A Season For Grace

At the stove, Grandma Maria Celestina stirred her special marinara sauce while Mama prepared the sausages for baked ziti.

The rich scents of tomato and basil and sausages had the whole family prowling in and out of the kitchen.

“Church was good today, huh, Mia?”

“Good, Mama.”

At fifty-six, Rosalie Carano was still a pretty woman. People said Mia favored her and she hoped so. She’d always thought Mama looked like Sophia Loren. Flowered apron around her generous hips, Rosalie sailed around the large family kitchen with the efficient energy that had successfully raised five kids.

The whole clan gathered every Sunday after church for a late-afternoon meal of Mama’s traditional Italian cooking, which always included breads and pastries from the family bakery. In the living room, her dad, Leo, argued basketball with her eldest brother Gabe and Grandpa Salvatore. Gabe’s wife, Abby, had taken their two kids outside to swim in the above-ground pool accompanied by Mia’s pregnant sister, Anna Maria. The other brothers, Adam and Nic, roamed in and out of the kitchen like starving ten-year-olds.

Mia was blessed with a good family. Not perfect by any means, but close and caring. She appreciated that, especially on days like today when she felt inexplicably down in the dumps. Even church service, which usually buoyed her spirits, had left her uncharacteristically quiet.

Collin Grace had not returned one of her phone calls in the past three days, and she’d practically promised Mitchell that he would. She disliked pulling in favors, tried not to use her eldest brother’s influence as a city councilman, but Sergeant Grace was a tough nut to crack.

Nic, her baby brother, snitched a handful of grated mozzarella from the bowl at her elbow. Out of habit, she whacked his hand then listened to the expected howl of protest.

“Go away,” she muttered.

His grin was unrepentant. At twenty, dark and athletic Nic was a chick magnet. He knew his charms, though they had never worked on either of his sisters.

“You’re grumpy.”

Brother Adam hooked an elbow around her neck and yanked back. She tilted her head to look up at him. Adam Carano, dark and tall, was eleven months older than Mia. From childhood, they’d been best friends, and he could read her like the Sunday comics.

“What’s eating you, sis? You’re too quiet. It scares me.” He usually complained that she talked too much.

Gabe stuck his head around the edge of the door. “Last time she was quiet, Nic and Adam ended up with strange new haircuts.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “I was eight.”

“And we’ve not had a moment of peace and quiet from you since,” Adam joked.

“And I,” Nic put in, “was scarred for life at the ripe old age of one.”

“I should have cut off your tongue.”

“Mom,” Nic called in a whiney little-boy voice. “Mia’s picking on me.”

Mia ignored him and set to work stuffing the zucchini boats.

“What is it, Mia?” Mama asked. “Adam’s right. You are not yourself.”

“It’s a kid,” Adam replied before she could. “It’s always one of her kids.”

Mia pulled a face. He knew her so well. “Smarty.”

Mama shushed him. “Let her tell us. Maybe we can help.”

It was Mama’s way. If one of her chicks had a problem, the mother hen rushed in to fix it—bringing with her lasagna or cookies. So Mia told them about Mitch.

“He’s salvageable, Mama. There is a lot of good in him, but he needs a man’s influence and guidance. I tried getting him into the Big Brothers program but he refuses.”

“One of the boys will talk to him. Won’t you, boys?” Rosalie eyed her three sons with a look that brooked no argument.

“Sure. Of course we would.” All three men nodded in unison like bobble toys in the back window of a car.

Heart filling with love for these overgrown macho teddy bears she called brothers, Mia shook her head. “Thanks, guys. You’re the best. But Mitch is distrustful of most people. He’d never agree. For some reason, he zeroed in on one of the street patrolmen and will only talk to him. The cop is perfect, but—”

“Whoo-oo, Mia found her a perfect man. Go, sis.” The brothers started in with the catcalls and bad jokes.

When the noise subsided, she said, “Not that kind of perfect, unfortunately. I don’t even like the guy.”

But she couldn’t get him out of her mind either.

“Mia!”

“Oh, Mama.” Mia plopped the last zucchini boat on a pan and sprinkled parmesan on top. “Our first meeting was disastrous. I bought the man a hamburger to soften him up a little, and he didn’t even stick around long enough to eat it. And now he doesn’t bother to return my phone calls.”

“You’ve lost your charm, sis. Need some lessons?” Nic flexed both arms and preened around the kitchen, bumping into Grandma who, in turn, shook a gnarled finger in his laughing face.

Rosalie whirled and flapped her apron at the men. “Out. Shoo. We’ll never get dinner on.”

Gabe and Nic disappeared, still laughing. Adam stayed behind, pulled a stool around the bar with one foot, and perched beside Mia.

The most Italian-looking of the Carano brothers, Adam was swarthy and handsome and a tad more serious than his siblings.

“Want me to beat him up?”

“Who? Mitch or the cop?”

He lifted a wide shoulder. “Either. Say the word.”

“Maybe later.”

They both grinned at the familiar joke. All through high school Adam had threatened to beat up any guy who made her unhappy. Though he’d never done it, the boys in her class had thought he would.

“If I could only convince Sergeant Grace to spend one day with Mitch, I think he’d be hooked. He comes off as cold and uncaring, but I don’t think he is.”

“Some people aren’t kid-crazy like you are. Especially us men types.”

“All I want is a few hours a week of his time to save a kid from an almost certain future of crime and drugs.” Mama swished by and took the pan of zucchini boats. “The couple of times I managed to get him on the phone, he barely said three words.”

Adam swiveled her stool so that her back was to him. Strong hands massaged her shoulders.

“The guy was short and to the point. No. The least he could do is explain why he refuses, but he clams up like Uncle Vitorio.”

Adam chuckled. “And that drives you nuts in a hurry.”

“Yes, it does. Human beings have the gift of language. They should use it.” She let her head go lax. “That feels good.”

“You’re tight as a drum.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night. I couldn’t get Mitch off my mind so I got up to pray. And then, the next thing I know I’m praying for Collin Grace, too.”

“The cop?”

“Yes. There’s something about him…sort of an aloneness, I guess, that bothers me. I can’t figure him out.”

Adam squeezed her shoulders hard. “There’s your trouble, sis. You always want to talk and analyze and dig until you know everything. Some people like to keep their books closed.”

“You think so?” She swiveled back around to face him. “You think I’m too nosey? That I talk too much?”

“Yep. Pushy, too.”

“Gabe thinks I’m too soft.”

“That’s because he’s the pushiest lawyer in three states.”

Didn’t she know it? She’d lost her first job because of Gabe, and though he’d done everything in his power to make it up to her in the years since, Mia would never forget the humiliation of having her professional ethics compromised.

Nic stuck his head into the kitchen, then ducked when his mother threw a tea towel at him. “Mia, your purse is ringing. Should I get it?”

Mia slid off the stool and started toward the living room. She might be pushy, but she played fair.

A large masculine hand attached to a hairy arm— Nic’s—appeared around the door, holding out the cell phone.

Taking it, Mia pushed the button and said, “Hello.”

“Miss Carano, this is Monica Perez.”

“Mrs. Perez, is something wrong?” Mia tensed. Today was Sunday. A strange time for calls from a client. “Is it Mitchell?”

The woman’s voice sounded more weary than worried. “He’s run away again. This time the worthless little creep stole money out of my purse.”

Collin kicked back the roller chair and plopped down at his desk. He’d just returned from transporting a prisoner and had to complete the proper paperwork. Paperwork. Blah. Most Sundays he spent at the farm or crashed out on his couch watching ball-games. But this was his weekend to work.

“I need to see Sergeant Grace, please.”

Collin recognized the cool, sweet voice immediately. Mia Carano, social worker to the world and nag of the first order, was in the outer office.

“Dandy,” he muttered. “Make my day.”

Tossing down the pen, he rose and strode toward the door just as she sailed through it. She looked fresh and young in tropical-print capris and an orange T-shirt, a far cry from the business suit and heels of their first meeting.

“Mitch has run away again,” she blurted without preliminary.

“Nothing the police can do for twenty-four hours.”

“We have to find him. I’m afraid he’ll get into trouble again.”

“Probably will.”

Her gray-green eyes snapped with fire. “I want you to go with me to find him right now. I have some ideas where he might go, but he won’t listen to me. He’ll listen to you.”

The woman was unbelievable. Like a bulldog, she never gave up.

“It’s not police business.”

“Can’t you do something just because it’s right? Because a kid out there needs you?”

Collin felt himself softening. Had any social worker ever worked this hard for him or his brothers?

“If I take a drive around, have a look in a couple places, will you leave me alone?”

“Probably not.” Her pretty smile stretched wide beneath a pair of twinkling eyes.

She was a pest. An annoying, pretty, sweet, aggravating pest who would probably go right on driving him nuts until he gave in.

Against his better judgment, he reached into a file cabinet and yanked out a form. “Sign this.”

“What is it?”

“Department policy. If you’re riding in my car, you gotta sign.”

The pretty smile grew wider—and warmer.

He was an idiot to do this. Her kind never stopped at one favor.

Without bothering to read the forms that released the police department of liability in case of injury, Mia scribbled her name on the line and then beat him out of the station house. At the curb, she stopped to look at him. He motioned toward his patrol car and she jumped into the passenger’s seat. A gentle floral scent wafted on the breeze when she slammed the door. He never noticed things like that and it bugged him.

He also noticed that the inside of his black-and-white was a mess. A clipboard, ticket pad, a travel mug and various other junk littered the floorboards. Usually a neat freak, he wanted to apologize for the mess, but he kept stubbornly silent. Let her think what she liked. Let her think he was a slob. Why should he care what Mia Carano thought of him?

If she was bothered, she didn’t say so. But she did talk. And talk. She filled him in on Mitch’s likes and dislikes, his grades in school, the places he hung out. And then she started in on the child advocate thing. She told him how desperately the kid needed a strong male in his life. That he was a good kid, smart, funny and kind. A computer whiz at school.

This time there was no Delete button to silence her. Trapped inside the car, Collin had to listen.

He put on his signal, made a smooth turn onto Tenth Street and headed east toward the boy’s neighborhood. “How do you know so much about this one kid?”

“His mom, his classmates, his teachers.”

“Why?”

“It’s my job.”

“To come out on Sunday afternoon looking for a runaway?”

“His mother called me.”

“Bleeding heart,” he muttered.

“Better than being heartless.”

He glanced sideways. “You think I’m heartless?”

She glared back. “Aren’t you?”

No, he wasn’t. But let her think what she would. He wasn’t getting involved with anything to do with the social welfare system.

His radio crackled to life. A juvenile shoplifter.

Mia sucked in a distressed breath, the first moment of quiet they’d had.

Collin radioed his location and took the call.

“It’s Mitchell,” Mia said after hearing the details. “The description and area fit perfectly.”

Heading toward the complainant’s convenience store, Collin asked, “You got a picture of him?”

“Of course.” She rummaged in a glittery silver handbag and stuck a photo under his nose.

Collin spotted the 7-Eleven up ahead. This woman surely did vex him.

He pulled into the concrete drive and parked in the fire lane.

“Stay here. I’ll talk to the owner, get what information I can, and then we’ll go from there.”

The obstinate social worker pushed open her door and followed him inside the convenience store. She whipped out her picture of the Perez kid and showed it to the store owner.

“That’s him. Comes in here all the time. I been suspicious of him. Got him on tape this time.”

Collin filled out the mandatory paperwork, jotting down all the pertinent information. “What did he take?”

The owner got a funny look on his face. “He took weird stuff. Made me wonder.”

Mia paced back and forth in front of the counter. “What kind of weird stuff?”

Collin silenced her with a stare. She widened rebellious eyes at him, but hushed—for the moment.

“Peroxide, cotton balls, a roll of bandage.”

Mia’s eyes widened even further. “Was he hurt?”

The owner shrugged. “What do I care? He stole from me.”

“He’s hurt. I just know it. We have to find him.”

Collin shot her another look before saying to the clerk, “Anything else we should know?”

“Well, he did pay for the cat food.” The man shifted uncomfortably and Collin suspected there was more to the story, but he wouldn’t get it from this guy. He motioned to Mia and they left.

Once in the car, he said, “Any ideas?”

She crossed her arms. “You mean, I have permission to talk now?”

Collin stifled a grin. The annoying woman was also cute. “Be my guest.”

“I know several places around here where kids hang out.”

He knew a few himself. “I doubt he’ll be in plain sight, but we can try.”

He put the car in gear and drove east. They tried all the usual spots, the parks, the parking lots. They showed the kid’s picture in video stores and to other kids on the streets, but soon ran out of places to look.

“We have to find him before he gets into more trouble.”

“I doubt he’d come this far. We’re nearly to the city dump.”

As soon as he said the words, Collin knew. A garbage dump was exactly the kind of place he would have hidden when he was eleven.

With a spurt of adrenaline, he kicked the patrol car up and sped along the mostly deserted stretch of highway on the outskirts of the city.

When he turned onto the road leading to the landfill, Mia said incredulously, “You think he’s here? In the city dump?”

He shot her an exasperated look. “Got a better idea?”

“No.”

Collin slammed out of the car and climbed to the top of the enormous cavity. The stench rolled over him in waves.

“Ew.” Beside him, Mia clapped a hand over her nose.

“Wait in the car. I’ll look around.”

Collin wasn’t the least surprised when she ignored him.

“You go that way.” She pointed left. “I’ll take the right side.”

Determination in her stride, she took off through the trash heap apparently unconcerned about her white shoes or clean clothes. Collin watched her go. A pinch of admiration tugged at him. He’d say one thing for Miss Social Worker, she wasn’t a quitter.

His boots slid on loose dirt as he carefully picked his way down the incline. Some of the trash had been recently buried, but much more lay scattered about.

He watched his step, aware that among the discarded furniture and trash bags, danger and disease lurked. This was not a place for a boy. Unless that boy had no place else to turn.

His chest constricted. He’d been here and done this. Maybe not in this dump, but he understood what the kid was going through. He hated the memories. Hated the heavy pull of dread and hurt they brought.

This was why he didn’t want to get involved with Mia’s project. And now here he was, knee-deep in trash and recollections, moving toward what appeared to be a shelter of some sort.

Plastic trash bags that stretched across a pair of ragged-out couches were anchored in place by rocks, car parts, a busted TV set. An old refrigerator clogged one end and a cardboard box the other.

Mia was right. The kid had smarts. He’d built his hideout in an area unlikely to be buried for a while and had made the spot blend in with the rest of the junk.

As quietly as he could, Collin leaned down and slid the cardboard box away. What he saw inside made his chest ache.

The kid had tried to make a home inside the shelter. An old blanket and a sack of clothes were piled on one end of a ragged couch. A flashlight lay on an up-turned crate. Beneath the crate, the kid had stored the canned milk, a jar of water, cat food and a box of cereal.

In the dim confines Mitchell knelt over a cardboard box, cotton ball and peroxide in hand.

Collin had a pretty good idea what was inside the box.

At the sudden inflow of light, the kid’s head whipped around. A mix of fear and resentment widened his dark eyes.

“Nice place you got here,” Collin said, stooping to enter.

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Stealing from convenience stores isn’t wrong?”

“I had to. Panda—” Mitchell glanced down at the box “—she’s hurt.”

Curiosity aroused, Collin moved to the boy’s side. A mother cat with three tiny kittens mewed up at him. Mitchell stroked the top of her head and she began to purr.

Collin’s heart slammed against his ribs.

Oh, man. Déjà vu all over again.

“Mind if I take a look?”

The kid scooted sideways but hovered protectively.

Collin frowned. The cat was speckled with round burns, several of them clearly infected. “What happened?”

“Some kids had her. Mean kids who like to hurt things. She was their cat, but I took her when they started—”

Collin held up a hand. He didn’t need the ugly details to visualize what the kid had saved the cat from.

“You can’t stay here, Mitchell. Your mother is worried.”

“She’s just worried about her ten bucks.”

“You shouldn’t have taken it.”

The kid shrugged, didn’t answer, but Collin’s own eyes told him where the money had gone. And if his nose was an indicator, the kid had scavenged a pack of cigarettes somewhere too which would explain the store owner’s guilty behavior. He’d probably sold cigarettes to a minor.

“I’m not going back to her house.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t. Panda and her babies will die if I don’t take care of her. Archie, too.”

“Archie?”

The kid reached behind them to the other couch and gently lifted a turtle out of a shoe box. A piece of silver duct tape ran along a fracture in the green shell.

Emotions swamped Collin. He felt as if he was being sucked under a whirlpool. Memories flashed through his head so fast he thought he was going blind.

At that moment, little Miss Social Worker poked her head through the opening. “I thought I heard voices.”

Mitchell shrank away from her, blocking the box of cats with his body.

“I won’t leave her,” he said belligerently. “You can’t make me.”

“Maybe your mother will let you keep them,” Collin said, hoping Mitchell’s mother was better than he suspected.

“I’m not going back there, I said. Never.”

“Why not?”

The boy’s face closed up tight, a look Collin recognized all too well. Something ugly needed to be said and the kid wasn’t ready to deal with it.

As the inevitability of the situation descended upon him, Collin pulled a hand down his face.

After a minute of pulling himself together, he spoke. “Nothing’s going to happen to your cat. You have my word.”

Mitch’s face lightened, though distrust continued to ooze out of him. “How can you be sure?”

“Because,” Collin said, wishing there was a way he could avoid involvement and knowing he couldn’t, “I’ll take her home with me.”

The boy’s face crumpled, incredulous. The belligerent attitude fled, replaced by the awful yearning of hope. “You will?”

“I know a good vet. Panda will be okay.”

Mia ducked under the black plastic and came inside. Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “That’s really nice of you, Sergeant Grace.”

“Yeah. That’s me. Real nice.” Stupid, too.

He was a cop. Tough. Hardened to the ugliness of humanity. He could resist about anything. Anything, that is, except looking at Mitch’s face and seeing his own reflection.

Like it or not, he was about to become a big brother—again.

He only hoped he didn’t mess it up this time around.

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