LITMIR.BIZ

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put a whole new light on things for her. Whatever else his sins were, and according to Jordy they were many, Wyatt Blake was obviously trying to do the right thing by his son. The concern that had driven him here was apparently real, and somehow knowing that made his rude, accusatory questions easier to stomach. No less annoying, but slightly less temper-provoking.

      “Look, Mr. Blake,” she began, “Jordy’s having a tough time. He misses the place he knew, his friends….”

      “Those friends he misses are why we’re here. He was headed down a bad road.”

      “At thirteen?”

      “You think there’s an age limit? You of all people should know better.”

      She bristled anew, her kinder thoughts about him forgotten. “Me, of all people?”

      He jerked a thumb toward the photograph. “Half the kids in that audience were probably high.”

      That hit a little too close to a nerve that would never heal, and she didn’t want to talk about it, especially not to this man who seemed intent on his interrogation and entirely oblivious of her efforts to be reasonable.

      “What exactly do you want, Mr. Blake? I told you your son is here and what he’s doing. If you’re afraid of him falling under my evil sway, you can order him not to come back. But I’ll tell you up front that you’ll regret it.”

      His brows lowered, and he looked even more intense. And, she admitted, intimidating. But she stood her ground, even when he said in a voice that sent a chill through her, “Is that a threat?”

      “That,” she said determinedly, “is a simple fact. Playing is the one thing, the only thing, Jordy likes in his life right now. You take it away from him, give him no solace for what’s been done to him, and you’ll lose him completely.”

      “Done to him? I brought him here to keep him out of some serious trouble. He was hanging with some kids who were headed that way fast.”

      “Fine. But he’s in no danger here. Contrary to what you think.”

      “Why should I believe you?”

      Exasperation crowded out the wariness his voice had roused in her. “Why shouldn’t you? Or do you approach everyone you don’t even know with the assumption they’re lying?”

      For an instant she saw something that looked like surprise cross his face. Then, in a voice she found, perhaps oddly, incredibly sad, he gave her an equally sad answer. “Yes.”

      Again she got that impression of utter and total exhaustion. Not so much physical, he looked too fit and leanly muscled for that, but mentally. And emotionally, if she was willing to admit he might have any emotions other than anger, which she wasn’t. She—

      Her thoughts broke off as Jordy emerged from the soundproof room. The boy stopped dead when he spotted his father.

      “What are you doing here?”

      The words held a barely suppressed anger tinged with a hurt it took a moment for Kai to figure out. Then she realized this had been Jordy’s safe place, the one place his father hadn’t known about and therefore didn’t intrude upon. And now that was gone, and, judging by his expression, he felt he had nothing left that was his.

      “Looking for you. So you can explain why you lied about studying after school.”

      Jordy flushed. “I lied to keep you off my back.”

      “Yet here I am. Again. Go get in the car.”

      Something in his words made Kai remember Jordy’s story about the times he’d run away after they’d first come here, and how his father always seemed to find him and drag him back, no matter how hard he tried to hide where he’d gone. That had to mean he cared, didn’t it? Or did it mean Jordy was right, that his father only wanted him so he could push him around?

      When Jordy had first started coming here—after the third futile effort to run away—she’d wondered, enough that she kept a close eye on the boy for any sign of abuse. Finally she’d asked him, and Jordy’s surprise, then grudging admittance that his father had never struck him, told her it was the truth.

      “He put a fist through a wall once, though,” Jordy had said, as if he felt he needed to prove to her that his father was as bad as he’d been saying.

      “Better than backhanding you in the face,” she’d pointed out, and Jordy had subsided. She wasn’t so far removed from her own teenage years that she didn’t remember what a pain she herself had been, and sometimes she wondered why her own father hadn’t slapped her silly a time or two.

      So she empathized with Jordy, tremendously. But now that Wyatt Blake was standing here, looking at the boy who looked so much like him with such frustration, she found herself empathizing with him as well. Not because of the frustration, but because beneath it she thought she saw something else.

      Fear.

      Whether it was fear of failing at the job he thought he sucked at, or of what would happen to Jordy if he did fail, she didn’t know. But either way, she knew that deep down this man did care.

      “My mom was so wrong,” Jordy said. “She always told me you were a hero. But you’re not and I hate you.”

      His father just took it. He never even reacted, and Kai guessed he’d heard it all before. His flat “I know” tugged at something deep inside her. Moved by that unexpected emotion, and remembering what Marilyn had said earlier, she spoke as if Jordy hadn’t said any of it.

      “So, were you glad to come back home?” she asked.

      The man frowned as he looked at her.

      “Me?” he finally asked, with such an undertone of puzzlement that she wondered if he’d spent any time at all dealing with his own feelings since he’d apparently taken Jordy on.

      “You,” she said, keeping an eye on Jordy, who was still glaring at his father. “You moved from wherever you were living, too.”

      “No,” his father said. “I wasn’t glad. I never wanted to come back here.”

      She saw a flicker of surprise cross the boy’s face. He’d obviously never thought of this. Perhaps never thought about his father having feelings at all. But he quickly recovered, the sullen expression taking over again.

      “And you never wanted me, either.”

      Again his father didn’t react to the fierce declaration.

      “Get in the car, Jordan,” he said. “You’ve got homework to do.”

      Jordan opened his mouth, and for an instant Kai held her breath, thinking Jordy might earn that backhand with the words she could almost feel rising to his lips. But the boy conquered the urge, and after a long glare at his father he stalked toward the door. She saw Blake pull a set of keys out of his jeans pocket, aim one toward the glass door and hit the unlock button. The lights on a black SUV parked just to the right of the shop entrance flashed. He watched the boy open the door and climb into the passenger seat.

      “He walks here from school, you know. He could walk home,” she said.

      “Not safe,” he said, almost absently, still focused on the car.

      “In Deer Creek?”

      “Any where.”

      He muttered it, so low she could barely hear it. And then he turned back to look at her. The key was still in his hand, and she saw his fingers move over it.

      “Wishing you could lock him in it?” she asked. “Maybe until he’s eighteen?”

      His head snapped around. She felt that assessing gaze once more, as if he were gauging if she’d been joking or seriously accusing.

      “Thirty,” he said after a moment, apparently going with the former.

      That was progress,

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