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  “Believe me, it is for me, too.” She sank into the barrel chair across from his sleek black desk. “This is the fastest I could get here. I didn’t expect to be able to connect with Charlene still tonight, but I was hoping to get the key to the house. I’d like to open it up, make sure everything’s turned on, get some food in, just get to know the place a little. Try and make some things ready for her.”

  “A good idea. But there’s a lot we have to go over first.”

  Merry leaned forward. There was a ton she wanted to go over, too. And just because little guys tended to worry her—they always seemed to have a mean streak, need to prove their power and all that—she tried to quit pegging him in the negative. So the guy had looked her over a little close. What man didn’t?

  “As I hope I explained on the phone…if the child’s mother happened to show up, or another blood relative who is capable of taking Charlene, they could make a legal claim. But right now, to the best of our knowledge, there’s no one.”

  Merry nodded. “For her sake, I wish she had some family, too.”

  “Regardless, you need to fully understand that you have no legal obligation to take her.”

  “I do understand that. You explained on the phone.”

  “The document you signed years ago isn’t binding.”

  Again she nodded. She’d gone over that night numerous times in her mind. It was hard to explain to an outsider what a rare and special friendship she’d formed with Charlie. It just wasn’t like any other friend relationship.

  He’d been newly divorced when she met him, living in Minnesota, not Virginia. There’d never been anything romantic between them. They’d met at some ghastly party that they’d both been conned into attending by friends, started talking and never stopped. He was just a totally great guy who’d needed a friend, and she’d valued being one for him. Over days and weeks of talking together, she shared more about her childhood than she’d ever told anyone. Likewise, he’d revealed his circumstances. The court had given him full custody of his baby daughter, but he’d been frantic about what would happen to Charlene if he died or was hurt. Even before his ex-wife had disappeared from the picture, she’d been attracted to anything she could smoke or sniff.

  The two of them had written up an agreement on a legal pad in a restaurant. It wasn’t fancy, just said that Merry would take care of his daughter, as he’d take care of hers if she ever had kids who needed help. Even if it was just a pact between friends, she’d meant the words. He had, too. And yeah, unfortunately they’d lost track when he took the job in Virginia. He also must have wildly changed if he’d turned into Mr. Suburbia. But she’d never forgotten him. When the lawyer first called, she’d let out a helpless, keening cry on hearing Charlie was gone.

  And that fast, Oxford told her that she was the only one listed as a potential guardian for Charlene. He’d also quickly informed her there was nothing legally binding about such a document, nothing to stop her from backing out.

  He repeated the same thing now.

  She answered him the same way she had then. “Maybe there’s nothing in this situation that’s legally binding. But morally and ethically is a whole different ball of wax. I have no idea if I can be a good guardian for Charlene. But she can’t possibly be better off in foster care, and for sure she needs out of the situation she’s stuck in right now. And I’m free. I can at least make sure she’s back in her own home, her own school, around her own friends again, before anybody has to make any decisions set in granite.”

  “It’s a monumental thing you’re taking on.” Oxford picked up a pen, and terrier-fashion, started worrying it, poking it end to end. “If you don’t mind my saying, I find it odd if not a little suspicious that you’d be willing to take on a kid out of the blue.”

  Merry tried not to take offense. He didn’t know her from Adam. She tried to answer with the same careful honesty she’d expressed to everyone else. “If you’re thinking that I easily said yes, I promise you I didn’t. But when you described the situation she was in…I couldn’t get it out of my mind. A little girl, right at Christmas, who had everything she knew and loved ripped away from her—”

  He cut her short, as if he needed to hear an emotional argument like he needed another head. “Somehow I suspect you know there’s a sizable trust.”

  She frowned. “Yes. You said Charlie had a trust set up for his daughter.”

  “A sizable trust,” he repeated, and looked at her.

  She opened her mouth, closed it. She told herself again that Charlie would never have chosen a lawyer who was a creep, but the tone of Oxford’s voice still stung. He clearly seemed to think she was motivated by money. Of course, he couldn’t possibly know that half the world tagged her Ms. Eternal Sunshine…and the other half accused her of being a hopelessly naive idealist. But greedy—sheesh. Of all the faults she’d picked up and excelled at, greed sure wasn’t one of them.

  “I don’t know what you mean by sizable,” she said carefully. “But I admit I was shocked when I saw the house. When I knew Charlie, he was an engineer. A good one, making a decent salary. But when I saw the house, I figured it must have a heckuva mortgage—”

  “The house is paid for. When Charlie’s dad died, he inherited a bundle. Which I suspect you knew.”

  “No, I didn’t, actually,” she said evenly. “I never asked Charlie about money. It was never my business.”

  “Uh-huh.” Oxford put down his pen. “I’m not trying to yank your chain, Merry. I wouldn’t take on a kid either, unless there was something in it for me. But if there hadn’t been that kind of money, the child would undoubtedly have been popped into foster care from the start. And if blood relatives do show up, you’d better believe they’ll fight for a chance at that size of pot.”

  She felt a little like a goldfish stolen from a tank. Her mouth kept opening. She just couldn’t temporarily get any words out. She’d never take on a child for money’s sake, couldn’t imagine anyone who would. Bruising her even more, though, was that the attorney seemed to believe she was like him, now that they’d put some honesty on the table. At least his version of honesty.

  “You need to understand though, Merry, that Charlie made that trust iron-tight. Or I should say I made the trust tight. No one gets their hands on that money, without verifying that any and all expenses are for the child.”

  “Which is the way it should be,” Merry got in.

  “Yeah, right. Naturally, there’s an allowance for the guardian.” He named a sum that almost knocked her off her chair. “But typical of such situations, there was an immediate guardian ad litem appointed by the court.”

  “You used that term on the phone, but I don’t really know what it means.”

  “Basically the court appoints a guardian ad litem, who functions as an impartial voice in decisions involving a minor or incapacitated person. In this case, obviously, the child. I have control over matters involving the trust and finances—but I have no power over custody details. She’ll check on Charlene’s progress with you. Evaluate how the relationship is working. She has the right to make home visits, to interview Charlene’s doctor or teachers or other people who know the child. And you need to understand that she can petition the court to have you removed from the guardian role if she feels Charlene isn’t thriving in your care…but she will have to prove it.”

  “All that sounds like good sense. Fine.” Merry found herself wrapping her arms tight around her chest. A lump kept clogging her throat. These were facts she needed to know, no question. It was just that the attorney hadn’t said a single personal thing about the child. There was no hint he’d ever even met her. Maybe she was being oversensitive, but he kept striking her as having a heart colder than the Arctic. “Mr. Oxford—”

  “Lee. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. No reason to stand on formality.”

  How ironic, she thought thickly. Because she never stood on formality with anyone in her life. But this was one person she wished she could. “If y
ou don’t mind my asking…how did you happen to be Charlie’s attorney?”

  He smiled, leaned back and cocked his alligator shoe against a drawer. “Actually, I was originally his father’s attorney, not Charlie’s. When Bartholomew and his wife died—unexpectedly, in a boating accident—I believe Charlie recognized right off that I’d done a good job of protecting his parents’ assets. I think he also readily realized that he wasn’t good with money himself. He used to say that he didn’t need to have a cutthroat bone because he knew I had plenty of them.”

  Maybe she was supposed to laugh, but all she could think was that now she got it. How and why Charlie had tied up with such a cold-blooded machine.

  “Anyhow…” Lee glanced at his watch and zoomed back to business. “The guardian ad litem’s name is June Innes. She’s already seen Charlene, and will undoubtedly be getting in touch with you shortly.” He started feeding her forms and papers far faster than she could possibly read or absorb the details. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t care about the information—or else he was just in a hurry to get out of there. Outside, night was falling faster than bad news.

  Finally, he handed her the last form…several of which she’d had to sign…and got around to handing her the key to the house. “You’ve landed yourself a nice setup,” he said bluntly. “It’s a great house. A lucrative allowance. And for the record, I have no intention of being hard on you. As long as the kid’s well taken care of, there’s financial room for leniency if you need any kind of…flexibility.”

  Minutes later, Merry tore out of the office as if being chased by bees, carrying a thick slug of papers and the house key. Her heart was pounding and her stomach roiling with acid. Oxford’s personality sure matched his alligator shoes. He was scaly and aggressive.

  He hadn’t said one personal word about the child! Not one! Her mind was still ranting when she climbed back in her car…until she glanced at the rearview mirror and saw her eyes spitting tears. Okay. So she tended toward overemotional. But that little girl needed someone who gave a damn.

  Not just someone who wanted to administer her so-called estate from behind a black lacquer desk.

  She couldn’t wait to get her hands on Charlene.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE COMBINED ODORS of beer, cold pizza and cigars hovered in the air like nectar. There was a time for women, Jack thought, and a time when a guy just needed to relax.

  A man could enjoy a woman, be challenged by a woman, love a woman. But for damn sure, he could never relax with one.

  “Sorry,” he said, without an ounce of remorse in his voice, as he scooped up the heap of poker chips. The faces around the table reflected various degrees of aggravation.

  “You’re damned lucky tonight, Mackinnon.” Robert, alias Boner to his guy friends, was the investment banker who lived two doors down.

  “It’s not my fault I’m good.”

  “You know what they say—lucky at cards, unlucky at love.” Macmillan was another neighbor. He worked at Langley, like Jack, and was the toughest poker competitor for the same reason he was great at his job—he knew how to keep his mouth shut and reveal nothing in his expressions.

  “Yeah, but Jack here’s lucky at love, too. It’s not fair. Hell, his back door’s a steady stream of women leaving early in the morning. I should know, since I can see his back door from across the street.” Steve was his best friend in the neighborhood, and not just because he was suffering male-pattern baldness before the rest of them.

  Still, Jack couldn’t let that dig pass. “Hey, you’re married, so you’re free to get it every night. A whole lot easier than being single.”

  “What? You assume marriage means a guy gets it every night? Whatever gave you wild illusions about marriage like that?”

  “I don’t have any illusions about marriage. Trust me. If I’m ever inclined to try the institution again, I hope one of you’ll be a good friend and give me cyanide.” He dealt the next round, already sucking it up because he knew he had to lose this hand. Years ago, he’d realized he had the strange problem of a photographic memory. It was a huge asset in his work, but hell on friends. At least if he was playing poker. Obviously no one would play with him if he won all the time. Jack couldn’t shut down his brain, but he did his damnedest to tune it out to make the game fair.

  Most of the time, anyway.

  He had to admit to a teensy competitive streak. He not only liked to win, but he hated to lose. At anything.

  His house line rang. Rather than interrupt the game, he just took his cards with him and hooked the kitchen extension to his ear. The cord extended an ample distance for him to ante at the table. He’d drawn a slim pair of fours.

  Steve and Boner, for damn sure, had nothing, because Boner was shooting back another beer and Steve was restlessly shifting his butt. Sometimes people were even easier to read than cards.

  “Hey, Dad, how’s it going?”

  Jack kept playing, but his “dad buttons” went on red alert. He knew his sons. Kicker, at fifteen, was already three inches taller than Jack, couldn’t make it through doors without bumping his head, planned on a football scholarship to get into college and had a theory that he didn’t need good grades. Kicker, thank God, put his whole personality out front where anybody could see it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Totally nothing. Mom made me call, but I’m fine.”

  So it was bad. “What happened?”

  “Nothing, really. I’m home.”

  “Home from…?”

  “The emergency room.”

  “Uh-huh. Break or sprain?” He swiveled the cord, anteed another two bucks, then backed up to the sink counter again.

  “Neither one. Mom just insisted I go to the hospital. You know how she is. She freaks every time I play football. And we were just passing a few, you know?”

  What Jack knew was that he didn’t want to get into another wrangle with his ex-wife. He was tired of losing skin, which was always how he felt after talking to Dianne. Unfortunately, he knew the boys played both parents against each other, so it wasn’t as if he could automatically take Kicker’s side without knowing more details. “Where exactly are you hurt?”

  “Just a bump on the head. Nothing. But Mom’s on me again about quitting.” Jack heard out the whole tale. Kevin, alias Kicker, was his firstborn—by eleven minutes. Kevin was the jock, where Cooper was the brain, the quiet bookworm, the one who looked at him with those deep brown eyes and always made Jack feel as if he’d failed him as a dad. Girls chased after both boys nonstop. It’d help if the boys weren’t so damned good looking. Kicker attracted them with his charm and the sports-star thing, but just as many seemed to fall for Cooper’s loner brown eyes.

  He could talk to his kid and play poker simultaneously any day of the week, but while he was leaning against the granite counter, he happened to glance next door. Charlie Ross’s kitchen window faced his. Actually, since neither man had ever lost a minute’s sleep about their lack of curtains, Jack could see in most of Charlie’s windows, and that was a vice versa as well.

  The house next door, though, had been black as a tomb for two weeks, and suddenly lights blazed in every downstairs room. “Okay, Kicker. I agree, a concussion isn’t worth a federal case. It happens. But let’s talk in the morning. And try not to bounce any more balls off your head until the noggin heals, okay?”

  Instead of hanging up the phone, Jack seemed to forget it for a moment. The view across the yard just…startled him.

  He already knew the brunette was over there. He’d seen her zoom in the driveway past dark, slam on the brakes of her toy car, and run for the house. It wasn’t like he kept track—the guys had come over; he’d been busy—but as far as he could tell, she only had one speed. A boob-bouncing run. And he had to shake his head.

  She was one gorgeous cookie, from those sleek long legs to the lustrous swing of chestnut hair. He had yet to notice a flaw, and Jack was good at noticing women’s flaws. In looks, she could make a monk perk up.


  In personality, though, she did seem a little…floofy.

  He leaned closer to the window, disbelieving his own eyes. The view into Charlie’s living room wasn’t as clear as the kitchen, so maybe he was mistaken—surely he was mistaken? Because there seemed to be a table-sized Christmas tree in that living room. A bonbon confection of a pink Christmas tree.

  It was halfway through January, for Pete’s sake.

  Not even counting the craziness of a holiday tree being baby-pink.

  A shadow streaked past the window again. The brunette. She was charging around too fast for him to see much, but he still caught a delectable glimpse of a heaving upper deck in motion.

  Not that looks were everything, but Jack was hard pressed to believe a man would ever need Viagra, even in his nineties, around a woman who looked like that.

  “Hey, Jack. You’ve been called, you hustler. Show ’em.”

  With a laugh, he hung up the phone and rejoined the game. By that time, he had three of a kind, ace high. The others took one look and made ugly hissing noises. Jack threw up his hands. “I can’t help it if I win,” he said, and this time it was dead true. He’d barely looked at his cards.

  Between hands, he poured another round of beer—since everyone was walking home, no one had to fret intake—and shook out more chips for the salsa dip. They played the Wednesday night game as if it were Vegas. What was said there, stayed there. Not about the game. Whoever won likely broadcast that news through the neighborhood and beyond. But any private news was considered sacred.

  “How many times you got laid this week, Jack?”

  “More than you, that’s for sure.” Hoots naturally followed that insult. Jack folded, had a hand too lousy to waste a bluff on. Crazy, but he somehow found himself back at the sink, glancing out the window again.

  And there she was. Not in the living room this time, but the kitchen.

  Her back was to him. Jack could see her refrigerator door was gaping wide open—she was cleaning it out. Undoubtedly stuff was still in there from before Charlie died.