“Oh, Luanne—”
But she cut him off, even though her nerves were clearly at the breaking point. “So I prayed, and prayed, and prayed until my knees were sore, asking the good Lord what I should do, what was the best in a field of bad choices. And it came to me the only practical thing was to keep my promise. Might’ve pulled it off, too, if it hadn’t been for those blamed tenth-birthday photos.” Her gaze slid to his nose. “Didn’t take much for Jeff to figure things out after that—”
“There you are!” called a raspy voice from the back steps. Alek looked up to see sunlight flash off a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on a shiny brown face underneath a cap of white curls. A shapeless dress in an innocuous print hugged an equally shapeless body held up by a pair of scrawny legs. “That boy of yours said you were out here. I don’t suppose you meant to leave the hose runnin’, so I shut it off, hope that was okay—” The woman lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Oh, I’m sorry! Didn’t know you had company! I just this minute took some biscuits outta the oven, thought maybe you and Chase might like some, you know, and then he told me to go on back…” The woman’s words drifted into an ether of curiosity and embarrassment.
Beside him, Luanne took several deep breaths to regain her control, then struggled to stand; instinctively, Alek rose at the same time, bracing his palm around one of her elbows to help her up. She darted a surprised, wary glance at him, but said nothing.
When they got closer to the house, Luanne introduced them. “Odella Stillwater, Alek Vlastos. An old friend of Jeff’s,” she added, a forced calm to her voice that put Alek on immediate alert. “Odella’s my neighbor to the east.”
Alek took Odella’s softly wrinkled hand in his. “Pleased to meet you.”
Clasping her other hand on top of his, the old woman squinted for a moment, as if trying to place him. Then, on a soft gasp, she gently squeezed his hand between both of hers. “Oh, land—you’re that prince fella, ain’tcha? That used to race with Jeff a while back?” A wealth of understanding—and compassion, Alek thought—seemed to flood her words.
He nodded.
Odella scrutinized him for another few seconds before at last releasing his hand, then ushered them all back inside as if the house were hers, not Luanne’s, insisting they get to those biscuits before they went stone cold.
One glance at Luanne’s strained features told Alek she was obviously no more in the mood for a chitchat over a plate of biscuits than he was. But neither would she have hurt Odella’s feeling for the world. When she went to call Chase into the kitchen from the living room, however, and the boy flat-out refused to come, Alek saw her cheeks blaze.
Perhaps Alek had had little experience with kids, and perhaps—no, probably—he was about to screw up yet again, but he refused to let the kid get away with treating his mother with less respect than he did the dog. Calmly, and before Luanne had a chance to react, Alek walked out to the living room where the boy was sprawled on the floor on his stomach, chin propped in hands, watching something on TV. Knowing full well how the child—not to mention the mother—were likely to react, Alek grabbed the remote from the table beside the sofa and clicked the off button.
“Hey!” Chase whipped around just as Luanne breathed “Alek!” sharply behind him.
Alek carefully replaced the remote on the table. “I believe your mother called you?”
“Geez! I said, in a minute!” The child lunged for the remote; Alek snatched it out of his reach. “Give that back! I was right in the middle of a program!”
“Alek, I can handle this,” Luanne said, obviously fighting for control. Over herself, the situation or her child, he wasn’t sure which. Maybe all of the above.
He turned to her. “For once,” he said softly, “you don’t have to.”
She ignored him. “Chase, there is no cause for your being rude like that. None. Not to me, not to Alek and certainly not to Odella who made those biscuits especially for you.”
“Like I give a damn.”
Shock drained what little color was left from Luanne’s face. She opened her mouth, but only to say, “Oh, Chase,” in the saddest voice Alek had ever heard, then quickly walked out of the room.
Alek was over to the child in a heartbeat, grabbing him by the back of his T-shirt and hauling him to his feet.
“Hey—!”
He began marching him toward the kitchen. Or rather, dragging, since the child was not in the least bit interested in cooperating. “You will apologize to your mother and Odella both—”
“No!” the kid yelled, wriggling in Alek’s grasp like a just-caught fish. “Not fair! Everybody’s always tellin’ me what to do! When’s somebody gonna ask me what I want? Let go of me—”
With that, he kicked out, grazing Alek’s shin with the toe of one of those oversize cowboy boots. Alek dodged the second kick, grasping the child by the shoulders and squatting just enough to lock their gazes. “Kick me again, buster,” he said, “and those boots are history!”
Furious tears welled in the bright-blue eyes. “You can’t do that! They’re my daddy’s boots!”
Alek’s heart cramped in empathy, but he refused to let it derail him. “Then I suggest you give serious consideration to not using them as deadly weapons.”
The child stilled, but he looked away, his brows nearly meeting in a tight frown. “Chase,” Alek went on, more gently, “nobody is ever asked if they want to lose someone they love. But that doesn’t give you the right to act as if you’re the only person in the world who’s ever been hurt.” His heart twinged again at the single tear that streaked down the boy’s cheek. “Your mother didn’t take your father away, but you bloody well are acting as if she did. And how do you think that makes her feel?”
After a good five seconds, Chase said, very quietly and with more venom than Alek could have believed possible from a ten-year-old child, “Go to hell.”
Alek’s first reaction was anger. Hot, vicious anger that literally made him see red. Until the haze cleared long enough for him to see reflected in his son’s eyes a sixteen-year-old boy too old for tears, yet too young to handle overwhelming feelings he neither understood nor wanted.
“I have a better idea,” he said, straightening. “How about you go to your room instead?”
The blue gaze narrowed. “You’re not my—”
“I agree, Chase,” came from behind them. Alek turned to see Luanne standing in the doorway, clinging to the tatters of her composure like a beggar his threadbare cloak. “Go on to your room until you’ve done some good, hard thinking about your behavior.”
“I’m sorry—” he began, but Luanne shook her head.
“Go on.”
After a moment’s glare, equally lobbed at the two of them, the child stomped out of the room and up the stairs. Luanne sagged against the wide door frame to the living room, staring down the hall.
Alek wasn’t sure which was more clear: that she was in way over her head, or that she would cut off a limb before she’d admit it. Then, slamming right up against those first two thoughts with a breathless oomph came an idea of just how he might be able to rescue the woman without her realizing that’s what he was doing.
“Can you imagine him running around a palace?” Luanne suddenly said, startling him. He turned to catch her wry, sad smile. “He’d just charm the pants right off everybody, wouldn’t he?”
Swallowing his irritation at the self-censure