For the Children

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  KIRK SEEMED DOWN when she met him at the end of her driveway at ten o’clock that night. More likely, she was projecting her own mood on to him. She’d just had one hell of an evening, to top off one hell of a day. She’d fixed sloppy joes for dinner—the twins’ favorite—and even that hadn’t been enough to ease the frowns from their faces.

  Chandler’s problem was almost certainly the same as her boys’. They were worried about Abraham. Valerie sighed. There was no way she was going to escape the inner turmoil this night. She, who always played straight, hadn’t done so in this particular situation. She’d assumed the end justified the means. Like Thomas?

  And maybe that was fitting. She could have prevented at least some of this.

  “The boys tell me that Abraham Billings missed practice again today,” she said, determined to get the discussion over with.

  Starting off down the street, Kirk nodded, though the motion was barely discernible in the darkness.

  He told her about his concern for Abraham, expressing a level of caring she hadn’t realized he felt for the boy. She’d known he watched out for Abraham, not that he’d become so involved, so determined to help the boy and end his suffering.

  “I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow,” she blurted when she could think of nothing else to say. She was too tired.

  And she’d just spent the past few hours serving platitudes to her sons. What she’d needed to do was tell someone that she was making herself crazy worrying about the boy. At various moments she found herself imagining what Abraham might be doing right then. And hoping he was okay. That he was accepting things for now. Settling in.

  “Steve McDonald said Abraham had the flu yesterday.” Kirk couldn’t seem to get off the subject, no matter how little she contributed to it.

  She felt like such a fraud, walking beside him, listening to him as though she knew as little as he did. When, in fact, she knew exactly where Abraham was.

  He was in a specially chosen foster home on the west side of Phoenix. Far enough away that there was no risk he’d run into his mother or anyone he knew. Seeing familiar people made the transition so much harder.

  “Then he was probably still sick today and he’ll be back tomorrow,” she said again, wondering why on earth she continued to suggest something she knew for certain wouldn’t be happening. Why couldn’t she just plead ignorance and let him talk?

  Why did this boy, this case, matter so much?

  He shook his head. “He wasn’t sick in bed yesterday.”

  Valerie slowed, too exhausted to keep up the pace they’d set on earlier excursions. “How do you know that?” She was careful to sound merely curious—continuing the duplicity.

  “I saw him yesterday afternoon, hanging out not far from the park where he lives.”

  She had to know if the boy had acted strange—stranger than warranted for ditching practice and being caught by your coach. Strange enough to suspect he’d already been bruised by then.

  Or had somebody hurt him the previous night?

  “You think he just lied about being sick to cut school?”

  “No.” Kirk shook his head. “Something was wrong. I just don’t know what.”

  She slowed her pace more as her adrenaline sped up. “Why do you say that?”

  “He was pretty bruised.”

  She hadn’t wanted to hear that. Although hearing that he’d been okay the previous afternoon wouldn’t have changed what she’d seen that day.

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  “He said he fell out of a tree.”

  At least his story was consistent.

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Not for a second. And he knew I knew he was lying.”

  “What do you think happened? A fight after school?”

  His mother? She almost hoped it was Carla who’d hurt the boy. As horrendous as that was, it was still better than the other possibility—that one of his mother’s “clients” had gotten to the boy.

  “He wasn’t at school.”

  “A street fight, then?”

  “Maybe.” Hands in the pockets of his sweats, Kirk slowed as they reached the small private park that was part of the gated community in which she lived. “You want to sit?”

  “Sure.” She was actually kind of relieved. Walking had been too much effort.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know some nice friendly cop we could call to check up on him, would you?”

  She didn’t need a cop to do that. All she had to do was make a phone call. “Yeah. I can think of a couple. I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.”

  They discussed the boy for another few minutes, until Valerie wished she’d never agreed to the outing. She’d just needed a few minutes of feeling good.

  And Kirk Chandler had a way of making her feel good.

  Especially when he touched her without touching her, running his finger through a strand of her hair, close enough that she could feel him, but not so close that he intruded on her carefully plotted life. Not so close that skin touched skin. Not so close that she was tempted to lose the misery of the day in the sweetness of a man at night.

  He was restless beside her. Tapping the heel of his tennis shoe on the concrete beneath their bench. Nodding his head slowly. Something was bothering him.

  But he wasn’t telling her about it.

  Valerie didn’t want to care one way or the other.

  She didn’t want to think at all anymore. At least not until she’d had a chance to sleep off the worst of her pain and worry and guilt.

  Kirk’s hand moved slowly through her hair. Taking up one strand. And then another. Occasionally shooting a ray of sensation down her body as he brushed her scalp. A full fifteen minutes passed in almost complete silence before he dropped his arm along the back of the bench right where her shoulders were leaning.

  She settled into the bench.

  She asked him how playground duty was going. About Brian’s eating habits at lunch that week. And, wincing slightly, she asked about his team’s chances of winning the play-offs if Abraham was still too sick to play in the game the following night.

  She was glad when his hand slid from the bench to her shoulders, massaging lightly. The action was harmless. They were in an open, if dark and deserted, park. And touch was good sometimes.

  Her exhausted body came alive, giving her renewed energy when she needed it most. His touch revived her strength and once again she felt as if she could carry on. Forge ahead. Make a difference in the world. And for her sons.

  His hand moved to her neck and her head dropped back. He kneaded the taut muscles of her neck, bringing immediate relief. But even as her eyes closed, she knew she couldn’t stay there much longer. She had to get home. Check the locks. Turn off the lights. Look in on the boys. Wash her face, brush her teeth and find a clean nightshirt…

  The lips touching hers were so light, so perfectly part of that moment, she simply accepted their rightness in being there. And when their pressure increased, when they began to move, her own moved beneath them, as naturally as her skin had responded to the healing touch of Kirk’s fingers. She was alive with sensation, euphoric almost, and yet sedated by the night. The quiet.

  He kissed her a second time. And a third. The fourth time Valerie opened her mouth to his, deepening the kiss. Tasting him.

  And then, slowly, she became aware of who she was.

  And pulled away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THEY SHOULD JUST GO HOME. They’d crossed a line and there was nothing left to do but leave.

  And still Valerie sat there. Kirk wasn’t moving, either, although he hadn’t said a word.

  “This isn’t fair to you,” she finally murmured.

  “What isn’t?”

  She was glad for the cover of darkness. It had been almost two decades since she’d been in the beginning stages of a relationship with a man. And never had she knowingly begun a relationship when that was all there could ever be.

  “
You. Me. Us.”

  “Our friendship is unfair to me?” he asked.

  Seated several inches away, he emanated life and vitality. His casual navy sweats and white long-sleeved T-shirt actually looked elegant on him.

  “I’m sure you feel the same way.” He was a man. He’d just shown her how much of one.

  The shake of his head was dimly perceptible in the night. “I think I’m where I want to be.”

  She had a feeling he meant that more than literally. And she had to get things straight, once and for all. She couldn’t afford to compromise here. Not at this time in her life—in her sons’ lives. Brian and Blake had already suffered enough at the hands of their parents. Perhaps they didn’t wear their bruises as obviously as Abraham Billings, but sometimes that was worse. Their scars were internal, psychological. The kind that could continue to inflict damage and skew everything else in their lives for years to come.

  It was much harder to heal wounds that couldn’t be seen.

  It was much harder to give a boy back his self-esteem than it was to remove him from an unhealthy environment.

  “There cannot be a repeat of what just happened,” she said, perhaps more sharply than she’d intended. And maybe she said it as sharply as she’d known she had to. There was just no room to give.

  No room for her, her needs or wants or desires, whatever they might be. Not here.

  “I agree.”

  Although she couldn’t really make out his expression, she turned to look at him, anyway. His hands were resting lightly in front of him. “You do?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. He was looking at her, too.

  “Why?”

  “Well…”

  “I mean—” she half laughed “—I know why for me, but you’re young and gorgeous, unattached. What you did, kissing me, was perfectly natural. There was nothing wrong with it at all.”

  “I’m glad to hear there was nothing wrong with it,” he said with a chuckle. “But I have to argue with you on one point.”

  “What?” She frowned but was breathing easier.

  “I wasn’t the only one doing the kissing.”

  “Oh.” She kept peering at him because she knew he couldn’t really see her. “Well, maybe not, but…”

  “But it won’t happen again.” She might not be able to decipher his expression, but she knew it had grown completely serious. “Because that was your second error,” he said.

  “What?” She kissed badly? She could believe that. She hadn’t had a lot of practice. Not in too many years to count.

  And hadn’t been all that experienced before her marriage. Law school was no easy task. And Valerie had been determined to graduate at the top of her class. Yeah, she could believe she wasn’t a great kisser. Thomas had certainly told her that often enough.

  Still, it was rather embarrassing for Kirk to know that.

  “I’m not unattached.”

  Considering that she’d just made it very clear to him—and to herself—that there could be nothing between them, she should not be disappointed to hear him say that he was committed elsewhere.

  “You…have a wife, after all?”

  “No.”

  “A girlfriend?” Then why wasn’t he off being friends with her?

  Making her stomach turn over with his kisses?

  She hadn’t figured him for a man who disregarded monogamy. He was so completely the opposite of Thomas.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend.” His voice was tentative, as though he wasn’t sure what to say next. But she waited because she knew there was more. “Like you, I have a son.”

  “Where?” She couldn’t help it; her voice rose at least two octaves. “How old is he?” Who is his mother?

  “I just found out.”

  Valerie began to detach herself from the situation, the same way she did at work. “You got someone pregnant and now you have to marry her?” She said it matter-of-factly.

  “No.”

  “You aren’t going to marry her.”

  He cocked his head. She thought he might even be grinning a little. “You want to let me tell this story? Might save time—and help you get the facts straight.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem, Judge. I understand how it is with you court people. Always probing for the truth.”

  She was missing something. There’d been a sarcastic edge to that statement.

  “So tell me about your son.”

  “It’s not a story I’m proud of.” He shrugged, hands still loosely in front of him. Was the man ever not comfortable in his own skin?

  “Okay.”

  “I had one night of sex almost a year ago.”

  Valerie sucked in a breath, apparently not as detached as she’d thought. His son was a newborn baby.

  “So you are thinking about marrying her.”

  It didn’t matter. She could be friends with a married man.

  “This really would be easier if you’d just let me tell it,” he said, his voice lighter than before. He was enjoying the opportunity to tease her.

  She’d remember that.

  She hoped.

  “I won’t say another word.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She glared at him—not that it did any good. Glares needed to be seen to be effective. “I won’t.”

  “You just did.”

  Damn.

  “I recently found out that a child resulted from that night.” He paused. Swallowed.

  What mattered was doing the right thing when you were faced with the situation.

  “His mother didn’t want me to know.”

  “Why not? You’d think she’d want support if nothing else.”

  “She’s married.”

  “You slept with a married woman.”

  “She wasn’t married at the time.” He stood, turned to face her, his expression more shadowed now than ever. Straining to see in the dark, she could tell that he’d shoved his hands in his pockets. “She was engaged to be married, but I didn’t know that.” One foot on the bench, he continued, “I’m not proud of myself. It was just…one of those things.”

  She understood. She’d had one. Once. Right before she met Thomas.

  “But the point is, the boy’s mine. I’m his father. And I am not going to be able to live with myself until I can be a proper father to him. If that means child support and nothing else for now, then fine. But my son is not going to grow up thinking his father didn’t want him.”

  She believed him.

  “So tell her that.”

  “I did. She didn’t thank me for the problem I was causing. It seems she told her husband the child is his.”

  Life could be surprising and full of unexpected coincidence. At a time when Valerie’s faith in men was at an all-time low, this decent, honorable man had dropped into her life. Ironically, she was helping a friend, albeit a distant one, with a situation that was the reverse of his. But while Susan fought for the right to have her son’s father raise him, her manipulative and controlling ex-husband claimed that he was the father. This man, who’d apparently first made an effort to get to know his seven-year-old daughter when she lay dying in a hospital, had already shown that he had no idea what fatherhood was about. For him, trying to prove that he was the child’s father was a means of control, of asserting ownership over the ex-wife who’d walked out on him.

  Susan was so distressed by the man that in those long, agonizing conversations they’d had during the month or two she and Valerie had consoled each other, she’d never even called him by name. It was usually “the bastard.” Or sometimes “the jerk.” But then, Valerie very seldom called Thomas anything other than “my husband,” or most often, “the boys’ father.”

  And here was Kirk, a decent man with no other goal than to be accountable for his actions. He was a man so conscientious of his obligations, so driven by the need to do the right thing, he couldn’t tolerate being denied that possibility.

  Susan’s situation had been depressing V
alerie, reminding her far too much of her life with Thomas. Not just because her husband was responsible for the death of the other woman’s daughter, but because Thomas had been the same type of negligent father as Susan’s first husband. He’d gone to his grave never having known the two remarkable children he’d had.

  If ever a man was the antithesis of her ex-husband, it was Kirk Chandler. And still, Valerie was not, absolutely not, going to fall for him. However, she wasn’t averse to having some of her faith in humanity—particularly the male variety—restored.

  Finally silent, Kirk sat back down beside her.

  She turned toward him, cursing the darkness that wouldn’t let her read his expression. Or let him read hers…

  “I’m guessing the husband is named as the father.”

  “Yes.”

  “Arizona law is pretty clear about the significance of that, but if you’re willing to go to the wall on this, I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “I’ve already called an attorney, prepared to do whatever is necessary. I’d appreciate any and all help you can give me.”

  Intimacy engulfed them. Much more intense than before. And he wasn’t even touching her.

  IN HIS CUSTOMARY JEANS and flannel shirt, Kirk was leaning against the wall outside Steve McDonald’s office at six-thirty the next morning.

  “You’re in early,” the sandy-haired ex–baseball player said.

  Kirk held up a paper bag. “I brought you a doughnut.”

  McDonald was the official-looking one in his gray suit, white shirt and tie—unlike previous years when Kirk had been the one dressed for success. He frowned. “Krispy Kreme,” he said. “That means you want something.”

  “You saying I have to bribe you to get your help?” Kirk challenged, following his one real friend into the office.

  “I’m saying you think you do.”

  With far more important things on his mind, Kirk let that comment pass.

  “Abraham Billings hasn’t been at practice for the past two days.”

  “He’s been absent.”

  “Monday it was the flu. What about yesterday?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know where he is?”