Temporary Family

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  “Come on, Laura, cut me some slack—unless you’re afraid of me.”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Sally Tyler Hayes

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Copyright

  “Come on, Laura, cut me some slack—unless you’re afraid of me.”

  “You just startled me, that’s all.” Laura smiled, unable to stop comparing Nick to one of her students. They got lost sometimes, basically good kids who lost all sense of themselves and what was important. And those who didn’t care about themselves were the ones who made disastrous mistakes with their lives.

  So exactly how did one go about cutting some slack to a dangerously handsome man who reminded her alternately of the devil himself and a lost little boy? Laura collected kids in need the way some people picked up stray cats and took them home with them; she certainly couldn’t start treating grown men the same way. Although, for a second, the thought of taking Nick home with her had her heart kicking into high gear....

  Dear Reader,

  The weather may be cooling off as fall approaches, but the reading’s as hot as ever here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. And for our lead title this month I’m proud to present the first longer book from reader favorite BJ James. In Broken Spurs she’s created a hero and heroine sure to live in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page.

  Karen Leabo returns with Midnight Confessions, about a bounty hunter whose reward—love—turns out to be far different from what he’d expected. In Bringing Benjy Home, Kylie Brant matches a skeptical man with an intuitive woman, then sets them on the trail of a missing child. Code Name: Daddy is the newest Intimate Moments novel from Marilyn Tracy, who took a break to write for our Shadows line. It’s a unique spin on the ever-popular “secret baby” plotline. And you won’t want to miss Michael’s House, Pat Warren’s newest book for the line and part of her REUNION miniseries, which continues in Special Edition. Finally, in Temporary Family Sally Tyler Hayes creates the family of the title, then has you wishing as hard as they do to make the arrangement permanent.

  Enjoy them all—and don’t forget to come back next month for more of the best romance fiction around, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Leslie Wainger,

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  * * *

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  * * *

  TEMPORARY FAMILY

  SALLY TYLER HAYES

  Books by Sally Tyler Hayes

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Whose Child Is This? #439

  Dixon’s Bluff #485

  Days Gone By #549

  Not His Wife #611

  Our Child? #671

  Homecoming #700

  Temporary Family #738

  SALLY TYLER HAYES

  lives in South Carolina with her husband, son and daughter. A former journalist for a South Carolina newspaper, she fondly remembers that her decision to write and explore the frontiers of romance came at about the same time she discovered, in junior high, that she’d never be able to join the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

  Happy and proud to be a stay-home mom, she is thrilled to be living her lifelong dream of writing romance fiction.

  Sally loves to hear from readers. You may write to her at P.O. Box 5452 (A), Greenville, SC 29606.

  This book is for a special friend, Cynthia.

  It’s so nice to have a friend whose love for books

  matches my own. It makes me so happy to talk books

  with you, hunt for books with you and go away to

  conferences with you. And when I die, my copy of

  Mackenzie’s Mountain is yours.

  Chapter 1

  The ringing of the phone woke Dr. Nicholas Garrett from a sound sleep. Groggily, he rubbed his sore neck. He’d fallen asleep on the couch again, where a man of his size had no hope of sleeping comfortably. Still, it was sleep — something he didn’t take for granted anymore.

  He glanced at his watch. It was almost two o’clock. But two in the morning or the afternoon? He looked out the window. Afternoon, he decided, not caring that the sky was overcast or that no hint of sunshine poked through the clouds. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  Nick grabbed the phone, which wouldn’t stop ringing. “Yes.”

  “Lord, Nick, you sound like a grumpy old bear,” a husky voice teased.

  He recognized the voice immediately. It was A.J., the woman he’d been in love with for the better part of the past six years. She was married to another man now, and she was carrying that man’s child. Nick wished that was his only problem right now, but it was just the beginning.

  “Nick? Are you still there? It’s almost party time,” she said. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

  He hadn’t forgotten the kids at the shelter were giving A.J. a baby shower, but he hadn’t planned to go. He hadn’t walked inside the doors of Hope House in ... he had to stop to think.

  What month was this?

  He looked at the date window on his watch. May?

  That seemed impossible—it had been nearly a year. He’d somehow lost track of the passage of time since then, though he could have rattled off the date, the hour, the minute when everything in life had started to go so wrong for him. And for one innocent child.

  “You promised you’d be here, Nick,” A.J. reminded him.

  “I know,” he said impatiently. How long had it been since he’d even gone out of the apartment? He couldn’t remember. He managed to hide himself away for days at a time now. No one bothered him anymore, except A.J.

  “I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I haven’t called and bugged you about anything in two weeks.”

  “And I’m grateful for that,” he said sincerely. He wanted to tell her he wouldn’t be there, but he wasn’t sure he could afford to do that. He’d isolated himself in this apartment, cut himself off from everything and everyone associated with his work. And he was starting to scare even himself.

  He was depressed. He certainly didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him. After all, he was a psychiatrist.

  And the woman on the other end of the phone wanted him to walk back into Hope House? He shook his head. A sarcastic smile spread across his lips. She might as well ask him to fly to the moon.

  “Nick?” she prompted, impatient as always.

  “I’m working on it, A.J.,” he said, being more honest with her than he had been in months. It was work. Just to think about walking inside that place again and seeing those kids who needed so many things from him, which he didn’t have to give anymore, was hard as hell.

  “Please, Nick. Something has come up, and...I need your help, all right?”

  “You can talk to me on the phone,” he said. “I don’t have to come down there.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same. Besides, if you don’t make it down here today, I might resort to blowing up your apartment just to get you out of there,” she warned, then hung up the phone before he could object again.

  He pictured the place exploding around him and wondered where he would hide then.

  Two hours later, Nick stood outside the shelter for
runaways for what seemed like forever, watching the kids stream inside.

  He felt as helpless as any of them. Over the past year, he’d lost faith in his ability to help those kids, lost his belief that he could honestly make a difference in any of their lives. And he didn’t know how to get that back – or if it was even possible.

  He didn’t know if he wanted to practice psychiatry again, because right now the risks felt too great. He’d screwed up, and the kids had paid for it. He couldn’t take chances like that again. So he stayed across the street, under the awning of some abandoned storefront, and managed to stay fairly dry. The cold and the wind didn’t bother him at all.

  Hope House was lit up like a Christmas tree tonight. Though his watch assured him it was May now, someone had pulled a few strands of Christmas lights out of storage and strung them around the entrance. It was for the party, no doubt, but the effect was strange. He’d spotted the lights two blocks away. Hundreds of small white bulbs, flickering off and on, guiding him through the night, calling him home, it seemed. Why did coming here feel like coming home to him, when all he wanted to do was forget?

  Nick had never lived here, but he’d offered the kids his help for free—when he could find one who was willing to talk to him and listen to what he had to say. Tonight, watching the kids streaming inside, recognizing one here and there, he realized how much he’d missed the place, even if he was petrified of going inside.

  When he finally found the courage to walk through the front door, Carlos, a skinny little kid with a blackened eye and a cast on his arm, noticed him right away.

  “Dr. Nick, my man.” Carlos slapped him on the back.

  Nick tried not to think how long it had been since anyone had called him “Dr. Nick.” “Hey, what happened to the arm and the eye?”

  “You know how it is, Dr. Nick.”

  He nodded. He certainly did. Carlos had a mean-tempered uncle who took his frustrations out on him on those rare occasions when Carlos happened to be at home.

  “You stayin’ for the party?”

  “Maybe.” Nick wasn’t quite ready to commit to that. “I have to talk to A.J. first about something, but...maybe I’ll see you later, before I leave.”

  As Nick hurried down the hall, his heart rate was higher than it should be, his throat a little tight. But he’d done it; he’d walked through the door. He rounded the corner and bumped right into A.J. going ninety miles an hour without looking where she was heading.

  “Easy,” he said, grabbing her arms to keep her upright.

  She gasped in surprise, then smiled. “Nick, I can’t believe you made it.”

  “When you were so sweet to invite me?” He feigned shock. Humor was all he had left, that and a bit of cynicism. Besides, that was how it had always been between A.J. and him. He hoped they could at least hang on to their old, easy friendship now that she’d married Jack MacAlister.

  “I missed you, Nick. Now, come upstairs,” she said. “I have a little problem, and I need your help.”

  “I came here for a party,” he said, following her.

  “Did you really believe that?” she shot back. “Nick, I’m surprised at you. I didn’t invite you here to have fun. I invited you to work.”

  Nick wasn’t laughing. He hadn’t worked in a year, and A.J. knew that. He wasn’t going back to work. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  A.J. climbed the stairs. Hope House had a handful of staff members who lived on the site. A.J. used to be one of them. She led him into what used to be her old room. Before he could stop her, she turned on the light, roused a child and started to introduce them.

  “Wait a minute,” he said from the doorway, louder and more harshly than he should have, reacting out of sheer fear alone.

  The little boy on the bed made a choked-off squawking sound—clearly one of fright – and Nick cursed himself in a low, bitter voice.

  It all happened so fast he hadn’t even had time to think about what he was doing. And he didn’t think he’d ever been so scared in his life – all because he was being asked to go back to work before he was ready.

  Now he’d scared the boy. A.J. shot Nick a venomous look, then went to soothe the child for a moment before coming back to the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before she could tell him what a jerk he was.

  She stared at him for a long time, and he wondered what she saw.

  “You look like hell, Nick.”

  He supposed that pretty much summed it up—whether she was talking about his physical appearance or what she could see in his eyes. He’d been to hell and he couldn’t hide that, especially not from A.J.

  “I apologize,” he said, sorry for what he’d done. He didn’t give a damn how he looked.

  “I’ve got trouble in there,” she said, nodding toward the room.

  “Get someone else, A.J.” He would have begged her if he thought it would do any good.

  “I can’t find anyone else. Dr. Jamison was called to Cook County Hospital on an emergency. Dr. Carter is on vacation, and I haven’t found another backup for us yet. Besides, no one else can do this job the way you did.”

  “Tell me another one,” he said.

  She dared to smile. “No one else works as cheaply as you do.”

  He couldn’t argue with that; he’d worked for nothing. But he couldn’t do the work anymore. Nick felt the sickness that always came with that admission wash over him yet again.

  “Please,” she said. “He’s so little, and he’s scared. He hasn’t said a word to us since he’s been here. He’s obviously been out on the streets for a couple of days, but I don’t think he’s a runaway. I think he’s in shock, Nick.”

  “He’s too young to be here – you know that. You can’t call a child his age a runaway. Phone Child and Family Services, and let them handle it.”

  “I will. I’ll do it right now, but how long do you think it will take social services to get him to a psychiatrist?”

  She had a point there. The county never had the money or the manpower to do the job that needed to be done for these kids. That was where Hope House came in.

  “Just talk to him,” she said. “Or see if you can get him to talk. We found him sitting in a corner on the floor downstairs. He was dripping wet, shivering, starving.”

  “And he hasn’t said a thing?”

  “Not a single word. Nick?”

  “Yes?”

  “There was blood on his shoes and on the cuffs of his jeans.”

  A.J. had asked Nick to do something quite simple. He didn’t have to solve all of this kid’s problems. She just wanted him to get the kid to talk, to find out what happened to him and get the name of someone she could call to come pick up the boy, rather than turn him over to the social-services system.

  He watched while A.J. explained what was going on to the boy, introduced Nick as a friend of hers, then promised Nick would bring the boy to the party when they were done. Cake, ice cream, cookies – surely they would be incentive enough to make him talk. A.J. fled the scene before Nick could protest further.

  Nick turned and looked at the boy, who gave him one of the saddest looks he had ever seen. The boy’s eyes seemed to have sunk into his face, a sign of extreme fatigue, but the lashes were thick and curly. His skin was a warm, muted brown, his hair a mass of short-clipped curls lying nearly flat against his head. His arms were thin and long, his fingers clenched on top of the blanket.

  Don’t think about it, Nick reminded himself. Don’t try to figure out where he’s been, how he’s been hurt, why no one is around to take care of him or what might happen once he leaves the shelter. Those were the kinds of questions he had no business asking himself. Not anymore.

  So Nick stood there in the doorway, telling himself this was just another lost kid. The shelter was full of them. This boy wasn’t his responsibility. Most likely, the kid was already broken deep inside in some vital way, and it wasn’t Nick’s fault if he couldn’t perform miracles and put this little boy back togeth
er again.

  Nick didn’t do miracles. No psychiatrist did. He would try his best, but he would not feel guilty if his best was not enough for this little boy. He would not beat himself up over what the world had done to this boy or how the boy handled what the world had dealt him. When Nick climbed into bed at night and closed his eyes, he would not see this little boy’s face during the seemingly eternal space of time that elapsed before he actually went to sleep.

  With effort, Nick made his way into the room where the little boy was resting. He sat down in the desk chair pulled to the side of the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. Before he could say a word, the boy dismissed him by turning his head toward the wall.

  At first, Nick tried talking about anything, everything and nothing at all. That got no reaction at all.

  How had he done this before? He’d never had trouble making conversation. But everything felt different now. The old instincts he’d trusted for so long had deserted him, and things that used to come to him effortlessly were more of a struggle than he’d imagined.

  It felt as if he’d simply lost every bit of knowledge inside his head. How was he supposed to help this child?

  Suddenly Nick spotted a textbook on the desk, and he remembered something he’d done once much earlier in his career when he’d felt much the way he was feeling today. He picked up the book and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.

  The boy jumped at the noise, turned back around and glared at Nick.

  “So, you can hear. That’s good.” He felt the slightest bit guilty for finding out that way, but if they were going to talk, he had to know the boy could hear him, and the boy had to know that Nick knew. Otherwise this deaf routine could go on forever.

  Nick didn’t think he was dealing with a child from the streets, not by the way the boy reacted to the noise. He’d nearly jumped out of his skin. He was scared, and he didn’t try to hide it from Nick.