Family in Progress

“Are you sure?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.

But as he led her out of his office, his thoughts were on Samara rather than the work he’d willingly abandoned for her smile, and he found himself wondering if maybe his fortunes were changing.

Caitlin took her usual seat at the back of the room. After almost a month of classes, she was still the new kid—and she hated it. Almost as much as she hated the fact that the neighborhood where her dad had bought their new house didn’t have middle school, so she was stuck in a kindergarten-to-grade-8 and had to go to school with her little brother. It was beyond humiliating and made her wish even more that she was back in North Carolina where she actually knew people and had friends to hang out with. Where she had a life.

“You’ll make new friends,” her dad had promised, as if him wanting it to be true could make it so.

He didn’t have a clue what it was like to be the new kid, the one everyone stared at and snickered about. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d tossed out most of her favorite clothes when they’d moved, suddenly concerned that her style was inappropriate for a girl her age.

He used to drive her to the mall, give her money and tell her to get what she needed. And if he’d sometimes scowled at her choices, it had been easy enough to convince him it was what all the girls were wearing. But this time, he’d decided that a new school warranted a new wardrobe, and he’d enlisted her Aunt Jenny to take her shopping.

It wasn’t that she had anything against her uncle’s wife, she just didn’t know what to think about all of the changes that had occurred over the past few years. For so long, family had just been her and her brother and their parents with the occasional visit from one or other of the grandparents. Then suddenly, her father’s brother came back from a business trip to Japan with a new bride and an interest in renewing family ties.

Up to that point, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her Uncle Richard, and it had never been when her grandmother was around. But whatever had caused the family rift—and she knew there was one, even if no one would tell her what it was about—was now forgotten and they were all part of one big happy family.

And then her mom died.

Caitlin dropped her gaze to her book as other students continued to filter into the class. She was enough of a social reject already without being caught with tears in her eyes.

She’d thought she was past this stage. For the first few months after her mother died, she hadn’t been able to think about her without breaking down. But over time, she’d managed to control her response to the over-whelming waves of grief. Mostly. There were still unexpected occasions when the pain would surge up again and the sense of emptiness would make everything inside her feel hollow.

She became aware of the whispers before she spotted the battered sneakers that stopped beside her desk. Glancing up, she saw the owner of those sneakers—a boy.

A stranger.

Her first thought was that she was no longer the new kid in the class.

Her second was that he was kind of cute.

It took her a moment longer to realize he’d spoken to her and was waiting for a response.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I was wondering if it’s okay to sit here.” He gestured to the vacant desk beside hers.

She shrugged as if to say, “Go ahead.”

He slid into the chair. “I’m Owen.”

“Caitlin,” she offered grudgingly.

“Where did you move here from?”

Yeah, she was a reject. Even the newest kid had pegged her as a new kid. “North Carolina.”

“I’m from Minnesota,” he said, though she hadn’t asked. “My dad got transferred.”

“My dad just wanted to ruin my life,” she grumbled.

“Is it that bad?”

“Ask me in a few weeks.”

“I’ll do that,” he said.

Then he smiled.

And Caitlin started to think that maybe moving to Chicago wasn’t a totally bad thing, after all.

Chapter Three

Steven didn’t do dinner parties, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled to give up a quiet night at home with his kids to attend this one, but he just couldn’t say no to Jenny. She’d planned this event—an informal gathering, she’d called it—to introduce Samara to some other friends.

He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up on the guest list, except that Jenny seemed determined to turn him into a social being when he wanted to do nothing more than bury himself in oblivion. And though he’d given his word that he would be there, it had crossed his mind that he could beg off at the last minute or simply not show up. He figured there would be enough other people in attendance that his absence wouldn’t be noticed. Except that Jenny had preempted that possibility by enlisting him to drive Samara. While he trusted that one empty chair might be forgiven, a missing guest of honor was quite a different story.

Why Samara couldn’t find her own way to the party was beyond him—which brought another distinctly discomfiting thought to mind.

Though he’d just hung up the phone with his sister-in-law, it was his brother whose number he dialed.

“Is this some kind of setup?” he demanded when Richard answered his cell.

“Is what some kind of setup?”

“This dinner-party thing.”

“A setup for whom?” His brother sounded genuinely baffled.

“Me,” he admitted. “And Samara.”

Richard laughed. “You can’t honestly think that.”

Steven scowled. “Why do you think it’s so unlikely?”

“Well, to be blunt, she’s young and beautiful and vibrant—” definitely not words that anyone would use to describe Steven “—and you’re an overworked single father.”

“That is blunt,” he agreed.

“On the other hand,” Richard mused, “maybe it’s not completely unthinkable. If you’re interested, I mean.”

“I’m not,” Steven said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure no one had any expectations other than that I would pick her up and deliver her to your party.”

“Taking her home again at the end of the night, too, would be appreciated.”

“Which is just a way of making sure I don’t skip out early.”

“Jenny would be crushed,” Richard told him.