Child by Chance Read online

  Or, in this case, to give him time to figure out what in the hell the next step would be.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHILE SHE HAD a joint degree in fashion merchandising and design, Talia still had more than a year of work left on her degree in psychology. She was due to graduate in December and was determined to make that happen. She’d thought maybe she’d teach someday, if she could find a school system that would hire an ex-stripper, but somehow her life had once again redefined itself. Without any conscious direction on her part, she’d become someone new. A collage expert.

  The idea had come to her after spending time with some of the residents at the Lemonade Stand, the domestic violence shelter her little sister had lived at the previous year.

  Inspired by the notion that she might be able to help some of the women who’d befriended Tatum, she’d designed a program that used collage as a means of self-expression. To her surprise she’d discovered that the same skill that served her well in the fashion industry—an ability to see past the clothes on a body to the person they reflected—was an asset for collage reading, as well. Through her collage work, she’d been hoping to help women find their value within rather than relying on their outer beauty to give them their sense of worth. If victims could let go of their negative self-images and replace them with visuals of things that spoke to them, things that made them feel good, things that they liked, perhaps that would help them on their way to starting a new life. Her hope was that once the women realized their inner beauty they would gain the confidence to express themselves and make positive outward choices. Her work jibed with the Lemonade Stand’s philosophy to give battered women a sense of their value to counteract the damage abuse had done to their psyches.

  And somehow, the program had branched out. She was working with kids now, too. Test-running the concept in a total of six elementary schools. Her initial plan had been to present a variation of her Lemonade Stand workshop to high-school girls, with the idea to help them love their inner selves so they didn’t give in to the pressure to feel that their value came from how they looked. So that they could make fashion and life choices that expressed their personalities rather than their sexuality. Such a class might have saved her life in high school.

  And could have helped Tatum, too.

  But the school board wanted her to start on a smaller scale, with both girls and boys, in elementary-level art classes. She’d been thrilled to win that much support and knew that a reference from her new sister-in-law, Sedona Malone, who was a well-respected lawyer in their community, had gone a long way to making this happen.

  Collages were glimpses into the soul of those who made them. Or at least glimpses into their lives, their perspectives.

  So what would a collage Kent made look like?

  At an isolated desk against the far wall in the outer area of the principal’s office, the little kid from that morning sat up straight with attitude emanating out of every pore of his body. Talia glanced at the woman by her side, Carina Forsythe, the art teacher in whose classes she’d been working all day.

  “That’s him,” she said, having told the woman about the disturbing scene she’d witnessed that morning, wondering if maybe she could help. As a professional.

  The boy might not even be her Kent. All day she’d wondered, going back and forth in her mind with certainty that he was, and then with just as much certainty that the chance of him having been in the hallway at the exact moment that she’d been wondering about him was little more than nil.

  “Kent Paulson.” Carina’s young brow furrowed as she identified the student. Talia noticed the little details of those lines on the woman’s forehead. Focused on them as her lungs squeezed the air out of her body.

  He was her boy...her son.

  She’d found him.

  No one could know.

  “...should have seen him a couple of years ago. He was everyone’s favorite—not that we really have favorites—it’s just that he was precocious, smart and so polite, too. But after his mother was killed...”

  His adopted mother.

  Talia had no idea if Kent knew that Brooke wasn’t his biological mother.

  Oh, my God. My son!

  She glanced at the boy again. And couldn’t look away. Was it possible that an invisible umbilical cord ran between them? One that hadn’t been severed when she’d picked up that pen ten years ago and signed her name, severing her rights to her own flesh and blood?

  She tried to speak but her throat wouldn’t work.

  “Anyway, you’d said you wanted to work with troubled kids, and I think it sounds like a good idea. Mrs. B.’s in her office. Why don’t you go talk to her?”

  “I...will...” The dryness in her throat choked her, and she coughed. Until she started to choke. Carina led her to a nearby drinking fountain. She sipped. Coughed some more.

  And was finally able to suck air into her too-tight lungs.

  When she could, she thanked the other woman. Said something about not knowing what the coughing fit was about. Assured the art teacher that she was fine. Waited for Carina to continue about her day. Waited for the lump in her throat to dissipate enough for her to pull off the pretense of her life. And then, careful to avoid another glance at the child sitting along the far wall, she opened the door to the principal’s office.

  She wasn’t a mother. She’d just grown a baby once.

  * * *

  “SO? HOW’D IT GO?” Sixteen-year-old Tatum Malone climbed out of the driver’s seat of their sister-in-law’s Mustang, addressing Talia.

  You’d never know by looking at her that the beautiful, vivacious blonde teenager had been a resident at a shelter for victims of domestic violence the previous year.

  Talia, who was standing in the driveway of Sedona Malone’s beach house, smiled as she greeted her baby sister, avoiding the hug with which Tatum usually greeted her family members. She never had been a touchy-feely person, always having to keep a barrier up. But now, after the choices she’d made, it was as if she couldn’t let her family get too close to her. Or maybe it was that she was afraid that once they saw the woman she’d become, they’d withdraw. And if she was all-in with them, their rejection would be too much to bear.

  That was Talia. Always holding something back just in case.

  “It went fine,” she said, pulling out her key as she headed up the back steps to the deck and the French doors that allowed her to sit at the kitchen table and watch the sun set over the beach just yards away. “The kids were great,” she continued as she let them into the borrowed beach house, dropping her keys on the counter and heading to get sodas for both of them. “You should have seen some of the collages they made. I could spend a year analyzing them.”

  “Cool,” Tatum said, sliding her slim, jeans-clad body into a seat at the table. “But that’s 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. Pic
king 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.

  CHAPTER THREE

  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, he dropped Kent off at home with his favorite sitters, the childless couple next door who spoiled him rotten, and headed into the city by himself.

  * * *

  FINDING KENT HADN’T been difficult. His adoption had provided for the eventuality. If either party wanted to seek out the other, contact information could be passed through the agency.

  Because Kent was a minor, his contact information had been that of his father. And had included a sentence about his mother being deceased. Talia had found out a few more details on the internet. But very few.

  She’d come back from the agency with a name. Knew he was in Santa Raquel. And from his address had found out what school he’d most likely attend. Finding his classroom hadn’t been that difficult once she’d been in the school. The fourth grades were all clustered together.

  Seeing him had been so easy.

  And had upended her in a way being sold by her husband to his friends hadn’t even done.

  She’d given birth to someone else’s child. That was how she looked at her pregnancy and the adoption. She’d been growing a child for someone else to love and cherish because they couldn’t grow one for themselves.

  She’d had it all worked out.

  Until she saw that little boy strutting his preppy stuff down the hall on Friday.

  Friday nights were set aside for online study. Three of her five classes that semester were online. And if she was going to be ready to graduate by December, she had to adhere to her schedule.

  Weekends were for work. By the time she drove to LA, worked an eight-hour shift at the high-end retail store at the Beverly Center, a mall in Beverly Hills, and drove back, the day was pretty much done.

  Her schedule was tight. She couldn’t afford to be flexible.

  So she sat diligently at her computer Friday night. Tried to focus. And kept seeing a little face in place of the text on the screen.

  Picking up her laptop she moved from the spare bedroom she was using for an office out to the kitchen table. There were no lights on the private beach, but she knew it was out there. That the ocean beckoned beyond.

  A child needs to be touched, to be held, to be nurtured. Scientific studies show that a baby that is not held often or at all is far more prone to exhibiting signs of antisocial personality disorder or sociopathic tend
encies.

  She read the paragraph three times.

  She’d given him up so he’d have a great mother to see him through all of the difficult times of growing up.

  He didn’t have a mother anymore.

  A child needs boundaries. He will test them. He is doing so, not to have them moved, but to assure himself that they don’t.

  Was Kent testing his boundaries?

  In part, he finds his security in unmoving boundaries, in the things he can count on.

  A kid should be able to count on his mother. On having her be a boundary that didn’t change. Just always there.

  Unlike the woman who’d given birth to Tanner, Thomas, Talia and Tatum.

  Where had Kent’s mother been driving to, or coming from, that night she’d been killed? Why had she been alone in the car?

  Careful. The inner voice that had decided to show up a little late in her life was speaking loud and clear suddenly. She couldn’t cross the boundary she was standing behind. She wouldn’t. Because she’d be hurting someone other than herself.

  She’d looked up her son to assure herself he was okay.

  She was going to work with him the following week for the same reason.

  Anything beyond that was clearly out of her jurisdiction and not her business.

  Tonight, child development was her business.

  For the rest of the night, she stuck to it.

  Mostly.

  * * *

  “NO, DAD, I don’t want to go putt some balls and get ice cream.”

  The knife in Sherman’s hand was in danger of losing its blob of butter as it stilled, suspended over the toast he’d been buttering Saturday morning. “What do you mean you don’t want to go? It’s already planned,” he explained patiently.

  The grief counselor had told him to be patient. Two years ago.

  “I thought you’d like the surprise,” he added.