A Time To Forgive. Darlene Gardner

passionate about something. The field trip is to hear an ensemble of National Symphony Orchestra musicians. Do you know how inspiring that could be?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Jaye’s only started to learn and she already loves playing the violin. You’d recognize how much music could come to mean to her if you paid her any attention at all.”

      He felt his blood pressure rise and his head pound, the dangerous signs of his own temper about to erupt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “I know that Jaye goes to after-school care, which she hates, and that you don’t pick her up until it closes at six o’clock. And that half the time your girlfriend picks her up for you. A girlfriend who told her, incidentally, not to get too comfortable because she wouldn’t be staying with you for long.”

      He breathed sharply through his nose. “I can’t believe Isabel said that.”

      “How do you know what anybody says to Jaye when you’re never around her?”

      “I’m a busy man, Ms. Reed,” he said, holding on, just barely, to his temper.

      “Too busy to go on a field trip, obviously.”

      “I have a demanding job,” Connor said in his defense.

      “Your most important job is to take care of Jaye,” she said and his head spun. His job wasn’t the reason he’d refused to sign the slip.

      “I am taking care of her.”

      “Not well enough. You should understand that she needs extra attention after losing her mother.”

      Connor might have asked how much she knew about Jaye’s situation if her insult hadn’t registered. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said tightly.

      “Then help to nurture her interest in music. Jaye’s heading toward trouble. She needs something to care about. That something could be music.”

      “I don’t disagree,” he said.

      “Then sign the permission slip and chaperone the trip,” she challenged.

      The concert was three days from now. That was a Friday, which was no less busy than any other weekday. He’d have to reschedule a business lunch and no fewer than three appointments.

      “What’s the matter, Mr. Smith?” she asked. “Are you too busy for Jaye?”

      The dare was in her stance as well as her eyes. Somehow he’d failed to convey that he was a well-meaning uncle doing the best he could for a child he loved but hardly knew. He didn’t know why Abby Reed’s opinion mattered so much, but he hated that she thought so badly of him.

      He picked up a pen, scribbled his name and handed her the permission slip. “Satisfied?”

      She took it without the smile of triumph he’d expected.

      “If I let myself become satisfied so easily, Mr. Smith, I hardly would have come to your office. The bus leaves Friday at nine-thirty sharp. Chaperones should arrive at nine-fifteen.”

      Without another word, she swept out of the room. The quiet was absolute when she was gone, as though she’d taken all the life and energy of the day with her.

      He sat stock still behind his desk, thinking about his jam-packed workweek.

      Why, then, had he signed up to chaperone a field trip he hadn’t wanted Jaye to go on in the first place?

      ISABEL PENNINGTON WAS a striking woman. Tall, dark and willowy with high cheekbones, an exotic slant to her eyes and a flawless complexion, she’d modeled extensively in her teens and early twenties before opening a boutique in Georgetown.

      Connor had started dating her after she’d hired him to build her stock portfolio. In the nine months since then, he’d never seen her look anything but her best.

      That included tonight. Despite the pout she wore, along with her beaded, curve-hugging designer dress, she still managed to look beautiful. “What do you mean you can’t go? We’ve been planning this for weeks.”

      By this, she meant a two-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner supporting the D.C. Professional Women’s Association at a venerable downtown hotel. She’d offered to swing by and pick Connor up since his place was en route to the hotel, and she now stood in the foyer of his town house.

      She’d arrived at a bad time.

      Thirty minutes after he’d told Jaye to pick up her dirty clothes, he’d found his niece lying on her bed listening to her CD player with the clothes still on the floor. She was testing him, he knew. The school guidance counselor had told him to choose his battles. He’d been considering whether this one was worth fighting when the doorbell rang.

      “I’m sorry, Isabel.” Connor brought his focus back to her lovely pouting face. “My neighbor just called a few minutes ago to say she can’t babysit.”

      “Can’t you call somebody else?” Her voice was persuasive, her smile coaxing. “I was really looking forward to tonight.”

      He ran a hand over his smooth-shaven chin. He’d been getting ready for the benefit when he’d gotten the call from Mrs. Piper, a widow in her sixties who lived next door. “I don’t know anybody else to call. I’m lucky to have the one babysitter.”

      “So what am I supposed to do?” Her lower lip thrust forward a fraction more. “Go to the dinner by myself?”

      “Not if you don’t want to. I already paid for the dinners so we’re covered there. I was going to order out for Chinese for Jaye and me. You could join us.”

      She ran a hand down the cloth of her expensive dress. “In this? I don’t think so. I’ll go to the benefit myself and take my chances that someone will want to have dinner with me.”

      She knew very well she wouldn’t be dining alone and wanted Connor to know it, too. Wherever Isabel went, men followed. It was a fact of life he couldn’t get worked up about.

      “Have a good time, then,” he said, without a touch of the jealousy he suspected she’d tried to arouse.

      “Oh, believe me, I will. But before I go, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” She carefully and unnecessarily brushed her hair back from her face with long, slender fingers. He noticed that her nails were tipped with white in what looked like a fresh manicure. Abby Reed’s nails, he remembered, had been unpainted. “How much longer will you be taking care of Jaye?”

      He shrugged. “Like I’ve told you before, I don’t know. It depends upon how long it takes Diana to get her act together.”

      “What if she never gets it together?”

      The question was one Connor hadn’t considered but supposed he should have thought about before now. Diana wasn’t a kid anymore. She was twenty-seven, past the age when he could chalk up her actions to immaturity.

      “Then I’ll keep on taking care of Jaye. I’ll become her legal guardian or adopt her if I have to.”

      “Are you serious?” Her voice turned disbelieving. “You’d raise somebody else’s child?”

      “I’d raise my niece.”

      “But why is she your responsibility? You have parents, Connor. Why can’t your mother take her? Or your father?”

      He’d explained his family situation to Isabel before. He wasn’t about to do it again. “The best place for Jaye right now is with me.”

      “I understand that, and I’m trying to be patient. But can’t you see what a strain this is putting on our relationship? We talked about living together, getting to know each other better, but how can we do that with your niece around?”

      “I’m getting to know you better than I want to,” he said in a low voice.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      He