Wanted: One Son. Laurie Paige

      He kept his gaze fixed on the floor at his feet, looking very much like his father when she’d tried to talk to him about the problems in their marriage. Men. They never wanted to hear the bad stuff, only the good.

      “Think about how you would have felt if it had been your father who had answered the call and found his son was accused of shoplifting. Think about how he would have felt.”

      Two circles of shame formed in the boy’s cheeks. Good. Maybe her words were getting through to him. His father had been one of the best deputies in the county. He’d died a hero, leaping in front of a bullet which would have hit a woman holding a child. His bullet-proof vest deflected the first shot, but not the second that went in his neck. He’d bled to death before the paramedics arrived.

      Doogie didn’t stir from his sullen position. She felt an upsurge of fear and helplessness. “Well?” she demanded. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

      He stared at the floor.

      “You will return to Mrs. Withers tomorrow,” she decided.

      He blinked at that. “I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

      “A person who can’t be trusted out on his own does.” She caught sight of her face in the decorative mirror on a highboy beside the door. She saw desperation in her eyes and willed it away with an effort. “This was a trial period, remember? You said you wouldn’t be bored here at the office.”

      “I’m not bored.” His mouth pulled down at the corners while his bottom lip puckered stubbornly.

      She took a breath and spoke firmly. “What happened this morning tells me I was wrong to listen to your arguments.”

      “It was just a dumb video. It didn’t mean anything. I’ll never do it again.” His voice, deeper of late, segued into a treble. He gestured with his hand, a quick, angry flick as if to throw out her statement.

      His hands were large, more those of a man than a child. He was growing up. Twelve years old and he was only three inches shorter than she was. In another couple of years, he’d be as tall…and much stronger.

      If she couldn’t use words and reasoning to control him now, what would she do then?

      “You’ll go back to Mrs. Withers for the rest of the month. And you’re grounded for that time.”

      His mouth opened in protest.

      She continued. “You’ll also apologize to the store owner—”

      “I already did. Nick…Deputy Dorelli…made me before he brought me over here.”

      Stephanie frowned at this news. She wished Nick hadn’t been the one to answer the call on her son. It was embarrassing. However, she could handle it and anything else that came up. Being married to a policeman, she’d had to.

      Her husband had loved his job. He’d loved the uniform and the camaraderie with his deputy buddies. He’d worked a lot of overtime so they could save up enough money for repairs, then he’d used every spare minute to fix up the small ranch she’d inherited. Those early years had been the best part of their marriage. She tried not to think of the later years.

      “Can I go now?”

      “No. You’ll stay here until the store closes at six. You should have brought something to read.” She hesitated. “Trust is a funny thing. It’s given automatically to those we love, but when it’s breached, you have to earn it. Your father would have been very disappointed—”

      “I don’t care,” he muttered. He stood, shoving the chair back with his legs. “I don’t care what he would have thought. He wasn’t…he wasn’t…I don’t care.”

      The pop of her hand against his cheek reverberated through the silent office for long seconds after the act.

      Stephanie, leaning across her desk, stared as the red imprint formed on her son’s face. Tears welled in his shocked, disbelieving eyes. He’d never been struck in his life, other than his fight with Clyde. She couldn’t believe it herself. She’d never hit another person.

      Doogie leapt to his feet and turned from her, his hands balled into fists. He made a loop of his arms against the wall and hid his face inside it. For all his lanky height, he looked like what he was—a kid who was in trouble, young and vulnerable, scared, defiant and sorry, all at the same time.

      Stephanie straightened slowly, feeling as old and wicked as the witch from Snow White. She sank into her chair as the tremors started, earthquakes of emotion that she couldn’t control. “Doogie, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to strike you.”

      He made a muffled sound, then turned and ran, crashing through the outside door and cutting across the parking lot in front of an elderly couple, nearly knocking them down as he fled the place.

      Stephanie stood, her mind in a whirl. She clenched a hand over her stomach and felt totally helpless in dealing with her son. She was aware of the disapproving glances from the couple as she stared outside. She nodded apologetically to them and closed the door.

      For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. The tinkle of chimes at the front door reminded her she had a full afternoon of work ahead and Pat hadn’t had lunch yet.

      Worried, her heart aching, she went to the front. “Ready for a lunch break?” she asked with forced cheer.

      “Starved,” Pat affirmed. “Everything okay with the kid?” She’d known Doogie since birth, had, in fact, babysat with him when she’d still been a girl in school.

      “No. Did he say anything to you?”

      Pat shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I saw Nick Dorelli drop him off at the door. I knew he must be in trouble.” She hesitated. “Don’t be too hard on him. All kids go through a stage, well, you know…” She grabbed her purse, tilted her head in the direction of two teenage girls going over the racks of earrings on a carousel, and left.

      Stephanie straightened a shelf of cotton sweaters, then surveyed the small shop. The Glass Slipper looked smart, up-to-the-minute and friendly. She’d picked the muted gray-green of sage and the soft yellows and red of the local clay for a theme. Pedestals of black Colorado granite held inexpensive urns that looked priceless. Scarves and costume jewelry were casually draped over the clay pieces.

      The ordered disarray didn’t comfort her today. She sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache was making itself known. Anger and embarrassment with her son roiled in her. She felt incompetent as a parent. Maybe she was.

      Giggles from the two girls brought her back to the business at hand. She dredged up a smile. “Those look lovely on you,” she said to one who’d put on a pair of earrings from the rack. “Do you want them wrapped or are you going to wear them?”

      “I’ll wear them.” The girls paid and left, talking and giggling about a boy one of them liked.

      Once she’d been that carefree, but not since the summer she’d graduated and her mother had divorced her father and moved to Santa Fe, leaving them behind, Stephanie reflected.

      She’d started her first year at the community college while Nick went east to a big university. In January her father had gone hunting and died in an avalanche.

      Clay Bolt had been the deputy who’d come to tell her. He’d been with her when they dug her father out. He’d gone to the morgue with her. He’d stayed at the house until her mother arrived. After the funeral, Stephanie had lived there alone.

      Nick had come home at spring vacation and seen Clay with her on the porch, the deputy’s arms around her to comfort her at a low moment in her life. Nick had accused her of betraying him.

      She’d been astounded, then furious that he didn’t trust her, when she’d trusted him at his Ivy League school with all those debutantes hanging around. After he’d stormed out, she’d waited for him to come back to apologize, but he hadn’t. Not one