Fireside by Susan Wiggs (pdf e book reader txt) 📗

It is personal. I felt involved even when we were two strangers at the airport. So don’t give me this ‘I don’t get involved with clients’ shit. I’m not buying it.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” She moved away from him in the water, settling on the opposite side of the tub. Droplets of water beaded in her hair and eyelashes, and she looked so pretty he had to remind himself not to groan aloud. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Quit staring at me.”

“Sorry. No can do.”

“Whatever. Stare all you like. I’m not changing my mind.”

“Nope,” he said, “that’s my job—to change your mind.”

“Don’t waste your time.” She laid her head back on the rounded edge of the tub and gazed up at the stars. “When I was little, I used to think the stars were holes in the sky and that their light belonged to another world, and we could only see a little bit of it, seeping through the holes, like the sun through a pinhole camera.”

He reached out, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Maybe that’s just what they are.”

“Right, that’s me. A real rocket scientist.”

“Rocket scientists. What the hell do they know?”

“Rockets, for one thing. And science.”

“I thought the stars were a bunch of eyes, watching me,” Bo said.

“We’re a couple of geniuses.” She made the first move, levering herself up and out of the tub. The steam rolled off her in waves, making her look even more like a creature from another world. A Titian-haired goddess—that was a phrase he learned from reading Penny’s old books of poetry. Kim embodied a kind of otherworldly beauty that made his eyes ache, yet he couldn’t look away. When she grabbed one of the big white robes and covered herself, Bo came as close to crying as he ever had in his adult life.

Twenty

Ever since the New York scare, Bo was hypervigilant when it came to AJ. He slept lightly, his senses attuned to his son in the alcove bed. If AJ so much as sighed in his sleep, Bo tended to spring awake. He kept telling himself to relax. AJ seemed resigned to his fate. According to his teachers, he was cooperative and quiet. He seemed to be settling in.

Although there had been no further running away or truancy, Bo couldn’t help worrying. He sensed AJ wasn’t settling in at all. He was guarded, wearing attitude like body armor and keeping his distance from people.

Bo knew what it was like to be a boy on fire, restless and watchful, thrumming with impatience. He knew how it felt when you yearned to make something happen, even if it meant doing something foolish. God knew, he’d been there himself, once upon a time.

Each morning, Bo stood at the front door of the house, watching until AJ boarded the school bus. Every afternoon, he stood in the same spot, waiting to see him get off and head home. Bo’s stomach always knotted up until he saw the boy actually appear.

The sun was making a rare appearance this afternoon, turning the yard into a field of diamonds.

When Kim came into the vestibule, interrupting his afternoon vigil, Bo gladly welcomed the distraction. He found her extremely distracting. After the photo shoot, he’d theorized that the rush of emotions he got from kissing her might have been the result of unwinding after a long day. It wouldn’t be the first time his heart lied to him. Yet instead of subsiding, his feelings for her escalated. With everything else on his plate, he hadn’t yet figured out what to do about that.

“You’re hovering,” she said, joining him at the front window. “Ever since AJ went to New York, you’ve been hovering.”

“Do you blame me?”

“No, it’s understandable. Not helpful, but understandable.”

“I feel bad for AJ,” Bo said. “He still hates it here.”

“Has he told you that?”

“No need. It’s obvious. He writes letters to his mother, and we have no way of knowing if they ever get to her. That kills me, and I can only imagine what it’s doing to him. He’s not making friends, not really doing anything other than marking time. That’s no way to live your life.”

“And you know this because…?” she prompted.

“Because he’s waiting around for something to happen…people spend their lives that way, and then they look back and wonder what the hell happened to all the time.”

“Is this the voice of experience talking?”

“It’s one of the reasons I pursued Independent League baseball instead of taking the traditional path in the minors. When you’re waiting around to be tapped for a major-league team, you’re so focused on the future that you miss what’s happening right under your nose. I’ve seen ballplayers get so busy looking ahead to the next move that they forget where they are. That’s the silver lining to my long wait for the Yankees. I quit focusing on getting there and figured out how to live my life in the here and now.”

“I like that,” she said quietly. “But how do you get him to think like that?”

“Good question.” He turned away from the window, reminding himself AJ would get home when he got home. “I sure as hell don’t want him to look back on this time in his life and see nothing but trouble. A boy deserves to be happy.” He noticed the way she was watching him, her face thoughtful, her smile soft. Christ, where had this woman been all his life? And how could he get her to stay? “What?” he asked.

“You’re a philosopher,” she said. “Where’d that come from?”

“Dunno.” He found himself remembering his mother. Almost up to the day she died, she had drifted from moment to moment, convinced she’d find the right man, the right job, the right life, if only she waited patiently enough. Even when he was little, he’d felt her looking beyond him, trying to see past him. He remembered yearning for more attention from