Finally a Mother

Mark opened his mouth as if to respond, but then he closed it again.

“In addition to welcoming her suggestions, I recommend that you hire Miss Lyndon to stay with Blake when you’re working and he’s out of school.”

Shannon held her breath as the possibility dangled there before her, almost within reach. A regular schedule with Blake. Time to love him. Time to explain. She was so caught up in the prospect that she didn’t realize at first that the room had become quiet. The others were watching her, waiting.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I wanted to know if your work schedule is flexible enough for you to help Trooper Shoffner out.”

“Oh. Sure. I’ll just switch shifts with Katie, the other social worker.” She shot a glance at Mark, but he pointedly looked away from her. “I won’t take any pay for it, though.”

“Then it’s settled,” Miss Lafferty said with a nod.

Mark said nothing. He stood with his legs in a wide stance and his arms crossed, an intimidating posture that probably had criminals laying their weapons at his feet.

Miss Lafferty pursed her lips. “Bottom line. Either you agree to work together for Blake’s sake, or I will be forced to recommend placing him at the children’s center.”

Mark cleared his throat. “Fine by me.”

Shannon could only nod. Was there really a chance that all of this could work out?

“Great. Trooper Shoffner, you’ll provide a temporary home for Blake until Miss Lyndon’s maternity can be established and legal matters are settled. And Miss Lyndon, you’ll provide after-school supervision and parenting support.” She held her hands wide and smiled as if she’d just solved all the world’s problems. “That will work out fine...at least until a more permanent placement is located.”

Shannon’s breath caught. Of course it was only temporary. She knew that. So why did this interim plan seem so incredibly brief now?

But Trooper Shoffner and Miss Lafferty had moved past the subject, as if it wasn’t worth even a pause. Mark had made some suggestion about Blake doing community service with him before his juvenile court date to encourage the judge’s leniency, and the state worker agreed it was a good idea.

“We should do it right on Hope Haven’s grounds.” Mark’s gaze darted to Shannon. “The place looks like it could use some work. Cracked gutters. Ripped screens. Broken concrete.”

Shannon’s cheeks burned. “Well, money’s tight right now. Nonprofits, you know. There’s not even room in the budget for repair supplies. I appreciate the offer, but—”

“I’ll get donations for that,” Mark said, as if fund-raising wasn’t a constant challenge for charitable organizations.

With some of the details in place, they returned to the interview room, where Blake slouched low as though it didn’t matter to him what had happened outside that door. And what was about to happen with his life. Shannon didn’t buy his indifference any more than the others should have accepted her own mask of certainty. Now shell-shocked, that was exactly what she was.

As if providing a home for Blake wasn’t enough, Trooper Shoffner had volunteered not only to do repairs on the Hope Haven buildings that were falling down around them but also to find a way to pay for improvements.

Still, she couldn’t worry now about her lingering doubts over all the plans they’d made, or even the recurring image of Mark as that knight in the blue squad car with its red spinning light. None of that was important. Not now that Shannon and a ticking clock had been drafted to opposing teams. Mounting a legal custody challenge and building a solid mother-son relationship with a child who wanted nothing to do with her would be challenging enough without adding the pressure of a looming deadline. She had no choice, though, but to tackle both of those monumental tasks before Blake could be placed in another foster home. Possibly somewhere far away.

Seconds ticked on a loudspeaker in her ears. This tiny window of time might be her only opportunity to get to know Blake, to earn his forgiveness. Would he give her the chance? He had to. And she had to make this right with him, had to show him that no matter how wrong her decisions had been, she’d made them out of love. She had to do it...before time ran out.

* * *

“So why’d you do it?”

At Blake’s question, Mark looked up from the kitchen sink where he’d just put the pans in the sudsy water. He didn’t look back at him, but he didn’t pretend to miss the boy’s meaning, either. This was the most civil comment Blake had made all night. The twelve hours of foster parent training the private agency would still require Mark to take would be nothing compared to these three hours of introduction by fire.

Mark took his time drying his hands on a towel. “It was the right thing to do.”

“For me, you or my mother?”

He swallowed, and this time he glanced over his shoulder at the boy. Leaning against the kitchen doorway, his arms and ankles crossed, Blake stared right at him. What did the kid know? Had he noticed that Mark hadn’t been able to resist looking at Shannon’s smooth-looking skin, at her full, kissable lips? Had she noticed?

“For everyone,” he somehow managed.

He hoped the finality in his words would put an end to that line of questioning. He tried not to dwell on the way Blake had stressed the word mother, nor on how succinctly he’d encapsulated the situation. And Mark’s uncertainties. Out of the mouths of surly teens....

“Nobody asked me what I wanted.”

“Guess not.”

Mark wasn’t about to ask him now, either. Instead, he dunked his hands in the soapy water and tackled the pan with pasta noodles stuck to the bottom. All night Blake had made it clear that Mark’s three-bedroom rental home was the last place he wanted to be. He’d complained about everything from their dinner of slightly charred hamburgers and boxed macaroni to the bare walls and the basic bed and dresser in the guest room. And if Mark had ever been under the mistaken impression that Blake thought the plan to work at Hope Haven tomorrow was a good idea, then the kid had set him straight about that.

Okay, Blake had a point about the dinner. It hadn’t been Mark’s most shining culinary moment. But he’d been wrong to call the freshly painted two-story a dump. At least it had the bedroom and bathroom locks required for the foster care home visit.

Shutting off the water, Mark glanced over his shoulder again, but Blake was gone, so the opportunity had passed. He probably should have laid down some rules such as that the boy would help him clean up after meals. He should have done many things. Too bad for him he didn’t know what they were.

What had he been thinking, volunteering to become a foster parent? And, worse yet, offering to do work at Hope Haven. He was in so far over his head that his hands wouldn’t break the surface if he held them straight up and started jumping up and down. Just because seeing Blake was like looking at his fourteen-year-old self in the mirror, it didn’t mean that at thirty-three he had any idea what to do with the kid.

The disappointment-filled voices of his parents, of his brothers, of his ex-wife, Kim, even, the same ones that had been whispering in the background all day as he’d arranged details for Blake’s arrival, boomed in his ears now. The wheelchair-bound image of Chris Lawson stared back at him, a permanent reminder of the mistakes that Mark couldn’t take back. If he’d thought that working with one troubled teenager would be enough to prove that he was no longer the guy in that accident, then he’d never considered what would happen if his charity project was a major failure. And right now it looked as if that was exactly what it would be.

When the floor creaked behind him, Mark blinked away the painful memories and turned to find Blake standing there with a stack of plates, cups and silverware in his hands. Mark accepted the stack with a nod of thanks, and then as he returned to the sink, the boy spoke from behind him.

“But you didn’t have to do it.”

“Guess not,” he said again, though this time he had to forcibly keep his voice calm.

He could just imagine Blake staring at his back, trying to understand the angle he was playing with his offer of help. At least the boy, who was more accustomed to people failing to meet their obligations than those volunteering out of true charity, wouldn’t be surprised by Mark’s self-serving purpose. That only made Mark feel guiltier over Blake’s comment, which was the closest thing the boy would give to a thank-you. His chest squeezed with something unfamiliar and a little scary. He was becoming attached, which might have been his biggest mistake of all.

Once the last dish was in the dishwasher, he started in the direction that Blake had taken. He found him in the living room, watching television. Blake patted the spot next to him on the navy corduroy sofa and then gestured toward the brown-and-orange-plaid recliner near the window.

“Your ex must have really taken you to the cleaners.”

His jaw tightened, but he forced himself to remain calm. The boy was baiting him, maybe to step back from the words he’d said before. No matter how much Mark wanted to declare that subject off-limits, he wouldn’t give the kid the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to him.

“Yeah, we get a raw deal in life sometimes,” he said instead. “But I guess you already know about that.”

Blake shrugged, sank back into the sofa that Mark had intended to be only a temporary furnishing and started flipping through the channels.

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