Fireside Susan Wiggs (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

education but for the boost it would give her in her climb to the heights of society.

“Maybe it would have been sort of all right,” she said, “if he’d really had the money he wanted everyone to think he had. Instead, it was all a pretense. He wanted the world to think he could afford our lifestyle—and for what? I wonder if he even thought about what would happen after he was gone.” She flipped through an old file, the pages marked with the slash of his signature. “Now I’m finding out things I never knew about him. Things I was happier not knowing.”

“Be glad you knew him, even a little,” Bo said. “Mine was almost never around. My brother, Stoney, and I grew up half wild. Our mom wasn’t big on supervision.”

She tried to envision him and his brother—Stoney—as wild kids, making a mental picture of long hair, skate-boards, black T-shirts, ripped jeans. As a girl, she would have been fascinated. But in high school and college, she’d dated only the most conventional of boys. She knew instinctively that Bo had not been the sort you introduced to your parents. Her father always wanted to know the most random things about a guy—who his parents were and where they’d gone to college and what business they were in, what clubs they belonged to and what their politics were.

Once, she’d asked her father to explain his obsession with connections. She had expected him to dismiss her. Instead, he’d actually given the question some thought. “Safety and security,” he said. “That’s why connections are important. When someone is well connected, it means he is offering so much more than himself.”

Now she stared down at the quagmire of paperwork he’d left behind, and the remembered words echoed with cruel irony. “I was oversupervised,” she told Bo. “That’s got its downside, too.”

“Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Don’t be too hard on the guy. It’s tough, arguing with a ghost.”

“I take it that’s something you’ve tried.”

“My mother’s been gone five years, and sometimes I still catch myself.”

“I’m sorry.” She watched the play of firelight on his face, feeling an unexpected bond with him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Makes me want to do a good job with AJ.”

“You will,” she told him. “You are. And thank you for this.” She indicated the information he’d given her. Kim felt her stomach unknot a little more. “It’s funny, how things work out. I had no idea she was in such trouble, and if I’d stayed in L.A., I still wouldn’t have known. So even though it wasn’t part of my plan, coming back here turned out to be a good thing. For my mom, anyway.” She watched the flames dancing in the fireplace. “Maybe for me, too. I tried to plan out every detail of my life and ended up walking away from it all. I should feel bad about that, but I don’t.”

He provided a surprisingly sympathetic ear and it was a relief just to share the burden. To look into his sapphire-blue eyes and see real interest there. Don’t be attracted to him, she admonished herself. That’s the last thing you need in your life. Yet it felt so good to simply talk to someone. It had been literally years since she’d had genuine people in her life, yet she’d been so busy in L.A., she hadn’t even noticed.

“Yeah, I gave up trying to plan stuff out,” he said. “That way, everything that happens to me is a surprise.” When he smiled, his blue eyes conveyed a message of utter sincerity. So much for not being attracted to him.

“I take it you like surprises,” she said.

“They’re a mixed bag. Getting tapped for Yankees spring training, with a shot at the roster—I’d call that a good one. Being asked to take care of AJ—now, that’s a mixed bag. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a dream come true, getting to meet him at last, but I wish the circumstances were different.”

As she often had since meeting AJ, she wondered about his mother. Yolanda Martinez. Judging by AJ’s looks—creamy skin, deeply expressive brown eyes, a thoughtful mouth and rare, heart-melting smile—Yolanda was probably beautiful. And judging by AJ’s devotion to her, she was a good mother. Yet she’d never let Bo see his son. Bo was her last resort.

“You look as if you’re about to ask me a hard question,” he commented, correctly reading her expression.

“I don’t know if it’s a question or not,” she said. “Just wondering about AJ’s mom.”

“Wondering why she didn’t want me involved in AJ’s life, you mean. She married somebody else when AJ was a baby, didn’t want him to get confused.” Bo didn’t seem self-conscious about letting Kim see the world of hurt in his face. “Guess she didn’t realize, a kid is never confused about stuff like this.” He glanced at his watch. “This is the longest damn school day in the history of the world. Whose idea was that to make the school day so damn long?”

“I just hope he’s having a good time,” she said.

“It’s school,” he replied. “How good can it be?”

“You could call the main office and ask,” she suggested.

“I thought about doing that,” Bo said, “but he’s so touchy about me right now, I don’t want to push it. Maybe later.”

“The first day of school is scary no matter what,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s any way to make it easier.”

“And here I am making it harder on the kid,” he said.

“Because you’re going away to fame school.” She could tell it was weighing on him.

“I’m contractually obligated to go. Now, I could blow it off, stay here with AJ and hope for the best, but according to my agent, that’s a huge risk. If I go, if I make it in this career, it could make a huge difference not just in my life, but in AJ’s. His mother wouldn’t have to work all the time. He could live in a house, go