Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “Because of work,” Sharon reminded her.

  “So, what does that tell you about his priorities?”

  “He loves Olivia,” Sharon pointed out. “He’s got that much going for him: he loves his daughter.” Unlike some men who hate children. She couldn’t deny that the main reason she’d softened toward Raymond had been his devotion to his daughter. Even if he’d missed a couple of visits with Olivia, he did love her.

  “All right. You’ve stuck me with him this morning, so if all hell breaks loose I’ll know who to blame.” Deborah poked through the bag one more time. “I’ve got her favorite sippy cup in there, and a change of clothing, just in case.”

  “And Mr. Poochie?” Mr. Poochie was Olivia’s beloved stuffed spaniel. Since Olivia was her future daughter-in-law, Sharon felt obliged to familiarize herself with the child’s favorite dolls.

  “Mr. Poochie’s in there. Kids!” Deborah hollered down the stairs. “Time to go!” She handed the tote to Sharon. “And you’re going to stop at the Children’s Garden for me?”

  “You’re sure it’s going to be open?” The preschool Max and Olivia attended held classes from Monday through Friday; Sharon couldn’t imagine why it would be open on a Saturday. But Deborah had accidentally left Olivia’s lunchbox at the school when she’d picked the children up on Friday, and Olivia refused to eat her lunch at school unless it was packed in her Dora the Explorer lunchbox.

  “I spoke to Molly Saunders-Russo a half hour ago. She assured me she’d be there until noon. She’s running some kind of weekend program in the building. I didn’t ask for details—all that mattered was picking up the lunch box.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “It’s the least you owe me,” Deborah grumbled before yelling once more for the children to come upstairs.

  Five minutes later, Sharon had them both strapped into their car seats in the backseat of the Volvo. A faint drizzle misted the windshield, just enough dampness to prevent her from planning any outdoor activities for Olivia and Max. That was all right. She was going to detour to the preschool, pick up the forgotten lunch box, and then take the kids with her to the studio. Angie would be there, and Sharon had stowed a carton of Duplo blocks, crayons and picture books in the trunk. She had a shoot scheduled at the studio—sisters aged three and five—so a couple of extra children probably wouldn’t cause too much of a disturbance.

  And if she was really lucky, and Max and Olivia were really good, she’d develop the film she’d shot around town for the Arlington commemorative book. She needed to get the pictures printed so she could figure out what her portfolio lacked and how much more work she ought to do on it. The deadline for submitting proposals was the first of September, less than a month away. Sharon had to get her submission in order, fast.

  That impending deadline was the other reason—besides wanting Deborah and Raymond to work things out between them, one way or another—that Sharon was glad to have custody of Olivia for a few hours today. When Max was with Olivia, he didn’t demand as much of Sharon’s time. Ironically, two children could be easier to take care of than one, if those two children were best friends.

  By the time she reached Hauser Boulevard, she had to switch on her windshield wipers. The rain rinsed some of the heat out of the morning and added a shine to the asphalt roads. Behind her, the kids giggled and argued about which one had a bigger something. Sharon didn’t know what the subject of their competition was. All she heard was, “No, mine’s bigger!” “No, mine!” “Mine is the biggest, biggest!” “Mine is bigger than the biggest!”

  Maybe they were bickering over the size of their egos, she thought with a smile.

  If she’d been surprised to hear that the Children’s Garden would be open on a Saturday morning, she was even more surprised to see ten or eleven cars parked in its lot. Did Molly offer regular weekend programs? If she did, Sharon had never heard about them. If she’d known about them, she might have taken advantage of them every now and then. She often had to schedule portrait sessions on Saturdays, like today’s session with the Howland sisters. Clients couldn’t always come to the studio on weekdays. Fortunately, Angie was flexible about putting in Saturday hours and keeping an eye on Max while Sharon took pictures, but on those Saturdays when neither Angie nor Deborah could help her out, Sharon would appreciate the option of sending Max to the preschool for a couple of hours. He loved the Children’s Garden. It contained more toys than Sharon would ever be able to provide for him at home.

  “School!” Max and Olivia chorused from the backseat as she pulled into a parking space outside the front door.

  “We’re just stopping here to pick up Olivia’s lunch box,” Sharon reminded them as she climbed out of the car. “We’re not staying.” It would have been easier for her to leave the children in the car for the two minutes it would take her to fetch the lunchbox, but she’d read too many ghastly stories in the newspapers about children who were kidnapped from cars while the adult in charge had darted off to run a quick errand. Sharon wouldn’t risk it.

  She reached across Olivia’s lap to unbuckle Max, then unbuckled Olivia. The children scrambled out of the car, commenting exuberantly about visiting their school on a day they normally wouldn’t be here. Sharon clasped Olivia’s hand, then turned and stretched to snag Max before he sped across the parking lot. That was when she noticed one of the cars parked in the lot: a silver Infiniti, the same model Brett drove.

  Undoubtedly thousands of other people drove silver Inifinitis of that model. Undoubtedly several of them lived right here in Arlington. Just because she was hung up on Brett Stockton...

  No, she was not hung up on him, she resolutely assured herself. She was still thinking about him—rather obsessively—only because he was the first man to make a pass at her since Steve’s death. A half-hearted pass at that, too, a kiss that insinuated more than it revealed. And she wasn’t going to kiss him again, because he was a jerk. Only a jerk would be so bigoted against children.

  Once she had a firm grip on both Max and Olivia, she marched across the damp parking lot to the building. The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open with her hip and drew the children inside. “Shh,” she warned them as they tried to break free of her, to run past the front office and down the hall to the activity-filled room in back where they spent their weekdays. She heard voices drifting through the hall from the back room, Molly’s and then a man’s. Evidently, Molly’s Saturday morning program included adults. The muffled thumps and high-pitched voices seeping through the ceiling told her children were present, too, in the upstairs play area. Sharon would have to hold very tightly onto Olivia and Max to keep them from charging up the stairs to join the youngsters.

  The front office was empty, and Sharon led the children along the hall, searching for Olivia’s cubby among the row of cubbies built into one wall. “Hello?” Molly suddenly called out from the back room. Sharon couldn’t see her, but she halted. “Is somebody there?”

  “It’s just me, Molly,” Sharon called back, then ventured a little further down the hall. “Sharon Bartell. Deborah Jackson said she told you I’d be stopping by to pick up Olivia’s lunchbox.”

  “Oh—right!” Molly materialized at the opposite end of the hall. “I’m just running a class for fathers,” she explained, approaching Sharon. “I’ve got the lunchbox in the staff room. I rinsed the Thermos out so it wouldn’t smell bad. I’ll be right back.” She bestowed a bright smile upon Max and Olivia, who were clamoring for her attention.

  “I need my lunchbox!” Olivia informed her.

  “I know you do, and I’m going to get it. Would you like to come with me?”

  “Yeah!” Olivia tugged free of Sharon and slipped her hand into Molly’s.

  “Me, too!” Max demanded, grabbing Molly’s other hand. Molly flashed Sharon a grin that said she didn’t mind, and Sharon nodded.

  Once they’d vanished into the office, she ambled down the hall to the large room in the rear of the building. It was
partitioned into smaller spaces, each one designed as a mini-classroom for a different age group, but the partitions stood only waist high. Sharon could easily see the entire room, including the one partitioned area filled with men.

  Brett Stockton sat among them, his tall body contorted as he perched on a tot-sized table. He wore evenly faded blue jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, and all that blue made his eyes look much too vivid.

  What on earth was he doing here, at a child-care facility? He’d told her he had no kids. He’d told her he didn’t like kids. And Molly had said she was running a class for fathers. If Brett was a part of that class... Was he a father?

  The bastard had lied to her! Although she couldn’t begin to guess why. If he was a father, why would he say he didn’t like kids? Was it that he simply didn’t like her kid? Or that he didn’t like to date women who had children, even though he evidently had a child himself? Was he, in fact, married, too? Or divorced and uninterested in spending a Saturday with his own child when he could spend it with her, the way he had last week? What the hell was going on with him?

  She spun away, endeavoring to muster a smile for Olivia and Max, who accompanied Molly back into the hall from the office. Olivia clutched her lunchbox in her free hand, and she held it up proudly. “Look! My lunchbox!”

  “We got Livie’s lunchbox,” Max reported, bristling with self-importance.

  “That’s wonderful,” Sharon said, the words sounding as flat and faded as old parchment. “Now we can go to the studio, and Molly can go back to her class. Thanks, Molly,” she added, lifting her gaze to the preschool director.

  “No problem.” She delivered Max and Olivia to Sharon, then bent down and beamed a smile at them. “See you later, guys!”

  “Bye-bye!” They waved, then skipped toward the front door ahead of Sharon. She managed another quick thank-you before chasing after them.

  They emerged into the cool, gray morning, two buoyant children and one deeply troubled woman. Why the hell was Brett in that class for fathers? The question drummed inside her skull as she crossed the lot with the kids, unlocked her car and got them strapped into their seats. Why hadn’t he told her he was a father? Why had he claimed he didn’t like children? Why had he lied?

  I’m just sorry that things are the way they are, he’d said after kissing her. She’d thought she understood what he was trying to tell her when he’d spoken those words—but now she realized she had no idea what he’d meant, no idea about the way things were.

  All she knew was that he’d kissed her and he’d deceived her, and she was outraged.

  * * *

  Molly Saunders-Russo was a remarkable woman, he thought as he stuffed a dime in the parking meter and then strode down the sidewalk to the Bartell Photography Studio. Not only had the petite, energetic woman allowed him to sit in on her Daddy School class, but he’d gotten her to tell him where Sharon had gone off to. He’d convinced Molly that he was a good friend of Sharon’s, and that he wanted to stop by and talk to her about the class he’d just sat through.

  The second half of that statement was true: he did want to tell her about the class. The first half, though... In light of the furious glare she’d sent him while she’d been lurking in the hallway, he didn’t think “good friend” was the term she’d use to describe him.

  He could understand her being vexed by him. He was vexed by himself—which was why he’d sacrificed a Saturday morning to sit through a seminar on how to view the world through a child’s eyes. He’d actually found Molly’s insights edifying. He had never given an instant’s thought to children’s perspectives before. To be sure, he couldn’t remember ever viewing the world through a child’s eyes, even when he’d been a child.

  The comments of some of the fathers in the class had been useful, too, although for the most part Brett had felt little kinship with them. They were all enthusiastic daddies, devoted to and enchanted by their own children. They attended Molly’s class to learn how to become better fathers. Brett remained determined never to become somebody’s dad.

  But he wouldn’t mind becoming the friend—possibly even the good friend—of somebody’s mom. Max Bartell’s mom, to be precise. He wondered who the other child with her had been. A friend of Max’s, obviously—and a fellow classmate at the Children’s Garden. Molly Saunders-Russo had explained the interruption to the fathers once Sharon and the two little beasts had left. According to her, young children became attached to certain objects—for instance, their lunchboxes—and the little girl needed her lunchbox back in order for her universe to return to its proper alignment.

  Brett couldn’t recall ever becoming attached to certain objects as a child. Anything he considered his own—his toys, his clothing, his bedroom, even his mother—had eventually wound up belonging to the younger kids, his half-brothers and half-sister. “You don’t need this anymore,” his mother would say, taking away some toy he’d long outgrown but still considered his own. “You’re a big boy, now. Let the children play with it.” He’d been five when his brother Andrew was born and his bedroom had been converted into a nursery, six when his brother inherited all his stuffed animals, seven when his brother James was born and eight when the twins arrived. “Keep an eye on the children,” his mother would say. “Mommy’s got to run to the store. Take care of the children for me, Brett.”

  Eight years old—and he’d no longer been a child.

  He wasn’t going to allow Molly’s Daddy School class to reopen wounds that had healed years ago. He’d made his peace with his mother and his siblings. He was a healthy adult, a productive citizen, a successful businessman. Was it a crime that he had vowed never to have to take care of any more children in his life?

  He didn’t want to think about it. If he was going to come away from Molly’s class with anything worthwhile, it was the notion that kids approached the world in a more straightforward way than adults, with fewer preconceptions and defenses. Fair enough. He’d remember that when he had to deal with Max.

  But the person he really had to deal with was Sharon. Why had she frowned at him with such anger? He’d hoped to surprise her with the news that he was attending this school for fathers at the recommendation of his poker buddies, that he was trying to overcome his antipathy toward her son because she meant something to him. He couldn’t put her out of his mind, so he was going to take some classes that might enable him to make a little room in his mind for her kid.

  Whatever had offended her about seeing him in the preschool that morning, he had to straighten it out with her. He sure as hell wasn’t going to sit through any more Daddy School sessions if she was going to act as if the mere sight of him caused her indigestion.

  He entered the studio, the door announcing his arrival with the tinkle of an attached bell. As soon as he was inside he heard the racket of several children—more than the two Sharon had had in tow that morning—performing a hearty and painfully out-of-tune rendition of “This Old Man.”

  A woman Brett recognized from the day he’d picked up his proofs emerged from the back room, smiling. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Sharon Bartell,” he told her. “Is she here?”

  “Yes, but...” The woman glanced over her shoulder and through the open doorway. “She’s kind of busy right now.”

  “Leading a children’s choir?” he asked as the kids on the other side of the doorway bleated, “Knick-knack, paddy-whack, give a dog a bone!” Their diction left much to be desired.

  “She’s photographing some children. She should be done soon.”

  “Maybe I could help. I know the words to that song,” he said, surprising himself. When was the last time he’d sung “This Old Man”? He was pretty sure the lyrics included a rhyme of “seven” with “heaven,” but other than that, he’d have to fake it.

  “I think it would be best if you waited out here,” the young woman said. “It’s a little hectic back there.”

  Her comment was punctuated by a rousing finale, with the ch
ildren stretching out the concluding line of the song: “This o-man came rooooo-diiiing ho-o-o-o-ome!” Roding home? he wondered. That Daddy School teacher might give a special class in toddler elocution.

  A peal of laughter preceded the appearance of Sharon’s son and his friend. They scampered through the door, racing each other, elbowing for advantage as they careered around the counter. “I’m faster!” the little girl boasted.

  “I’m faster!” Max argued.

  Faster than a caterpillar, maybe, Brett thought as the two of them hustled into view. Their legs were too short to carry them with any speed—and thank God, too, because they were veering toward the door. Reflexively, he bent over and snagged one in each arm. “Hey, calm down,” he scolded.

  They shrieked and giggled with apparent delight at being caught. Panting, they stared up at him and sobered. They’d probably received their share of lectures about not letting strange men touch them, and there he was, a strange man touching them.

  Gradually, Max seemed to recognize Brett. “I know you,” he said uncertainly.

  “I’m a friend of your mother’s.”

  The little girl stuck her thumb in her mouth and stared at him. She was a pretty pipsqueak, with latté-hued skin, curly black hair and round, dark eyes.

  “He’s Mommy’s friend,” Max informed her. She said nothing, just stared at Brett with those intense brown eyes. If he were in tune with kids, able to view the world from their perspective and all that, he might be able to interpret her state of mind from her gaze: afraid of him, or reassured, or resentful that he’d intercepted her before she could escape into the rain outside. But one Daddy School class wasn’t enough to connect him to children on that intuitive level. A million classes wouldn’t be enough.

  “Mommy’s taking pictures,” Max announced.

  “She’s working today, huh?”

  “She’s taking pictures.”