by Shirley Jump
In the two years Mary had worked in the office, Carolyn had yet to figure out what stratosphere Mary’s mind was working on. Luckily, Mary typed at an ungodly speed and filed with an almost zenlike ability. As for the rest...
Well, Carolyn was twenty-eight and didn’t need anyone to tell her how to live her life. Or to tell her she needed a man to take care of her. Not when there were more important things on her desk, like a thief.
She opened the thick manila folder before her and began reviewing the facts in the case again. If she got distracted for one second, she could miss something. A guilty man, for instance. This time it was Liam Pendant, a career criminal with an unregistered firearm in the glove compartment of his truck. His lawyer wanted her to go easy on him, but Carolyn disagreed. What if Liam had taken his crime a step further? Entered the house instead of just stolen the lawnmower out of the open garage? What if he’d taken the gun along? Used it on the homeowner who had caught him running down the driveway?
Instead of a simple burglary charge, she could be looking at another senseless tragedy, the result of a bad temper mixed with a gun.
And Carolyn knew all too well where that could lead. How a family could be destroyed in the blink of an eye. No, she decided, reviewing Liam’s extensive rap sheet again, then closing the folder.
There would be no deal.
Mary took a seat on the edge of Carolyn’s desk, depositing a mug of coffee before her. Carolyn thanked her and went on working. Mary laid a palm on the papers, blocking Carolyn’s view. “Hon, an earthworm has more of a life than you do.”
“Mary, aren’t you paid to—”
“Assist, not direct you?” she finished.
Carolyn laughed and stretched in her chair. “I guess I’ve said that often enough.”
“And I’ve ignored you often enough. But after two years together, I consider us friends. And as your friend, I have to say you’re working too hard.” She rose, crossed the room and opened the closed blinds, revealing the brightly lit city outside. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s summer. People are out there enjoying the sun. Not staying inside like vampires.”
For a second, Carolyn paused to turn around and admire the view. The burst of fire the afternoon sun cast over the downtown square, the busy stream of traffic leaving the city as people returned to their families or headed out of Lawford for the tranquility of the lakes that dotted the Indiana landscape.
“It’s a perfect day,” Mary said. “And it’s going to be a perfect weekend for the program for the kids. They’re going to love all the gifts and the—”
“Oh the gifts! Damn!” Carolyn rubbed at her temples. “I haven’t bought a single present yet. I promised to sponsor one of those children and I totally forgot to get to the store. I’m sorry, Mary. These last few cases have been eating up every spare moment.”
“There’s always going to be another case,” Mary said gently. “Will you please get out and enjoy the sunshine, Carolyn? I swear, all this climate-controlled air is frying your brain.”
Carolyn rose and crossed to the window. For a second, she felt the warmth of the day, felt the special magic that seemed to come with summer days wrap around her heart. Her mind spiraled back to her childhood, to those first days out of school, running to greet her father when he got home from work, the endless bike rides they’d take, the times he’d push her on the backyard swing—just one more time, Dad, please, one more time—the games of catch that went long into the twilight hours. Once in a while they’d stay up late, watching for shooting stars or playing catch-and-release with fireflies.
Her throat caught, a lump so thick in the space below her chin, she couldn’t swallow. Oh, Dad. How she missed him, the ache hitting deep and sharp, from time to time.
Every summer with her father had been...incredible. It had been just the two of them, after her mother had been killed in a car accident shortly after Carolyn was born. Because of that, Carolyn and her father had shared a bond. A bond she missed, missed so very much there were days when she swore she could touch the pain.
After her father died when she was nine, she’d lost that feeling of joy, that anticipation of warm days, of long, lazy evenings. She’d started staying indoors, avoiding summer because everything had lost its magic. Trying to forget the very season she had enjoyed so much.
Then Nick had come along a few years ago and reminded her of the fun she used to have. Reminded her that magic still existed.
For a while Carolyn had let loose and done something completely crazy—so crazy that it had led her to a disaster of a marriage. For five minutes she’d let go of the tight hold she’d had over her life, and when she had, the ball of control went rolling over the hill way too fast.
Thankfully, she’d fixed that mistake almost immediately, and everything was on the right path now. She was successful at her job. Sure, it had come at the cost of what other people had—a home, kids, the trappings of tradition—but for a woman like Carolyn, who had about as much experience with the traditional life as a swimsuit model did with dog sledding, it was just as well. Besides, neither she nor Nick had taken the marriage seriously, not really.
And when that face from her past appeared on the TV screen in the diner, blasting Carolyn’s history on national airwaves, she’d made her choice and walked away from Nick for good.
Carolyn pushed away the memories then returned to her desk, swallowed two aspirin with the black coffee, and went back to work. “I’ll leave early—er. I promise, Mary.”
Mary sighed. “Okay. See you tomorrow, then. You will be at the picnic, right? Not chained to this desk?”
Carolyn smiled. “I’ll be there. I promise.”
“I’m holding you to it. And if you don’t show up,” Mary said, with a warning wag of her index finger, “you know I’ll come right down here and drag you out of this office.”
Mary said goodbye, then headed out of the office, already exchanging her pumps for a pair of flip-flops in her purse. Clearly, the paralegal was ready to start her holiday weekend.
Carolyn thought of the last time she’d done something that carefree. That spontaneous. And she couldn’t remember. Somewhere along the road, it had simply become easier to spend weekends, holidays, Friday nights at her desk. Easier to ignore the invitations to dinners that were clearly fix-ups, the dates with men who didn’t interest her, the lonely evenings at home by herself.
Mary was right. Carolyn could almost feel her father looking down on her from heaven, tsk-tsking at all the sunshine she had missed, the sunsets that had passed behind Carolyn’s back as she’d worked.
Well, she did have shopping to do for the picnic tomorrow. What better excuse to leave early? She finished up the last few tasks on her desk, including leaving a voice mail for Liam’s attorney telling him no deal, then shut down her computer. Her gaze caught on the bright blue-and-yellow envelope for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program. She tugged it out, stuck it in her briefcase, then headed out the door.
As she headed down in the elevator, she opened the envelope and pulled out the photo of the child inside. A paper clip held a four-by-six-inch picture of a five-year-old boy to the corner of a sheet of paper.
Her stomach clenched. Oh, he was a cute little thing—blond and blue-eyed, a little on the skinny side, and in desperate need, the sheet said, of almost everything. School supplies, clothes, sheets. His dream wish list was so simple, it nearly broke Carolyn’s heart: books to read and a single toy truck.
For a split second, she saw the future that could have been in the boy’s eyes. If she had stayed married to Nick—if either of them had made that bond into something real.
Carolyn traced the outline of the child’s face. What if...
But no. There were no what ifs, not where she and Nicholas Gilbert were concerned. Carolyn had made her choices, and made them for very good reason
s—and exactly the one that made her happy.
By the time the elevator doors whooshed open, Carolyn was back in work mode. She’d deal with this sponsorship project with her typical take-charge attitude. Clutching the envelope tight, she ran down a mental list of tasks, compartmentalizing the entire process, treating it as simply one more thing to do. Distancing herself, keeping emotions out of the equation.
That, Carolyn knew, was the best way to protect her most valuable asset—the one she’d vowed never to expose again, especially not to another lawyer—
Her heart.
* * *
The last place Nick Gilbert expected to be on a Friday night was a toy store.
Yet here he was, standing in the center of a brightly lit aisle filled with pink and lace, trying to decide between a doll that cried and a doll that burped. To him, neither seemed to offer an advantage. Burping might be a cool and very funny option—but only if you were a teenage boy looking to crack up the algebra class. Nevertheless, given the way the little girls swarming around him were grabbing the toys off the shelves, both outbursts were wildly popular.
Cry...or burp?
He may have grown up in a big family, but everything Nick knew about children could fit on the back of an ant, with room left for an entire kindergarten class. Why had he agreed to sponsor a child for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program? What was he thinking?
He’d been swayed by a picture. By the list of needs on the sheet inside the packet of information about the child. And he’d thought, with his typical can-do attitude, that he could handle this.
Ha. He’d have been better off trying to corral a herd of elephants.
And, truth be told, he’d also thought a trip to a toy store, a few gifts thrown into a cart and an afternoon at the Care-and-Connect picnic might fill the gnawing hole in his chest. It had grown more persistent lately, like a thirst he couldn’t quite quench. A crazy feeling, because he should be content. He had everything he needed. A good career. Great friends, a loving family who lived nearby. An easy lifestyle that demanded nothing.
And yet...
His grip tightened on the dolls’ try-me buttons, which made them let out a simultaneous burp-cry. Two moms in the aisle turned to look at him, twin amused smiles on their face, coupled with looks of compassion. A man in the baby doll aisle. Apparently he was an object of pity.
“Trial run before I have a real kid,” he joked. “I think I like the burping better. It’s more entertaining.”
The moms shook their heads, then laughed and walked away.
Nick tossed both packages into his cart, then swung it around and headed down the aisle. He spun to the right, intending to get out of the store as quickly as he could. This was so not his forte. But as he rounded the corner, his cart collided with another, jostling the dolls, who complained with another burp-cry.
Nick barely noticed. Because he found himself staring at the one woman he thought he’d managed to forget.
Carolyn Duff.
She had deep-green eyes, so wide and dark, they were as inviting as placid lakes beneath a moonlit sky. A charcoal suit hugged her body, yet gave nothing away. Sensible pumps with kitten heels, not high enough to show off the real curves of her long legs, but enough to remind him of those gorgeous, long limbs. Blond hair, put back in a severe, tight bun, but Nick knew, when she let her hair down, it would be just long enough to tease around her features and whisper along her cheekbones, her jaw.
Everything about Carolyn on the outside was delicate, and yet on the inside she was strong—like a flamingo that could weather a hurricane.
She’d been the one woman who had intrigued him more than any other in law school. Her upper-crust, stiff Bostonian attitude had been a challenge to him—because when they’d met and he’d made her laugh, he’d glimpsed the Carolyn underneath, it had made him want to peel back the layers, get her to loosen up. Tease out the fun side of the severe, break-no-rules studier.
He’d done that, then done the most spontaneous thing in his life. Taken it to the next level and married her—the biggest mistake of his life.
And now that mistake was standing right in front of him.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Carolyn asked. Her heartbeat doubled with the shock of seeing him. She saw the same surprise reflected in the widening of his eyes, the way he seemed rooted to the spot. Nick Gilbert, the last man she expected to run into in the toy aisle.
Nick. Her...
Husband?
The thought ran through her in a rush, along with the embarrassing memory of when she’d said “I do” in a tacky Vegas wedding chapel and made promises she, of all people, shouldn’t have made.
No, he wasn’t her husband. Not anymore. Her ex.
Their marriage, their relationship was over now. They were over.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said.
She looked up at him, hating the disadvantage of being shorter. At six-two, Nick had always had a good seven-inch height advantage over her. Years ago she’d liked that. Liked that she could look up into his teasing blue eyes and be swept up into the humor of his smile.
But not anymore. Right now she wished she had on platform heels so she could go toe-to-toe with those blue eyes.
Blue eyes that no longer had any effect on her. Whatsoever. Despite the tingle she’d felt when she ran into him in the crowded courthouse elevator last week. And glimpsed him in the cafeteria from time to time.
She’d seen him off and on many times since their divorce, but never this close. Never had to have a real conversation with him. Even now, as she had for the past three years, she could turn away, walk down the aisle as if nothing had happened.
But something had. A little something inside her had zigged when they had zagged.
With a start, she realized he was staring at her—because she hadn’t answered the question. Heat filled her cheeks, which only left her more discomfited.
Carolyn Duff didn’t do discomfited. She never felt out of sorts.
“I’m buying toys for one of the children in the charity—” She glanced down at his cart and saw toys. Books.
“Me, too. I think the entire Lawford legal community got onboard with this one,” he said. “But maybe I should have stuck to business law. I haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell I’m doing.” He reached into his cart and pulled out the two dolls. “Burps or cries? Which is better? How am I supposed to know? To me, they’re both losing propositions.”
She laughed and when she did, it resurrected a part of her she’d thought she left behind long ago. A lightness she’d lost in the years she’d lived with her aunt Greta, then rediscovered when she’d met Nick.
A lightness she’d missed in the heavy work of being a city prosecutor.
She glanced at Nick. The poor man clearly had no clue when it came to kids—and neither did she. The two of them were stuck in the same shopping hell. What harm could come from a little talking? “I know exactly how you feel. I was standing in the next aisle with the same problem.” She reached into her cart and pulled out a selection of trucks. “Fire engine or police car? Dump truck or...what is this thing? A front loader? And what is a front loader anyway? And then there’s these things called transformers, but I can’t figure out why anyone would want a toy that transforms, or if it’s even what this boy would want.” Carolyn tossed the toys back into her cart and threw up her hands. She was babbling. She always did that when she got nervous—something that only seemed to happen outside the courtroom, and apparently whenever she got around Nick, who was a six-foot-two reminder of her biggest mistake. “Whatever happened to a bat, a ball and a catcher’s mitt?”
Nick chuckled. “It has gotten complicated, hasn’t it? Every single thing I see here has a computer chip in it, I swear. These aren’t ju
st toys, they’re technological revolutions.” Nick shook his head. “Well, I’ll muddle through somehow. After all, I’ve got a college degree. How hard can it be? Just watch me.” He chuckled, showing the easy humor that had always been as much a part of Nick as his dark-brown hair and his cobalt eyes.
Did he remember that crazy decision to rush off to Vegas? The heady choice they’d made? One where they’d clearly not been thinking with brain cells, and only with the blush of lust?
Carolyn, out of Aunt Greta’s house for the first time since she was nine, so desperate to cast off the strangling structure of her past, saw escape in Nick. She’d married him for all the wrong reasons and had at least been smart enough to undo it the first chance she got.
Nick leaned forward, reading the boxes that lined the shelves, studying the facts and figures, researching his purchase. He was being the detail man that made him a good lawyer, but betraying none of the funny, spontaneous Nick she’d once known. Just as well. She didn’t need that man in her life. Because that man was the one who had—for a snippet of time—made her think she could be someone she really wasn’t.
“This says ages eight and up,” Nick read aloud, sounding as serious as a tax accountant. “I don’t think that will work. My paper says the child is six.”
“My—” She caught herself before she said “my child,” because this wasn’t her child. “The child I’m sponsoring is almost the same age. I have a five-year-old.”
“Someone wasn’t thinking. Giving you and me a couple of little kids like that. They should have assigned us two high school students. That we can handle. Buy them a couple calculators and some dictionaries. Sit them down, dispense some college advice.”
“Yeah.” She let out a little laugh. An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them, the kind that came from two people who used to know each other and now didn’t, who were pretending everything was cool—even when a heat still simmered in the air.
Leave, her mind said. Take this pause as what it was—an excuse to go. But her feet didn’t go anywhere and she couldn’t have said why.