Once a Good Girl...

“I’ve got to go,” she said to Kyle. Balancing on her left foot, with one hand on the railing, she bent to pick up her purse and briefcase with the other. She looked so sad he actually felt bad for her. “Let me help you,” he offered, reaching for her briefcase.

She clutched the strap to her shoulder. “I don’t need your help.” She mumbled something under her breath that sounded like “Not anymore.”

“At least let me examine your ankle. You may need an X-ray.”

“I don’t.”

He watched her limp to the door leading to the fourth floor. “It’s unsafe for you to drive.”

“Go back to work, Kyle.”

“I’m done for the day. How are you going to press on the gas and brake pedals? Let me take you where you need to go.” Give him a chance to make amends.

The little color that remained in her cheeks drained out. “No.” Her voice cracked. “Really, I’m fine.”

They entered the half-full elevator.

Looking straight ahead, Victoria asked, “Shouldn’t your dog be wearing a vest or something to make him look … more … ?”

“Service dogs wear vests,” Kyle explained. “She’s …” he reached down to pat Tori’s head “ … a therapy dog. Therapy dogs are meant to be petted and cuddled. A vest interferes with that.”

When the doors opened, Kyle and Tori followed Victoria out. As she hobbled through the lobby, Kyle noticed she didn’t acknowledge one person she passed, and no one went out of their way to acknowledge her.

In the parking lot she stopped next to an old black Camry that looked a lot like the one her Aunt Livi had bought a few weeks before he’d left town.

He made one last attempt to convince her not to drive. “So, who’s this Jake and why’s he so important you’d risk your life to pick him up rather than accept a ride from me?”

CHAPTER TWO

OKAY. That’s it.

Victoria tossed her briefcase on the back seat of her car, slammed the door shut and waited to the count of five before turning on Kyle. She spoke slowly, fought to maintain an even tone. “Jake is none of your business. My life is not your concern and I’ll thank you, in advance, to stay away from me for the short time you’ll be in town.”

“Like it or not, most of my patients are on your floor and, once my therapy dog program is approved, I plan to accept the full-time staff position I’ve been offered.” He leaned toward her. Challenging. “The next time I leave town it will be on my terms.”

“You make it sound like approval for you to bring your dog to work is a given. It’s not. We’re firm at three for and four against. I’m against.” As was her mentor, the director of nursing.

“We have four weeks to change your mind.” He patted his dog’s head, looking unconcerned.

“No one can be as good as the two of you are touted to be. The patient outcomes and lengths of stay will speak for themselves.”

“Oh, we are that good, honey,” he said confidently.

“Don’t call me …”

“Come on, Tori,” he said as he turned to walk away. His dog trailed after him.

She sucked in an affronted breath. “You named your dog after me?” she called out.

He glanced over his shoulder. “She was a stubborn little thing when I started working with her. Reminded me of a girl I used to know.”

Victoria resisted the urge to scream. Having Kyle Karlinsky around was going to be an exercise in self-control. And secrecy. At least until she decided whether to inform Jake that his father, who she’d promised to help him search for when he turned sixteen, had returned to town eight years ahead of schedule.

Using the utmost care not to bang her now throbbing foot, Victoria slid onto the cold leather driver’s seat.

No doubt Jake would be thrilled to finally meet the man whose picture sat on his night table. He deserved a chance to get to know his dad. At some point. Was now, when he was so young and impressionable, the best time? Until she could learn a bit more about Kyle, where he’d been, why he was back, and maybe gauge his reaction to having a son, she would not risk Jake getting hurt.

Although the drive to school turned out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated, Victoria avoided any major problems. Thank the Lord two pedestrians crossing at Third Street saw her in time to jump out of the way.

The second she got out of the car and set her right foot on the ground for balance, pain exploded in her ankle, the intensity on a par with labor contractions. She eyed the distance from her parking spot to the door of the cafeteria. It may as well have been the length of a football field rather than the twenty or thirty feet it actually was.

Eleven minutes late, she couldn’t afford to be any later. Clenching her teeth hard enough to crack a filling, she made a limping dash towards the school. Halfway there Jake exited the building, in the process of pulling on his hat, and without looking at her walked directly to the car.

The afterschool program teacher—Mrs. Smythe—followed.

The temperature dropped a few degrees.

“I had to take care of a choking patient. Then I twisted my ankle rushing to leave,” Victoria explained.

“If it wasn’t that it would have been something else,” the evil woman replied. “I have a life outside my job, you know.”

Was it common knowledge that, aside from Jake, Victoria didn’t? “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said as she, too, walked past Victoria without looking at her. “Be on time.”

She would do better, Victoria decided when she climbed into the car, glimpsed into the back seat and saw the unhappy pout on her son’s precious face. Jake, the most important thing in her world. “I love you,” she said.

He stared out the window.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Victoria started the car and changed the radio to Jake’s favorite station.

He lunged over the front seat and turned it off.

Except for the heat blasting from the vents, a tense silence filled the car.

She looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Put on your seat belt.”

He didn’t.

“Jake, I said I was sorry. You understand why Mommy has to work so hard, don’t you?”

Nothing.

It was going to be a long night.

“I’m talking to you, Jake Forley. And we will not leave this parking lot until you answer my question.”

“Because it’s just the two of us,” he said, still looking out the window. “And you need money to pay bills and send me to a good college.”