LITMIR.BIZ

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it. The last thing he needed was for his son to have a crush on his substitute piano teacher—the woman who showed up in the dead of night and who might take off the same way. He couldn’t bear to see any more disappointment in Steven’s eyes.

      How in hell was a child supposed to get over the heartbreak of his mother walking out at such a tender age, with not so much as a phone call on his eighth birthday?

      If Kent had his way, Steven would have a couple of siblings by now, but that was the last thing Diana had wanted. Born and raised in Heartlandia, just like him, she wanted to move to a big city where she could spread her cosmopolitan wings and play wife to a doctor who made a staggering salary. She wanted parties and designer shopping sprees. She did not want to be married to a guy running his own urgent-care facility and having to be both businessman and doctor rolled into one. A guy who couldn’t predict which side of the red line they’d land on at the end of each month.

      She’d thought being married to a doctor meant she’d be home free, rolling in dough. What with staff salaries to pay, the never-ending need for supplies or new equipment, liability insurance up to his ears and the lease on that overgrown building, some months he had to take a rain check on his own salary. Good thing he lived in the same house he grew up in, the one his parents practically gave away when they sold it to him and moved to Bend, Oregon, to enjoy their retirement.

      Bottom line, Diana had wanted out. She’d wanted to be far away. She’d wanted San Francisco, not Heartlandia. She’d wanted to be single again. Single without a child hampering her whims.

      “See, Dad? I can almost play all the notes.”

      “That’s great.” He applauded. “If you practice every day, maybe you’ll have it memorized by next week.”

      “Yeah! That would be the coolest. I could surprise her.”

      “Now don’t go getting ahead of yourself. She’s only substituting for Mayor Rask. She may not even be here next week.” Kent went into the kitchen to throw some food together for dinner. Steven tagged along, practically on his heels.

      “Can we invite Ms. Desi to the festival this weekend, huh?”

      Kent didn’t want to speak for someone else, but he was quite sure Desi would be bored senseless at their hokey small-town Scandinavian festival. Wasn’t that what Diana used to call it? “I don’t know.”

      “I could buy her some aebleskiver with my allowance. I just know she’d love them.”

      Kent wanted to wrap his arms around the boy and hold him close, tell him to be careful about getting his hopes up where women were concerned. Instead, he pulled open the cupboard and rustled around the canned foods for some baked beans. He hoped to change the subject with food, one of Steven’s favorite topics. He’d grill some chicken and steam some broccoli, and pretend he didn’t hear Steven tell him “for the gazillion-millionth time” that he hated broccoli.

      “Dad? Dad! Can we?”

      Kent quit opening the can, inhaled and closed his eyes. “We’ll see.”

      “Please, please, please?”

      “I’ll think about it. Okay?” Feeling a major cave coming on, Kent went the diversion route. “Now go wash your hands.”

      Already having his father pegged, Steven triumphantly pumped the air with his fist. “Yes!”

      The never-say-die kid sure knew how to work his old man. Kent quietly smiled and went back to cooking.

      After dinner and a lopsided conversation with Steven talking about life on the school playground and one quick confession that he thought Ms. Desi smelled like his favorite candy—tropical-flavored SweeTarts—Kent mentally relented. Why allow his lousy attitude about women to get in the way of his son enjoying himself? Besides, when Kent was a kid he had a new crush every week. Steven would soon forget “Ms. Desi” and all would be back to normal.

      After he cleaned up the kitchen he’d take a walk next door and ask Desi if she’d like to come along on Saturday. He wouldn’t say a word to Steven, though, so the kid wouldn’t feel the sting if she said thanks but no.

      An hour later, Steven was showered and in his pajamas and planted in front of the TV in the family room.

      Kent stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, wondering why in hell he felt compelled to brush his teeth and gargle before heading next door. He cursed under his breath as he headed downstairs toward the door. If he didn’t watch it, next he’d be picking posies from the yard for the substitute teacher.

      Nothing made sense about asking the new lady in town along just because his son wanted her to come. One thing was painfully clear, though. He’d been hanging out with eight-year-old boys too much lately. Then one last thought wafted up as he crossed his lawn, heading for Gerda’s place—even an eight-year-old could see Desi was easy on the eyes.

      * * *

      Desi sat on a wicker glider on the large front porch behind the second arch, the huge living room window behind her. She’d thrown one of Gerda’s warm shawls over her shoulders to ward off the chill from the night air. Under the dim porch light she was barely able to make out the print in the Music Today magazine she’d surprisingly found on her grandmother’s coffee table.

      Soon she’d have to switch to her eReader and that novel she’d started before she’d left home if she wanted to stay outside. And she did want to stay outdoors to give herself and Gerda some space. There’d been too many extended silences, too many bitten back questions from Desi and started but abruptly ended sentences from Gerda. So much to ask. So much to say. So hard to begin.

      Tonight her grandmother seemed preoccupied with mayoral work, and Desi felt out of place. She stared at her scuffed brown boots, wishing she knew how to broach the subject of her mother. What was she like as a kid? Did she always love chili cheeseburgers? What made her think she had to run away when she got pregnant instead of telling her parents and working things out? But people were tricky. You couldn’t always get right to the heart of the matter without first building trust, and her grandmother was obviously holding back the details.

      She looked around the large, homey porch and inhaled the night air, even detected a hint of that jasmine from the side of the house. She twitched her nose. Something about this old house calmed her down, as if it had reached inside and said, Hey, you might just belong here. This is where your mother grew up; these rooms, scents, colors, textures and sounds are your roots.

      Soles scuffing up the walkway averted her attention from her thoughts. Her gaze darted to the tall blond man from the bland house next door—the overprotective father with some sort of grudge—Kent.

      An unnatural expression smacking of chagrin eclipsed his handsome face. It lowered his brows and projected caution from those heavy-lidded eyes. The sight of him set off a pop of tension in her palms.

      He cleared his throat, and she closed the magazine. “Nice night, huh?”

      One corner of her mouth twitched with amusement over his awkward opening. “Seems kind of cold to me.”

      “That’s Oregon for you.”

      She smiled, deciding to toss the poor man a lifeline. “Is it?” When was the last time he’d talked socially with a woman?

      “Yup. Unpredictable, except for rain.” He came closer to the porch but not all the way up, one foot two steps higher than the other. He put his palms on his knee and leaned on them, an earnest expression humbling his drop-dead looks. “Listen, I want to apologize in case I came off cranky this afternoon.”

      She sputtered a laugh. “Cranky? My grandmother might get cranky, but you, well, you seemed bothered. Yeah, that’s the word—bothered.”

      He scratched one of those lowered brows. “Sorry.”

      “I was just being nice to your son, not planning on snatching him. Making him feel good about his progress, that’s all.”

      “Yeah,

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