LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t want to stay with Grandpa for a while?”

      Mickey wrapped his hands around the glass of milk before him, but he made no move to drink.

      “You.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I want to stay with you.” He swallowed before raising his eyes to his father’s face. Hope and fear chose their battleground there. “Unless you don’t want me.”

      Blaine’s mug met the table surface with a thud as he rose from the chair. He circumvented the table to Mickey’s side. Leaning against the table, he placed his hands on the small shoulders.

      “Don’t you ever, ever think that.”

      His tone was far harsher than he believed himself capable of with Mickey. Harsh and choked with emotion. What sort of trash had Diane filled his son’s head with? he wondered angrily. Had she told the little boy his father didn’t care in order to make him choose sides? He might have refrained from making references about Diane in the boy’s presence, but Blaine knew that the arrangement had not been reciprocated by the small things the boy would occasionally let drop.

      “I want you.” His eyes held his son’s. “I have always wanted you. I will always want you.” His voice softened. “Understand?”

      Mickey blinked, then, slowly, the solemn expression on his face faded in intensity as he nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

      Blaine released his son’s shoulders, aware that he might have been holding him a little too tightly.

      “It’s not going to be easy,” Blaine said after a moment.

      Easy? God, it was going to be downright hard, he thought, but he could manage it. He’d already taken the first major step. He’d moved back into the house. A house full of memories, not only for Mickey, but for him. It was here where he and Diane had begun their marriage. And here where it had died that awful, rainy Thursday night, when he had walked out for the last time.

      She’d kept the house after the divorce for the same reason she had kept him away from Mickey as much as possible. To spite him because he had cared about it.

      “But we’re going to manage,” Blaine promised Mickey now, with a great deal more certainty than he felt. “He—ck.” At the last moment, he switched the word that had naturally sprung to his lips. He was going to have to curb his language now, he thought. Another change. But Mickey was worth it. The boy was worth everything. “With Grandpa here to help out,” Blaine continued, “we’ll be just like the family on ‘My Three Sons.’” He laughed and amended, “Minus a couple of sons, of course.”

      “Huh?” Mickey’s expression told Blaine that he had lost his way.

      It took Blaine a moment to remember that Diane hadn’t allowed the boy to watch television. She’d called it a waste of time. Mickey had never had the opportunity to catch the classic sixties program in reruns.

      “Never mind, that’ll be part of your education,” he promised. Between classic cartoons in syndication and selected other programs Blaine had already mentally earmarked for Mickey, the boy had a lot of catching up to do.

      He cupped the boy’s cheek, the wonder of his new situation not fully registering, yet. He had a son depending on him now. Full time. It still took his breath away when he thought about it.

      Blaine dropped his hand and straightened. As he took Mickey’s dish and his own drained coffee mug to the sink, he heard an unsettling thud coming from the general direction of the master bedroom. He winced and wondered if wood glue could rectify whatever had just happened.

      He looked down at Mickey, who was shadowing his every step. “So, you’re sure you don’t want to talk about, uh, anything?”

      “Sure,” Mickey echoed. He underlined his statement with a nod of his head.

      Blaine wasn’t convinced. Mickey couldn’t be as calm as he appeared. Could he?

      Having rinsed the plate without looking, Blaine placed it on the rack. “Well, I’m here for you if you do decide that you want to talk or—something.”

      Blaine shoved his hands into his pockets as he went out to see how the movers were faring. God, he was going to make a mess of it, he thought with a wave of anxiety. He just knew it.

      But Blaine knew that all he could do was place one foot in front of the other and pray that he didn’t step on anything.

      She hated funerals, absolutely hated them.

      Bridgette Rafanelli knew that it had been cowardly of her. But she hadn’t been able to make herself attend the funeral, even though Diane had been a friend.

      No, Bridgette amended fiercely, because Diane had been a friend. There was something altogether spirit-shredding about listening to final words being said about a person who had been alive and vibrant only a few days ago.

      She couldn’t go.

      Funerals reminded her of when she had lost her mother. Then she had been forced to stand between her father and Nonna, listening to a white-haired priest saying words about someone she would never see again. Nonna had held on to her hand tightly, silently offering her a wealth of comfort. It hadn’t been enough. Bridgette remembered the church growing smaller and then disappearing. She had woken up on a cold, cracked leather sofa in the rectory, with her grandmother hovering over her.

      Bridgette let out a long breath as she guided her car into a residential development. She might be short on courage when it came to standing and listening to eulogies, but she was long on compassion and love. Right now, Mickey O’Connor needed both.

      There was a very special place in her heart for Mickey. With his dark, heart-melting looks and soulful black eyes, he looked exactly like photographs she’d seen of her uncle Gino when he was that age. Gino had only been two years older than Mickey when her father had left her with Nonna and him. That had been a year after Mama had died. Gino had been more like a big brother to her than an uncle. He’d brought a great deal of comfort and laughter into her life, as had Nonna.

      It was time to pass on the favor.

      She brought her white convertible to a stop at the curb. The driveway was blocked by a huge moving van. As she watched, two men in beige coveralls came out of the house, struggling with Diane’s four-poster bed.

      Was Mickey moving away?

      Her mouth hardened as she remembered things Diane had told her about her ex-husband. The rat probably couldn’t wait to sell her things and rent out the house. She thought of Mickey. He was so painfully shy. How was he going to adjust to so many changes?

      By the time she approached the opened door and knocked on the jamb, Bridgette had accused, tried and convicted Blaine O’Connor of emotional child abuse.

      Bridgette knocked again, fully expecting to look into Jack Robertson’s weathered face. Nonna had attended the funeral to lend her emotional support to Jack. She’d been seeing Jack socially for almost a year now, thanks to Bridgette’s introduction. Her grandmother had told her that Diane’s father was going to be staying with Mickey until some sort of final arrangements could be made.

      Obviously they’d been made faster than either one of them had anticipated.

      Nonna hadn’t mentioned that anyone else would be staying with Mickey. She certainly hadn’t mentioned a tall, broad-shouldered man in a faded blue shirt and even more faded blue jeans. He had silky dark hair and troubled green eyes as he looked down at her.

      She knew who he was immediately.

      He looked like Mickey, except for the eyes. And except for the fact that innocence that was so blatantly stamped on Mickey’s face had been chiseled out of Blaine’s.

      Bridgette attempted to swallow the animosity that instantly sprang up to seize her by the throat as fragments of things Diane had told her swam through her mind. She succeeded only marginally.

      If she was selling something, Blaine thought, this raven-haired

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