“It’s not my happiness I’m worried about,” he said. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve heard you laugh out loud, Kels? Or since I’ve heard a note of excitement in your voice?”

He could talk to her about an imbalance of neurotransmitters that could lead to serious depression if not counterbalanced.

“Then give me something to get excited about.” Her quiet words, spoken to her tablet, stopped his thought process cold.

Rather than arguing with him, or giving him the rote “whatever,” she’d actually given him a positive opening. In two years’ time, it was a first.

Expecting a request for a smartphone, a trip to Disneyland or a week off school, he said, “I’m not talking about a momentary fix, Kelsey. You know that.” Though he was tempted to give her any of those things, all of them, to reward the open, non-defensive approach. “Maybe you need to try the medication...”

If Lil, Kelsey’s mom, had been able to take something for her paranoia, would she still be alive? Not that the paranoia had been the actual cause of death. No, the onset of labor at the beginning of the third trimester had done that.

“Dad, you promised me...”

A promise he might have made a mistake in making. Lil had, by example, made her daughter petrified of “drugging herself up.” She’d been almost fanatical about medication—to the point of toughing it out through headaches so she didn’t have to take an over-the-counter painkiller. She’d had Kelsey on the same pain management regime.

It had taken Burke getting really angry, raising-his-voice angry, before Kelsey had taken the antibiotics she’d needed for strep throat the previous year.

The girl seemed to think putting drugs in her body was disloyal to her mother. But there was so much she didn’t know. Some things Burke hoped to God she never knew.

Still, antidepressant medication was not going to be as easy a win.

Maybe because he didn’t want to medicate her, long term, either. Not unless she truly needed the help.

“It’s been two years since Mom died.”

“So give me something to get excited about.”

There it was again. That opening.

In all of the advice he’d received over the past two years, most of it well-meaning, and some of it professionally sought, no one had told him that raising a thirteen-year-old was going to make him dizzy. He’d never have believed, even a year before, that his sweet, rational, logical-beyond-her-years little girl was going to morph into a confusing mass of humanity that he could no more predict than the weather.

“What, Kels? What can I give you that you’d be excited about?” Knowing as he asked the question that he’d walk through fire to get it for her. As long as he didn’t think it would do more long-term harm than good.

She grabbed her tablet. Swiped and tapped so fast he didn’t know how she could possibly even read what she was choosing. She stopped. Seemed to be skimming the page. And turned the tablet around to him.

“This,” she said. “I wanted to enter but I can’t because I’m just a kid, and besides, you’re the master chef left among us.”

Lil had been a certified chef. Official ranking. In addition to teaching, she’d put in the hours necessary in professional food service. Because her dream was to open her own catering business. She’d talked him into taking classes, too, while he’d still been in med school. As something they could do to spend a little stress-free time together. And to his surprise, cooking had been right up his alley. Engaging him scientifically and yet offering him a relaxation he’d been unable to find elsewhere.

“I’m not a master chef,” he told her. He’d obtained a culinary art certification. That was all.

He looked at her tablet.

Made a cursory visual pass. Then read every word in the headline.

She was handing him the tablet, so he took it. Heart sinking.

She wanted him to be on a reality cooking show. As in, television. Like he could just pick up a phone and volunteer.

Like he had a chance in...any chance at all of making it on the show.

“It’s that one filmed here.” Kelsey was up on her knees, beside him now. He swore he could still smell that sweet baby-powder scent that had entered their home with her thirteen years before. “In Palm Desert. Family Secrets. Remember, they had that Thanksgiving special where they chose the first one of this year’s contestants...”

He remembered.

He’d wanted to go to Disneyland over the holiday. Thanksgiving—a food day by all counts—was one of the hardest without Lil. Kelsey wasn’t bouncing back from her mother’s death at all. If anything, with the onset of puberty, her moroseness was getting worse. He’d thought to distract her by heading to the coast for the holiday.

Instead she’d been adamant, to the point of tears, which always suckered him, that they cook dinner together, with all the trappings, and spend the day watching cooking shows. To honor Lil.

“So now it’s open auditions for the other seven contestants. It’s right here in town, Dad. You want me to be excited about something? Audition for this show.” She’d scooted closer, was resting her chin on his shoulder as she looked at the tablet with him.

“You have to use your own family recipes,” she said as he sat there, feeling more lost, more alone, than ever before. “It’s the recipes that are the real competition,” she went on, her voice gaining an energy that seemed to encompass their entire world.

“There’s an audition, and then four weeks of competition between eight candidates. Then whoever wins at least one of the four competitions goes to the final round. Each week you’re given a category and you have to make your family recipe with a secret ingredient. It says here that the candidates have to appear for one day of extraneous taping, too, before the competition starts.”

She was setting him up to let her down. He could see it so clearly even if she couldn’t. There was no way he was good enough to compete against real chefs.

“You can use Mom’s recipes, Dad! It’s a way for her to get what she wanted—to have her cooking recognized and appreciated. It’s a way to keep her alive. Like make her immortal or something. You have to do this...”

It was best to be honest with her. To face the tough stuff head-on. He’d been told. And he also just knew...

“I can’t.”

She slouched back. “I knew you’d say that.” There was no accusation in her tone. Just resignation. “That’s why I didn’t say anything before. It’s probably too late anyway. The auditions are this weekend and they were only taking walk-ons, without preregistering, if they had space.”

She hadn’t been going to ask him. Until he’d told her they had to find something to be excited about.

Lil, if you can hear me, now’s the time to jump in. What happens if I try and fail? Do I send our baby girl further into the dark hole she can’t seem to climb out of?

Will your recipes sustain me? Us?

“I was going to say I can’t force them to take me on.” He improvised while he waited for some kind of sign from above.

He’d take one from below or beside if it was clear enough.

Kelsey stared at him. And he could have sworn there was a glimmer of light in her blue eyes. His eyes.

“I took some classes, Kels. I do well enough here at home. I’m nowhere near the cook your mom was. TV? That’s for people like your mom. Real chefs. With real experience. And the auditions will be judged by people who are used to eating from the best of the best. All of which is completely out of my control.” He couldn’t make this happen for her.

“Like Mom always said, cooking is a lot about artistic talent, about knowing what foods go good together and stuff. She always said you had that talent, too.” Her tone wasn’t pushy. Or even persuasive. She sounded like a lost little girl. “Besides, this show is about the recipes. And Mom’s are the best.”

“And I might not be able to do them justice.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d let Lil down. Or Kelsey, either, though he hoped she never knew just how badly he’d let them both down.

“You tell me that the important thing is to try.”

“I have no problem with trying, Kels. I’ll go to the audition.” He would?

Her mouth dropped open.

“But you have to understand that I might not win. And if I don’t, you have to be willing to find something else to get excited about.”

What was he doing, here?

“You’re going to do it?” She didn’t move. Just sat there. Staring at him. But the glisten in her eyes told him that he had to grant her request.

“And you’re going to help me,” he said, speaking the words that came to him as they presented themselves. “We have three days...” He’d have to cancel his appearance at a fund-raiser for the clinic Wednesday night. And dinner with the Montgomerys, friends of his and Lil’s who still continued to invite him and Kelsey over on a regular Friday-night basis. “You are in charge of choosing the recipe for the audition. I’ll make it each night this week, under your supervision, and you taste the finished results and give me feedback.”

“I’ll do all the dishes,” Kelsey said, still just watching him.

“Okay.”

“Okay? As in you’re really going to audition?”

“I’ll call tomorrow and get myself on the schedule.” There was a special slot for locals, he’d just read. And according to the website, which had been updated that day, there was still an opportunity to sign up. Which Kelsey must have known, too. Since she’d also read the website’s advertisement.

She was staring at him. “For real.”

“I said I would.” And he always did what he’d told her he’d do. Even if he was a few minutes late on rare occasions.

“Woooooo-hoooo!” Her scream hurt his ears. And warmed him up so much he laughed out loud as he caught her flying toward him. Her hug was heaven.

And Burke warned fate that it better not let him let her down.

Not this time.

Not again.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FAMILY SECRETS cooking show had been on for five years yet still received the highest ratings of any cooking show on television. But it wasn’t the program’s ratings that had prompted Janie to choose the best of the best in her attempt to give her son every shot at living a full and productive life. No, it had been desperation. And proximity. The show was local. And had run a contest before the Thanksgiving holiday that allowed people to just send in a recipe to compete.

She hadn’t had to audition to get a chance at being a contestant. She’d just had to print out her grandmother’s recipe for turkey dressing.

Even after she’d been notified she was a finalist, invited to be in the audience on Thanksgiving Day for the taping of the show, she hadn’t believed, that day in the studio, that she’d actually heard her name called.

It had been Dawson, sitting in her lap in the small, darkened studio, who’d recognized her name. His hoarse “Ma!” might have sounded like a very excitable grunt to everyone else there that day, but she’d heard her name. And his, too. “Me! Ma! Me!” Over and over again. As his butt bones dug into her thighs and his heels kicked new bruises into her shins.

Then she’d looked at the monitor, panning the audience for the day’s winner, and seen what Dawson had seen. His gargantuan grin, and her grimace of pain, splashed on national television.

Even now, six weeks later, she couldn’t believe she’d won. That in less than two hours she’d be in the studio, being filmed with the other candidates as they received a tour of their kitchens and instructions for the next four or five weeks of the competition. Four if none of her recipes won. Five if at least one did. Snippets of today’s pre-competition taping would be dubbed into shows in the weeks that followed.

So much had happened since she’d won the Thanksgiving competition.

She’d lost her job, but found another one making deliveries for a flower shop. She could work while Dawson was in preschool, and if there was an emergency, she could run by and pick him up. And she’d taken a second job with a political campaign, making cold calls to constituents from home. Neither paid very well. But both paid. And allowed her to attend every one of her son’s therapies.

A must if she was going to be able to repeat exercises at home.

Which was essential if any of it was going to be of benefit to her four-year-old son.

Pulling up in front of the house she’d felt more at home in than any other her entire life, Janie glanced at the car seat behind her. She hated to wake Dawson. He’d been fighting an ear infection and hadn’t been sleeping well.

But he loved Corrine and Joe Armstrong. And, by some miracle, they adored him back just as much. How she’d ever been blessed with such good friends, she had no idea, but...

The door to the ranch-style stucco home opened and Corrine came flying down the walk. “Hello, big boy,” she said, a huge grin on her face as she opened the back door. And then stopped when she saw Dawson asleep.

“You’re going to be late!” she said softly, but lacking none of the urgency, as she glanced at Janie.

“We had a rough night,” Janie told her friend quietly. “I hate to do this to you, Cor. You know if I had any other...”

“Shut your mouth right now,” Corrine said in a fierce whisper. “Before you say something I’ll regret. I’d have this boy, happily, every hour of every day, if it worked out that way. You know that. Is it just the ear infection?”

Because of Dawson’s narrow ear canals, he not only had tubes in his ears, but was prone to infection. Had had his share of them.

And then some.

“Yes,” Janie said, feeling her stomach relax for the first time that morning.

Joe appeared behind his wife. “I had to come out and wish you luck.”

Corrine picked up Dawson’s bag. “His medicine’s in there, right?” she said to Jane, who nodded.

Of course it was. This wasn’t the first time her friend, an attorney, had covered for her. It wasn’t even the tenth or twentieth.

And not just with Dawson. Though Corrine was a prosecutor, not a divorce attorney, she’d still done a lot of advising and behind-the-scenes work in Janie’s dealings with Dillon.

Joe glanced into the backseat, a grin on his face. And then, seeing the sleeping boy, exchanged places with Corrine. With expertise born from a lot of practice, he had Dawson’s restraints unfastened and had the boy on his shoulder without Dawson even so much as emitting a heavy breath.

These days, Corrine’s stockbroker husband was the only one who could get the boy out of his car seat without waking him. Of the three of them, he was the only one strong enough to lift Dawson’s bulky weight easily enough not to disturb him.

He wished her luck again and headed up to the house, where, Janie knew, he’d put the boy to bed in the room they kept for him.

His room, they all called it.

For a split second Janie longed to grab him back and hold on. Because life always felt better with Dawson by her side. Because she was nervous as heck and didn’t want to fail him.

Corrine ran around to Janie’s side of the car, pulling the door open. Janie tried not to hold on too tight when Corrine gave her the hug she’d been needing so badly.

“You’re going to do fine,” she assured her.

“I’m up against master chefs, Cor. With certifications and professional experience.”

“Your recipes are the best.”

“Dawson’s going to need a tutor over the summer if he has any hope at all of being integrated into a mainstream kindergarten class next year.”

She didn’t have any illusions where her son’s abilities were concerned—contrary to what his father thought. Dawson had challenges. But he’d been tested. Many times. He was high-functioning. Which meant that, with the right help, he could possibly grow up to be anything he wanted. Except maybe a professional athlete. Or a father.

“And Joe and I will help with that if it comes down to it...”

Janie shook her head. “I can’t keep taking from you guys. I’m—”

“Shh.” Cor’s finger was soft as it touched Janie’s lips. Reminding her, oddly, of her mother. A woman who’d turned to methamphetamine when her husband left her for another woman and her own job pressure and single motherhood had grown to be too much.

Janie hadn’t heard from her in years. Wasn’t even sure she was still alive.

“We’ll cross the summer’s bridge when we come to it,” Corrine said. “For now, let’s just think about today’s bridge. Today you go from a woman breaking her back to make ends meet to a TV star!”

“I’m not going to be a TV star.”

“That camera’s going to love you!” Corrine said.

“I’m too bony.” She had to go. And needed these few minutes. More than Corrine, her best friend since forever, probably knew.

“Good—you curled your hair,” Corrine was saying as she gave the long blond curls a fluff. “And that color looks good on your eyes. We chose well.”

They’d had a mani-pedi makeover session the day before.

“My clothes have no shape anymore.”

“You’re leggy and thin and there’s no hiding your shape up top. You’re star material.”

Janie laughed. Right. A girl who’d married, at nineteen, a guy she’d known for only six months, because she’d been so certain she’d found what would sustain her happiness for the rest of her life.

She had no formal training. No post–high school education.

And she couldn’t quite swallow the lump in her throat as she looked up at Corrine, who’d never forgotten her, or made her feel less, as she’d gone on to grad school and then passed the bar exam. “I need this so badly,” she said, blinking back tears. “If I win this, the money and prestige combined...added to a commercial packaging of my winning recipe... I could open my own catering business. It’s the answer to all of my prayers.”

“I know.” Corrine’s smile was...calm. Comforting. “Just be yourself, Janie. Life has a plan for you—you know that. Trust it to take care of you.”

Corrine was right. And speaking from experience. Even when it looked like Corrine and Joe—truly a couple meant to be together forever—had been on the verge of divorce, Corrine had trusted that all would be as it was meant to be. And now that they had found their way to a deeper, healthier marriage, with communication and utter honesty between them instead of walls, Corrine was even more of a pro in the trust department.

Janie, not so much.

“Be you,” Corrine said, giving her hand a squeeze as she stepped back from the car.

Be you. That was what Cor had said to her just before she’d walked down the aisle to marry Dillon. Be you. She’d said it to Corrine just a few short weeks later when her friend had moved from the apartment they’d shared into a dorm room because she’d no longer been able to afford the apartment on scholarship money.

“Be you,” Corrine had said when Janie had decided to have Dawson at the expense of her marriage. “Be you,” she’d whispered to her friend on Thanksgiving night when Corrine had called to tell her that she and Joe were getting back together.

Be you, she told herself as she pulled into the back lot of the small Palm Desert studio and parked her old station wagon next to all of the newer, fancier cars.

Be you. It was the only thing she knew how to do.

But wasn’t at all sure it would be even close to good enough.

* * *

“OKAY, YOU’VE GOT THIS. Just don’t forget to smile at the camera. Women get all gaga when you smile and Family Secrets has a lot of women judges.”

Backstage, in a private alcove she’d found for them, Kelsey was straightening the tie she’d insisted Burke wear for this pre-competition taping session.

As a sports medicine specialist, he favored collared polo shirts. But this was Kelsey’s deal and, so far, it had been a miracle worker.

In the two weeks since he’d won a spot as one of eight contestants on the show, Kelsey had been a different child.

He was lucky if she slept more than six hours a night. She’d brought home two major tests—both As. Was full of ideas every night when they got home, pulling out more and more of her mother’s recipes and making plans for packaging as he prepared one dish after another.

The grand prize included one of the winner’s recipes being commercially packaged and nationally distributed.

She’d held parties, inviting various friends over to taste his results. Making spreadsheets filled with opinions. Assessing. Analyzing.

Best of all, he’d seen her dancing in the kitchen again. Running through a routine.

And this morning he’d heard her singing in the shower.

“You’re going to win this, Daddy,” she reached up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “I just know you are. We’re a family again, you and me and Mom. Just one more time. This is how we live without her. Keeping a piece of her alive.”

Claws squeezed his throat until drawing breath was painful. “Kels...” She was wise beyond her years. And...so fragile, too.

“Trust, Daddy,” she said, tears in her eyes as she lowered her heels to the floor and looked up at him. “Mom’s going to help you.”

“It doesn’t always work that way.”

“That’s what you said before the audition and look what happened.” Her expression dead serious, she waited with an expectant look on her sweet, tortured features.

He had to tell her that he might not win.

To make certain she understood that some things were out of their control. That maybe someone else had angels watching down on them, too.

And that sometimes, no matter how many angels you had, things didn’t happen as it seemed they should.

That he could let her down. Again.

Lil, the “entity” she wanted him to trust, was a case in point.

If everything had gone as it should, Lil would be standing there in the wings, getting ready to go on the show. Lil would be alive. In her daughter’s life.

Helping him raise her.

And neither of them would be worrying about a thirteen-year-old on the verge of clinical depression.

But...

“Okay.” He nodded. Gave her a big grin. “I’ll trust.”

She grinned then, too. Relief flooding into her expression. “Then everything will be fine. Just like at the audition. We’ll win.”

“Yes, ma’am, I believe we will,” he said as he heard all contestants being called to the green room.

“You promise,” Kelsey said as she turned to head out to her seat in the small, nearly empty studio auditorium.

“I promise.”

“You’ll trust.”

“Yes.”

As he turned to join the others whose dreams were going on the line that cool January Saturday, all Burke could see was those big blue eyes that compelled him to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.

CHAPTER FOUR

JANIE ALREADY FELT like she didn’t belong. The eight contestants had gathered in a green room—nothing elegant: four walls, used couches, a tray with water and tea, a side bar with snacks, a refrigerator, lockers and television monitors so they could see the stage—for a few moments before being called on stage.

The introductions and instructions were going to be done in front of the camera. On-air instructions and official rules, that was. They’d all been sent an entire packet full of information, instruction, on-air makeup and dress tips, dress code and what had seemed like a million forms to sign.

Throughout the five weeks, any of the footage filmed during this initial non-cooking session could be tapped for airing. A facial expression, a line someone said during separate interview sessions, could be dubbed into a particular show at any time. Not really sure how that worked, realistically speaking, Janie didn’t really care, either. Other than it meant she had to be “on” every single second she was there.

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