Susan’s inability to say her ex-husband’s name spoke volumes to Valerie. It was months after Thomas’s death before she could allow his name back into her vocabulary. Before that, just thinking his name made her break down.
Detachment was one hell of a coping mechanism.
“Read me the order,” she said, letting the subject of Alexander go for now.
She had to wait another five minutes for Susan to get through the whole thing. Or at least enough of it so Valerie could fill in the blanks.
It sounded pretty tightly sealed.
But she couldn’t tell Susan that. At least not until she’d taken a look at the order herself. “I’d like to send a courier over for the order and copies of all the other paperwork your lawyer has given you,” she said. “Would that be okay with you?”
“O-kayyyyy.” The word slurred into another sob.
“I’ll send him right now, Susan,” Valerie said firmly, sensing how important it was to give the woman something to do. And to get those papers out of her house. “That means you need to have the papers ready. Understand?”
“I do. I-I-I’ll have them.”
The second she was off the phone, Valerie had Leah arrange for a courier to run by Susan Douglas’s house. And left instructions to let her know the second the paperwork arrived.
HER FIRST DAY BACK at work after the Christmas break was extremely busy, and she wasn’t back in her office until four o’clock that afternoon.
“It came.” Leah met her at the door of their suite and followed Valerie into her office. Nodding, Valerie unzipped her robe and hung it up. Before she sat down, she checked her caller ID. This was the boys’ first day back at school, and while Blake had been fine during their quiet vacation at home, just the three of them—plus a few dinners with Kirk, Valerie was still worried about her son.
Releasing a sigh of relief when she saw the blank display, she sank down into her chair, taking the file that Leah handed her.
Opened it.
And felt the blood drain from her face.
“Judge?” Leah’s made-up face and twisted light brown hair came into view. Valerie wondered why people thought those ends sticking up like that were attractive. Of course, on Leah, they were. They were part of her elfin charm.
“You okay?” her assistant asked, sitting in the chair across from Valerie. Leah’s black slacks had a leopardskin waistband. Which matched the collar on her white silk blouse.
“Have I ever told you how much I like your wardrobe?” she asked.
Leah’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
Pulling at the collar of her gray flannel dress, Valerie nodded. “Well, I do.”
“Thanks.”
She glanced at the papers again, and then back up, still nodding. She didn’t know what else to do.
“What’s wrong?”
What was wrong? Was anything wrong? Valerie wasn’t sure. She just felt that nothing was ever going to be right again.
There was no basis for that thought. She wasn’t involved, wasn’t committed. She’d had sex. Once. She hadn’t even told the man she loved him.
She didn’t love him.
She didn’t want to love him.
She glanced at the top page again.
It couldn’t be. And yet, it made a twisted sort of sense. Kirk had been so reticent about his past. And with a past like his, who wouldn’t be?
Leah leaned forward. “What can I do?”
Looking up, Valerie opened her mouth to tell her there was no reason to do anything. And did something she’d never done at work before. Not even her first day back after Thomas’s accident. She started to cry.
“Judge?” Leah came around to her side of the desk, slid an arm around Valerie’s shoulders, gave her a hug. “Can I get you some water?”
Wiping her eyes, Valerie nodded again. It seemed to be the only thing she could do. “A bottle of water would be nice,” she said with a tremulous smile.
He’d tried to change his life, hadn’t he? That could be what the crossing guard and coaching stuff was all about. And if that was so, she could hardly blame him for needing to leave his old life behind. For lying to people in the new life he’d created.
After all, he couldn’t escape if he brought his sins with him.
Pulling a bottle from the little refrigerator in one corner of Valerie’s office, Leah handed it across the desk, reseating herself.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
Valerie glanced down at the report one more time, and then up at Leah. “You know that crossing guard I told you about?” she asked.
“The one who is the boys’ basketball coach?”
“Yeah.”
“The one you’ve been meeting for coffee and late-night walks?”
She wished she’d never told her assistant about that. Thank God Leah didn’t know what else Valerie had done with Kirk Chandler.
“He’s the man who’s claiming to be the father of Susan Douglas’s baby.”
Eyes wide, Leah gaped at her. “The crossing guard is Susan Douglas’s multimillionaire ex-husband?”
“Apparently.” She pushed the papers across to her assistant. There was no way the man Susan had described to her was the same man who’d sat with her at the hospital on Christmas night. Or bought dinner for her and the boys two evenings this past week.
He’d lied to her—by omission.
But could she blame him? She’d lied to him, too, by omission. About the Billings case.
Because she was trying to do the right thing. The good thing.
And wasn’t that what he was doing? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” A favorite quote of her parents’ sprang to mind. By their actions and the results of their actions; that was how people revealed what they really were.
The actions of the Kirk Chandler she knew were generous and compassionate.
It couldn’t be the same man.
There had to be an explanation. She was just missing it.
“His having the same name as Susan’s ex didn’t surprise you?” Leah asked.
“I don’t think I ever heard his name from Susan. She reverted to her maiden name when they divorced and apparently had Alicia’s changed, too, because the name in the obituary was the same as Susan’s. Or maybe that was a mistake.” Valerie stared at the papers, unseeing. “She never called him anything but the bastard or him or, once or twice, her ex.”
Kirk had lied to her. He’d told her the episode with the woman he’d impregnated had been a one-night stand. Of course, technically, it had been. Susan was engaged to be married at the time.
And Susan. She’d lied, too. In that call right before Christmas, she’d told Valerie that Kirk had threatened her. That he had a violent temper. That she was afraid for her life.
Valerie had told Susan to have her attorney file an order of protection. Looking through the pages Leah had handed back, she saw that it had been done. And that he hadn’t requested a hearing to fight the allegation within the allotted ten-day timeframe.
An order of protection against Kirk Chandler? She couldn’t imagine it.
Kirk was certain he was Colton’s father.
Susan was certain he was not.
And she’d suffered so much already.
Kirk was suffering, too. Although, now that she thought about it, Valerie wasn’t so sure anymore. The man must be a consummate liar. A master of evasion. No wonder he could afford that house of his. He was a barracuda. An immoral, conniving man who’d fathered a little girl he’d never known.
He was just like Thomas.
He was the man she’d fallen in love with.
“I had to identify Thomas’s car after the accident.” She had no idea where the words came from. Or why. But one look at the compassion on her assistant’s face and Valerie couldn’t stop the flow.
“I saw the stains on the front of the car—where he’d hit the little girl.” She stopped, her sight turned inward to images she usually tried to suppress.
“
And the first time I met Susan… After I saw the obituary in the paper, the picture of that child’s innocent, smiling face, I went around to Susan’s house to offer my condolences, to see if there was anything I could do.”
Valerie closed her eyes. “I stood there in Susan’s house, seeing this ashen woman surrounded by boxes, the remnants of a life that had ended. The woman was only half-alive herself.”
Leah didn’t say much, just sat and listened as Valerie relived some of the worst moments of that time in her life.
LATER, in the Mercedes heading home long before she felt ready, Valerie tuned in to her favorite classical station. She hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot before her mind was once again stumbling over memories too painful for words.
Where had Kirk Chandler been while his ex-wife was dying inside? Out hunting down deals? People he could force out of business? Susan had said he’d owned an acquisitions firm. That he’d built his reputation on successful hostile takeovers.
That thought led to more memories, things Susan had told her about her ex-husband, how his work had consumed his life, how it had been all about winning. She remembered how she’d thought that Susan’s ex-husband and her own had been cast from the same mold.
On the freeway, as she headed from Mesa to Ahwatukee, Kirk’s more recent actions took on new meaning. Like his refusal to back down with Abraham. Or Brian, for that matter. Yes, with Brian his approach had worked. But with Abraham? She’d assumed he’d stopped seeing the boy, but had he? Suddenly she didn’t think so.
And although the decision to remove Abraham from his home had been extremely difficult, Valerie trusted her judgment on that one. Did guys like Kirk Chandler trust theirs? Or did they just push hard enough to get what they wanted? The man had no scruples. She didn’t know a lot about Kirk Chandler the businessman. It had only taken one episode related by Susan to give her a measure of the man. He’d put his own father out of business in a hostile takeover.
Chilled, Valerie remembered the night Kirk had told her about his father’s selling of the family business. She understood now the odd note in his voice when he’d told her he’d approved of the sale.
Exiting the freeway, Valerie passed the new mall without a glance. Unscrupulous in business, Kirk Chandler had also never been a father to Alicia or a husband to Susan. And that about said it all.
He was Thomas all over again. The last thing her boys needed.
Thinking of the twins reminded her of the night Kirk had told her about his son. The fierce need to be a father to the boy hadn’t been faked. It couldn’t have been.
So could Kirk be that baby’s father?
And didn’t he have a right to know if he was?
As she sped through town, getting ever closer to home, thoughts of the man she’d known these past months crowded her mind. Whatever he’d been in the past, right now he was nothing more than a crossing guard at an elementary school. Well, that plus playground monitor and lunchroom supervisor. And, of course, a basketball coach.
And he’d been all the father any boy could have hoped for when Blake was so sick on Christmas Day. More of a father than their own had ever been.
It had to be a mistake. She’d make a call first thing in the morning and find out that this was all some horrible coincidence—that there were two men with the same name at the same address involved in a paternity suit. Because that was all her Kirk and Susan’s Kirk had in common. A name. An address. And a paternity suit.
By the time she crawled into bed that night with a colossal headache, sick with confusion, Valerie had made one decision. She was going to call Susan Douglas in the morning and recommend that she take Colton in for a paternity test. It was the only way the woman would ever find any peace.
Because one thing was for sure: Kirk Chandler was not going to give up.
KIRK’S HANDS were clammy and trembling as he started his Vette Wednesday morning after crossing-guard duty. He had an appointment at the hospital in fifteen minutes. For the past hour he’d been replaying the early-morning phone call from his attorney. Susan had agreed to the paternity test.
As early as that afternoon, Kirk might have his son. At least in name. And, knowing Troy, it wouldn’t be long after that before he was holding the boy in his arms. He couldn’t wait to tell Valerie.
Mostly to keep his thoughts in check, he put in a call to her office on the way to his appointment. She was on the bench, as he’d known she would be, but just hearing her on voice mail calmed him. He didn’t leave a message.
This was something he wanted to tell her in person. But he didn’t think he’d be able to wait until that evening to share his news.
Test over in minutes, Kirk tried Valerie again, his heart skipping a beat when she answered her phone.
“Hi,” he greeted her.
“Kirk, hi.” The note of gladness that usually accompanied her greeting wasn’t there. Her immediate question explained it. “What’s wrong? Is Blake bleeding again? I knew I should’ve made him stay home an extra week or two. Seventh grade can be pretty stressful—”
“Whoa, slow down,” he interrupted with a smile. “I’m just calling to ask you and the boys out to dinner. I have some good news.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Her refusal surprised and disappointed him, not that any negative emotion could last against the elation he was feeling. He’d been given a second chance. “With Blake being sick,” she said, “I let things go for too long at home and I’m overwhelmed with chores.”
“Can I help?”
“No, the boys have to help. Remember?”
Yeah, and being included in that intimate family memory just added to the glow of this day.
“I could help with their homework while you do other things.”
“That’s okay. They don’t usually have much on Wednesdays except word lists to study. They help each other with that.”
“How about a quick trip for ice cream?” She hadn’t been this difficult to convince in months. Not that Kirk was deterred by that. Right now, life was as close to perfect as it was ever going to get for him.
“I’m sorry, Kirk, I do want to see you, I need to talk to you, but tonight just isn’t good.”
Kirk hung up the phone and shook off the sense of foreboding the conversation had given him. Whatever was bothering her he’d just have to fix.
Odd, though, how she’d never asked about his news.
IN SPITE OF HIS CALL to Valerie, Kirk was still buoyed when he left school that afternoon. And, since he couldn’t see Valerie and her boys, he knew exactly who he should spend his evening with.
Abraham was delighted to see him, almost too delighted. The boy was outside when Kirk pulled up—and since the visit was unplanned, he couldn’t have been waiting for him. Kirk wondered how much time the boy spent out on the street corner, thinking about escape.
“This is so great, Coach,” Abraham said, jumping into the car.
“Don’t you think you ought to tell Mrs. Morton where you’re going?”
“Nah,” he said, shaking a head with hair unusually tousled. “They aren’t home. Went to some aunt’s for dinner, but I didn’t want to go.”
Pulling slowly away, Kirk glanced at the boy. “They often leave you home alone?”
“I’m not in jail!”
No, but judging by the way he looked, he could have been; all he lacked was the blue cotton pants and short-sleeved shirt. For a boy who’d always been impeccably, if inexpensively, put together, Abraham had fallen apart. His clothes were dirty, the crotch of his pants hanging down to his knees, his shirt looking like he’d slept in it several nights in a row. His hair was longer than normal, unwashed, unkempt.
Over dinner, Kirk’s unease only grew. “I can’t believe you’re really here,” the boy said at least four times as they shared a pizza and some soda at a place around the corner from the Mortons’. It wasn’t the words that bothered Kirk so much. It was the desperation with which they were uttered.
If the
situation didn’t improve soon, Abraham was going to do something drastic.
“Come back soon, Coach, okay?” the boy asked as Kirk dropped him off a couple of hours later. They’d shot some hoops at a nearby lighted court and Abraham seemed more relaxed.
“Of course.”
“I mean it,” Abraham said. He had the door open, but wasn’t getting out. There were no lights on in the house, which must have meant the Mortons hadn’t returned yet. Kirk didn’t understand how it was good for Abraham to be alone at night in a strange house. “Promise you’ll be back soon.”
“I promise.” Kirk gave him the only answer he could. He was coming back, anyway, but as he drove away, he mentally added an extra day a week to the schedule he’d set himself for Billings visits. Apparently spending time with Kirk was the only thing the kid had to hold on to.
AT HOME THAT NIGHT, restless, Kirk thought again about calling Valerie. Maybe she’d finished her chores and they could go for a short walk. Just long enough for him to figure out what was wrong with her. And to share his good news. He got a thrill of anticipation every time he thought about the upcoming days and everything they might bring. Tomorrow, even though it was only a day before the regular floral delivery, he’d take roses to Alicia.
In an effort to focus his energies, he wandered into his dining room, and the projects in various stages waiting for him there. An hour later, consumed by the challenges before him, Kirk caught a glimpse of himself and jumped up from the table, turned off the light and left the room. He was enjoying the work too much.
And it was too late to call Valerie.
He poured a glass of scotch and went out to sit by the pool.
To think about all the things he’d do with his son.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THURSDAY MORNING, after dropping off the boys, Valerie went in for her appointment with Steve McDonald. Walking quickly, head down, she prayed she could avoid Kirk Chandler. She just wasn’t ready to see him yet. Couldn’t trust herself to behave appropriately. Partially because she had no idea what that actually entailed.
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