insisting his Uncle Steve would be there, his Uncle Steve would take care of them….
“Steven?”
He glanced over, nodded. Continued. “They’d just bought this old house, over in another township. We knew the wiring was bad…” He paused, collected himself. “I was supposed to go up there the next weekend, start working on it. The fire started in the wall between the kitchen and Dylan’s bedroom, in the middle of the night. Ted and Mac—he’s the oldest boy—woke up first, got the twins and the baby out, then realized Gloria had apparently gone in to Dylan sometime during the night and fallen asleep on his bed. Ted tried to get to them, but a wall collapsed, trapping him.”
He stopped, tried unsuccessfully to quell the nausea that swamped him everytime he had to explain. “He never had a chance. But before the fire department got there, Mac…Mac went back in. He managed to get Dylan out through a window, but his mother…” He shook his head. “That ratty old quilt Rosie drags around? That’s about all that was left, only because she took it with her when Ted grabbed her from her crib.”
“Oh, God,” Lisa whispered. When he dared to look at her, he saw something in her expression that soared far beyond compassion. Light from the living room windows slashed across features he could only liken to the stark, pure beauty of a desert landscape as emotion, naked and raw, writhed in her enormous blue eyes. “How horrible for them. For you.”
And in that moment, even though he didn’t know who the hell this woman was, he was sorely tempted to believe he could trust her with his life.
A temptation that scared the hell out of him.
Deliberately looking away, Steve leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs and let out a sigh. “It’s been…hard, to say the least. Hell, my life has been about as uneventful as a human’s can be, I suppose. Oh, there’ve been the usual disappointments and heartaches, but nothing like…”
He lifted his hand, let it fall with a slap to his thigh. “Criminy, Lisa, I’m in so far over my head with this, it isn’t even funny. Dylan nearly died, too, from smoke inhalation. And even though he won’t talk about it much, I know Mac blames himself for not being able to save his mother. Each kid reacted, is still reacting, differently. Some days seem fairly normal, you know? And I think, okay, maybe we’re moving on, maybe the worst is over. And then, bam! We’re right back where we started and all I know is if there was any way in God’s earth I could take away their pain, I would. But I just don’t know how. And why the hell am I telling you all this?”
She’d been standing apart from him, just listening, her arms folded underneath her breasts. Now those breasts rose with the force of her sigh as she shook her head. “Because you needed to,” she said, just as a very indignant little girl appeared at the head of the stairs, demanding to know where “lady” was.
For at least a full minute, Sophie barely heard Rosie’s chatter.
Her work brought her into constant contact with human trials. Yet, for all the horror stories she’d heard, the aftermaths she’d witnessed, none had pierced her heart more than this. But why? Certainly, as tragic as this situation was, the plight of these particular children was no more poignant than the thousands of others she’d been privy to over the years.
But it was, she realized, much more personal, somehow. And rekindled memories she’d thought long since faded and worn and harmless.
Not to mention stirred all sorts of highly inappropriate feelings for the man who’d taken all this on, feelings she had no business entertaining, even for a few minutes. Still, when was the last time she’d met a man strong enough to admit he didn’t have all the answers?
And who would have guessed that masculine vulnerability could be so appealing?
Seated on Rosie’s toddler bed—which was so close to the girls’ bunk beds, there was barely any room to move—Sophie took in the heaps of scattered clothes, the open, jumbled closet, the pop star posters covering most of the wall space, the PC set up on somebody’s desk. Her closet was twice the size of this room, she thought in amazement as she helped the toddler into a pair of patterned shorts and a bright blue T-shirt. She imagined the cramped quarters bred a fair number of fights, whether the girls had chosen to live like oysters in a tin or not. But she also imagined, despite everything the girls had gone through, there was a lot of giggling in here at night when they were supposed to be asleep, a lot of secrets shared and promises made. A sense of normalcy Sophie had always craved but never known.
And never would. Not really.
Tenderness stirred languidly through Sophie as Rosie showed off an obviously new collection of stuffed animals, snapping into something no less tender but far sharper when she remembered the fierceness of Steven’s gaze when he spoke of the children, the haunted, hungry shadows in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Oh, she doubted he had any idea of the shadows’ existence, that anyone else could see them, but they were there all the same.
It was, however, not her place to even begin to identify those shadows, let alone attempt to dispel them. Because if she let herself get close enough to do either, they would surely suck her in.
So she smiled instead for her new little friend, tentatively touching her sleek, dark hair even though she knew just how dangerous it was to allow herself that simple luxury of touching, of making a connection which would, inevitably, have to be broken. “Shall we go find Steven?” she said, and Rosie nodded, spinning around to grab the drab, precious little quilt off the bed.
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