For the Children

She didn’t love him.

She didn’t want to love him.

She glanced at the top page again.

It couldn’t be. And yet, it made a twisted sort of sense. Kirk had been so reticent about his past. And with a past like his, who wouldn’t be?

Leah leaned forward. “What can I do?”

Looking up, Valerie opened her mouth to tell her there was no reason to do anything. And did something she’d never done at work before. Not even her first day back after Thomas’s accident. She started to cry.

“Judge?” Leah came around to her side of the desk, slid an arm around Valerie’s shoulders, gave her a hug. “Can I get you some water?”

Wiping her eyes, Valerie nodded again. It seemed to be the only thing she could do. “A bottle of water would be nice,” she said with a tremulous smile.

He’d tried to change his life, hadn’t he? That could be what the crossing guard and coaching stuff was all about. And if that was so, she could hardly blame him for needing to leave his old life behind. For lying to people in the new life he’d created.

After all, he couldn’t escape if he brought his sins with him.

Pulling a bottle from the little refrigerator in one corner of Valerie’s office, Leah handed it across the desk, reseating herself.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Valerie glanced down at the report one more time, and then up at Leah. “You know that crossing guard I told you about?” she asked.

“The one who is the boys’ basketball coach?”

“Yeah.”

“The one you’ve been meeting for coffee and late-night walks?”

She wished she’d never told her assistant about that. Thank God Leah didn’t know what else Valerie had done with Kirk Chandler.

“He’s the man who’s claiming to be the father of Susan Douglas’s baby.”

Eyes wide, Leah gaped at her. “The crossing guard is Susan Douglas’s multimillionaire ex-husband?”

“Apparently.” She pushed the papers across to her assistant. There was no way the man Susan had described to her was the same man who’d sat with her at the hospital on Christmas night. Or bought dinner for her and the boys two evenings this past week.

He’d lied to her—by omission.

But could she blame him? She’d lied to him, too, by omission. About the Billings case.

Because she was trying to do the right thing. The good thing.

And wasn’t that what he was doing? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” A favorite quote of her parents’ sprang to mind. By their actions and the results of their actions; that was how people revealed what they really were.

The actions of the Kirk Chandler she knew were generous and compassionate.

It couldn’t be the same man.

There had to be an explanation. She was just missing it.

“His having the same name as Susan’s ex didn’t surprise you?” Leah asked.

“I don’t think I ever heard his name from Susan. She reverted to her maiden name when they divorced and apparently had Alicia’s changed, too, because the name in the obituary was the same as Susan’s. Or maybe that was a mistake.” Valerie stared at the papers, unseeing. “She never called him anything but the bastard or him or, once or twice, her ex.”

Kirk had lied to her. He’d told her the episode with the woman he’d impregnated had been a one-night stand. Of course, technically, it had been. Susan was engaged to be married at the time.