“DAD,” ARI SHOUTED and took off running across the back porch. He threw open the screen door and launched himself into the kitchen. Even though he favored his left leg, Jace caught him as he propelled himself into his arms. The momentum of the ball of energy turned Jace completely around. “We waited a long time,” Ari said. “You were asleep. Kelly said you were tired.” He glanced at her, wobbling precariously in Jace’s arms. “We let you sleep. But we already ate. Two times.” He put up two fingers, running on with his explanation of their day.
“That’s all right, sport.” Jace kissed the boy on the top of his head. He looked at Kelly, who’d come into the kitchen behind Ari. “Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t intend to sleep the day away.”
She smiled. Jace thought she looked familiar when he saw that smile and tried to recall if he’d ever seen her before.
“We were outside playing,” Ari informed him. “I showed Kelly how to play soccer. She’s not very good.” He frowned, shaking his head, his expression very serious. “She needs to practice.” He pronounced the words very precisely.
Kelly laughed, raising her hand to cover her mouth. Something about the gesture grabbed Jace’s attention. A tiny trickle of awareness seeped inside him.
“Good morning.” He openly admired her. She was dressed in a short-sleeved T-shirt that stopped at her waist. It was met by a pair of light blue shorts that showed off her long legs. Jace found his eyes traveling the distance from the running shoes on her feet to the hair she’d let fall behind her shoulders.
“It’s not morning, Dad,” Ari said and tugged on his arm. Jace realized his son had repeated the sentence.
“I know,” he commented and with a kiss to his forehead set him on his feet.
Kelly opened the refrigerator and pulled out two drink bottles of orange juice. “Can you drink from the bottle?” she asked Ari.
“Yes,” he said reaching for it.
She loosened the top. Jace heard the snap as the seal was broken. She handed it to Ari.
“Why don’t you go and drink that on the porch?” Jace suggested.
Ari moved out the back door and Jace waited until his son was seated on the porch steps before addressing Kelly. She, too, was watching Ari. He didn’t know how to begin to say what he needed to say.
“He’s a wonderful child,” she said.
“I’m very proud of him.” He could tell she had questions about Ari. It was obvious by Ari’s black eyes and curly dark hair that none of Jace’s features were present in him. “Go ahead, ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Ask about Ari’s adoption,” he said.
“He’s adopted?”
Jace saw her shoulders drop as if she were relieved. “Does that make a difference?” He raised his eyebrows skeptically.
She came up in front of the counter that separated them. “I’m ashamed to admit what I was thinking.”
“And what was that?” Jace braced himself for some prejudicial comment. He’d seen people react to the two of them before.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“What?” He didn’t follow her thought patterns.
She shook her head quickly. “Of course, you wouldn’t. I used to live a couple of miles from here.”
“You did?” Was that why he felt he’d seen her before?
“In Short Hills,” she told him.
Suddenly, it dawned on him what and where Short Hill was. It was a poor area, run-down, with low-income housing and a lot of crime, a place where people double-and triple-locked doors that a good puff of wind could blow down. Anyone with an address there was immediately judged as a drunk or criminal. Jace now understood her logic. She wasn’t judging Ari’s paternity.
“I used to come by here on my way home from school,” Kelly said. “I saw you a few times, but of course, your reputation was known even in Short Hills.”
He swallowed, remembering the rebellious young man he’d once been. He had good reason, but there was no need to burden her with it. “I’m no longer that person.”
“I understand. I’m a different person from the little girl who used to live in Short Hills. When I left there, I moved to New York. If Short Hills didn’t teach me self-protection, the city did.
“I thought you’d kidnapped Ari and fled Colombia. And that I was now harboring a fugitive.”
Jace stared at her for a long moment. Then a bubble of laughter pushed into this throat and he smiled. Unable to stop it, the laughter poured from him. She smiled a little in response, but didn’t join him in the merriment that gripped him. He didn’t tell her what he’d been thinking.
“I suppose, from your point of view, it might look like that.” He could hardly get the sentence out. It was absurd that he’d kidnapped Ari. Ari came into his life due to crazy circumstances and there was nothing else he could do short of abandoning the child.
Adopting a child wasn’t ever his first instinct, though now that he had Ari, he hated being apart from him, even for a moment.
“Well, what was it like then?”
She was a hard cookie, Jace thought. Sure she had grown up in a rough area, but he bet he could match her experience for experience. Jace shook his head.
“I have all our important papers in the car. I’ll get them if you want to see them.”
He turned to go.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, halting him in his tracks. “Does he know?” She glanced at Ari, still sitting outside.
“He knows. He doesn’t remember his parents. His father abandoned them when Ari was born. His mother worked in a cocaine factory.”
Kelly gasped.
Jace watched her. “I didn’t know her, didn’t know there was a cocaine factory until later. I’d seen her once or twice, but we’d never spoken.”
Just as she’d done last night, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out the makings of a meal.
“Would you like breakfast or lunch?” she asked.
“You don’t have to cook for me.”
“I know,” she said. “But you’ve traveled for two days and slept for the better part of another, I assume you’re hungry.”
“Isn’t there a cook, a housekeeper? When my father was alive, there was a full staff to take care of the place.”
“Things have changed,” she said flatly. “Now, breakfast or lunch?”
“I think we need to talk,” he said.
“Lunch,” she answered.
Unlike last night, when she’d made him a sandwich, today she pulled a tray out of the refrigerator and popped it into the oven. Then she forked spaghetti onto a plate, added sauce and placed it in the microwave.
“Ari, time to wash your hands.” She called him from the screen door. Her voice was soft and sweet and again Jace thought there was something familiar about her. He chalked it up to the red hair and pushed the thought aside.
Opening the oven door, she pulled out the tray, which he could see now contained garlic bread. The bell rang on the microwave signaling it had completed its flash-heating of food. Soon the three of them were seated at the table with piping hot garlic bread, salads and steaming plates of pasta.
Ari ate hungrily, shoveling food into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
“Slow