by Amy Wallace
Gracie stopped to watch the fluffy white cumulus clouds that dotted the blue skies above her. Then a familiar twosome of Kessler men caught her attention. Playing Frisbee and laughing together, they made a great picture.
Jake tugged on the leash until he was near the picnic area and then sat down. Far enough away not to be noticed. But close enough to watch.
Sadness washed over her. The hope of one day being part of a scene like this with Steven and James gnawed at her heart.
Steven’s back was toward her, but she couldn’t help noticing how well his red T-shirt and jeans fit. It was obvious from glancing around that a few other females enjoyed the same view.
James’s loud call drew Gracie out of her daydream. “Mrs. Lang, Mrs. Lang, come play Frisbee with us!” All giggles, he sprinted past Steven and flopped down in front of Jake. “What’s his name?”
“Hello there, James.” She bent down to the boy’s level and rubbed her dog’s head. “His name is Jake.”
Her golden retriever licked the boy’s face and reveled in his hugs and pats.
Steven brushed off his jeans, then meandered toward them, flashing his toe-curling smile. “Gracie.”
She stood up so fast she felt light-headed.
He steadied her. “I’ve tried e-mailing you, but I suppose you’ve been busy.”
She blinked a few times before the words registered. He’d tried to e-mail? “I haven’t received anything from you. Must have been a server glitch or something. Why didn’t you call?” Her face warmed as she finally got a handle on her overflowing mouth.
He tossed James the Frisbee. “Hey, little man. Why don’t you see if Jake will play catch for a few minutes.” Steven looked her in the eyes. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Sure.”
She released the leash and watched boy and dog run in the open area. She hadn’t expected her heart and stomach to flutter with such force. From the corner of her eye, she watched Steven’s smile widen.
“I need to get James a dog. He loves animals.”
She fingered her gold locket.
“I’m really sorry I didn’t call, Gracie. I wanted to, but things have gotten complicated with work, and I … well, I thought you’d e-mail back. When you didn’t, I let the time get away from me.”
“It’s okay.” She studied the grass under her feet.
Steven bent down to get her attention. “No, it’s not. I should have called. It’s not because I didn’t want to see you again. I hope you know that.”
Gracie wanted to pretend the last three weeks hadn’t happened and that she and Steven were still at the Morrison House enjoying a wonderful meal with easy conversation. Things had felt less complicated for those few short hours.
Before ringing cell phones and the ugly side of life had interrupted.
The warmth of Steven’s hand encircling hers and gently stroking her fingers startled her. “I hope you’re a believer in second chances.”
“You’d be working on the third at this point.”
Steven laughed but didn’t release her hand.
“Hey, Dad. Come play.” James ran up and Steven let go of her hand. “Will you come too, Mrs. Lang? It’d be a lot of fun if you joined us.”
James’s blue eyes twinkled like his father’s. How could she resist?
Steven watched Gracie and James chase the dog all over the picnic area, then circle back around. Her ponytail flipped with every movement. A better place to focus than her athletic legs and running shorts.
“Can I have my water, Dad?” James collapsed on the concrete bench where their picnic basket rested. The one Sue had packed for them before shooing him out of the house.
Gracie and Jake caught their breath, standing by the table too.
“Three waters, coming up.” Steven handed out the ice-cold bottles.
James guzzled his and went back to playing. Jake followed, close at his son’s heels.
“I’m glad Jake’s okay Justin said you’d had a scare with him.”
Gracie fingered her gold locket, a habit he’d noticed before. One day soon he’d ask about it. But for now it seemed a little too personal.
“Yes. The vet says he had some sort of seizure. But no explanation why it happened or if it’ll happen again.”
“Could he have gotten dehydrated?”
“Maybe.” Gracie met his eyes. “I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” He spread out three plates and piled sandwiches and chips onto them. “Will you join us for lunch?”
“You packed for three?”
Steven chuckled. “Sort of. Sue packs extras, hoping we’ll either eat them all or make a new friend to share them with.”
“She sounds like a great lady Takes care of you both, from what I remember of James’s family history.” Gracie nibbled on a chip and sipped her water.
“Did I ever really apologize for being so late that day?” Steven hoped he’d used better manners than he could recall. After the phone call about Ryan, little else that day stuck with him. Except Gracie’s smile.
She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
He caught her slight blush before she turned away and fixed her eyes on James and Jake, still playing catch with the Frisbee. For whatever reason, her blush made Steven feel important. Like what he did mattered to her. He liked the feeling.
“What a cozy little picture.” A female voice purred behind him.
Steven held back a response. He turned to see his ex-wife standing beside him, wearing a running bra and tight shorts. She crossed her arms and smirked.
Gracie’s wide eyes met his.
How in the world would he manage this minefield?
Angela took care of that. “Are you one of Steven’s friends?” She looked Gracie up and down.
Gracie retied her ponytail and stood. “Yes. Gracie Lang. And you are?”
Angela smiled her crafty lawyer grin. “Angela Barrett Carter. Pleased to meet you.” She turned to face him. “Don’t let me break up your little party Your dad mentioned I might find you here. So I thought I’d get some exercise in before seeing if we could talk.”
Gracie smoothed her white T-shirt. “I’d better head back home. Thanks for lunch, Steven.” Turning to Angela, Gracie managed a quick smile. “It was nice to meet you.”
“I’ll call you soon, Gracie,” Steven said.
But she was walking away already, without responding. Gracie widened the distance between them with a few long strides. Then she bent down and talked to James while she reclipped Jake’s leash.
“She’s attractive. In a down-home, girl-next-door sort of way.”
Steven clenched his fists. “Stop it, Angela. My life is none of your business.”
“My son is.”
The ice forming between them kept them both frozen to the spot, eyes fixed on James walking Gracie to her car.
“Save it for the courts.” Steven stepped between his ex and her focus on their son. “James doesn’t know who you are, and I want it kept that way. But if you insist on barging into our lives like this, I’ll let him know just what type of person you are.”
Her glare connected. “You wouldn’t dare.”
His teeth ground side to side. Would he?
“Well, it looks like your lady friend is gone for the time being.” She cocked her head.
“Jealous, Angela?”
“Want me to introduce myself to James?”
His son waved good-bye as Gracie drove away Then turning back to the picnic area, he headed straight for them.
Steven’s jaw tightened. “I want you to leave. Now.”
James stepped close to his leg and took his hand. “Hello. I’m James. Do you know my daddy?”
Steven held his breath and narrowed his eyes.
For once, Angela took the warning. “Hello, James. Nice to meet you.” Her eyes blinked rapidly “I knew your father a long time ago, but he can tell you more about that.”
She stayed rooted in place, taking in ever
y detail of James’s face. Steven could see Angela in the angle of his son’s chin, his high cheekbones.
His stomach lurched.
James kicked at a pebble by his shoe.
“Weren’t you just leaving?” Steven swallowed the other words he wanted to let loose.
Angela smiled at their son. “’Bye, James. I hope we’ll meet again. Soon.” She turned on her heel and started a slow, controlled jog across the picnic area and back to the trail.
Steven watched until she disappeared between the huge oak trees lining the walking path.
“Who was she. Daddy?”
“An old acquaintance.” He ruffled James’s hair and pointed to the picnic table. Now was not the time to explain the ticking bomb his ex-wife had just set in motion.
They dug into their sandwiches and chips in silence. How long did he have before everything blew up in his face?
22
Maria Grivens walked behind Victoria and Lady Kensington as they entered Hope Ridge Academy for the first time together. Maria bypassed the magnetometer while the other two waited their turns amid squealing kindergarten students and sullen teens. Victoria stepped through the huge metal portal with no bounce, her curls flat all around her head.
Lady Kensington’s once-dancing eyes looked dead as well.
Maria’s heart constricted. Olivia had not come home, and the gray cloud of grief hung over every person in the British embassy Not even the first day of school—a day Victoria had been asking about hourly before Olivia’s funeral—enticed the little girl to smile.
Maybe new friends and Gracie Lang could do the trick.
Wide-eyed children and hurried parents swarmed around them as they walked down the long hall to Gracie’s classroom in silence.
Gracie waved to another parent and then smiled at Maria. “Good morning. Lady Kensington. Victoria.” She bent down to the little girl’s eye level. “I’m so glad you’re here today.”
Victoria gave a small curtsy “Thank you, Mrs. Lang.”
Lady Kensington hugged Victoria for a long moment. Then she gave a quick nod and straightened her black skirt and simple white blouse before turning to leave. A month since her daughter’s murder, and black still clung to every pore.
Maria swallowed hard. She’d become too emotionally involved. Any more distraction allowance and she’d have to resign from this case. Victoria’s safety mattered more than Maria’s care for this wounded family.
She followed Victoria into the classroom.
Gracie smiled and touched her arm. “Good morning to you too, Maria. It’s good to see you.”
Because of recent case developments, the Secret Service’s plans to have Maria work in the classroom as a teacher’s assistant had changed. Now both she and Agent John Reynolds would stand guard in the room. Each would become a statue. A nonperson for the duration of each school day.
Victoria clutched at Maria’s hand, tears spilling over her little white cheeks. “I want to go home. Please may I go home, Maria?”
She blinked and looked at John, who didn’t move.
Her supervisor’s voice crackled through her earpiece. “Negative. We’re set to roost for the day.”
Maria hated the microphone chatter. No emotion. Just the cold reality that there was a job to do and it would be done, no matter how broken Victoria’s heart.
Maria knelt and was instantly wrapped up in the arms of the little China doll. “We’re here for a time. Tori. Let’s make the best of it, okay?”
Victoria sniffled. “Yes, ma’am.”
A little boy with sandy brown hair and striking blue eyes stood by Victoria. “Hi. I’m James. Would you like to do a puzzle with me?”
Victoria glanced up, tearful eyes asking the question, and Maria nodded.
The two scampered off.
Maria took inventory of Gracie’s decorations for the first week of school. Hey Diddle Diddle posters and cutout cows and moons surrounded the excited children filling the room and finding their cubbies to store their backpacks. When the children were directed to look up, each found their name in calligraphy on a shining star that dangled from the ceiling.
“That’s me!” Pointing to their stars, little girls and boys giggled and spelled out their names for their new teacher. Gracie smiled and looked each first grader in the eyes as she spoke.
Reach for your dreams. Catch your star. The bulletin board banner made Maria wish she’d had such a teacher to begin her school career. From the special book nook with stuffed animals to the myriad puzzles and math games all coordinated to the nursery rhyme’s theme, these children would be in good hands. They would learn with their new friends and remember their first-grade teacher with much fondness in the years to come.
A concept Gracie called “circle time” transformed a zoo of wiggly children to a quiet, orderly collection of students, each seated on a brightly colored carpet square, entranced by her reading of Good Night Moon.
Maria watched from her grown-up sized plastic chair by the door. Every once in a while, she would nod and even smile at children who looked her way. But John stayed rigid like a British sentry at Buckingham Palace, eyes studying every move both inside and outside the classroom.
Between the two of them, they shared concerns about many places in this room. Gracie’s class was the last on the hall with a door that opened to the outside. Great for necessary escape routes, bad for allowing another point of entry to keep secured. Then there was the minimal long-distance visibility with the large oaks and thick underbrush encircling the small open area just beyond the door. But the huge, ceiling-to-waist windows allowed plenty of visual coverage for recess time.
Maria almost yawned as Gracie covered her mouth at the end of her story to pretend to sleep. Fifteen little pairs of hands followed her lead. What a great way to calm everyone down without yelling at them to sit and be quiet.
Introductions around the morning circle included a favorite Mother Goose story along with names and ages.
“I’m James Kessler and my favorite nursery rhyme is Baa Baa Black Sheep because the little boy gives out wool to help his neighbors.”
Gracie handed James a white wooly blanket. “That’s wonderful, James. Would you like to recite your rhyme in costume?”
Wrapped in white wool, Steven’s son hammed up the short poem and baa’d the best sheep impression Maria had heard in years. Of course it wasn’t a matter of routine to hear Secret Service agents making animal noises. Unless they were playing basketball in the gym.
When Victoria’s turn came, Maria held her breath. The girl had done little besides a puzzle with James. And she’d sat with perfect posture, silent while the rest of her class wiggled like normal six-year-olds.
“My name is Victoria Kensington. My favorite Mother Goose is Humpty Dumpty. But I don’t like that they couldn’t put him back together again.”
Gracie’s eyes watered.
Maria made a mental note to talk to Lady Kensington again about art therapy for Victoria. The little girl needed a child-friendly way to process the pain that she now wore like a cloak.
“Victoria, why don’t you recite your nursery rhyme and then, together as a class, we can put our special Humpty Dumpty puzzle all back together again.”
Even Agent Reynolds’s face softened at Gracie’s gracious gift to the little girl.
Maria mouthed a silent Thank you when Gracie caught her gaze.
Gracie beamed.
The morning flew by, much to Maria’s surprise. The rest of her detail could tease all they wanted, but this assignment would be one of the few she would enjoy each and every day.
Hope Ridge was everything Steven Kessler had said it would be. Perfect.
While the children worked with what Gracie called math manipulatives, Maria joined Gracie at her desk.
“Never underestimate the power of a great teacher,” Maria whispered to her friend. “You were so gentle with Victoria. Thank you. Under your care, she may well recover.”
“I�
��m praying she will Maria. She’s a precious child.” Gracie scribbled a few notes on her lesson plans about adding more art activities, all the while keeping an eye on every one of the four tables in the middle of her classroom.
Gracie would make a good federal agent.
John and the others in Victoria’s detail were committed to keeping that same vigilant watch. But looking out the large classroom windows into the swaying green trees, she couldn’t help wonder how long this idyllic scene would last.
Victoria had already started to come out of her shell and Maria was glad.
Still, the feeling that the other shoe was about to drop never strayed far from her thoughts.
Gracie waved a drowsy good-bye as Maria and John left with the Kensingtons’ nanny.
“See you tomorrow, Mrs. Lang!” Victoria waved back and bounced down the hall.
If only Victoria’s mother could see the girl now. What a change from the reserved little diplomat who had entered her classroom that morning. In large part due to James Kessler.
Gracie watched him gather all the puzzles and return them to the wooden rack near her desk. The precious boy was everything she’d imagined her own Joshua growing up to be.
Careful. She hated how easily she let her heart daydream sometimes. And the certain themes that kept intruding. Twinkling blue eyes and toe-curling grins at the top of the list.
Beth would be thrilled. But she still didn’t know about the park outing and the black-haired siren that had disrupted a wonderful Saturday picnic.
Or the resulting decision Gracie had made about Steven Kessler. The parent she was most thankful not to have seen this morning.
Parents and nannies arrived one by one to pick up their children. That kept her mind busy, but her face started to hurt with all the smiling.
“Mrs. Lang. For you. A picture,” Akemi, a senator’s adopted daughter, bowed her head and waited for a response.
Gracie knelt in front of her and took one of her hands. “This is a gorgeous rose, Akemi. May I put it on our bulletin board?”
The little girl’s short black bob shook as she nodded. “Oh yes. Thank you.” She returned to the center art table and giggled through a tic-tac-toe game with her new friend, Susannah Rollins.