Her Secret, His Child

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

"Oh, you were a friend of his? You witnessed the death?"

"How was your flute lesson?"

"After he yelled at me for not practicing, you mean?"

"Okay."

"It went fine. There wasn't much time left." He could tell she was grinning, too.

Kyle swung around, glancing out his second-floor window to the quad below. Students laden with backpacks were heading to and from class, on foot, on bicycles and even on in-line skates. "Why are you taking the lessons if the guy gives you such a hard time?"

"Because I love them. But learning the flute just isn't as much of a priority as paying the bills—or playing with Ashley."

He couldn't argue there.

"How'd she do at dance class yesterday?"

"She didn't cry."

"That's an improvement. Did she participate?" Kyle couldn't understand why, after the first futile attempt when Ashley had refused to go into the class without her mother, Jamie insisted on taking Ashley back. Two years old was obviously a little young for dance lessons.

"You should've seen her, Kyle."

The enthusiasm in Jamie's voice got to him, as it always did when she forgot herself enough to go on about her daughter. The love she had for the child was unmistakable. Kyle had very mixed feelings about that. While he fell deeper in love with her

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

every time he heard it, he was also just a little jealous. If she'd hung around five years before, that child would very likely have been his. He could've been sharing these moments with her instead of just hearing about them.

Spending the next five minutes hearing about every move Ashley made in dance class, right up to the star sticker she got at the end, Kyle could only blame himself for being on the outside looking in. If he hadn't been such an ass, hadn't taken advantage of an emotionally charged situation five years before, Jamie wouldn't have thought, even for a second, that he'd left her high and dry the next morning.

"Sounds like she had a great time," he said, when she finally took a breath.

"She loved it, Kyle."

"Margot Fonteyn better watch out, eh?" These conversations with Jamie had quickly become the favorite part of his day. Talking with her about every little happening in their lives was an intimacy he'd hardly dared hoped for six weeks ago.

"Margot Fonteyn has nothing to worry about," Jamie was saying, laughing. "For one thing, she's dead. For another, Ashley's a horrible dancer. She's got two left feet."

"But you said she did so well!"

"I said she loved it, and she tried," Jamie told him, laughter still in her tone. "But she couldn't step to the beat if her life depended on it."

"No future in ballet, huh? When you going to break the news to her?'' he asked solemnly.

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

"I'm not." Jamie didn't surprise him. "As long as she's enjoying herself, I'll take her to class."

"Good for you."

"You'd do the same, wouldn't you?" she asked.

Those were the times Kyle liked best. When she included him, when she asked his opinion. Especially about Ashley. "I would."

"You busy tonight?" Her tone was different somehow.