turn out just fine.”
For the first time, his smile was a little doubtful. As she stared up at him, Valerie had to wonder why Rob Warren worried about his daughter getting along in the troop. And how much trouble his worry predicted for her in the long run.
“Of course it will,” she found herself assuring him. “We’ll have a great year.” She bent to pick up the box. “Our first meeting is next Wednesday. We’ll have to get together to do some planning before then.”
“Let me take that,” Rob said, slipping his hands under the front corners of the container.
“I’ve got it.” Valerie backed up, looking over her shoulder for her daughter. “Grace, could you get the other box? And Connor, bring that bag, please.”
But Rob still hadn’t let go of the box she held. “I’ll get this one.”
“No, thanks. I can do it.”
“But you don’t have to.” He took a step forward.
“I want to.” She grinned at him. “Are we going to dance around the room with this between us? Or can I just carry it to my car?”
Shaking his head and frowning, he backed away with his hands held up in a gesture of surrender. “You are one headstrong woman, Valerie Manion. Your husband’s a patient man.”
“I’m divorced.” She said it quickly, flatly. “It’s just me and the kids.”
He gazed at her for a moment with a somber expression. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your problem.” She glanced around the room, double-checking for stray papers, then headed for the door.
Rob followed. “But I’m gonna be working with you. Should I be relieved or worried about this stubbornness of yours?”
“Both. Because I’m committed to making our troop the best it can be. And…” Balancing the box on her knee, she pulled her keys out of her shorts pocket and hit the button to unlock the doors on her van. “And I always get my way.”
Even though he waited for Ginny to leave the building ahead of him, Rob somehow crossed the parking lot ahead of Valerie to open the van’s rear door before she could.
“Always?” He reached out one more time for the box.
“Always,” Valerie affirmed, sidestepping to put the container into the back of the van by herself.
“We’ll have to see about that.” He took Grace’s load and stowed it next to other box.
Valerie managed to capture the bag Connor carried. “I win,” she said, putting the sack next to the boxes.
But Rob beat her to shutting the door. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible. Should I be glad or worried?”
He winked at her. “Both.”
WITH ROB’S FRIENDLINESS to think back on, Valerie found herself feeling more cheerful than usual as she made dinner. After cleaning up, Grace and Connor settled down in front of the TV with a movie while she completed GO! paperwork at the dining room table. The only part she didn’t like about the program was the never-ending reports to be made. Tonight, though, she kept remembering her new assistant leader’s IRS comment and his good-natured teasing about the forms, and the work went quickly.
The phone rang while she took a break with a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
“Good evening, Valerie.” Connor Manion Sr., attorney to New York’s new money, had taken speech lessons to smooth Brooklyn out of his voice.
“Con.” She turned her back to the kitchen door, hoping the kids wouldn’t hear. “What’s wrong?”
“Why should there be something wrong? I called to check on my children.”
“For the first time in three months.”
“I’ve been in Europe on a case.”
“How nice for you.”
“Much nicer than Ohio or—where are you now?— Hicksville, North Carolina.”
“What do you want, Con?”
“You should’ve stuck with the sure thing, Val. You could have been in Paris this summer, too. Great clothes in Paris, and I remember how you like clothes.”
She chose to say nothing and, as usual, silence goaded her ex-husband into some fast talking.
“Anyway, I want to chat with the kids. But first I thought I’d let you know that the check’s coming.”
“In the mail, no doubt.”
“Monday, at the latest.”
“Is this July’s check, or August’s?”
The veneer cracked. “What the hell are you talking about? I sent money all summer.”
“No, you didn’t.”
After a seething few seconds, he recovered. “My secretary must’ve scr…missed some paperwork. I’m sure I directed her to send those checks.”
“That’s what you’d like the court to think, anyway. Don’t worry, Con. I haven’t reported you. Yet.”
“Don’t sound so superior, damn you. You need the money, I know you do.”
“The kids need your money. All I need from you I have in them. Hold on and I’ll bring Grace to the phone.”
The excitement that Con’s phone call produced in her children was depressing, but Val managed to maintain a cheerful expression until they went to bed. Worn out by the effort, she got into her own bed a half hour earlier than usual. Lying on her side, she rested her cheek on her right palm, and then remembered shaking hands with Rob Warren. The thought made her smile.
Maybe tonight, she could look forward to her dreams.
“THERE YOU GO,” Rob told his daughter once they were in their van and headed home. “Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
Ginny shrugged a thin shoulder. “I guess.”
“Aw, come on. You like being outdoors, right? We can go camping and fishing and all sorts of things.”
“We could do that anyway. We don’t need a bunch of girls to go with us.”
“Yeah, but I bet you’ll have fun with those other girls. Grace seems really nice.”
“She talks funny.”
He chuckled. “She has a New York accent, like her mom. Definitely different from Southern English.”
“And her little brother is a pest.”
“That’s
