LITMIR.BIZ

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times you used to jump around the corner and yell boo just for the pleasure of hearing us squeal. I’m not going to fall for it anymore.”

      Much to her relief, he stepped back a pace but only so he could glower at her from a better angle. “You’re going to have to help me out here. Clarity, remember?”

      She hated feeling stupid and out of her depth and she finally just blurted out, “I won’t have a fling with you, Riley.”

      He blinked. “Okay. Good to know.”

      “It’s not that I’m not…um…that I wouldn’t…” Oh, she didn’t know how to do this. “I’m not sophisticated or worldly or any of those things. I’m a soccer mom. I’ve been a room mother for six of the last seven years. I’m the president-elect of the PTA, for heaven’s sake.”

      “And that’s pertinent to this discussion because?”

      “Because I’m not the sort of woman to jump into bed with anyone. Especially not you.”

      His jaw tightened and she had the ridiculous feeling she’d hurt him somehow. “Why especially not me?”

      “A hundred reasons. For one thing, I know you’re not serious about any of this, you’re playing some kind of game.”

      “This is fascinating. Do go on.” His jaw had hardened and he crossed his arms across his chest, which unfortunately only served to emphasize the definition of his biceps.

      “Well, you’re my best friend’s little brother.”

      “Younger. I prefer younger. And only by a few years, Claire.”

      Okay, that was true. If not for the fact that she’d known him all her life, the difference in their ages would be irrelevant. But she had known him. She’d seen him grow from a pesky kid to a surly teenager.

      He was close, so close that she could see a muscle flex in his jaw. She wanted to kiss that flutter, just throw caution to the wind and…

      The pressure in the room shifted as the front door was yanked open.

      “Hey, Mom!” Macy called out from the entryway. “Guess what? Julie Whitaker has a sprained ankle, so guess who gets to play goalie tomorrow?”

      Her daughter burst into the family room, overflowing with gangly, slim gorgeousness, even in practice shorts and knee-high socks. She grinned when she saw Riley. “Hey, Chief.”

      “Yay for you! Goalie, huh?”

      “Yeah. Jule’s super-good, so I never have the chance to goal tend, but she’s out for at least two games, so I get to fill in. Maybe if I do an awesome job, the coach will think about alternating us. I don’t mind playing forward, but I really love goalie.”

      “That’s wonderful, honey.” With effort, Claire shifted gears to her mommy role. “You’ve worked hard to improve your skills and you definitely deserve it. Hey, I’m going to order pizza tonight and Owen’s picking a movie.”

      “Okay. I’m going to go change and clean up. The field was super-muddy.”

      In a rare show of affection, she slid her arms around Claire’s neck and hugged her, then bounced past Ruth in the doorway on her way out of the room.

      “Thanks for the ride home, Grandma,” she said.

      “You’re welcome, my dear,” Ruth answered. “Claire, good grief, who left such a mess out by the garbage can? They look like shingles. Is that Andy Harris here working on something? He needs to do a better job of cleaning up after himself.”

      Riley stepped forward into her line of vision and Ruth’s mouth pursed like she’d just chomped into a peach pit.

      “I left the mess, Mrs. Tatum. Claire lost a few shingles in the rains of the last few weeks, so I was replacing them. Don’t worry, I’m planning to take care of the garbage before I go.”

      Her mother’s sharp-eyed gaze slid from Riley to Claire and then back again. Claire gave an inward cringe at the questions and suspicions she saw gathering there like an August afternoon thunderstorm over the mountains.

      She braced herself, wishing she had some way to warn Riley of the cloudburst about to let loose.

      “Chief McKnight. This is a surprise.” Ruth smiled with absolutely no warmth. “Isn’t there a teenager somewhere you can chase down at dangerously high speeds?”

      Riley’s only reaction was the twitch of a muscle in his jaw. If this was the attitude he faced around town, no wonder he carried unnecessary guilt about the accident.

      “Mom,” Claire chided quietly.

      Ruth offered up a falsely innocent look. “What did I say?”

      “You know that was unfair,” she began, but Owen’s “Hey, Grandma!” stalled the words.

      “Hello, dear. What have you been up to?”

      “Me and Riley fixed the roof on the shed and guess what? I got to use a nail gun.”

      Oh, dear. Here we go. Now Ruth would accuse her of allowing Riley to put her son into danger. “Weren’t you two going to take a look at your bike?” she asked, a little desperately.

      Riley raised an eyebrow at her sudden uncharacteristic eagerness to accept his help, but he only nodded. “We certainly were. That was our next project. Let’s go check out what we’re dealing with, kid.”

      “I found just the show on the computer, Mom,” Owen informed her. “I put it at the top of the queue.”

      “Excellent. I’ll order the pizza in a minute.”

      When the two of them headed outside, Owen pacing his stride to Riley’s longer-legged gait, Claire turned to her mother.

      “Mom, that was unkind. Riley was only doing his job. You know that.”

      Ruth began fussing around the room, straightening magazines on the coffee table and picking up the granola bar wrapper Owen had left there after school. “I’m sorry, Claire, but I can’t forget that because of the way he did his job, you and my only grandchildren were nearly killed. Look at you. You can’t even walk and you haven’t been able to work for over two weeks. It’s not right.”

      “If you’re going to blame anyone, blame the teenagers who decided to go on a crime spree for no discernible reason. Blame Charlie Beaumont. He’s the one who chose to run.”

      Ruth made a dismissive sort of motion. “Charlie is a thoughtless boy who ran because he was afraid.”

      “Right. Afraid of being caught. They robbed my store and a half-dozen others in town, not to mention that vacation home in the canyon. None of that is Riley’s fault.”

      “I’m not defending what they did. It breaks my heart, that’s what it does, and I don’t understand it for a minute. I don’t see how anyone can. Children from good homes, robbing people, vandalizing things. Something’s wrong, I’ll grant you that. Personally, I think it’s all those video games you parents let them play.”

      Because she allowed Owen only a couple hours a week of only rated-E-for-everyone games, she wasn’t sure how her mother could justify lumping her into that particular category. Anyway, that wasn’t the point.

      “Whatever the reason, it was the choices Charlie—and, yes, the others—made that caused this tragedy. Not anything Riley McKnight did.”

      “He should never have chased them,” her mother insisted. “Not with those snowy conditions. And now a girl is dead and another might as well be, if she has to live the rest of her life like a…like a rutabaga.”

      “Riley did nothing wrong.”

      “Believe what you want. I’ll do the same.”

      Would that waxed cord be strong enough to make a noose? she wondered, although it was a toss-up whether

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