Fireside (13 page)

Kim sipped her tea and skimmed the pages, wondering idly at the juxtaposition of births, deaths and marriages, all on the same page. Beginning, middle, end. With a whole lot left out. There was a column headed Milestones—graduations and job promotions. And Engagements, featuring smiling people, supremely confident of their future. Why didn’t people announce breakups? Kim wondered. Surely the end of love was a significant life event. People trumpeted it to the world when they got engaged. Why not when they got dumped? Why was it treated like a secret, or like something shameful? Why not announce it as a major milestone, certainly far more significant than a graduation or a promotion at work. Or a demotion, for that matter. Or getting fired.

Kim was a spin doctor. She’d been in sports PR and media training since graduating from USC, and she was good at it. She couldn’t believe breakups and divorces had not been spun into an industry by greeting card and chocolate companies. She imagined her own announcement for the press. “Kimberly van Dorn proudly announces her breakup with Lloyd Johnson, NBA star and point guard for the L.A. Lakers…”

The “Pride of the Lakers,” as Johnson had been dubbed, was her star client. When he had fired her, loudly and publicly, in a room full of everyone who was anyone, she’d committed the ultimate faux pas of dropping her champagne glass. The tinkling, shattering sound had drawn the attention of everyone in the room. And it wasn’t just the sound of shattering glass. It was the sound of her career imploding. The ensuing scene in the parking lot—well, thank God no one else had witnessed
that.

The tea boiled in her stomach, and the smells of the bakery nearly overwhelmed her. How would she ever eat anything again? How would she ever face the world without panic clawing at her throat?

To distract herself, she checked out the funny pages in the local paper, pleased to find her favorite syndicated comic strip.
Just Breathe
was about a young woman who’d moved in with her mother after her life fell apart.
Ouch.
This morning, that hit too close to home. Kim doubted she’d ever find any humor in the situation.

Setting the paper aside, she studied the scene outside the window. Back in California, she used to wake up to a landscape misted in smog and filled with the roar of L.A. traffic. The current view of the quaint, beautiful mountain town made her feel as though she had entered a different dimension. The old-fashioned brick buildings of Avalon’s main square stood shoulder to shoulder, and shops and establishments were rolling out their awnings and salting their sidewalks as the day got started.

Kim felt like a virtual stranger here in this obscure, storybook-pretty town, especially in winter, when everything was draped in a pristine veil of new snow. While she sat, gazing out the window, the tall man and the boy she’d spotted earlier walked diagonally across the square toward the bakery. The man moved purposefully, the boy following a few paces behind. He was bundled into a navy blue ski parka and gloves. He flexed and unflexed his hands as though unaccustomed to the feel of the gloves.

A few minutes later, they entered the bakery, the bell over the door jangling brightly. Kim didn’t want to be obvious about checking them out, so she studied their reflection in the glass. The man still looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t place him. Then he brushed back the hood of his jacket, freeing his long hair.

Oh, God. Now she realized why he’d caught her eye—that lion’s mane of hair. Kim stiffened, hunching up her shoulders as the guy helped himself to coffee at the side counter. The boy stood next to him, eating a kolache. A few minutes later, the guy paid at the register, chatting quietly with the counter girl. Kim saw him pick up a bakery box tied with string.

“Come on, AJ,” the guy said. “We’d better get going.”

Kim kept her eyes down. As he passed behind her, she heard him murmur a quick greeting: “Ma’am.”

The two of them left the bakery.

Ma’am.

Alarmed, Kim swiveled around on the bar stool and craned her neck to get another look at him. No way. There was no possible way it could be…

They got into the little sports car and were gone before she could make up her mind about whether or not she recognized the stranger.

She did know, of course. A part of her had known who he was the instant she’d spotted him clear across the town square. He was the jerk from the airport. Of all the little backwater towns in upstate New York, he had to pick
her
backwater town.

Eight

“Y
ou’re going to like Sophie and Noah’s place,” Bo said. With a new jacket, boots and gloves for AJ, and a box of warm kolaches as an offering, they were headed to their meeting with Sophie. She had an office in town, but was adamant about staying home with her family on the weekends. “I guarantee it. They live on a farm, and he’s a veterinarian. You like dogs?”

“I got bit last year when I tried to pet one.” AJ touched the side of his mouth, where a subtle white line formed a scar.

So that was where the scar had come from. “No dog’s going to bite you,” Bo assured him. Privately, he thought,
strike one.
“How about cats?” he ventured. “You like cats?”

AJ shrugged.

Strike two.
“Horses, then. Everybody likes horses, right?”

“They make me sneeze.”

Strike three. He’s outta there.

“I have a confession to make,” Bo said. “I’m not all that keen on horses myself. When I first moved up here from Texas, everybody thought I was a cowboy.”

AJ didn’t say anything.

“Geez, AJ. How about pygmy hamsters? You got anything against pygmy hamsters?”

“Never saw one. So they got pygmy hamsters at this place?”

“Dunno,” Bo admitted, navigating the road that curved along the lakeshore. “Look, I know it’s weird for you, being here. And I know you’re worried about your mom. We’re going to do everything we can to help her. Okay?” He glanced over at the boy.

AJ sank his chin into the downy pile of the jacket, nodding his head.

“Sophie will know what to do,” Bo assured him, “and I’m not just saying that. She used to work at an international court in The Hague. That’s somewhere over in Europe.”

“In Holland,” AJ said. “Seat of the Dutch government.”

“You’re pretty smart,” Bo said, impressed. “Most people have never heard of The Hague. I don’t know much about it myself, just that you have to be a hell of a lawyer in order to work there.”

He had total confidence in Sophie, who had married his best friend, Noah Shepherd, the previous spring. She’d been involved in some kind of violent incident over in The Hague, and the experience had brought her back home to Avalon. She had two kids from her previous marriage, and she and Noah had recently adopted two young children, a brother and sister from a small country in southern Africa. Bo was a little in awe of Noah and Sophie for taking a leap of faith like that, getting married and having kids all at once. He couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t imagine being so sure of himself, so sure of loving a woman and so confident about being a father, to do such a thing.

He could barely make his own life work. Marriage, a family—all that stuff felt far from his grasp, as distant as the moon.

AJ’s unexpected arrival was a fly ball out of left field. Through the years, Bo had given this boy plenty of thought, as well as a monthly check. Yet this was the first time he’d considered AJ as a flesh-and-blood person with needs and feelings and eyes so full of pain and fear that Bo felt it like a knife wound. He hurt for this kid; having his mother ripped away from him and being shipped to a strange, cold place was the stuff of nightmares or dark fairy tales. Having a loser stepfather, who wouldn’t give him the time of day, much less his phone number, only made matters worse. And now the boy had Bo Crutcher for a father. He must be wondering what he’d done to deserve this.

Once a dairy farm, Noah’s place sprawled out on a slope overlooking Willow Lake. There was a big, old-fashioned farmhouse and numerous outbuildings, including a storage silo, a barn and paddock, and the animal hospital. A sign reading Shepherd Animal Hospital marked the driveway. The dairy had been founded by Noah’s grandparents, and he’d grown up here, never living anywhere else except when he went to college and then to Cornell for vet school. It was hard for Bo to imagine what it was like to belong to a family that had roots, that stayed in one place for so long, that stayed together. Noah was the most well-adjusted, happy person Bo knew, and he suspected that came from a deep, lifelong sense of security. He wished someone had provided that for AJ. It might already be too late, though.

He parked the car at the side of the house, and the minute they got out, a pair of big, furry shapes came barreling down the snowy slope behind the house. AJ moved like lightning, jumping back into the car and slamming the door. Bo was used to the two friendly mutts called Rudy and Opal, but they probably appeared as scary as hell to a boy who had been attacked in the face by a dog.

“Settle down, now,” he said as the dogs bounded around him. “Go on now,
git.
” Fortunately, they had been trained to mind. They fell back, keeping their distance as he motioned to AJ. “It’s all right, they’ll stay away. That’s a promise.”

AJ hesitated.

“It’s all right,” Bo repeated. “I swear, it’s fine. I won’t let them near you.”

AJ slowly got out of the car and walked up to the porch. Bo didn’t take any credit for helping the boy overcome his fear. He knew AJ was simply trying to save face.

Sophie was waiting at the door, greeting them with a smile. She was blond and as soft as a sunrise, attractive despite the well-worn jeans and a sweater with what looked like a grape-jelly stain on it.

“Hey, Bo,” she said, and then smiled warmly at AJ. “I’m Sophie,” she said. “You must be AJ.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He stepped into the foyer and looked around uncertainly.

“Let me take your coats,” she said, motioning them into the house. When she had married Noah, she’d changed every aspect of his life, including this house. In Noah’s bachelor days, it had been perfect for a guy on his own. Gone were the lighted beer clocks, the foosball table, the drum set in a corner of the living room, where the garage band used to practice. All of that had been relegated to the actual garage, which wasn’t such a bad thing, since it was heated and had a refrigerated beer keg.

Noah hadn’t made a peep about the changes. He been so damn happy and punch-drunk with love that she could have draped the house in pink chintz, for all he cared. Photos of their brand-new, blended family had replaced the guy stuff.

“Noah’s up at the clinic,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the building across the way. “The kids are finishing breakfast.” She led them down a hall to the big country kitchen, its yellow walls hung with nursery-school artwork—mostly finger paintings that resembled petroglyphs in prehistoric caves.

“Uncle Bo!” His honorary niece, Aissa, waved a piece of toast smeared with grape jelly. She was about four years old, and so cute it kind of made his eyes smart to look at her.

“Hey, shortstop,” he said. “You, too, Buddy,” he greeted her brother, who was around seven. The little boy’s name was Uba, but the Americanized version had quickly replaced it.

Aissa held out a pair of tiny pink snow boots. “I wanna go play outside,” she said.

“You’re nuts, you know that?” Bo said to the four-year-old. “It’s freezing out there.”

The little ones were being supervised by their older brother, Max, who was Sophie’s son from her first marriage. Max was in the eighth grade, and seemed to be pretty good with the youngsters. Through the introductions, AJ acted bashful and quickly declined the offer of grape-jelly toast and apple juice. He and Max regarded each other with wary awkwardness.

“Kolaches,” Bo said, handing the bakery box to Max. “Knock yourselves out.”

“Yes.”
Max and the other two dove right in. He paused before sinking his teeth into one of the pastries. “Uh, would you like one?” He offered the box to AJ.

“No, thanks.”

“We’ve got some work to do in the study,” Sophie said, defusing the tension. “Are you okay with these two, Max?”

“Sure, no problem.”

They went into Sophie’s study, a small, well-organized room with a computer and some filing cabinets, a bulletin board papered with international news articles and maps. The shelves were crammed with a mixture of law books and family photos that looked to Bo like a sea of smiling faces. He knew Sophie had endured her share of tough times and heartache, but the pictures were proof in living color that even the worst troubles could get better.

Sophie put a reassuring hand on AJ’s shoulder. The simple touch had a tangible effect on the boy. He relaxed visibly, the tight lines of worry easing from his face. Just like that, a touch could comfort. Other than awkwardly carrying him upstairs while asleep, Bo had not touched the boy. Now, seeing the reassurance imparted by that simple, brief connection, he realized it didn’t have to be weird. There was a lot to learn about being a parent. And given the way Bo had grown up, most of it was going to be guesswork on his part.

“I started making calls yesterday, as soon as Bo called me about your mother,” Sophie said to AJ. “I know it’s a scary time for you and your mom both, so we’re going to figure this out just as fast as we can.”

“How fast?” asked AJ. “When can I see my mom again? When can I go home?”

“I can’t answer that. Immigration cases tend to be complicated. But this is also something that will help us. Anything can happen in an immigration case. I’m working with a colleague, whose firm specializes in immigration.” She touched him again, lightly on the arm. “See that document on my computer screen? It’s an emergency writ of appeal. We’re going to file it in federal court first thing Monday morning. It’s telling the court that a minor citizen of the United States has been left without legal guardianship. We’re hoping to get emergency temporary status for your mom.”