jerry anything but a variation of it.
“I trust you, Lil. You’ll do the right thing.”
She’d told them about Jon and Abraham. Every Sunday morning over breakfast, she gave them a rundown of her week and they did the same. They were her family.
The only close family she had.
“What does that mean?” she asked, shaking her head. “I’m asking for your opinion, Papa. That’s when you tell me what you think even if I’m not going to like it.” They’d been over this point before. She needed Jerry’s honesty. She wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what he said to her.
“I think that you obviously feel something for this little boy. And it could be a bit personal. Frankly, I can’t imagine that your personal experience doesn’t play some part in the work you do. How could it not? What happens to you becomes a part of you. You can’t just leave it behind. No matter how badly you want to.”
There was a message in there for her. Unrelated to Jon and Abraham Swartz.
“You think I’m trying to leave my past behind? I thought you approved of my move to Shelter Valley. You encouraged me to branch out on my own.”
Gayle’s blue eyes were filled with concern. “We did,” she said. “We do.”
“Papa?”
“Gayle and I fully support your move—and your career choice,” he said, his words coming slowly, as if he was choosing them carefully.
Gayle. It was what Kirk had called his father’s third wife. So that was what Lillie called her, too, although she’d always been closer to Gayle than to Kirk’s biological mother—Jerry’s first wife, who’d left him for a man richer than he was back when Jerry had been fresh out of college and starting his own PR firm.
“We thought you’d have found...someone...by now,” Gayle’s gaze was direct. And filled with love.
Shaking her head, Lillie looked between the two of them, her broccoli quiche and fruit untouched on her plate. “I don’t understand.” Either they thought the move to Shelter Valley had been a good decision, or they thought she was running away. It couldn’t be both.
Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that she’d asked for this conversation. That she wanted—no, needed—their insight and perspective.
Everyone needed a sounding board.
“Your career choice, your location, isn’t the problem, Lil,” Jerry said. “It’s your lack of close relationships that concerns us.”
“You want me to take a lover?”
What did this have to do with Jon and Abraham? She’d asked them if they thought she was crossing a line getting involved with the Swartzes.
During the final months of her pregnancy, Lillie and the Hendersons had had many frank conversations. Gayle had been present during the birth.
Gayle’s smile was too knowing, but Lillie wasn’t sure what the older woman thought she knew.
“No, Lil, we don’t mean you should take a lover,” she said. “Unless you meet a man you’re in love with and want to sleep with, of course,” she added.
“We just want you to open your heart and let people in again,” Jerry said.
Oh.
As far as she was concerned, the conversation was over. “Hearts break.”
“When you first came to us, your parents had only been gone for a year,” Jerry said. “You had a broken heart then.”
She remembered spending nights alone in her dorm room when she’d been so filled with pain that she’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to pull enough air into her lungs to sustain her until morning.
“But you were still you, Lil. A woman with a generous heart who has a special awareness of people and their needs. You’re very perceptive to other people’s feelings,” he added.
“Are you saying I’m no longer generous?”
Reaching across the table, Gayle covered Lillie’s hand. “We’re saying that while you’re busy giving every hour of your life to other people, you aren’t allowing yourself to get close to anyone,” she said.
“We were talking about Jon and Abraham Swartz. About whether or not I’d overstepped a professional boundary by making that absurd agreement with him—trading skill set for skill set. Letting him in my home...”
“And we’re telling you that isn’t even an issue, Lil,” Jerry said, more serious than she’d heard him in a long time. “What you’re doing for that man and his little boy is marvelous. Generous. It’s classic you, understanding that in order for him to accept your help he had to be able to give in kind. My worry is that you had to ask if you were overstepping. Are you really that afraid of letting anyone into your heart?”
“Jerry and I have been worried about you for a while,” Gayle said. “You’ve got a town full of friends, but you don’t let any of them into your heart. At least, not that you tell us about.”
“You two are in there.”
Jerry’s gaze softened, moistened, as he added his hand atop Gayle’s and hers on the table. “And you are first in ours, Lil. Don’t ever doubt that. But you need more than two old folks in your life. You need a partner who is worthy of you. Who will look out for you as much as you look out for him. I’m just worried that if he comes along, you won’t be able or ready to open your heart and let him in.”
Kirk had bolted her heart shut and thrown away the key.
But Papa and Gayle knew that. Lillie was at a loss for words. She’d accepted her lot in life. Had found a way to be happy.
And she didn’t want to screw it up by making a professional mistake from which it would be impossible to recover in a town as small and close-knit as Shelter Valley.
“Have you heard from that damned son of mine?” Jerry asked.
Kirk still worked for his father. But they didn’t socialize.
Or even chat much beyond clients and accounts. And Kirk dropping his son off to spend an occasional day with them.
“No,” Lillie assured him. She didn’t need Papa thinking he had to rake Kirk across the coals another time. It hurt Papa and served no purpose. “Of course not.”
A couple of years before, when Kirk had come to Lillie pressuring her for a change to their divorce decree that would give him more money, Jerry had given his son an ultimatum. If Kirk bothered Lillie again he would be cut off. Period. From the firm and from his inheritance.
“He left Leah,” Gayle said softly.
“I thought they were getting married.” Their son was five now—not that Kirk spent much quality time with the boy, according to Papa and Gayle.
Papa and Gayle did more with him the couple of times a month they saw him then Kirk appeared to.
“He said he didn’t love her enough to marry her.”
Kind of late to be figuring that out. Lillie counted her lucky stars that she’d gotten out before wasting all of the best years of her life with him.
She had to admit, she felt a small thrill of satisfaction, too. Did that mean Kirk really had loved her as much as he’d said he did? He had, after all, married her.
“Maybe if Leah hadn’t let him move in with her, if she hadn’t had his child without expecting anything
in return, he would have married her,” she said, just to show Jerry and Gayle that she could speak rationally, unemotionally, about the man who’d ripped her apart at the seams during the darkest hours of her life. To show them that it didn’t matter to her a whit whether Kirk was with Leah, or Kayla or Marcie or anyone.
Jerry and Gayle were like parents to her.
Their son meant nothing.
Period.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BREAKFAST DISHES WERE done, bathroom cleaned—and Jon hadn’t cracked a book open because Abe hadn’t gone down for his nap.
And they had an appointment at Lillie’s that afternoon.
So Jon improvised. The doctor said that Abe’s nap times would change over the next year. If the toddler didn’t want to sleep and wasn’t exhibiting signs of crankiness due to fatigue, then he should give him a chance at staying up.
But Abe still took two naps at the day care—morning and afternoon. Jon should do what he could to stick to the routine.
He compromised. With Abe in his crib, he hauled out the navy duffel that had seen him through many phases of his life. He could afford to replace it but he didn’t care to.
Barbara Bent had given it to him the day she’d told him that she was getting married, planning to have a child of her own and giving up foster care.
He’d been twelve at the time. And had spent the majority of his life in her home.
He’d packed that duffel twice since Abraham was born. He had a system. Knew the ropes. Diapers filled both side pockets—enough to get him through twenty-four hours. They were bigger now, but they still fit. And regardless of whether or not he liked Lillie Henderson, there was a very real possibility that she’d been hired by Clara Abrams to collect enough evidence of his poor fathering skills to persuade the courts that the toddler was better off with his wealthy and well-situated grandparents than he was with a single male with a criminal record.
Jon had learned his lessons the hard way. He wasn’t going to forget them. Or get lazy. He wasn’t going to sit around and let the courts decide his future. Or the future of his son.
If Clara came after them, he’d grab Abe, the bag, and run.
“Uh!”
Abe stood up in his crib, pointing to Jon, asking what he was doing.
Jon’s mouth was forming a reply, something about always being prepared, when he stopped himself. “You want to know what I’m doing?” he asked.
“Uh!” Abe said, reaching toward his father.
“Ask me what I’m dooiinng and I’ll tell you.” Jon enunciated the key word carefully, just as Lillie had done the evening before.
A resealable bag of toiletries—tear-proof shampoo, lotion, body wash, cleaning wipes, thermometer, acetaminophen drops and syrup of ipecac—went in the front pocket.
“Uhhh!” Abe’s voice rose in conjunction with the whiny tone that had entered his voice.
“Dooiinng.” Jon faced his son. Abe was getting tired. He could tell by his tone. But he wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to reward bad behavior.
“Uh. Uh. Uhhh.” Abe stood his ground.
Jon strode over, gently picked his son up off his feet, laid him down in his crib, told him to sleep well, grabbed the duffel and left the room, checking to ensure that the working light on the baby monitor was engaged on his way out. He could finish packing for the two of them outside the toddler’s room.
Half an hour later, most of which was spent enduring demanding—and then just exhausted—screams, he very quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping son, hid the fully packed duffel in the back of his bedroom closet.
A safeguard.
Just in case life came crashing down on him again.
* * *
LILLIE PLAYED OUTSIDE with Abraham on Sunday for the twenty minutes it took Jon to install the security lock on her sliding glass door. Her house wasn’t exactly child friendly.
She came home one night later that week to new ceiling fans whirring softly in her living room and kitchen—Jon had finished his lab early and had had an extra hour and a half of free time before he had to go to work. He’d stopped by the clinic for her key.
She’d refused to picture him in her home, among her things, free to explore at his will. Why would he bother snooping? He was there in a professional capacity, that was all.
There’d been another break-in that week. A home on the outskirts of town. The thief had taken everything of value—guns, electronics, jewelry—but he hadn’t damaged anything except the standard lock on the sliding glass door as he’d lifted it off the track. It was this detail that had people convinced the two crimes were related. Word was that the guy had special suction cups used by glass installers to remove the doors.
On Friday, after observing Abraham playing happily by himself at Little Spirits Day Care, Lillie phoned Jon and got his voice mail.
Sitting in her car in the day care parking lot, she tried to pretend that she hadn’t chosen that particular time to call because she’d known that her chances of reaching him were slim.
“This is Jon. Leave a message.”
“Hi, Jon, it’s Lillie. Lillie Henderson. I just wanted to call and thank you for your thoughtfulness in installing the safety catch on my sliding door. There was another break-in and I feel a lot better knowing that I’m protected. So...thank you.”
She could have said more. Should have said more. This was, after all, an exchange of services and she had some thoughts about his son. But they could talk about Abraham when he called her back.
With her hand on the keys, ready to turn the car on, Lillie froze. She’d left the message unfinished so that he’d call her back.
As though she was playing some kind of cat-and-mouse game.
It was completely and totally not her style.
* * *
JON HEARD HIS phone ring. Saw Lillie’s number pop up. He was elbow-deep in the belly of a five-foot-tall steel grinder, removing a twelve-inch-by-five-inch steel blade. The third of eight. He was working on his own, and he could have stopped to take the call.
He waited to see if she left a message instead. There was an outside chance that she was calling because of some emergency with Abraham, but it wasn’t likely. Bonnie Nielson or one of her full-time employees would be calling if that were the case.
Still, vice grips and pliers in hand, he watched his phone, hit voice mail as soon as it popped up and—after listening to a voice that reminded him of flowers in a garden—pressed nine to save the message.
* * *
CAROLINE STRICKLAND, THE mother of a twenty-four-year-old Harvard graduate, a second-grader and a kindergartner, stopped by Lillie’s office at just past four on Friday afternoon. “Oh, you’re on the phone,” she said, backing out the door.
“No! Come on in.” Lillie smiled at the woman who’d been one of her first clients when she’d come to town. Caroline’s middle child had been two at the time and in for stitches.
Putting her cell phone back in her purse, Lillie swore to herself that she’d leave it there unless it actually rang. If Jon Swartz called, she’d know it. If he texted, she’d know it. She could hear. She didn’t have to keep looking at the damned thing.
“What’s up?” she asked as Caroline, slim and comfortable looking in her jeans and T-shirt, settled into the rocker in the corner of the room.
“John wants to take me to Italy for our anniversary.” Caroline was not smiling.
“You love Italian food,” Lillie reminded her. “And you’ve always wanted to see the Mediterranean.”
Caroline and Lillie met early in the morning three times a week to ride bikes on the quiet streets of Shelter Valley.
To exercise when no one was watching.
“I know.” Caroline’s usually cheerful voice fell on the last word.
/> “So what’s the problem?” There was one; that much was evident. Lillie hated to see her friend so obviously bothered. It wasn’t like Caroline, who’d taken her first husband’s unexpected death, an unplanned pregnancy and a move across the country in stride.
“I don’t know.” Caroline looked at the paperwork on Lillie’s desk.
“Weren’t you just saying last week that you wanted to spend more time alone with him?”
“Yeah.”
“So?” She frowned. Caroline wasn’t afraid of flying. She and John and the kids spent a lot of time on Caroline’s family farm in Kentucky and flew back and forth several times throughout the year as the kids’ schooling allowed.
“When he told me...” She grinned, but there were tears in her eyes as she paused. “He’d told me he had a business thing in Phoenix.” As an architect of some renown, John Strickland did a lot of business in the city, and often took Caroline to dinner meetings with clients. “But instead, he took me to this fancy restaurant and ordered wine, and when they brought the bottle they also delivered the travel documents....”
“Romantic!” Lillie liked John and found him to be genuine. Still, she’d found Kirk to be genuine, too, back before she’d realized that a man could look her straight in the eye and lie and she couldn’t tell the difference.
Kirk had plied her with romance throughout their courtship and after they were married, too. Even when he’d also been plying Leah.
If Caroline was here to tell her something bad about John, to tell her she’d found out that he’d had an affair, Lillie would be surprised. But she’d also believe her.
“It was romantic,” Caroline said, still smiling. Still avoiding Lillie’s gaze with eyes that were glistening. “He’s the best, Lillie. And I love him so much.”
Here it comes. Lillie braced herself. Still hoping that Caroline merely had a schedule conflict with John’s probably prepaid travel arrangements. And that she didn’t want to hurt her husband’s feelings and...
“I don’t want to leave the children.” Caroline looked up, her brow creased. “I don’t know what’s come over me, but the second I saw the reminder to bring current passports, I thought of the kids and got scared to death. What if something happens to them while we’re gone? I’d be too far away to get to them. It’s over an eight-hour flight, Lil.”
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