For the Children

Seeing them, Abraham stepped off the curb. He should have called the boy back, warned him to wait until he’d raised the stop sign.

Kirk watched him go instead, hoping the kid showed up at practice that afternoon.

“Hi, guys,” he said, signaling that Bobby and Scott should cross the street. But his mind wasn’t on the loud and rambunctious seventh-graders.

If Abraham Billings didn’t have a father, that probably hadn’t been his dad’s cologne Kirk had smelled.

Fifteen minutes later, Valerie Simms’s Mercedes stopped across the street, farther down than usual.

“Katie, Cassandra, you have orchestra today, I see.” Kirk smiled at the two Japanese-American friends who were standing with him, each toting a violin case.

Looking at each other, they giggled, nodded and, as he signaled, ran across the street, their violin cases banging against their knees.

“Hi, Coach.”

He turned, smiled at the twins, took a quick look at Brian.

“Hi, guys. Sore from practice?”

“I sure am.” Blake grinned, wrinkling his freckle-covered nose.

“Yeah, he’s a lot worse off than I am, Coach,” Brian said, elbowing his twin. “Our legs hurt, but his arms hurt, too.”

“That’s good!” Kirk stepped out into the street. “Your bodies are getting conditioned.”

The boys nodded enthusiastically. “See you this afternoon,” he called.

And then he wondered if he should have. If the twins’ mother had told them they couldn’t be associated with the team, he had to abide by that.

Even if he disagreed with her completely.

But perhaps she’d changed her mind. The boys hadn’t given any indication that they weren’t allowed to play.

“Hi.”

Turning, surprised, Kirk saw the subject of his thoughts. Her presence on his corner explained why she’d stopped the car farther down. She’d actually parked it.

“Good morning,” he said. It was the first morning since the beginning of the school year that he didn’t smile at her. He had a pretty good hunch this wasn’t a smiling moment.

If she was going to capitulate—let the boys play—he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.

Like giving any hint of gloating….

Standing there, watching the kids as they walked up, waited and then crossed when he signaled, the boys’ mother appeared the epitome of patience. He admired that.

“Brian didn’t eat last night.”

The kids were gone. And so, apparently, was her composure.

“And you’re going to blame that on me.”

“No, of course not.” He wondered how she could make him feel as though he’d been reprimanded without ever changing the tone of her voice. Must be the judge thing.

He’d been surprised when the boys had told them their mother was a judge.

In juvenile court.

Kirk knew more about that whole scene than he cared to remember.

“Brian’s problem existed long before basketball tryouts came along,” she continued after another group of kids had passed. “But I’m absolutely sure that being on the team would help him more than anything else. I’m begging you to reconsider your position on this, Mr. Chandler. Give Brian that open spot.”

Begging. Strong word.

“Please,” she said when Kirk played the negotiation technique that almost always won—remaining silent. “It’s a junior-high team. It’s not like their ranking is going to matter.”

“Tell that to the boys who spend every afternoon in the gym working their butts off.”

Kirk was watching the kids coming up the street, but he caught the slight movement of her high heels beneath the calf-length navy dress as she shifted on the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, then sighed loudly, showing a definite lack of patience as another group of youngsters came to the corner.

As always, Kirk called them by name. Joked with them. Remembered something about them so they’d know he paid attention. And cared.

“I can’t let Brian on the team,” he said as soon as they had the corner to themselves again. “For the reasons I’ve already given you.”

“Mr. Chandler—”

“Ms. Simms,” Kirk interrupted. “I just saw your boys. They were both smiling, eager. Brian was bragging about being less sore than his brother. And they were both looking forward to practice this afternoon.” He met her gaze—and ignored the thread of something personal that seemed to pass between them. “They didn’t seem to be aware that they were quitting basketball.”

“I didn’t tell them you’d refused to have Brian on the team.”

“He was at practice yesterday. He knew.”

“We didn’t discuss basketball last night.”

“Could it be that the boys want to continue with Blake on the team and Brian practicing but are afraid to tell you so?”

She shook her head, breaking eye contact with him, sending an uncharacteristic bolt of compassion straight through him.

He didn’t allow himself to feel when he went after what he knew was right. He just went.

“My boys always expect me to do what I say I’m going to do. I’m sure they’re certain I’ll get Brian on the team.”

“You won’t.”

Another group of kids approached. She looked at her watch. He wondered if court still started at eight-thirty. If so, she’d need to hurry.

“Brian’s the only one who can get Brian on that team. If you let him.”

The thirteen-year-old girls gathered at the corner, discussing some outrageous-sounding gossip about a boy and girl making it in the girls’ bathroom, were obviously completely unaware of the adults sharing their space.

“At another time, I might be willing to try your little experiment, Mr. Chandler, but there’s too much resting on this for me to take a chance—”

“They’re coming to practice this afternoon,” he interrupted automatically, going in for the close without conscious thought.

“I’ll tell them tonight.”

“Why don’t you come to practice?” Kirk delivered the alternative that his instincts were telling him would finish this off. “See what we’re doing, what Brian’s doing. Watch him on the court with the other boys. And then make your decision.”

She glanced at her watch. Flipped a curl over her shoulder. Met his gaze.

“Okay.”

He wasn’t surprised—had known she’d capitulate. And hated that he’d known. Hated that he could so easily manipulate people. Perhaps Steve McDonald had made a mistake when he’d given Kirk this opportunity to fulfill his promise to his daughter.

“But I’m going to be watching closely, Mr. Chandler.”

“I hope so.”

Kirk suspected he didn’t just mean her son’s behavior on the basketball court.

And he suspected she didn’t, either.

VALERIE FOLLOWED the sounds of squeaking shoes and bouncing balls thundering up and down hard-wood to the gymnasium that afternoon. At four o’clock she was later than she’d wanted to be, but a calendar she’d expected to be light had run longer than she’d anticipated. She’d missed the first hour of practice.

Kirk Chandler looked over as she slid in the side door and walked softly on her two-inch navy pumps to the row of bleachers pulled out from the wall. She tucked her dress beneath her and sat. Other than nodding acknowledgment, he didn’t miss a beat, blowing a whistle and yelling at the boys to pass.

“Dribble! Pass!” he hollered again and again as the boys went repeatedly through a pattern spread out in pairs across the gym floor.

She spotted both twins immediately. Their black curly hair made them easily distinguishable, even though they were dressed just like every other twelve-year-old boy there. In the middle of the room, Blake faced a boy who was half a foot taller, but somehow managed to keep the ball from the other player as he dribbled. It was the footwork, just as Chandler had said.

“Good, Brian,” Chandler called out. “Nice pass.”

Brian was on the end. Partnered with—Abraham Billings.

Almost instantly, Valerie was transported outside herself, outside the experience, detached. There was a gym. Boys at practice. Her sons working hard.

As far as she’d been aware, her boys didn’t know Abraham. Not that she’d asked. She didn’t bring her work home with her.

And in her year on the bench, she hadn’t run into even one of her kids outside the courtroom.

“Eduardo, like this!” Chandler palmed a basketball and dribbled quickly, showing the boy how to control the ball. He watched as the young man tried it himself. “That’s better!” he said, moving down the row.

Eduardo had been at a last-day-of-school swim party the boys had held one Saturday the previous May.

“Good footwork, Blake. Now watch Shane’s ball-handling. Shane, you watch Blake’s feet.”

Valerie observed. Assessed.

And waited.

During the last fifteen minutes of the hour, Kirk Chandler split the boys into two teams and let them scrimmage with each other while he walked up and down the sidelines taking notes and yelling out to them. Only encouragement at that point—earning him Valerie’s begrudging admiration. This was the man from the crossing corner. Compassionate. Dedicated to the children he was there to serve.

Abraham Billings was everywhere. He made more shots than any of the other boys combined.

When practice ended, the entire squad gathered around their coach, faces eager, all eyes pinned on the man before them, all ears tuned to whatever he was saying. The gym was silent except for the hum of his voice. He was grinning, nodding and sweating as much as any of them. Fair in all her judgments, Valerie had to admit that from what she’d seen, Kirk Chandler was a good coach. Maybe even a great one.

And after watching the time and effort he’d spent on her son, she was fairly confident Brian would get his place on the team.

She met her boys at the side of the court as they walked off with the coach after everyone else had left through the far door of the gym.

Brian, lagging behind the other two, with his dark curly hair plastered to the sides of his head, looked from his mother to Kirk Chandler and grinned.

“So I’m on the team, too?” he asked Chandler.

As Blake moved beside his twin, nodding and staring up at their coach with adoration, Valerie held Chandler’s gaze.

Don’t let me down, she told him as forcibly as she could although she didn’t say a word.

He’s just a little boy who’s struggling with things that are bigger than he is. She knew better than to try to appeal to the man in front of her with that sentiment.

After long seconds, Chandler broke eye contact with her and glanced down at her son, a hand on Brian’s shoulder, a ball wedged between his other wrist and his hip. “How many times were you first down the court today, Brian?”

“None.” Brian continued to gaze up at the coach, his green eyes earnest.

“How many times did you have to stop because you couldn’t keep up?”

“A couple.” The boy’s expression changed from rapt to tentatively hopeful.

Valerie’s stomach tightened. The bastard wasn’t going to do it.

“And how shaky were your legs when we finished?”

Brian looked down at the offending appendages. Bony-kneed and far too skinny, his little boy legs stuck out from beneath the silky silver shorts she’d bought them the weekend before for tryouts. And then he turned his attention back to his coach. “Pretty shaky,” he said with a shrug.

He knew what was coming. Valerie blinked back a surge of emotion. Why did life have to be so damn difficult? Her sons were good boys. They tried hard and stayed out of trouble. Was it so wrong to want this break for them?

“I’m not on the team, am I?” Brian asked, his voice perfectly even.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Chandler asked. He held the ball between both hands, lightly spinning it.

“No, Coach.”

“I don’t think so, either.”

Brian nodded, chin jutting out, maintaining eye contact with Chandler, obviously trying to take it like a man.

“Come on, Bry, let’s go get our stuff.” Blake elbowed his brother, and the two boys headed across the gym floor to the locker-room door. Valerie didn’t miss the quiver in Brian’s chin as he turned away.

“How can you be so cruel?” Valerie asked softly. She didn’t get it. Tough love was great in a lot of circumstances. Not this one. “Do you honestly not realize that I’m not a parent who just wants to see my son play basketball? Or even a mother who wants her son to get his own way? Can’t you see that what I am is a parent who’s found a way to help her son be healthy when nothing else has worked?”

“Has Brian been in counseling?” The ball between his hands was still.

“Yes, they both have. Their father’s unexpected death left some unresolved issues.”

His life had left some, too, although the boys weren’t yet old enough to understand the extent of the damage their father’s neglect had caused. Still, they’d been awakened more than once in the middle of the night to the sounds of horrendous drunken yelling.

“What about now, for the anorexia?”

“That’s all part of it, but yes. Specifically for the anorexia for the past six months.”

He paused, and Valerie thought, once again, that he was finally going to do the right thing. He had to redeem himself. He was the crossing-guard man who’d done more to lift her spirits with his morning smiles these past months than anyone else she could think of.

Purse slung over her shoulder, arms around her waist, she waited.

“Have you talked to his counselor about basketball? Or his doctor, for that matter?”

“I called both. They were encouraging, hopeful that the basketball experience would help.”

He dropped the ball he’d been holding, stepped closer as he bent to pick it up, leaving Valerie with a whiff of his musky scent. Sweaty though he was, he didn’t smell of it.

Closer now, he nodded at her, but didn’t say anything else. Infuriating man!

Silence seemed to be typical for him. And left Valerie with too much to say and a need not to say it.

“You may know basketball, Mr. Chandler.” She said it anyway. “But I know my son. If you allow him to play, he won’t let you down. But if you don’t, you’ll be letting him down.”

He rested the ball against his side, tucked beneath his elbow. “Have you ever been a man, Ms. Simms?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Chandler. I’ve never done a past-life regression.”

It was his emphasis on the Ms. that had taken a lot of the anger out of Valerie’s reply. That and the quietly serious light in his eyes. He was making a point. She didn’t get it. And she honestly wanted to understand what he was thinking. Why he was being so difficult? He was an intelligent man. He cared about the kids. What was she missing?

“The way I understand things, it’s not a need to play basketball, in particular, that’s the problem here. It’s Brian’s self-esteem.”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “But basketball is the issue, too. It’s the only thing that’s lit a fire under him in a long time. The boys’ father had a hoop installed for them several years ago and Brian’s always been a good shot.”

Not that Thomas had ever known that. He’d arranged for the hoop for Christmas one year. But he hadn’t been home to see his sons’ reactions when the surprise arrived. Nor for any other part of that Christmas holiday. He’d never once seen either of the boys shoot the ball.

“I understand Brian has an attachment to the game,” Chandler said, meeting her gaze head-on. “But it will be worse for his self-esteem to give him something he hasn’t earned. Something he isn’t yet qualified to do.”

“Brian has worked as hard or harder than anyone else out there.”

“At shooting, maybe.” The coach’s eyes narrowed. “But being an athlete requires much more than ball-handling skill. First and foremost, he needs to take care of his instrument—his only real tool—his body.”

For a second there, Valerie was reminded of various times on the bench when one defense attorney or another brought to light something the prosecutors missed. She’d look at the file in front of her, the sheaf of papers and reports that were her constant guides, and suddenly see a hole in information that had seemed concrete and actionable.

“It will be much worse for Brian in the long run if things are given to him without his having earned them—given to him before he’s ready for them,” Chandler repeated.

It was a valid point.

CHAPTER FIVE

“BRIAN’S SEEING a counselor, Mr. Chandler.” Afraid to lose such a critical confrontation, Valerie stepped up the heat. “I’ve been privy to the counselor’s findings.”

The ball was back between his hands. Spinning slowly.

“Right now, through his own self-sabotage, Brian’s physiological needs are not being completely met,” Valerie said honestly. “Until those needs are met, nothing else matters. Life lessons of the kind to which you’re referring, simply pass him by. If we can’t get him to eat, we can’t get him to a place where those lessons will make any difference. Practicing with the team is not enough incentive to get him to eat. But I really believe that being on the team would.”

He spun the ball. Bounced it a couple of times. Opened his mouth to speak.

“You have to understand,” Valerie interrupted. “For months we’ve been looking for something, anything, that’s important enough to Brian to coax him to eat. We’ve finally found something he’s passionate about, and your decision is standing between us and Brian’s cure.”

“Basketball doesn’t even matter at the moment,” Valerie concluded with the rush of adrenaline she used to get when, as a defense attorney, she knew she’d won over the jury.

Catching the ball between his palms, Kirk Chandler held it there.

“The game matters, though,” he said softly, but she heard the determination behind his words. “The game of life, if you’ll pardon the cliché. And Brian’s playing it. Winning isn’t everything, Ms. Simms. Getting him to eat will mean less if he’s bribed to do it. He has to eat because he makes the decision, because of something he wants to achieve. With the first, you’re giving control of his life, his eating, to others. With the second, the control rests with him.”

Eyes narrowed, Valerie wondered if Kirk Chandler had been a lawyer in his previous life. It was sure as hell obvious he’d been more than a crossing guard, lunchroom monitor, playground cop or basketball coach. She’d lost very few cases during her years in court, but occasionally an opposing attorney would outmaneuver her, as Kirk Chandler had just done.

“If he loses one more pound, I’m going to get letters from Brian’s doctor and counselor, bring them to Mr. McDonald and have him put my son on that team.” Steve McDonald, now the principal at Menlo Ranch, had been the boys’ second-grade teacher.

“Then you’d better make sure he comes to practice,” Chandler said, apparently not the least bit moved by her threat.

Valerie had more to say but the boys exploded out of the locker room and zoomed across to her.

“Ready, Mom?” Brian asked.

“Yep!” An arm around each of them, she turned with her little family to leave.

“See you tomorrow, guys,” Chandler called out.

“Yeah, see ya, Coach,” the boys chorused in perfect unison.

They were out in the Mercedes before Valerie realized she’d just lost what might prove to be one of the most important cases of her life. Somehow, without her having consciously agreed, Brian was going to be practicing with the team.

Confused as to how that had happened, Valerie was the one who didn’t have much of an appetite that night.

AT FIVE IN THE MORNING on Halloween Friday, Kirk was at his desk, having already sent out enough faxes to keep his line tied up for almost an hour. Paperwork had been signed, sealed and delivered for the Gandoyne/Aster merger on Tuesday of that week, a three-day negotiation from open to close. The rest—well, he wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing.

He’d told Troy that Gandoyne would be his only deal. Yes, he could have Chandler Acquisitions up and running again at little more than a moment’s notice. Yes, his reputation was still garnering him business opportunities on a daily basis. But he was finished. Had a new life. New goals and priorities.

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