LITMIR.BIZ

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“You want to come with us, Lily? Maybe you’ll see something you like.”

      “Thanks, but I can’t,” she said. “I need to pick up my son.”

      Assuming a karate stance, Michael faced the two serious-looking Crenshaw boys. “All right, guys, prepare to go down,” he told them and swiped at the air dramatically, making the appropriate hi-ya sounds before he lunged at the two giggling towheads.

      Seven-year-old Petey kicked out his leg. His six-year-old brother, Micky, did the same. When Petey kicked out again and his foot came within a few inches of him, Michael pretended to go down. He lay on the carpet unmoving, with his eyes closed, and waited until the two boys came to stand over him.

      “Uncle Mike?” Petey nudged him with his toe.

      Michael opened his eyes and grabbed them both around the middle. “Gotcha,” he cried out and fell back, pulling the two boys on top of him.

      “Say uncle or die,” Petey demanded as they climbed on top of him.

      “Uncle,” Michael said, much to their delight.

      “All right, boys. It’s time for bed. Let your Uncle Mike up.”

      “Aw, Mom,” the boys whined in unison.

      “Don’t ‘aw, Mom’ me. Tomorrow’s a school day,” Janie Crenshaw told her sons. Dressed in green cords and a sweater, she stood with her hands on her hips and attempted to appear stern. Michael grinned to himself. With her petite frame and honey-colored hair pulled into a ponytail, Janie looked like a kid herself.

      “But Uncle Mike needs us to show him the rest of the new moves we learned in karate so he’ll know how to defend himself against the bad guys. Don’t ’cha, Uncle Mike?” Petey asked hopefully, with the laughing hazel eyes that reminded Michael so much of the boy’s late father.

      “Yeah, I do. But I think you guys have given me enough new stuff to work on for now. You can show me the rest the next time I come over.”

      “Tomorrow?” Micky asked.

      “Gee, partner, I wish I could. But I’m afraid I’ve got this really big case I’m working on and I’m going out of town tomorrow.”

      “For how long?” Petey asked.

      Michael rubbed at the back of his neck. He loved the kids, and didn’t want to disappoint them. “It could be a couple of weeks, maybe even a month.” The truth was, he didn’t know how long it would take him to pick up Elisabeth Webster’s trail. With a six-month head start, the woman could be just about anywhere by now. But wherever she was, he intended to find her within the thirty days specified so he could collect the rest of that fee from her husband.

      “I bet it’s a robbery case like the ones you and my dad used to work on,” Petey offered. “And you’re going to catch the bad guys and lock them up in jail. Then you’ll be a hero just like my dad was.”

      Michael felt that hitch in his chest again as he listened to Petey describe what he believed to be the way his father had died. As Pete Crenshaw’s partner and the man indirectly responsible for his death, Michael had felt an obligation to shield the boys from the ugly truth. Unfortunately, he had been too late to shield Janie. She’d already found out about Pete and Giselle.

      As long as he lived, Michael would never be able to forgive himself for destroying the Crenshaws’ lives the way he had by introducing a viper like Giselle into their midst. And while Janie had argued with him, threatening to tell the department that it had been Pete who had been guilty of the pillow talk that had led to the botched drug bust and Pete’s death, she had gone along with him in the end. She had allowed him to protect her boys with an edited version of what had happened that night five years ago when their father had been killed. While the boys had been too young to understand at the time, Michael had known that as they grew older they would want to know how their father had died. He owed it to Pete to let his sons believe their father had died a hero. So he stuck to the story he’d given to the Houston Police Department, to Pete’s sons and to his own family. Doing so had cost him a great deal in terms of career, family and friendship. But the way he’d looked at it, he’d paid a much smaller price than Pete had. He was still alive and watching Pete’s boys grow up. Whereas Pete was dead and would never know his sons.

      “Only you’re not going to get shot and have to go to heaven the way Daddy did, will you, Uncle Mike?” Micky asked.

      “Are you kidding? With all these fancy karate moves you and your brother have been teaching me, nobody better mess with me,” Michael joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

      “Okay, boys, kiss Uncle Mike good-night.”

      “Kissing is for girls,” Petey informed his mother. “Us men don’t kiss.”

      “Yeah, us men don’t kiss,” Micky parroted.

      Michael bit back a grin. “Trust me, guys, someday you’re going to change your mind about that. What do you say we shake hands?”

      “I guess that would be okay,” Petey said solemnly.

      Michael held out his hand. And when Petey offered his smaller hand, Michael took it and hugged the boy close. Then he did the same thing with Micky.

      “Well, I’m a girl, and I want a kiss,” Janie told her sons.

      Both boys looked to him. “It’s all right for us guys to kiss a girl—especially if the girl happens to be a mom.”

      Satisfied with the answer, both boys kissed and hugged their mother. “You going to kiss Mom good-night, too, Uncle Mike?” Micky asked him.

      Janie flushed. “I’m not Uncle Mike’s mom,” she informed her son.

      “But I saw Jason’s mom kissing that guy Eric she’s supposed to marry. Jason said Eric’s going to be his new dad,” Micky argued.

      “But your Uncle Mike and I aren’t married, and he isn’t your dad,” Janie explained.

      “But Petey and I want him to be our dad. It’s not fair. Jason’s going to have two dads and we don’t have any. So maybe if you kissed Uncle Mike, you and him could get married and then Uncle Mike could stay with us all the time and be our dad,” Micky offered.

      “Oh, Micky,” Janie said. “It doesn’t work that way, sweetie.”

      Oh man, Michael thought, feeling as though he were dancing in quicksand. From the stricken look on Janie’s face, she felt the same. “Your Mom’s right, partner. That’s not how it works.”

      “Then how does it work?” Petey demanded.

      “When two people get married it’s because they love each other and they want to spend the rest of their lives together,” Janie explained.

      “Well, Uncle Mike loves us and we love him,” Petey reasoned. “Don’tcha, Uncle Mike?”

      Michael felt as though someone had just reached inside his chest and closed a fist around his heart. He stooped down so that he was eye level with the two boys. “Yeah. I do love you guys. And I love your mom, too—but not the way a man loves a woman he marries.” Perhaps if he and Janie hadn’t both loved Pete, things between them might have been different. As it was, Pete would always stand between them. Pete—and his own guilt for the hand he’d played in destroying their marriage.

      “What your Uncle Mike is trying to say is that he and I love each other like a brother and sister,” Janie clarified.

      “But brothers and sisters can’t get married to each other,” Petey said in that what-a-yucky-idea tone that only a seven-year-old boy could pull off.

      “And that’s why your Uncle Mike and I could never get married,” Janie said. “Do you understand?”

      Petey shrugged. “I guess so. You’re saying you don’t love him the way you loved my dad, because he’s like your brother or something.”

      “Or

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