Kids by Christmas

Without having written a word in her notebook, his visitor closed it. “That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear, Mr. Stefanec. I’m required always to err on the side of protecting the children, but in this case I had difficulty imagining Ms. Chauvin even raising her voice.”

“When she did, she sounded scared,” he told her. “My impression is, she’s a gentle woman who was trying real hard to hold her marriage together.”

The caseworker smiled and rose to her feet. “Thank you very much for your time. You’ve been a big help.”

He stood, too. “You’re welcome. I happened to be out in the yard and met Jack and Sophia the other day. They seemed like great kids.”

“Yes, they are.” She buttoned her coat and slipped on gloves, then after a few more words of thanks departed.

Going to the living-room window, he pulled aside the drapes and watched her walk down the driveway, hesitate at her car, then continue the few steps on the sidewalk to Suzanne’s driveway and up it. He hoped like hell that meant he’d tipped the balance. He didn’t like thinking how devastated Suzanne would be if she wasn’t allowed to adopt.

Letting the drapes fall, he went to the kitchen to figure out something for dinner. At least a couple of nights a week, he made himself cook. Living alone shouldn’t mean existing entirely on prefab meals that could be nuked in the microwave. Tonight, though, he chose a frozen chicken pot pie.

He’d just finished eating it and throwing away the container when his doorbell rang. He wasn’t altogether surprised. Without realizing it, he’d been listening for footsteps on the porch.

Earlier, he’d left the porch light on, and now he opened the front door to find Suzanne shivering in jeans and shirtsleeves on his doorstep.

“You don’t have a coat on.” He stood back. “Come on in before you freeze.”

“I didn’t expect to get cold going twenty feet.” She scooted past him and hugged herself while he shut the door.

“Cup of coffee?” As pinched as her face was, he was getting a bad feeling he should put a dash of whiskey in it. Maybe he hadn’t tipped the balance.

“Oh, I shouldn’t stay.” She was back to avoiding his gaze. “I just came over to thank you.”

His worry subsided. “Nothing to thank me for.”

“Yes, there is. Whatever you told the caseworker was enough to change her mind. I think—” her teeth worried her lower lip “—she wasn’t going to let me have Jack and Sophia.”

“You’re still shivering. Sit,” he ordered. “Some coffee will warm you up. I have it ready.”

“I don’t want to be a bother….”

“You’re not.” He went to the kitchen, leaving her standing in the middle of his living room.

When he returned a minute later with the two mugs, a sugar bowl and a carton of creamer balanced on a large platter serving as makeshift tray, Suzanne was sitting on his couch, just about exactly where she had the last time she’d been here, and just as uneasily.

In fact, she shot up at the sight of him. “Oh, you didn’t have to—”

“I wanted a cup myself.”

“Oh.” She sat back down, barely perched on the edge. “Well, thank you.”

Damn, she was beautiful. She had the kind of face that would still be beautiful when she was eighty, so perfectly were her bones sculpted. With her smooth dark hair, big brown eyes and slim, delicate body, she could have been on the big screen. Instead, she lived next door to him, fueling a few idiotic fantasies.

He added a dash of cream to his own cup and stirred. “I thought you said you’d already been approved.”

“I was. But then Melissa noticed no background check had been run for some reason. So she went ahead, and the two domestic-disturbance calls popped up.”

“I take it she called your ex.”

Stirring her own coffee, she kept her head bent, hair screening her face. “Yes. He could have defused the whole thing and didn’t. We…we had problems, but I thought—”

Tom raised his brows. “That he’d remember you with enough fondness to help you out?”

She lifted her head to expose a twisted smile. “Something like that.”

“I heard his language when he came home and found his stuff in the driveway. Didn’t he break your front window with a rock?”

She ducked her head again. “The thing is, we met in the sixth grade. We were high-school sweethearts. You saw the bitter end, but there were good times.”

He wondered. Had there been good times only because she’d been compliant?

“Some men don’t take rejection well.”