With Valor and Devotion

by Charlotte Maclay

  Relieved to see her spirits improved, Mike relaxed for the rest of the drive back to his apartment. When he got there, he pulled up to the curb behind Kristin’s VW convertible, a spiffy little car he’d noticed at the marina.

  “Randy, why don’t you take Suzie for a walk to the end of the block so she can get some exercise,” he suggested. He wanted a couple of minutes alone with Kristin.

  He got no argument from Randy, who took off with Suzie like a rocket.

  “Don’t let go of the leash!” Mike warned. “And don’t go past the corner!” With a shake of his head, he turned to find Kristin unlocking her car door.

  “I’ll come by after work to see how you’re getting along,” she said.

  “Keeping me on a short leash, too, are you?”

  “It’s my job to check on the placements I make.”

  “Great. Come for dinner. You can spend the night again, too.”

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she tried to open the car door.

  He held it shut with his palm. “Princess, you wanna tell me what was going on back there at the pound? Suddenly you looked like you’d lost your last friend on earth.”

  Her head snapped up, her eyes fierce again. “If you’re calling me princess because you think my growing up in an intact family means I’ve never experienced any pain, then you’re dead wrong, buster. I’ll take your pain any day of the week and raise you one better. I lost a child, Mike Gables! A two-month-old baby boy who was my heart. And there’s nothing in the world that can top that!” With a sob, she yanked on the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see if I can get some semblance of approval for you to keep Randy—temporarily.”

  Too stunned to resist, he let go of the door and stood back as she got into the car.

  She’d had a baby? How long ago? How did it happen? Where was her husband? Or was the baby’s father her lover?

  A thousand questions raced through his head as she drove off and not a single answer came to him. All he knew for sure was that he wished he’d had a chance to console her before she’d left. No one should have to carry that much hurt alone.

  AS SUPERVISOR, Edward Oden had the only private office in the Children’s Services section. In contrast, the caseworkers operated from narrow cubicles designed by an ergonomist who clearly had no clue how much paperwork the job generated and hadn’t created adequate space. Or maybe the county was simply too cheap to rent additional quarters. The result, however, was that the pile of files on Kristin’s desk invariably resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  Gingerly, she retrieved Randy’s file from the middle of the stack and carried it to her boss’s office. She rapped lightly on the open door.

  He waved her in, and she stood in front of his desk until he finished his phone conversation. He was tall, slender, and apparently myopic, looking at the world through inch-thick lenses, which allowed him to see any T that had not been properly crossed or any I that had not been correctly dotted.

  Hanging up the phone, he said, “I hope you haven’t brought me another problem. It’s only Monday and I’ve had enough of those to last me all week.”

  “I just wanted to apprise you of a temporary change I’ve made in the foster placement of one of our clients.”

  His reed-thin eyebrows lifted above the rim of his glasses. “Then there is a problem?”

  “No, sir, not exactly. The child is Randy Marshall, age six. He needed a placement that would accept his dog. I’m still looking for a permanent placement, but I’ve found a suitable arrangement for the short-term.”

  “For his dog? I thought we were in the business of housing children.”

  “The boy is very attached, sir. It’s in the county’s best interest as well as the boy’s if he and his dog are kept together.”

  Mr. Oden didn’t seem thrilled with that news. “Why can’t this new family keep the boy permanently?”

  “I’ve placed him with a single man who is willing to keep the dog, too.”

  “Ms. McCoy, this man—tell me he has been properly screened and investigated. You know how I feel about single—”

  “He’s the firefighter who rescued the boy from a burning house. The city does an excellent job of doing background checks before they—”

  “But our department hasn’t—”

  “I’m carefully supervising the case, Mr. Oden.” A little too closely, given the fact she’d stayed in Mike’s apartment last night. “I’m absolutely on top of the situation, and I assure you Randy is in good hands with Mr. Gables. For the moment, it’s the best placement option we have.”

  Oden scooted back his chair and stood, his suit jacket hanging from his shoulders with as much style as a coat on a hanger. “Ms. McCoy, despite your excellent record in many respects, we’ve had to discuss your tendency to become emotionally involved with your clients. Such behavior can cloud a caseworker’s decisions. There’s already a written warning in your folder.”

  “Yes, sir, I know. But I have only the child’s best interests at heart.”

  He picked up a pen from his desk and slipped it back and forth from hand to hand as though weighing his decision. “You understand, Ms. McCoy, if you place this child in an unauthorized setting and anything—anything at all—goes wrong, it could mean your job.”

  She swallowed hard. He was going to let Randy stay with Mike, but he wasn’t going to take any responsibility for the placement if the situation turned sour. Her head would be the one served up to the county supervisors on a platter, not his.

  “I understand, Mr. Oden.”

  “Very well, then. Just don’t expect me to back you up if you’ve made a mistake.” Picking up the phone again, he dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

  Kristin left, hoping the unsettling attraction she felt for Mike was indeed not clouding her professional judgment as thoroughly as his charisma was affecting her hormones. She couldn’t handle many more sleepless nights.

  “YOU GOTTA GET more than your feet wet,” Mike said.

  Randy stood on the top step at the shallow end of the pool wearing the swimsuit they’d bought that morning. Every time he tried to go a little deeper, his knees started to shake. “It’s too cold.”

  Mike didn’t think that was the problem since they kept the pool at about eighty degrees, practically bathwater temperature. More likely the kid was scared to death. “How ’bout I carry you? I promise I won’t let you drown.”

  Stepping out of the pool altogether, Randy shook his head. “I wanna go play with Suzie instead.”

  Walking up the steps, Mike took the boy’s hand. “We can do that, but maybe we ought to talk first.” He led him to one of the umbrella tables, sat down in a chair and brought the boy up close so they were eye-to-eye. “You know, it’s okay to be scared of something you’ve never done before.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Yeah, I understand that. But you know what I found out when I was a kid?”

  He shook his head.

  “Most things I was afraid of at first weren’t so bad when I got used to them. Like climbing way up high in a tree.”

  “You used to climb trees?”

  “Sure I did.” Mike wouldn’t mention he’d also taken more than one header out of a tree and got a broken arm for his efforts.

  Randy contemplated that thought. “I never climbed a tree.”

  “Well, some day we’ll have to find you a perfect tree to climb. One with big ol’ branches. That’s the best kind.” Mike cupped the boy’s face, caressing his cheek with his thumb. The boy’s brown eyes seemed too big for his narrow face, and there was something very poignant in those eyes—a loneliness Mike could remember all too clearly. “You know what else I figured out when I was a kid?”

  “What?”

  “That swimming was lots of fun once I learned how it was done.”

  “I don’t like the water.”

  “You think you might if I taught you how to swim?”
>
  The boy glanced over his shoulder at the glistening pool. “Maybe.”

  “We could take it real slow. So you won’t get scared again. And if I do anything that makes you nervous, you tell me, and you can get out of the pool right then. What d’ya think?”

  Eagerness visibly warred with his fears. “You promise?”

  “You have my word on it, son.”

  Standing, Mike hefted the boy in his arms. The kid weighed less than a roll of fire hose, and clung to him as if his life depended upon it.

  A lump filled Mike’s throat as he started down the pool steps. Being Randy’s foster dad for a couple of days wouldn’t give him enough time to teach the boy how to swim. But maybe Randy could get over his fear of water. That’s about all Mike could hope for. Because in a couple of days, Kristin would have found a place for Randy to live and Mike would have to go back to his twenty-four-hour shifts.

  For the first time in his firefighting career, Mike wasn’t thrilled at the thought of going to work.

  SUZIE SLIPPED PAST Mike when he opened the door for Kristin that evening, welcoming her with a wiggling back end and a happy woof.

  Unable to resist, Kristin gave the dog a loving pet and scratched her between her ears.

  “Hi,” Mike said. “I thought you’d be here earlier.”

  “Hmm. Long day.” Long enough that her back ached and she’d developed the beginnings of a migraine—and still she hadn’t found a permanent placement for Randy. On the good-news side, she had located a maternal grandmother of two other children in her burgeoning caseload. It always felt good to stamp a file Closed.

  “Come take a load off, then,” Mike offered. “I’ve got an extra burger if you’re hungry. We were just finishing up our dinner.”

  She hated to be a bother but maybe a little food would help her headache. “If you’re sure—”

  “No problem.”

  “Mike makes real good burgers,” Randy announced from his spot on a stool at the breakfast bar. He had a milk mustache and had dripped catsup down the front of his shirt. “They’re juicy.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I can see that.” She dropped her purse and daily calendar manager on an end table by the couch, desperately trying to ignore the shimmer of awareness she’d felt at the sight of Mike in a T-shirt and tight-fitting jeans so old they were worn white, the zipper placket frayed and straining across his pelvis. Graphic evidence that he was a big man in every way possible. “What did you and Mike do today?”

  “I learnt to swim,” Randy bragged, his little legs whipping back and forth, his feet miles above the floor. “I even put my head under the water and blowed bubbles. And then some lady pinched my cheek and said I was soooo cute.” He wrinkled his nose. “Then Suzie squatted on her foot and went pee.”

  “Oh, dear.” Kristin choked on a laugh. Her gaze snapped to Mike’s to find an amused twinkle in his dark eyes, and her heart stumbled.

  “Tammilee wasn’t real thrilled with Suzie,” he said.

  “Well, Suzie had to go,” Randy said defensively. “That lady was in her way.”

  Kristin raised her brows to Mike. “I take it Tammilee is a friend of yours?”

  “A neighbor. She’s a flight attendant.”

  “I see.” The sudden wave of jealousy Kristin experienced was totally unwarranted. She had no claim on Mike. Nor was he the sort of man who interested her, not that any man had in recent memory. But definitely not one who had flight attendants at his beck and call.

  “Then Mike took me ’n’ Suzie to the park. I barfed cuz I got dizzy on the merry-go-round.” Randy popped a catsup-soaked French fry into his mouth and chewed merrily, apparently none the worse for his experience.

  “My, you two have certainly had an interesting day.”

  Mike slid a plate with a hamburger and fries onto the counter for Kristin. “I’ve got catsup, mustard, pickle relish, onions. Help yourself.”

  Her stomach growled loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Thanks. I guess I am hungry.”

  Randy giggled. “Shane, that boy at that other place you took me, teached me how to belch real loud. Wanna hear?”

  She curved her hand over the back of the boy’s head, no more able to resist touching the boy than drawing her next breath. “Maybe later, okay?”

  “’Kay.” He jammed another fry into his mouth.

  Kristin approached her fries with a little more delicacy. Keeping her emotional distance from Randy was going to be more difficult than usual. Something about him tugged at her heart more than any other child had, which was not a good thing. Her job was to find him a suitable family placement. Better yet, to find a blood relative who would raise him. So far, she’d failed on both counts.

  “Randy, do you remember where you were living before the house that caught on fire?”

  Averting his gaze, he said, “Nuh-uh.”

  “How long had you and your parents been living there?”

  “I don’t gots no parents.” He hopped down from his stool. “Suzie’s gotta go.” Before either Mike or Kristin could stop him, the boy had raced out the patio door, the dog at his heels.

  Kristin sighed and took a bite of hamburger. The meat stuck painfully in her throat. What on earth was she going to do with Randy?

  “He’s not going to give it up,” Mike said. “Whoever he was living with, he doesn’t want to go back with them.”

  “I thought maybe I could catch him off guard and he’d tell us something—anything that might provide a lead.”

  From the kitchen side of the counter, Mike removed Randy’s plate, set aside the leftover meat from the hamburger for the dog and scraped the remnants of the meal into the sink. There were dark bruises of fatigue beneath Kristin’s eyes, her smattering of freckles standing out against her pale skin. He wished he knew a way to ease the burdens she was carrying.

  “For a six-year-old, he’s street-smart and sure knows how to keep his mouth shut,” he said. “I tried earlier to find out something but it was a no go. He clammed right up.”

  “Little boys that age shouldn’t have such big secrets.”

  He braced his hands on the counter opposite her, wishing he could trap her between his arms instead. “Neither should a pretty woman like you.”

  She gave her head a quick shake. “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “You sure laid a bombshell on me this morning and then took off in a hurry.”

  Bristling like a cat preparing to defend her territory, she said, “I shouldn’t have discussed my private life with you. I apologize.”

  “No need. I’m a pretty good listener if you need someone to talk to.”

  Randy took that moment to come running back into the apartment heading full throttle for the stairs. “Me and Suzie wanna go to bed now. ’Night.”

  “Wait a minute!” Mike bolted after the boy. He’d probably gotten as much aerobic exercise today chasing after the kid as he did in a full week of work. “You gotta take a bath and brush your teeth and stuff.”

  “Ah, gee, I got all wet goin’ swimmin’. I’m clean.”

  Kristin’s trilling laughter brought a smile to Mike’s lips. He whirled around. “Okay, lady, you think you’re so smart, let’s see how you do getting him bathed and scrubbed.”

  “Not me.” Still grinning, she waved off his suggestion. “You’re the one who volunteered to play foster parent. You’re on your own.”

  He scowled at her, but he couldn’t help enjoying the way the spark had returned to her expressive green eyes. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we do it together? That way you’d be sure I was doing it right.”

  She hesitated, and Mike sensed she was going to reject the idea.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I think Randy needs a woman around as much as he needs a man in his life. I get the feeling he hasn’t experienced a whole lot of love.”

  Her eyelids lowered. He’d touched a chord with her and he knew it. Trouble was, Mike hadn’t experienced a lot of love either. Over the
years he’d tried not to miss it, not to care.

  Suddenly, he cared a helluva lot more than he should.

  Chapter Six

  Little boys, it seemed, were too modest to let girls see their private parts in the bathtub, so Kristin was relegated to making the couch in Mike’s office into a bed again. She straightened the jumble of sheets and blanket, and was about to go back downstairs when she noticed some letters with a foreign postmark beside his computer. The handwriting was difficult to read but decidedly feminine.

  Kristin gritted her teeth. Not only was Mike the stud-of-the-month at Paseo Garden Apartments, he’d made conquests all over the world.

  “Here we come, bathed, brushed and ready for bed,” Mike announced, looking as if he was ready for a wet T-shirt, macho-man contest. The cotton fabric clung to his chest, outlining well-developed pecs, his flat nipples perfect brown discs.

  Kristin’s grimace nearly shifted to a groan of unadulterated lust. Darn him for being so virile. “Looks like you’re the one who ended up in the tub.”

  A roguish grin creased his cheeks. “Dangerous business giving a kid and a dog a bath.”

  “You gave Suzie a bath, too?” she gasped.

  “I didn’t actually intend to. Things got out of hand.”

  Randy and his dog came running into the room, Suzie’s bottom half damp, apparently from her romp in the tub. Randy jumped up on the bed. Suzie followed.

  “Are you going to let the dog sleep inside?” Kristin questioned. In her family, pets remained outside on strict orders from her mother.

  “Suzie always sleeps with me,” Randy insisted. He snuggled down under the covers and Suzie curled up near his feet. The dog’s tail twitched, and she eyed Kristin with suspicion. Apparently Suzie had picked up on Randy’s wary outlook on adults. Not that Kristin could blame either the child or the dog.

  “If I put her out on the patio,” Mike said, “she’ll probably howl all night. Considering this complex doesn’t allow pets, I think I’m better off to let her sleep with Randy.”

  Mike’s rationale seemed reasonable enough. It was also a good reminder to Kristin that Randy couldn’t stay here indefinitely. She had to find him another placement—and soon.