not what I was talking about.” Those intense gray-blue eyes pinned Talia and, not for the first time in the year she’d been back, Talia felt completely off-kilter. As though her almost ten-year age advantage over Tatum had disappeared and she was the younger of the two.
“Does Tanner know you’re here?” Talia asked, sending a bold and piercing look back.
“Of course. I’ve got Sedona’s car, don’t I?”
Tatum could’ve had her own car, if she’d wanted it. But for now, she was sticking close to home—to Tanner and to Sedona, the lawyer who’d seen through Tatum’s confused attempt to get help the year before, and ended up marrying their big brother.
“He pretty much asked me to come,” Tatum said, her look steady, “or he would have if I hadn’t already said I was coming.”
Still not completely used to having someone on her side, most particularly not someone she actually loved, Talia nodded.
“I saw him,” she said, her fingers curling the edges of the place mat in front of her. Picking up her can, she took a long drink of cola, pretended that it had some magical strengthening power and said, “He’s little. Like Thomas. Smaller boned than Tanner.”
“Is he short like Thomas, too, or tall like you and me and Tanner?”
“I don’t know. He’s a lot shorter than I am, but he’s only ten. How do I know how tall a ten-year-old is supposed to be?”
This was Tatum’s nephew they were talking about. And family meant everything to Tatum. Talia understood. It was just taking some getting used to, this whole support system thing. She’d been alone in a rough world for a long time.
“Did you talk to him?”
Talia shook her head. “He’s in trouble, Tay,” she said. Instincts told her to keep the bad stuff a secret from her little sister, wanting her to only see the good in the world. But they’d all learned how much damage those kinds of secrets, that kind of protection, could do. Most particularly where Tatum was concerned.
Tatum’s eyes shadowed, and her pretty blond hair fell around her shoulders. “What kind of trouble?” Her voice had softened.
“I’m not sure,” Talia said.
Kent was supposed to have had the perfect fairy-tale life. That was why she’d given him up. To protect him from any chance that he’d grow up the way she had.
Then she and Tatum had found out on the internet that Kent’s adopted mother had been killed in an accident. By a drunk driver in a stolen vehicle. He’d fled the scene on foot and there’d been no identifying fingerprints on the car or on the nearly empty bottle they’d found inside it.
Tanner was all for Talia approaching Kent’s father, introducing herself and proposing some kind of arrangement that would allow her to see her son now and then. Tatum understood why Talia couldn’t even think about doing that.
“He’s been suspended from class for the next week.”
“What? Why? It’s kinda hard to get suspended from the fourth grade.”
“No idea. But I didn’t just walk away.”
“I never thought you would.”
Tatum’s grin made her belly flop. She hated that. And loved it, too. All she’d ever wanted was a loving home and family of her own. Before she’d figured out that an open heart hurt too much.
Still, here she was, giving it all another chance. The family part, not the loving-home-of-her-own part. A permanent chance. She wasn’t going back to a world that didn’t see her as a human being. That only saw her as a body others could use for their pleasure. She’d failed Tanner. And worse, she’d been absent when Tatum had needed her most. Her little sister had paid a heavy price for Talia’s easy way out.
Talia would spend the rest of her life paying off that debt.
The decision wasn’t negotiable. But neither did it make the implementation easy. Or in any way comfortable.
“I talked to the principal,” Talia said.
“Mrs. Barbour?” Tatum’s frown was cute, scrunching up her nose in a way that reminded Talia of a time when Tatum had been about three and had walked by the bathroom after someone had just been in there. She’d walked around the house with her nose scrunched up for half an hour after that. When Talia had asked her what she was doing, she’d said she was keeping the bad smell out. She’d been too young to realize that it had only been a temporary thing.
“She was in charge of a spring fling production that involved all the area elementary schools when I was in sixth grade,” Tatum said. “We called her Mrs. B.”
“They still do,” Talia said. “I asked if I could try some collage making with him. She said he was going to be spending the next week in her office and as far as she was concerned I could see him every day.”
“So, you’re planning to work with him all five days, right?” Tatum’s voice was chipper, and her smile hit bone-deep.
“I think so. Yeah.”
“Are you nervous?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re going to spend the entire weekend pretending that you don’t care and that this is really nothing more than making sure he’s okay.”
“It isn’t. And how can I care for a child I’ve never known?”
“You knew him for nine long months. And never stopped loving him...”
Talia couldn’t go there. Not now.
Not ever.
SHERMAN HAD TICKETS to a basketball game in LA on Friday night. He was sitting in a box with a man who he believed would support his candidate for the county auditor seat, most particularly after Sherman finished explaining to him how his candidate played into what the moneyed gentleman wanted most.
Sherman didn’t really have an opinion on the man’s politics. That wasn’t part of his job. Showing the man how he could help Sherman’s candidate—one of the campaigns Sherman and his team were currently managing—was what he cared most about at the moment.
Apart from his son, of course.
He’d planned to surprise Kent with the tickets and the trip to the city—with an overnight stay in a hotel—when he’d picked him up from school on Friday. He’d known about the game since Tuesday—the first day he’d received a call from Mrs. Barbour that week. He’d hardly been able to reward the boy then.
And not any of the days between then and Friday, either.
But Kent had promised to have a good day at school on Friday. And Sherman had been going to use the tickets as a reward.
He could hardly reward being suspended from class.
Instead,
