Guilty (32 page)

Men left. She knew that.

But Ben didn't. And one lesson she'd rather he didn't learn was how much it hurt to be left by somebody you'd learned to love.

Ben was shooting again while Tom made a (less-than-all-out, she was sure) try at stopping him.

Kate didn't even watch to see if the ball went in.

Squaring her shoulders, no longer smiling, she turned back into the house.

"Ben," she called over her shoulder in her best no-nonsense voice. "Homework."

The bouncing sound of the ball followed her inside.

"Mo-om."

"Now," she said, unmoved by the protest, and headed for the kitchen.

Ben came in a few minutes later, flushed and perspiring, the new ball clutched in his hands. Having shed her blazer earlier, Kate sat at the table in her blue shirt and black slacks, going through his backpack, pulling out notebooks and textbooks and crumpled bits of paper, trying to make sense of it all. She was tired and upset, unnerved by the certainty that Mario wouldn't just forget about her, shaken by her reaction to the man she could hear walking around her living room, but school and homework were non-negotiable facts of life with Ben. She had pulled down the cheap roll-up shades that had come with the house—which, since the kitchen opened only onto the backyard, she had never bothered to use before—so that no hint of the night outside was visible. The room was a bright, cozy, slightly untidy cocoon, with the lingering scent of the carryout pizza Tom had insisted on grabbing on the way home for dinner still hanging in the air.

"You forgot your planner," she said, looking up at her son. The teacher required them to keep a planner in which they recorded all their assignments. In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, Ben tended to either forget it or forget to write anything down in it.

"I know what I have to do." His tone was more resigned than sulky. "Trust me." Then his voice brightened. "Look what Tom gave me." He held up the ball for her inspection. He looked bright-eyed and pink-cheeked and, yes, happy. Despite her numerous and varied misgivings—Ben sounded frighteningly comfortable calling this near stranger "Tom"—she found she couldn't bring herself to rain on her child's parade.

"Wow," she said, and smiled at him. Out of force of habit and because she couldn't help herself, she added, "Did you say 'Thank you'?" "Yeah." From his tone, he might as well have added
duh.
"I think it's really helping."

"That's good." Okay, despite any possible ulterior motives on Tom's part, she found that she was really, really glad he had given Ben the ball. "Think you could put it down now so we could get this homework out of the way?"

"I hate homework." But Ben obediently put the ball down on the counter and came and sat at the table, pulling his math notebook toward him. Sighing, he opened the notebook, picked up a pencil, and looked up at her with a frown. "What are we going to do without a car?

She had told him only that her car had been stolen, without mentioning that she had been in it at the time, so he found the whole thing more exciting than anything else. It was possible that he was really concerned about how they were going to get around, but Kate liked to think she recognized a delaying tactic when she came eyeball to eyeball with one.

"The insurance company is getting me a loaner tomorrow. Do your math."

"I hate math."

"I know. Do it anyway."

The whole time they were doing homework—and it took almost an hour, right up until Ben's scheduled nine P.M. bedtime—Kate was conscious that the two of them were not alone. The house felt smaller with Tom in it, even though he stayed in the living room, out of their way But she could hear him moving around, hear him nipping through channels before settling on some sports program that neither she nor Ben would ever watch, hear him making calls on his cell phone. They weren't particularly intrusive sounds—even the volume on the TV was turned low—but they unsettled her in some vague way.

When Ben finally finished, he hopped up and started for the living room.

Eagerly.

"Bedtime." Kate rose, too, and followed him, her chest tightening at the idea of seeing Tom. Since that kiss, she felt wary of him in an all new kind of way.

"Can't I stay up just a little bit later? Since Tom's here?"

"Nope."

They reached the entrance to the living room with Ben a couple of steps in the lead. Tom sat sprawled on the couch, his head resting back against the upholstery, his stockinged feet on her coffee table, the remote in one hand, looking totally at home. He'd shed his jacket, shoulder holster, and tie, which left him in his white shirt and black pants. The shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and he'd rolled up the sleeves.

He looked scruffy, tired, and so handsome anyway that, had Kate been in the mood to be at all romantically receptive, she would have caught her breath.

But she wasn't. Because when she and Ben walked into the room, Tom turned his head, looked up at them, and smiled, a lazy, engaging smile that warmed his eyes and caused her stomach to tighten.

"All done?" he asked.

And it was then that it struck her: She knew why having him in the house unsettled her so.

It felt like they were a family.

And that was somewhere she just wasn't going to go.

C h a p t e r 22

"YEP," Ben answered, and made a beeline for the gold chair.

"Oh, no, you don't." Kate caught Ben's shoulder and turned him from his chosen course, propelling him instead toward the stairs. "Say good night."

Kate couldn't see the expression on Ben's face, but she could see Tom: He shot her son a commiserating look. In response, Ben shrugged. She was willing to bet Monday's check that her son was also rolling his eyes.

It felt like they were ganging up on her. Like the two of them, as males, had some kind of special bond.

She frowned.

" 'Night, Tom," Ben said. "Thanks for helping me out with the basketball."

"Not a problem. Good night."

By that time, she and Ben were at the bottom of the stairs. She went up with him, because it beat the alternative, which was staying down with Tom. She knew she was going to have to deal sooner or later with him and the whole grab bag of problems he represented, but at the moment later seemed better.

She needed to get her head together first.

"Tom's nice," Ben told her, as they reached the top of the stairs. He looked over his shoulder at her as she followed him down the hall toward the bathroom.

"Yeah." Kate's chest tightened. "But you know, he's just helping us out temporarily here. Once all this mess gets straightened out, we probably won't be seeing him anymore."

At the bathroom door, Ben stopped and turned to look at her. The happy glow of a few minutes before was gone. He looked worried, and suddenly far older than his nine years, as he met her gaze. "Is somebody trying to hurt you, Mom?"

"No! Of course not." Ben knew her really, really well, so she didn't know why she was so surprised he had picked up on her anxiety. But her job was to protect him, not the other way around, and there was no way she was laying even so much as a hint of this on him. "Why would you even ask that? "

"Because a lot of bad stuff's been happening to you lately. And Tom's a cop, and this is the second night in a row he's spending the night at our house."

Okay, she should have remembered that nothing escaped Ben.

"That's because ... because ..." She was groping, and coming up empty.
Think.
"It's just a precaution. Because I got so much publicity after that stuff happened at the Justice Center. Tom's kind of just hanging around until it all dies down, which it will soon."

Ben continued to study her face. "I was hoping maybe he was going to be your boyfriend."

Kate tried not to look as surprised and dismayed as she felt. She had never, since Ben had been alive, had a boyfriend. How had such a thought even entered his head?

She wasn't about to ask. One thing she'd learned in law school was to never ask a question unless you're certain you want to hear the answer.

Words to live by.

"No." Her voice was firm. "He's not going to be my boyfriend. He's just a nice man who's doing his job. That's all. Go take your bath."

When he went into the bathroom and shut the door, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

Until Ben just now planted the idea of Tom as her boyfriend in her head, she hadn't realized quite how alone she felt. For nine years now, her every thought and action had been centered on making a good life for Ben. Had making a good life for herself, too, gotten lost in the shuffle?

Maybe. But I did what I had to do.

By the time she had finished reading to Ben and he had fallen asleep, Kate was dead on her feet. With the loss of her briefcase and its contents, which included her laptop and phone, and, because she used it like a purse, her identification, credit cards (and good luck with those, Mario—they were totally maxed out), and various other personal items, tomorrow promised to be a very taxing day. The one positive to it was that with the best will in the world, she couldn't do any work tonight. All her files, etc., were gone with the briefcase.

So with Ben asleep and Tom on guard, she was free to do what she was dying to do: go to bed.

Only she couldn't.

Because she had to go back downstairs first and deal with the problem that was Tom.

He wasn't in the living room, although the TV and lamps were on. As Kate glanced around, she heard faint sounds from the kitchen. Holding fast to her resolution, she headed that way.

The kitchen light was off. With the shades drawn over the windows, except for the illumination spilling over from the living room, the room was as dark as a cave. For a moment she was conscious of a little niggle of fear as she glanced around and didn't see him anywhere. Could something have happened? Could he have gone outside for some reason, or could Mario and company possibly have broken in and overpowered him? Freezing at the thought, she was just about to retreat when he said
damn
very distinctly from somewhere near at hand. There was no doubt that it was Tom's voice, and, relieved of one worry at least, she advanced cautiously to discover him behind the refrigerator, wedging one of her kitchen chairs beneath the knob on the back door.

"What are you doing?" she asked, totally sidetracked by the unexpected sight.

He was still working the chair into place as he glanced around at her. It was hard to tell in the gloom, but she could have sworn he looked a little embarrassed at being discovered.

"Taking precautions."

She had to smile. All her illusions about her big, bad cop protector were in danger of crashing and burning on the spot.

"If you weren't here, that's just exactly what I would have done. Only I would have figured it was pretty useless." She leaned a hip against the table and settled in to watch.

"And you would have been right." With the chair apparently adjusted to his satisfaction, he left it and moved toward her. "The thing is, somebody's got your house key, so a minute ago they could've walked right in. Now they have to break something first, and theoretically I'll hear it."

"Smart." Glancing around, she spied another chair beneath the knob of the door to the garage, and her smile widened into a full-fledged grin. "Is there one against the front door, too?"

If so, she'd totally missed it, but given how tired and frazzled she was, anything was possible. "Not yet, but there will be."

She looked back at him to discover that he had stopped not two feet in front of her.

"Nice." She was grinning at him like an idiot, and he was smiling back wryly. The scene was cozy and warm and, yes, damn it, happy, despite the fact that what they were talking about was barricading her house so that some really bad guys who were threatening her and possibly wanted to put some serious hurt on her couldn't get in. He was looking tall and dark and dangerous (and never mind those ridiculous chairs), and sexy as hell, and as she grinned at him her heart was beating a little faster and her blood was heating and she could feel electricity pulsing through the air between them. Then she couldn't help it: She caught herself remembering that blistering kiss.

And the whole thing scared her so badly that her stomach cramped.
No. No. No.

Her grin died like somebody had shot it. Straightening away from the table, then taking a couple of steps sideways and back because the movement had brought her closer still to him and she couldn't deal with that, she fixed him with a level look. "What?" His eyebrows lifted at her.

"We need to talk." Turning on her heel, she headed for the (relatively brightly lit) living room.

"Now you're starting to sound like me."

He followed her, and when she reached the coffee table she turned around to face him again. He stood a few feet away, just over the living-room threshold, and stopped when she did. Kate met his gaze head-on. And forget about how the sizzle was still there in the air between them, and that her heart was still beating way too fast.

"First, I want to thank you for giving Ben that basketball and playing with him out there tonight."

He shrugged. His hands were hooked in his front pockets, and his face was unreadable now. "Not a problem. I like Ben."

"I'm glad you said that. Because Ben likes you, too. And that's part of the problem."

"There's a problem?"

She'd paused only for a moment to gather her thoughts, and her courage, and his response elicited no more than a brusque nod before she went on.

"Look, about what happened tonight"—okay, as soon as she said it she realized she was going to have to be more specific, because a lot of things had happened tonight—"when we k-kissed ..." Jesus, she was stuttering now. How pathetic was that? "The thing is, I don't do that. I don't kiss people. I don't get involved. I don't date. I'm too busy, and ... and it's not good for Ben."

There. She'd gotten it out. Most of it.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'm really grateful you're staying here tonight, and I'm grateful you stayed here last night, and I appreciate everything else you've done, but... but after tonight, I don't think we should see each other anymore."