Texas Trouble. Kathleen O'Brien

rich man twice her age.

      Harrison quickly quieted her talk of teaching. Motherhood, he insisted, was a full-time job.

      Understanding why he was a bit overprotective, she’d indulged him. He’d bought her a beautiful piano, so that she could keep up with her own music, and she’d appreciated the gesture.

      Someday, she’d always promised herself, she’d start over. When the boys were older. When Harrison felt more secure—about her, and about them. She’d earn her Texas certification, and she’d finally stand in her very own classroom.

      Guess someday was on permanent hold now.

      And she didn’t mind. There was only one goal that mattered anymore. Shepherding what was left of her family through this crisis.

      But she didn’t want her worries to monopolize this whole visit. Jolie had problems, too.

      “So did the PTA finally agree that you need new sheet music?” Nora knew that the recent budget cutbacks had slashed the school arts programs. Jolie would have had to cancel the Independence Day concert if Nora hadn’t written a personal check for new instruments. She’d write another, if the PTA didn’t come through with funds. She might write one, anyhow. One of the nicer aspects of having money was being able to give it away.

      “It’s still under advisement.” Jolie rolled her eyes. “Which means they’re waiting to see what the Phys Ed teacher needs. If it’s a choice between music and sports, we all know who—”

      Suddenly, midsentence, she lurched forward, though she must have been reacting to some sixth sense. Nora hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

      “Oh, dear Lord,” Jolie murmured under her breath. She flung open the door to the rehearsal room. “Madeline, grab Sean.”

      Nora was only a foot behind her, so she had just entered the room when Sean’s guitar hit the floor. Obviously the instrument had been flung with force. Contact with the linoleum made a hideous sound, part splintering wood, part ghastly harmonies from reverberating strings.

      “Oh, Sean, no,” she said softly.

      Her son didn’t hear her. He stood on the other side of the room, rigid as a pole, his eyes sparking with fury. His face shone palely, which made his freckles stand out like copper pennies on his cheeks. His hair was mussed, his collar lifted where Madeline, the assistant music instructor, held it in her fist.

      Jolie had one hand lightly but authoritatively placed on the shoulder of a second boy. Nora knew him—Tad Rutherford. He and Sean had played together since the kiddie band in nursery school. Tad was Sean’s age, but twice his size, and something of a bully. Right now, his broad face burned red, his breath coming hard and noisy.

      Nora’s heart beat high in her chest. But Jolie, as always, looked completely calm, in spite of the chaos, the wild-eyed boys and the smashed guitar, which was now two splintered halves held together only by the strings.

      She owned the situation. She had frozen the potential for trouble right in its tracks with just the force of her silent authority. That was her gift. It made her a wonderful teacher.

      She glanced at Sean, then at Tad. “What happened here?”

      “I was just kidding,” Tad said, his chest still heaving. “I didn’t mean it.”

      “Didn’t mean what?”

      Flushing brightly, Tad ducked his head and stared at his shoes. Whatever he’d said, he didn’t seem to have the courage to repeat it in front of the adults.

      Jolie looked across the room. “Sean?”

      Sean didn’t flinch away from her gaze. He met it, his jaw squared so tightly he might have been carved from marble—if it hadn’t been for his eyes, which were alive with emotion.

      Jolie’s gaze shifted. “Madeline?”

      The assistant shook her head. “They were playing. I didn’t hear it.”

      Jolie didn’t waste time with the third degree. She obviously knew what had to be done. She walked over to Nora. Her eyes were sympathetic, but her voice was matter-of-fact.

      “I’ll have to call the principal,” she said quietly, touching the phone that hung from her belt. “The rules are very clear.”

      Nora understood. “Of course.”

      Nodding to her assistant, a message that seemed to speak volumes, Jolie slipped back into her office to make the call. Nora moved slowly to her son’s side, sidestepping the wreckage of the guitar.

      “Sean.” She knelt in front of him and took his cold, limp hand. “Honey, can you tell me? Can you tell me what happened?”

      For a moment he stared at her. And then, slowly, as if his neck were a rusted joint, he shook his head.

      Such an absolute silence. She looked into his eyes, where sparks of fury still flashed and simmered.

      And she thought of Jolie’s comment.

      Like fire, she thought with a sinking heart. Like fire behind a tightly closed door.

      LOGAN’S NIGHT HAD BEEN an unexpected success. Dinner and drinks with Annie…Aden? Arden? Something like that. The office manager for one of the vets he used at Two Wings.

      He’d asked her out purely because she was smoking hot, and he was bored with the book he’d been reading. But he got the bonus prize, too. She’d turned out to be witty and sensible, and extremely easy to please. She liked her steak, she liked her wine. She liked his jokes, his car, his jacket and his smile.

      It was also pretty clear she liked the idea of coming home with him. It should have been a slam dunk—sex with a woman who was easy to please. And did he mention smoking hot?

      But for some reason he would never understand, he ignored all the signals, kissed her politely at her door and drove back to Two Wings alone.

      He didn’t try to figure himself out. He’d never been into navel-gazing self-analysis. He was tired. Her perfume turned him off. He hadn’t been in the mood for a blonde. Whatever.

      What difference did it make? There was always another night. There was always another Annie.

      He poured himself a glass of water and picked up the sports section, which he hadn’t had time to read that morning. He kicked off his shoes and, with a satisfied yawn, settled onto the tweedy sofa that faced the picture window. It was only eleven, but he’d been up since five, and he’d be up again at five tomorrow. He was dog tired, and he had a right to be.

      When the doorbell rang two minutes later, he cursed under his breath. But he swung his legs off the sofa and tossed the newspaper onto the floor. It might be someone dropping off a bird.

      When he opened the door, at first he didn’t see anyone at all. Then his gaze fell about two feet, and he discovered a kid standing there, the pale oval of his face peering out from a black hooded sweatshirt.

      He wore black jeans, too, and black sneakers. He looked like a miniature cat burglar.

      “Hi, Sean,” Logan said wryly. “Did we have something else you wanted to bust up?”

      The boy flushed, but he covered it well with a deep scowl. “My mom says she’s going to pay you for it. She’s making me work it off. I’m going to have to pull weeds about ten hours a day for a month.”

      “Good.” Logan kept his hand on the doorknob, but he scanned the driveway for a car. “Is your mom with you now?”

      “No. I came alone. On my bike.”

      Oh, great. The moron had ridden a mile and a half in the pitch dark. All in black. Probably didn’t even have a light on his bike.

      He needed a good shaking. Didn’t he have the slightest idea what it would do to his mother if anything bad happened to him?

      “Does she know you’re here?”