Sweet Child of Mine. Jean Brashear

didn’t speak either but tucked into his meal, savoring the first bites of Ruby’s meat loaf from heaven. After he’d satisfied the initial hunger pangs, he looked at Suzanne again, observing the slim fingers clutching the coffee cup until her knuckles turned white.

      He went on impulse. “Give me a dollar.”

      Her head jerked up again. “What?”

      “Give me a dollar.” He spied the change beside her cup and grabbed it. “Never mind. Thirty-seven cents will do.”

      “What are you doing?”

      “You just hired me as your lawyer. Now I can’t reveal to a soul anything you tell me. So spill it, Suzanne. Something’s eating you up and you need to talk about it.”

      She stared at him as though he’d lost his mind.

      Then the tears spilled over.

      “I’m going to lose my son. For the second time.”

      Two

      “You what?” Michael’s deep green eyes widened. The shock of sun-streaked brown hair that always fell over his forehead bounced as his head reared up. “You have a son? Where is he?”

      “He’s in Sacramento with his father. Well, not his—” Yes, Jim Roper was Bobby’s father, the only one he’d ever known. “He’s with his father.” She lapsed into silence.

      She expected a volley of questions, but instead Michael waited her out.

      She reached for the saltshaker on the table in front of him, sliding it around in aimless circles until she realized what she was doing and jerked her hand back, trapping it in her lap. “I—” She glanced up once, then down quickly, but he didn’t look impatient. Instead he sat there, fork still, simply watching her with only concern in his eyes.

      “Your food will get cold. Go ahead and eat,” she said.

      “My food can wait. Talk to me, Suzanne.”

      The gentle tone was something she’d never heard from him. They’d always been too busy striking sparks off each other, arguing vigorously in one meeting or another.

      She realized that she’d never been alone with Michael Longstreet before. There was a stillness about the man that seeped beneath her skin, a patience that made her realize how much she needed to talk to someone.

      “I had to give him up for adoption.” She kept her eyes on her coffee cup. “I didn’t want to, but it was the right thing to do. I was sixteen. I couldn’t have cared for him the way he deserved.” She couldn’t risk a glance upward, couldn’t bear seeing if his expression disapproved. No matter how often she’d told herself she’d done the right thing, it still hurt. She’d still wanted her baby back, sometimes so much she thought she couldn’t last into the next breath.

      Anyway, it was done. It was over—or it had been over. But not anymore.

      “A few months ago I received a call from Jim Roper, the man who adopted my baby. Bobby—”

      She looked up then and couldn’t help a smile. “His name is Bobby. He’ll be ten soon.” And oh, how she wanted to celebrate his birthday with him. Wanted to bake him a cake with her own hands and blow up balloons and do all the things she’d wanted to do every March 28th of the last nine years.

      “What happened to his biological father?” Michael asked.

      She glanced away. “He didn’t want a baby. His future was too bright, he said. Too much of his life ahead of him. He offered me money for an abortion and made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with a child he doubted was his own.”

      A low curse issued from Michael’s throat, and she gathered the courage to look back. She saw his eyes darken with outrage, but on his face she saw more than that, a swirling of strong emotions she couldn’t define. “I’d never been with anyone else. Fool that I was, I actually thought we were in love, this rich man’s son and the daughter of a plumber.” A rich man’s son like the one who sat before her.

      Michael didn’t miss the accusation in her voice. If only she knew. He’d made the opposite choice from her rich boy and married the waitress his parents tried to buy off, knowing his parents would cut him off without a penny. Feeling righteous because he loved her so much.

      His foolish pride had ultimately cost his wife and unborn baby their lives.

      Michael jerked his dark thoughts back to the woman across the table. “He didn’t deserve you. He wouldn’t have made you happy.”

      Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. “But I could have kept my baby—” She grasped her napkin in white-knuckled fingers and sniffed hard, forcing the tears back. “No, you’re right. I know I did the best thing for Bobby, but—” Her hands fluttered from the table, palms up in helplessness.

      “So now you fight like a tigress for other people’s children.”

      The violet gaze shifted to his, the thick black lashes still shimmering with tears. The corners of her full mouth tilted slightly, and she nodded. “I guess so.”

      “So what’s happened now, tonight?”

      The faint smile vanished. She twisted the paper napkin through her fingers. “When Jim Roper contacted me, it was because Bobby had been wanting to meet his biological mother. His adoptive mother died five years ago, and Jim has been raising Bobby alone.” Her face brightened in a way he’d never seen. “He’s done a good job. Bobby’s a bright, healthy, energetic boy who’s very secure in the love he’s been given.”

      Her gaze lifted to his. “I was so afraid to meet Bobby, even though Jim and I agreed to take it slow and not tell him yet that I was his mother. Give him time to get used to me, to decide if he liked me without all that pressure.” Moisture glistened again, one slow tear trailing down her cheek. “He likes me, but I’m so afraid that he’ll hate me when he knows.” The napkin tore in her fingers. “And now it’s too late.”

      Michael frowned. “Why?”

      “Jim hasn’t been feeling well. He finally went to the doctor last week and found out that he’s got pancreatic cancer. He doesn’t have long. He wants me to take Bobby.”

      “Don’t you want to?”

      Her head snapped up. “Of course I do, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But Jim’s wife has a cousin named in his will as guardian if anything happens to Jim.”

      “So? He can change the will.”

      “He’s afraid she’ll contest it because I’m single and I don’t have a long job history or much money. The cousin is married and is financially secure.” She looked up at him, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such misery in his life. “I understand. I do. Jim doesn’t have much to leave for Bobby, so he needs to be sure Bobby’s in the best hands. It’s just that—” Her voice broke, and he saw her shoulders shake. “I feel like I’m losing him all over again. Jim says he believes that I’d be the best mother, but he admits that the cousin would be good to Bobby and she’s got all the things that I don’t.”

      “Like a husband and solid financial footing?”

      Her eyes sparked as she nodded. Her voice was fierce when she spoke. “But I have love, so much love. All the love he could ever want. And it’s going to be so hard on him, anyway, losing Jim. He doesn’t know this cousin, and he really likes me, I know he does. Jim says so, too, says he’s never seen Bobby take to someone so quickly.

      “Isn’t this ridiculous?” she asked through a sheen of tears. “It sounds like a great soap opera plot, I’m sure.”

      Michael shook his head. “In your work and mine, we both see a lot of messy situations. Life is like that.”

      “Mine’s not. Not usually.”

      “Want me to see if