When Love Comes Home. Arlene James

grumbled.

      “Listen,” Dan said in an obvious effort to change the subject, “we’re throwing a football party in a few weeks. I want you both to put it on your calendars.”

      Howard shook his head. “Don’t count on me, son. I’ve already got plans.”

      Dan raised his eyebrows at Grady. “Well, can I count on you, then?”

      “I’ll get back to you.”

      Dan sent a significant look at his wife, who smiled and said, “I have a couple friends coming who I’d like to introduce you to.”

      Single, female friends, no doubt. Grady turned back to the window that looked out over the deserted golf course, hiding his grimace.

      His family loved him. They tried to be supportive, and he tried to be appreciative, but he was getting real tired of being everybody’s favorite charity case.

      It was time he got a life.

      He wondered if Paige Ellis was as much of a sports fan as she’d claimed.

      “He did not! You take that back!”

      Paige heard the angst in her son’s voice even before she recognized the anger and resentment. She’d run out to find a grocery store open on New Year’s Day and grab cans of the black-eyed peas Vaughn had insisted they were supposed to eat for dinner. Vaughn and Matthias were arguing when she returned to the house. Dropping the bag with the cans on the end of the counter just inside the kitchen door, she glared at the pair of them, Matthias in particular.

      “What’s going on?”

      Vaughn’s face set in mutinous lines, while Matthias’s eyes clouded. “I was just pointing out a few facts of life to this youngun,” the old man grumbled.

      “My dad did not kidnap me!” Vaughn declared heatedly.

      Paige sent Matthias a quelling glance. “I don’t see anything to be gained by discussing this subject.” She turned to the counter and began removing the cans from the bag, saying brightly, “I got the peas. They may not be the brand you like, but I was lucky to find any at all. I didn’t realize how many people abide by that old custom.”

      “I’ll tell you what’s to be gained,” Matthias said doggedly. “The truth. Any other woman would’ve put that man away for what he’d done.”

      “Matthias, stop it,” Paige ordered, whirling around, but it was already too late. Vaughn was already screaming at her.

      “It’s all your fault, anyway! He wouldn’t have had to take me if you hadn’t kept us apart!”

      Paige fell back against the counter. “What are you saying?”

      “He didn’t have any choice but to take me! You kept him away ’cause he wouldn’t give you money! That’s why he wasn’t around for so long! You wouldn’t let him be a dad! And now you’re doing it again!”

      Paige gasped. After the divorce she’d gone out of her way to include Nolan in Vaughn’s life. She’d begged him to come around. He’d complained that her demands on his time were unreasonable, saying that Vaughn wasn’t old enough to miss him. He’d even threatened to tell Vaughn that he wasn’t his father if she didn’t give him some space.

      Only after she’d proved his paternity and won back the right to child support had he taken any real interest in his son, and only then to punish her. She hadn’t cared, so long as Vaughn was happy. Now to hear her son say that she’d kept Nolan from being a dad to him was almost unbelievable to her.

      She gulped and stammered, “W-we always have ch-choices.”

      “I don’t!” he yelled. “’Cause if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here!” With that he tore from the room, rocking her sideways as he shoved past her.

      “Now look what you’ve done!” she cried at Matthias, but the old man shook his head sorrowfully.

      “Not me, girl. That Nolan’s the one who done this, and you aren’t helping that boy by not telling him the truth.”

      Paige closed her eyes and put a hand to her head. “Even if he could hear and believe the truth, Matthias, I couldn’t tell him. You just don’t understand the harm it does a child when his parents defame each other.”

      “His father don’t have no problem defaming you.”

      “All the more reason for me to take the high road.”

      “Just be careful you ain’t setting yourself up for a bad fall,” Matthias warned. “If you don’t make that boy understand that his daddy’s a lying, scheming—”

      “Stop,” Paige interrupted firmly. “Just stop. Don’t you see? No one can make a child ‘understand’ such a thing.” She shook her head. “I don’t even want him to know it, Matthias. I want him to believe that his father loves him as much as I do. I want my son to grow up believing that both of his parents treasure him beyond anything in this world.”

      “Wanting a thing don’t make it so,” Matthias insisted. “You’re setting yourself up for disappointment, if you ask me.”

      It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she hadn’t asked him, but she swallowed the impulse as he limped out of the room. Matthias only wanted what was best for her, but she had to think of what was best for Vaughn.

      Grady leaned against the window ledge behind his brother’s desk and tried not to stare at her. He’d been surprised when Dan had called and asked Grady to join him and Paige Ellis in his office. His dealings with Paige Ellis should have been at an end. Even if legal assistance was required, her case was Dan’s responsibility, not his. Yet, he’d answered his brother’s summons without complaint, interrupting an important telephone conversation in the process.

      Her hair was a little longer, he noted, as if she hadn’t found time to get to the stylist recently. Shadows rimmed her exotic sea-green eyes. For a moment he thought she’d taken to wearing smudged eyeliner; then he’d realized that she was tired, so tired that even the tiny smile she’d found for him had seemed to require great effort on her part.

      “Anyway,” she said, glancing at Grady and then at her hands. “I just thought I should run it by you before I made a firm decision.”

      Dan cast a veiled look at Grady, who knew instantly what he was thinking. The safety issue loomed large in both their minds.

      “The contact would be limited to the telephone, I take it?” Dan asked.

      She nodded. “Since you made it impossible for Nolan to return to Arkansas without risking prosecution, it has to be.”

      At least she’d acquiesced to that much, Grady told himself. Dan shot him a helpless look, and Grady cleared his throat, prepared to be the bad guy. “That was my doing, and I thought letting Vaughn call his dad was a lousy idea from the beginning.”

      “I know you did,” she said softly. “My former counselor agrees with you.”

      “But the new counselor does not?” Dan surmised.

      Paige sucked in a deep breath, her chest rising beneath the lapels of her brown velvet jacket and the plain front of the simple plaid sheath dress under it. “That’s right. He feels Vaughn will benefit from regular, unhindered contact with his father.”

      “But the old counselor apparently thought it was harmful,” Grady pointed out. Paige took it as a bid for clarification.

      “She concluded that talking with his father would keep Vaughn from making peace with his new circumstances.”

      “Obviously my brother finds merit in her argument,” Dan said. “I think I agree with them, though I have to tell you that this is not a legal issue. There is nothing at this point to legally prevent Nolan from maintaining contact with your son.”

      “We could fix