LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed softly. She was positive that somewhere someone had coined the word crusty to describe Rita. The woman rarely, if ever, smiled and no one knew how old she was. Kate had inherited her from the man whose practice she’d taken over years ago. According to him, Rita had come with the building. Kate had no reason to doubt him. The woman was resourceful, loyal and utterly opinionated. And despite prodding on Kate’s part, completely devoid of a personal history. Kate felt a great deal of affection for her. It had something to do with her protective streak.

      “Don’t pretend that putting people on hold isn’t one of your favorite pastimes, Rita. Don’t forget, we go back a long way.”

      “If you say so, doctor,” Rita murmured. The line went dead. Kate expected nothing less. Rita wasn’t given to wasting words.

      Taking her finger off the intercom, Kate glanced up at Trent. She didn’t need a degree in psychology to see that he was tense, that something was bothering him even though he tried to appear nonchalant.

      Tall, with sandy-blond hair and sharp blue eyes, Trent had grown up into a handsome young man, just like his brothers.

      Exactly like two of his brothers, she thought, suppressing a fond smile. Trent was one of triplets and to the untrained eye, each of them, Trent, Trevor and Travis, appeared to be carbon copies. It was only by paying strict attention that the subtle differences began to emerge. One’s smile was brighter, another held his head a certain way when he was making a point, a third’s eyes were just a wee bit bluer than his brothers’ when he became impassioned about a subject.

      What all three shared—along with their older brother, Mike—was a huge capacity for love and empathy. Although she had come into their young lives at a crucial point, she didn’t pretend to take credit for the way they’d turned out. Their better traits had been there all along, she maintained. All she had done was to enable them to raise those traits to the surface.

      She couldn’t love Trent and his brothers any more than if they had been products of her own gene pool instead of Bryan and his first wife’s. If pressed, in a moment of weakness she might have admitted to having a tiny, softer spot in her heart for Trent because he’d opted to follow her in her chosen profession.

      “Does this have anything to do with Laurel?” she asked once Rita’s voice had faded from the room and he still hadn’t said anything.

      Trent’s eyes widened, and then he laughed. “You know.” For some reason, he’d just assumed that Laurel had come and gone without anyone noticing—except for Rita, who made everything her business. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

      “I’m a mother,” Kate replied simply. “Mothers are supposed to know everything.” Her smile broadened. “You know that.”

      He could remember, as a boy, taking shelter in that smile. She made the hurt go away.

      “You know,” Trent said, some of the tension ebbing away from him as he made himself comfortable on the tan sofa, “when you first came to take care of us, I was pretty sure you had eyes in the back of your head.” He flashed a grin. “Over the years, I became convinced of it.”

      “An extra set would have certainly helped, having the four of you to keep track of.” There had been incidents with falling department-store mannequins and abruptly-halted escalators that she would just as soon put out of her mind. “But this time it was the eyes in the front of my head that made the connection. I saw Laurel leaving your office and heading toward the elevator.”

      Seeing the young woman again after all this time had caught her off guard. It brought back memories of how heartbroken Trent had been when the young woman had abruptly vanished from his life with just a terse note to mark her passage. He’d tried hard to pretend that everything was all right, but she had seen through him.

      Instead of firing an array of questions at him, Kate waited for Trent to pick up the thread of the conversation. After all, he had sought her out and he would tell her why in his own time.

      Kate didn’t have long to wait.

      She saw the tension return to his shoulders. “Laurel wants me to treat her son.”

      He was doing his best to sound removed, she thought. “Do you think that’s wise?” she asked him gently.

      Restless, Trent rose to his feet. “No.”

      Kate knew her sons very well. Reading between the lines wasn’t hard. “But you’re going to do it anyway.”

      A dry laugh escaped his lips, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe you should give up psychology and become a clairvoyant.”

      Kate didn’t believe in clairvoyants. She did, however, believe in instincts and being close enough to someone to almost “feel” his thoughts.

      “My ‘powers’ only work with my family.” She became serious, wanting him to talk it out as much as he could. “You wouldn’t be in here if you were at peace with your decision, and it was fifty-fifty—telling her no or telling her yes.” One slender shoulder beneath the powder-blue jacket lifted and fell in a careless shrug. “I’ve always been rather lucky at guessing.”

      Rising from her desk, she went to stand next to him. He was close to a foot taller than she was, but he always felt she was the dominant force in the family. His father referred to her as the iron butterfly. The description fit.

      Kate placed her hand on his arm. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

      He shrugged, still feeling at sea about what had just transpired in his office. The surprise of seeing Laurel again after all this time had thrown him off. He assumed his stepmother was asking him about the case.

      Trent shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know too many of the details at this point. According to Laurel, her six-year-old son, Cody, hasn’t uttered a word in a year. Not since his father died in a car accident.”

      “He was there when it happened.” It wasn’t a question.

      He looked at her only mildly surprised. “How did you know?”

      It was strictly textbook so far. “The boy’s behavior is a reaction to a trauma. At that age, it would most likely be a visual one.” She paused a moment, thinking. “At least, that’s the outer layer.”

      Trent wasn’t sure he followed. “Outer layer?”

      Kate nodded. “There has to be some other underlying cause for him to have withdrawn from the world, from the mother I’m assuming he had a decent relationship with until this occurred.” The cadence at the end of the sentence told Trent that this was a question.

      “I didn’t ask, but knowing Laurel—” He stopped abruptly and smiled sheepishly, transforming into the boy he’d once been so many years ago. “I don’t know Laurel,” he amended, realizing he was making assumptions he had no basis to make. “At least, not the person she’s become.” Because the Laurel he’d known hadn’t wanted the intimacy needed in a marriage, but this Laurel had married. Married, apparently, less than six months after leaving him.

      “In my experience, most people don’t change all that much,” Kate commented.

      He thought about Laurel, about the way she used to be. “She did.”

      “What makes you say that?”

      “She got married,” he replied simply. He realized that might need some explaining. “I asked her to marry me and she took off, saying she couldn’t be in that kind of committed relationship with a man.” He’d had his own commitment issues, but for Laurel, he was willing to try to work it out. Sadly, the feeling had not been mutual. He set his mouth hard. “Apparently, she got over that.”

      If Kate noted the sliver of hurt in his tone, she gave no indication. “Not necessarily.” He eyed her sharply. “She could have dared herself to take this hurdle, or been shamed into it, made to feel less than a woman if she didn’t commit. You don’t

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