For the Children Page 7

  But he could tell leaving them on their own was still hard on her.

  “It was getting a little ridiculous dragging them both to the grocery store every time I went,” she continued as they headed toward a table on the patio. “And it’s not like I could call a sitter because we ran out of milk.”

  She’d changed clothes. And looked amazingly good in the faded designer jeans, figure-hugging black turtleneck sweater and black suede boots.

  “Do you always wear such high heels?”

  “Always.”

  She’d come, but obviously wasn’t happy to be there. He planned to change that.

  Convincing people was what he did best.

  “Why?”

  “So my judicial robe doesn’t trail on the ground.”

  Okay. She wasn’t interested in small talk. Kirk asked her preference and went inside to order their drinks. No coffee for her. This late at night it was hot chocolate or nothing.

  He bought her a large—with extra whipped cream.

  “I realize you have no reason to trust me,” he said, setting their cups—her chocolate, his espresso—on the small table she’d chosen. In Phoenix, the first week of November could pass for summer. The air was balmy, perfect. “But I want you to know I have only the kids’ best interests at heart. I have nothing personal to gain here, no ladders to climb.”

  Surprisingly, she nodded. “I think I knew that. Which is why I find myself going against my own better judgment and allowing Brian to continue.”

  Kirk dropped into the seat across from her. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. I just don’t have a better alternative.”

  “I’m watching him closely.”

  Her blue eyes were fixed on him, and Kirk felt sorry for the delinquents who had to face that uncompromising expression in the courtroom. “I’m counting on it, Mr. Chandler. My son’s life could very well be at stake.”

  For one second, Kirk doubted himself. He was Kirk Chandler. The best in the business. But not the kid business. What did he think he was doing? Saving himself at the expense of a twelve-year-old boy?

  Except that he made his decisions with his heart now, not his head. The predatory instincts had been permanently retired. In their place lay a humility that was guiding him in his new life of service.

  “I make him weigh in every day. Did he tell you that?”

  “No.” And then, “Do the other boys know?”

  He sipped slowly, welcoming the heat that traveled through his chest to his stomach, reminding him that although he might feel dead most of the time, he was still very much alive.

  “I make them all do it,” he told her. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  “You do that for Brian?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I told you, Ms. Simms, I’m on his side as much as you are.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hadn’t touched her hot chocolate. Other than to run a slim finger up and down the side of the cup.

  “It must be rough, raising them alone.”

  She grimaced, glanced down as she dipped a finger in the whipped topping that was slowly melting into the chocolate. “Sometimes.”

  “How long has their father been gone?”

  “Two years ago. But he wasn’t around much before that.”

  Kirk set down his cup. “So you’ve basically raised them alone from the beginning?”

  “Pretty much.” She looked over at him. “I’ve been lucky, though. They’re great kids.”

  “And I guess in your line of work you see the other side of things. Kids who aren’t that great.”

  “They’re all great, Mr. Chandler.”

  Delivered just as his high-school principal might have done.

  “Not even the kids call me that,” he said. “My name’s Kirk.”

  “Then I’m Valerie, not Ms. Simms.”

  He leaned forward, about to challenge her. It was something about Kirk Chandler that hadn’t changed—his penchant for jumping into situations more cautious people would avoid.

  When he was younger, he’d needed the challenge, the relief from endless boredom. And now?

  “So, all kids are great, huh?”

  “I think so.”

  “Even the ones you send to jail?”

  “They’re detained. Juvenile facilities aren’t just places to serve out a punishment. Once the kids are stripped of their dignity—once they’re humbled—the system’s designed to give them a new sense of self, to show them some options to a better life.”

  Kirk’s memory was biased and many years old. Still, the times he’d spent in detention had certainly never left him feeling anything but worthless.

  “And to answer your question—” she took a sip of the chocolate “—yes, even those kids are great. They’re deserving of that effort. Oh, with a few it’s hard to see the good. But for the most part, the kids who end up in my courtroom have had their childhoods stolen from them, one way or another. The original crime was against them. It starts a treacherous cycle.”

  Interesting. “So you’re saying the crimes they’ve committed are not their fault?”

  “No, I’m not saying that.” She smiled sadly, shaking her head, and as the curls fell around her shoulders, Kirk was struck by what a beautiful woman she was. “We all have free will to choose how to handle our circumstances. There are millions of kids who grow up in bad situations and take another route. Instead of giving in to that influence, giving up, becoming part of it, they hold themselves apart. They climb out and never look back.”

  The heroes of the world. That wouldn’t include Kirk.

  “I’m only saying that my kids in court have as much potential as my kids at home. I look for ways to show them that someone cares, even if that means bringing them back into my courtroom so I can check up on them. And I enter dispositions that I think will help turn their lives around. Counseling, educational and vocational programs, that kind of thing.”

  “You really care about them.”

  “Of course I do,” Valerie said. “You can’t sit there looking into the eyes of a scared, lost child and not care.”

  Kirk might have been able to. A few years ago. He’d certainly managed to miss the panicked looks in the eyes of the men—very often elderly men—he’d put out of business. Many of them had spent whole lifetimes building something that he’d torn down in the space of a week.

  This woman, a Superior Court judge at her age, obviously hadn’t wasted a second of her life.

  While he’d—

  “What about the victims of the crimes these kids commit?” he asked.

  “I care about them, too. One of my major considerations in whether or not to detain a child is the threat he or she poses to society. But helping the child helps society. The idea is to help them to grow into responsible, contributing citizens, rather than relegating them to life in adult prisons.”

  “What did you do before your appointment to the bench?”

  “Worked in the public defender’s office.”

  A defense attorney. Why didn’t that surprise him?

  She’d spent her life defending other people, while he’d spent his destroying them.

  And through it all, she’d raised, single-handedly, two fantastic kids. While he’d squandered what chance he’d had to be a father….

  Head bowed, he glanced at the woman across from him, feeling insignificant. Ashamed. The almighty and infallible Kirk Chandler, fallen.

  KIRK ORDERED a second coffee. Valerie wasn’t sorry to see him do that. Sitting there with him was nice. Unusual. But nice.

  It had been a long time since she’d gone out in the evening for any reason other than business. Or the twins. They were safely home in bed, probably sound asleep by now, and her usual ten o’clock exhaustion had not made its appearance.

  “You saw the kid I pointed out today—Abraham Billings,” Kirk said, settling back in his chair with an ankle crossed over his knee, elbows on the arms of hi
s chair, coffee cup held loosely between his hands. “He was the kid playing center.”

  “The one who got Brian’s spot.” She couldn’t resist the barb, but the words were accompanied by a smile. She couldn’t be sorry that Abraham had received this break—or that the boy was eagerly involved in such a healthy activity.

  The slow grin he sent her as he nodded elicited an unexpected reaction in Valerie.

  “The kid’s got real potential.”

  “I thought so, too.” One of her court kids with as much potential as her kids at home. Or more…

  “I’d been after him to try out for the team since the third week of school. I could tell he wanted to, but then he didn’t show up….”

  Kirk’s face was drawn, his eyes filled with compassion.

  For one of her kids.

  “Do you know why?” She heard herself ask a question she probably shouldn’t.

  Ordinarily, she would never discuss one of her kids outside the system.

  But Kirk didn’t know that Abraham was one of her kids.

  And if there was any way he could help her understand how to help the boy…

  “Nope. He never said. But I got the feeling it had something to do with his mother.”

  “Do you know her?” Valerie was careful to keep her tone neutral, one basketball mother asking after another.

  “I’ve seen her around. The only thing I really know about her is that Abraham gets mad when he thinks a man’s looking at her.”

  Because he was a twelve-year-old boy who didn’t want to see his mother in that light? Or because he saw too much of it?

  Valerie suspected the latter. But wasn’t sure.

  And if she was wrong? And took the boy from the woman who loved him? She understood the bond of motherhood.

  “Do your boys know him?” Kirk asked.

  She shook her head. “Why?”

  “Something’s not right with that boy, and I can’t get him to open enough to figure out what. He’s a good kid. I’d like to be able to help him.”

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?” Valerie fought back the twinge of conscience that warned of the dangerous ground she was treading.

  Abraham was due back in her court in another few weeks for a review-of-status hearing, and she had to do whatever she could for him.

  “During the first part of the year, he missed more school than he attended,” Kirk said.

  She knew that.

  “He missed practice on Friday because he had to do some volunteer work.”

  Valerie sipped lukewarm chocolate. “Did he say where?”

  “An old folks’ home.”

  His community service. There was no reason for Kirk to know that the boy was on probation. It probably wasn’t information Abraham would share.

  “I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong, I just know that something is. I’ve lived most of life by sheer instinct and I know that boy’s in some kind of trouble.”

  “He’s lucky he’s got you looking out for him.”

  And perhaps she was lucky, too. If Kirk could somehow stumble on something that C.P.S. was missing…

  “Yeah, well,” Kirk said, rolling his eyes. “We’ll have to see about that.”

  The conversation wandered then, and a few minutes later Valerie leaned forward, arms on the table, and grinned. “So tell me, Mr. Chandler, what do you do with your life besides help kids across the street, supervise lunchrooms and playgrounds and coach basketball?”

  The more she was with the man, the more compelled she was to know what motivated him.

  “That is my life,” he told her emphatically.

  Valerie put her crumpled napkin in her cup, disappointed. She’d thought they’d made a connection that evening.

  Still, it didn’t matter.

  “I find it hard to believe that a man who’s obviously well educated is content with so little to challenge him.”

  His eyes narrowed as he, too, stuffed his napkin in his empty cup. “You of all people should know that dealing with children is the biggest challenge of all.”

  He had her there. Sort of.

  They stood. Threw away their trash.

  Kirk Chandler wasn’t the only one who had well-honed instincts. And Valerie’s were telling her that he wasn’t being completely straight with her. Something just didn’t make sense.

  But those instincts were also telling her to leave well enough alone. As long as the man kept his word where her boys were concerned, she had no interest in him, whatsoever.

  “Have dinner with me sometime,” he said.

  He was walking a step behind her in the parking lot. Valerie didn’t turn around. Didn’t answer.

  She stopped at the Mercedes, her key in the lock.

  “You didn’t give me an answer.”

  She wondered which of the vehicles left in the lot was his. It couldn’t be the Corvette. Not on a crossing guard’s salary. Which meant it was either the beater in the corner that looked like a combination of a couple of different cars. Or the Ford Taurus.

  She couldn’t see him driving either one.

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  He was leaning on the outside of her open door.

  “No, I won’t have dinner with you.”

  He radiated confidence. The man had not learned how to look like that while standing on a street corner. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t know where the word came from. She just knew she had to get out of there. Immediately.

  Before she did something else that contradicted her position. She had no intention of having dinner with him, yet she’d just undermined her own refusal.

  Kirk Chandler had an alarming habit of getting that reaction from her.

  Forcing herself to look away, she slid into her car and drove off.

  It wasn’t until she was halfway home that she realized she still didn’t know which of those cars he’d been driving.

  THE GRANITE TOMBSTONE shone bright in the afternoon sun. Kirk pulled at the grass around its edges, but there was really no need. Sunny Acres’ landscaping was immaculate, as always. Reaching over to prune a slightly browned petal from the sprig of baby-pink roses he had delivered there every Friday morning, he fought back the helplessness that plagued him every single day.

  This was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. One that had irrevocably changed his life. There was no going back. No closing the door on a knowledge he didn’t want. Or wished he’d had ten years sooner.

  He didn’t really know why he’d come today. Why, every single Saturday afternoon for the past two years, he hadn’t missed a date with his little girl. He was rubbing salt in a wound that would never heal. Keeping alive a regret that was already choking him.

  And still he came. In spite of the self-loathing he always experienced here, Kirk had also come to know a level of peace as he tended to a child who no longer needed his attention. Pulling a paper towel from the back pocket of his jeans, he wiped off the top of the stone. In Arizona, dust could settle in a matter of minutes.

  Then he stood. Blinked back an emotion he’d never thought himself capable of feeling, resigned now to its constant companionship.

  “Sleep well, little angel,” he whispered, walking slowly away.

  They were the only words he ever said to her.

  ABE BILLINGS HUNG OUT at Sunny Acres sometimes. It was the only nearby place where no one would bother him.

  Not many people liked to hang out at cemeteries.

  As for Abe, he thought it was pretty cool. Here he was never alone. And no one ever did raunchy things. The way he saw it, the cemetery was as safe a place as he could find.

  Pulling out the cigarettes he’d snitched from the pocket of a pair of pants that had been hanging on the outside knob of his mother’s bedroom door, Abe dug for the lighter, then slung his backpack over his shoulder. A year ago he’d
put anything he really cared about in that pack. And he’d been carrying it everywhere he went ever since.

  Lighting up, Abe wiped away the tears that sprang to his eyes from the first shock of smoke in his throat, held his breath so he wouldn’t cough and started walking again. He’d smoke every single one of the bastard’s cigarettes.

  He’d show them. He’d show all of them.

  How dumb did they think he was?

  “Abraham?”

  Shit. Abe froze. And felt the heat of that cigarette as he turned it backward in his hand.

  “Abraham! Wait up!”

  What the hell was Coach Chandler doing here? Abe had heard he lived up near the foothills with all the rich people.

  He slowed, but didn’t turn, frantically searching for something to do. He thought about putting the lit cigarette in his mouth the way he’d seen on television.

  But he was too much of a wimp.

  “Abraham, it’s good to see you.” Coach wasn’t even out of breath as he caught up to him.

  “Yeah,” Abe said, dread seeping through him.

  This was it. He was caught like a rat in a trap and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to save himself.

  Story of his life.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I THOUGHT YOU HAD to work on Saturdays.” Coach Chandler acted like it was any old day.

  “I got done early.” He actually hadn’t gone at all. As long as he was playing basketball he didn’t have to go back to the old folks’ place. He’d been shocked as hell when he heard Judge Simms had ordered that. He’d figured for sure he’d lose his spot on the team as soon as she saw that it meant her kid didn’t get one.

  That lady scared him. When she looked at him, he swore she could see every thought he’d ever had.

  He felt kind of sorry for Blake and Brian having to actually live with her.

  “So what are you up to now?”

  “Going home.” In another minute, the cigarette was going to be burning his palm.

  Just like his butt was gonna get burned. Smoking was in violation of his probation.