"What's with you, Radcliff?" The coach stormed through the empty classroom, approaching Kyle's podium. "Your degree go to your head, make you think you're God?"
Glad he was standing—and with a podium between him and the irate gorilla—Kyle didn't bother to answer the question. "Where's Brad?" he asked, instead. "He missed his tutoring session."
"From what I heard, there's not much point in him being here. He's going to flunk anyway."
"That's possible." Kyle nodded. "Almost a certainty if he doesn't come to tutoring."
"You're something else, man, you know that?" Coach Lippert leaned over the podium, his big ugly nose in Kyle's face. "That kid's been trying. Really trying. He's missed conditioning sessions—sessions he needs if he intends to have a body that's still in decent shape ten years from now—to come to your damn tutoring sessions. And for what?''
The guy had some ugly teeth.
"I'll tell you for what," he continued without
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giving Kyle time to reply even if he'd wanted to— which he hadn't. "For a great big nothing.?'
"We don't know that yet."
Lippert shoved the podium hard enough to move it. "I saw his last exam, Radcliff. The kid doesn't have a chance. Not unless you bend a little."
Kyle stood his ground. "What kind of message are we sending Brad, and all the others like him, if we tell them they aren't bound by the same rules as everyone else, simply because they can play football?"
"Get off—"
"I'm not finished yet," Kyle interrupted. "The world of professional sports is filled with young men who think they're above and beyond the law. I read the newspapers, Lippert. Athletes in jail for physical abuse, for drug abuse, gambling, murder."
"Next you'll be telling me the prisons are full of athletes!"
"No," Kyle said, supporting his elbows on the podium. "That's just it. They aren't. Because these athletes have managers, coaches and agents. They have money for lawyers who buy them out of trouble time and time again. Is it any wonder the kids' minds rot, that they don't think twice before breaking the law? We've basically taught them it's okay. That their sins will disappear. They've never been taught accountability."
Kyle shut up. He hadn't meant to lecture. Must've been because he was standing behind the podium. He also hadn't expected Coach Lippert to pay attention to anything he had to say, but the man was
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staring at him, all signs of aggression gone from his body.
"You're right, of course," the big man finally said, though he didn't appear too happy. "But what kind of message are we sending Brad?" He frowned, apparently thinking out loud. "The kid's really tried, done everything that was asked of him and then some. He's done the absolute best he can do." Coach Lippert glanced up at Kyle. "Are we gonna tell a twenty-year-old kid that his best isn't good enough?"
"A college degree stands for something," Kyle said. ' 'It tells any employer that the person holding the degree has mastered certain courses. Basic literature being one of them. If I pass Brad, I am in essence lying to anyone, at any point in his life, to whom his degree matters."
"The only employer that kid'll ever have isn't gonna care!" Coach Lippert came forward again, one hand on the edge of the podium. His arm bulged impressively from the strain. "Brad isn't ever gonna make it in the front door of any organization that'll give a damn about his degree. Not as a potential employee, anyway."
Kyle had to agree with the man there.
"Chances are, he's not even gonna get a degree. He's gonna be drafted before then. We just need to keep him in school long enough to get that offer."
Kyle listened. Really listened to what Coach Lippert was telling him.
' 'Yeah, I want to see my players make it big, but not at the risk of creating immoral human beings."
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Lippert said. Kyle had a feeling it wasn't very often the coach was this honest. He also had no doubt of the man's sincerity.
"Thing is, football is Brad's only chance," the coach continued, looking Kyle straight in the eye. "You've seen his work, Radcliff. You know as well as I do that the only kind of job he'd ever get out there would be menial labor, grunt work. And even that'd be fine, if it was all he was capable of doing. But it's not! The kid's got talent. More talent than I've seen in my twenty-five years as a coach."
Wishing he had some manual he could go to for the right answers, Kyle considered everything the coach had said. He weighed Lippert's unspoken request against his own standards. Growing up the way he had, the only thing that had seen him through was his principles. He always lived by the rules, always did what he thought was right, and because of it he'd been able to hold up his head.
But where were those rules written? How had they become a part of him? Who'd put them there? And how valid were they?
Did they leave room for compromise? For compassion? For occasionally making an exception?
"Brad has improved," he said slowly, as if hearing his own thoughts would help him put them in order.
"He's made every effort," Coach Lippert added, his elbow joining Kyle's on the podium.
"He's come to every class." Kyle took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose.
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' 'Done all the homework and extra-credit assignments," Lippert said, scratching his chin.
"He participates in class."
"He's actually learned some things," the coach said, grinning at Kyle. "Do you know, he started rattling on about slavery in the South one day. We were talking about which NFL owners he most wanted to work for and he brought up the subject of racism."
Kyle stood up, glasses still in hand. "And that's the point, isn't it?" he asked. "That the kid learn something about life? That's what literature is all about, isn't it? Life?"
"You got me," the coach said. "I slept through my American lit class."
"And your coach got you a passing grade anyway, right?"
"Nope, I read the stuff and got Cs."
"I could give him an oral exam."
"That's his real problem you know—he can't write a coherent sentence to save his life."
"English 101 has to answer to that."
' 'He had it two years ago—''
Kyle raised the hand holding his glasses. "I don't want to know."
"That's probably best," the coach agreed, nodding.
' 'Have Brad come to my office an hour before the final. And tell him he'll still have to sit through the written exam—at least attempt it."
Technically, he supposed it wasn't fair to the other students, who could all stand a much better
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chance of acing the test if they could answer orally, too. But if there was one thing he'd learned in the past couple of months, it was that life wasn't always fair. Each life was lived on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes the old rules, the rules you'd established or learned or adopted, didn't work. Then you had to find new ones.
Coach Lippert smiled. A genuine, friendly smile. "He'll be there." He turned to leave. Made it all the way to the door. And then turned back. "Rad-cliff?"
Head bent over his calendar, Kyle glanced up.
"Thanks."
Nodding, he made the entry for Brad's oral exam. In both calendars. And made a note to tell Jamie, too. She still asked about Brad occasionally. She'd make sure Kyle remembered to attend the kid's final exam on time.
Karen and Jamie had their last flute lesson the second week in April. They'd both decided to leave their flute-playing desires right where they belonged. In their adolescent pasts.
Kyle was happy either way. He kind of liked nagging Jamie to practice, mostly because there was so little she didn't do perfectly. But he was just as happy for her to have an extra free hour a week. He'd been keeping Ashley out of her way a lot during the past month or so as she got closer and closer to the tax deadline. But the fifteenth had just come and gone, and Jamie wa
s smiling again.
In celebration of the last lesson, the end of tax
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time and the fifth month of Karen's pregnancy, Kyle offered to look after both girls for the rest of the day so the two women could go out for a celebratory afternoon as soon as they'd blown their last note.
Which meant that Kyle got to take both girls to their dance lesson. Because Kayla had started lessons too late to learn the recital dance, Ashley had opted to skip the performance, as well, and would be finishing her classes next week. Having experimented with dance, they'd both be going on to tiny-tot tumbling in the fall.
"Daddy, I can't get my shoe on." Ashley hopped over to Kyle on one foot, her ballet shoe tangled around the ball of her foot. They were in a deserted waiting room in the studio, Kyle having taken the girls to class half an hour earlier than their scheduled time.
"Hold on, Ash." After setting Kayla down in a chair, one shoe on and one shoe off, he grabbed for Ashley. She had the shoe on backward, the elastic wrapped around her foot.
Just as he reached for her, she took one more hop. And slipped through his hands. Kyle's heart was in his throat as he watched her land on the side of her foot and topple to the floor.
"Daddy!" she cried, even before she fell in a heap.
Scrambling to get up, she stretched out her arms for Kyle, her eyes flooded with tears. Kyle scooped her up before her second wail.
"It's okay, honey," he assured her, feeling awful. "Let Daddy see."
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"My foot hurts, Daddy," she cried, her eyes brimming over.
"'Can I help?" Ashley's dance instructor hurried toward them, and she and Kyle examined Ashley's foot together. Her left ankle was already swelling.
"Swelling's good," the dance instructor said. "Means it's probably just a sprain. Let's get some ice on it."
"Mr. Kyle?" Kayla tugged at Kyle's shirtsleeve. "Is Ashley gonna die?" she asked, and burst into tears.
Squatting, Kyle grabbed Kayla onto his other hip. "Of course not, honey. She's going to be a hero!"
Both girls quieted at that, although Ashley still hiccuped with the occasional sob.
Fifteen minutes later, Kyle carried his daughter, who now had an ice pack taped to her ankle, to the front of the studio. He held Kayla's hand on his other side, both dance bags slung over his arm.
"I'll take her for an X ray just in c.-e," he was telling their instructor as they reached the door.
"The swelling's gone down already." the woman said. "I'm sure she'll be just fine.'
Kyle nodded, pushing open the door with his back. One of the two bags dangling from his arm caught on the handle.
"Let me get thai!" The instructor freed him, then waved them off.
After that, he was on his own. And quite proud to be managing so well. As daddies went, he wasn't doing too badly. He'd handled his first crisis and there were no fatalities.
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Jamie panicked when she walked in the front door and saw two little crutches lying in the middle of the living-room floor.
"What happened?" She rushed in to find Kyle on the sofa, sound asleep, a little girl curled up under each arm, two little heads against his chest. And Ashley's ankle had tripled in size since Jamie had last seen it, due, she hoped, only to the elastic bandage wrapped around it. She no longer had to wonder who the crutches belonged to, only how serious the damage was.
Oddly enough, upsetting as it was to see her child hurt, Jamie was relatively calm as she stood there, smiling at the three sleeping faces. Kyle wouldn't be lying there so peacefully if Ashley's injury was serious.
And she hadn't had to handle the crisis on her own. She'd never shared the responsibility of caring for Ashley, the worry. Never imagined what a relief the sharing would be.
"Hi."
Kyle had opened his eyes and was watching her.
"Hi, yourself. Been busy?" she asked.
"We had a little accident at dance."
"I told you she wasn't a dancer," Jamie said, wishing she could get a look at the extent of the damage herself. "What'd she do—fall over when they were doing plies?"
Shaking his head, Kyle sat up very slowly and laid the sleeping girls down on the couch, side by side. "Didn't even make it into the dance room," he told Jamie, a half grin on his face.
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It wasn't until late in the evening that Jamie heard about the worst part of the afternoon.
"I take her to the emergency room and they won't let me sign for her treatment!" Kyle said, pacing between the counter and her kitchen table.
"That's ridiculous! What if she'd been bleeding to death?" Jamie stood with her back to the sink. They'd just finished the dishes, having left them earlier to give Ashley a bath and get the exhausted little girl to bed.
He shrugged. "I hope they'd have treated her and worried about legalities later. Thing is, I don't ever want to find out."
Picturing what could have been a horrific situation, Jamie didn't want to find out, either. Not the hard way.
She grabbed two glasses of iced tea, and motioned with her head toward the back door. "Let's take these outside."
Following her, Kyle pulled her little white parson's table between two lawn chairs. "We have to talk about this, Jamie," he said, sitting down only after she had. "She's not even on my insurance."
"She doesn't need to be. She's on mine."
"It's time I started providing for her."
"You've bought every single thing she's needed in the past three months, and paid for her dance lessons, too."
"And you've been providing a roof over her head, food for her to eat, clothes for her to wear and a million other things for the past four years."
Jamie enjoyed doing those things. "I had to have
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food and a roof over my head, anyway. Besides, she's mine. I should provide for her."
"Fine," he said, nodding, his hands linked across his belly. "And so should I."
"Fine. We split this fifty-fifty."
"It's not that easy."
"Sure it is. You get the school bill, I get household stuff and clothes, we buy birthday and Christmas presents together and we'll figure out the rest somehow."
"I want to share more than her upkeep, Jamie."
Kyle was looking at her intently. He meant business. And that scared her to death.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Just what are we talking about?"
"I want custodial rights."
His words took the breath from her lungs. Back in the beginning, when she'd first met Kyle again, she'd been terrified this might happen. That he might try to take Ashley away from her. But after getting to know him, after falling in love with him all over again, she'd never even considered such a thing.
What a fool she'd been.
"Hey." He leaned forward, rubbing the back of her hand where it lay listless in her lap. "Don't look so hunted," he said. "I'm not talking about taking anything away from you. I just want to share all the responsibility. To have all the rights of any other parent."
Jamie tried to hear him, but the noise in her head was incredibly loud. She just sat there, frozen.
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"I couldn't get my daughter medical treatment today, Jamie."
It was the pain in his eyes that got through to her. His request was reasonable. Honorable. Responsible.
She should've thought of it.
"Okay, we'll look into it," she said, convincing herself there was no threat in doing so. That, in fact, Ashley's well-being, possibly her health, depended on it. And if Kyle had legal responsibility for Ashley, wouldn't that protect Ashley's rights, as well?
They'd certainly never have to worry about paying for dance lessons again.
"What we need first is to name me as Ashley's father."
"That's done."
His head shot around as he stared at her. ' 'It is?''
Jamie nodded.
"Always has been."
"You named me as her father when she was born?"
Again Jamie nodded. It had been the right thing to do.
"I just assumed…" He looked shocked. "With you thinking I'd paid and left, like all the others…" He broke off again.
He grinned, so boyishly pleased Jamie smiled, too, glad now that she'd made the decision she had all those years ago. She'd anguished about it for months.
"Thank you." His voice was thick.
Eyes glistening with tears, Jamie nodded.
"Okay," Kyle finally said, "so what we need is joint custody."
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Jamie started to relax—until Kyle proceeded to outline, in detail, all the steps necessary to obtain the type of custody in question. And that wasn't all. He knew the differences between the various types of child-custody agreements in the state of Colorado and what was necessary to obtain each of them.
Suddenly Jamie's blood ran cold. He'd sought legal custody advisement without telling her. Seeking the information, in itself, was understandable. But he had extensive information. And he'd never said a word.
Because he'd had something to hide?
She missed much of what he was saying after that, too overcome with horror to concentrate. Had he merely been biding his time, letting Ashley get to know him, to trust him, before he sued for custody? Like a fool, she'd given him every bit of ammunition he'd need to take the child away from her.
"Yes, I had sex for money, Kyle. I was working the night I met you…''
"That waiting period is…" He rambled on and Jamie had no idea what he was talking about.
"/ have this little room…"
She wanted to curl up and die. Right there, underneath the lawn chair where the air was cool and fresh.
Had this whole "heading beyond friendship" thing simply been a clever ploy to get Ashley? Thinking back, Jamie realized she should have seen it all along. "She's a two-bit whore…" He'd hated his mother for what she was. How could he tolerate his daughter being raised by the same type of
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woman? Sure, his mother had been working when Kyle was growing up, and Jamie hadn't turned a trick since Ashley was conceived. But they'd both been women who sold their bodies—and for Kyle that was enough.
Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret Page 19