Temporary Father. Anna Adams

to save failing family ventures.

      Van must be around the house somewhere. He’d returned from a business trip earlier in the afternoon. She ran inside the blue-and-white period Victorian she wouldn’t have been able to afford if lottery tickets started flying at her head.

      “Van?”

      He didn’t answer. Beth took off her shoes to keep from spreading dirt or wet grass. Van’s housekeeper, the dour Mrs. Carleton, wouldn’t approve. “Eli?” Beth’s eleven-year-old son had been playing video games, but she’d asked him to take time out for reading before she’d left for her run.

      “Hmm?” he said from the living room.

      She went to the doorway. Beside Eli, a big, black Lab looked up, thumping her tail at Beth.

      “Lucy, girl.” Beth ventured into the room and ran a hand over the dog’s silky head. “Have you walked her yet?”

      “Read? Walk the dog? Anything else I should do?”

      “I’ll think of plenty.” She bent to Lucy, trying not to smile at Eli’s tone. After the lodge had burned down, he’d run to his father’s house, and he’d been reluctant to come back, claiming he was only a burden to her.

      Since then, Eli had been quiet and too cooperative. Bad dreams had begun to plague him. Every time he got up in the middle of the night, Beth heard him. Despite sweat ringing his T-shirt, tears in his eyes and gasping breaths he worked like a grown man to control, he’d never admit something was bothering him.

      His simple preteen testiness made Beth want to hug him till he ran from her, screaming like a girl.

      “A walk should just about do it,” she said. “And it’ll be good for both of you. You don’t get enough exercise since we moved in with Uncle Van.”

      “I’d get plenty if we could afford to replace my skateboard.”

      Already turning toward the stairs, she stopped. “I wish we could,” she said, hearing the bank manager’s voice from their afternoon meeting.

      “I hate to see you struggling,” he’d said, “but you didn’t even check to see if Campbell had paid that insurance premium after your divorce.”

      As if she needed reminding her ex-husband was a deadbeat and a liar.

      “Mom, I know we don’t have the money. I’m sorry I asked.”

      “It’s okay to be mad at me. I hate when you act all grown up.”

      “It’s not okay.” He slid off the couch, easing his hand over the dog’s head. “Lucy, come.”

      She scrambled up with a complaining whine. No one in the house felt easy tonight.

      “Don’t go past the lawn into the woods this late,” Beth said, to remind him he was a child.

      “Mom.” His tone suggested she get off his back.

      “I’m serious.”

      Slamming out of the house, he didn’t answer. Beth flipped on the brighter outdoor lights. Taking the stairs two at a time, she ran to the window in her room. Down on the lawn, Lucy jumped on Eli as he cocked his arm to throw her football.

      She hadn’t ever managed to get the hang of fetch. Eli and Lucy went down in a tangle of gangly legs and black fur and a whippy tail. The ball trickled toward the line of solar lights along the driveway. Eli and Lucy both chased the ball, and Beth reached to close the blinds. Before she pulled the cord, another light caught her eye.

      One from the cottage’s main bedroom. A golden glow flooded two wide windows in front of a king-size bed. Not that she could see the bed.

      Except in her imagination.

      Her mouth went dry. She had no time to be interested in a man.

      So many business magazines had splashed Aidan Nikolas on their covers, the late-night talk show hosts had started cracking jokes about him moonlighting as a supermodel—which just proved none of them had seen him close up.

      He was handsome enough, but he lacked the vanity. He was just a normal man—who’d looked too long at her and made her uneasy. A shadow passed in front of the windows.

      Beth flung herself to the side and then laughed. She stepped straight into view and saw Eli waiting for Lucy who’d moved delicately to the edge of the taller grass.

      With a wave at her son who merely set his shoulders, she yanked her blinds and then shucked off her running clothes. She dumped the sweats and tank into the laundry hamper and took a quick shower.

      Afterward, she dried, ran a comb through her hair and grabbed her full hamper. In the hall, she walked to the landing and leaned over the stairs. “Are you back, Eli?”

      “Yeah.” His voice came from behind her. He’d returned to his room—and no doubt to his video games. He was on his spring break. Maybe he deserved time off from chores.

      Beth set down her hamper and went to his room. Sweat curled the dirty blond hair that she and Van also shared. The room smelled of boy and dog. Eli barely glanced up.

      “Do you have any clothes to wash?”

      “In the closet, Mom.”

      “You could get them for me.”

      “I’m in the middle of a game. Do you want me to lose?”

      “Sounds like a possible tragedy so I’ll say no.” She held her breath as the closet assaulted her with even earthier smells. “We have to talk about your showering, son.” She ducked as a shirt and a coat fell off hangers. They’d been hung so precariously, the sound of her voice had rattled them loose. “And maybe you could tidy up in here before Mrs. Carleton stumbles in and quits on your uncle.”

      “Hey, Mom, I’m not perfect.”

      She hardly recognized the mature, strangely guilty voice. “Something wrong?”

      “You’re bugging me. I’m busy.”

      She scooped his laundry out of the hamper and then snatched up any clothing near it on the floor. “I’m not bugging you more than usual. What else is up?”

      “I’m old enough to decide when to take showers and clean my room.”

      Maybe he was, but why would that make him look lost instead of arrogant? Where was her son inside those empty eyes? “I wish you’d tell me.”

      “It’s you, Mom, always on my back.” He started playing again. If only someone would make truth serum available to mothers. Breach a few civil rights and find out everything you need to know to keep a child safe.

      Beth added Eli’s things to hers and then maneuvered the whole mess down the back stairs. The laundry room was also part of Mrs. Carleton’s empire, but Beth disliked letting the other woman wait on her and Eli.

      She turned on the water in the washer and flipped the hamper’s contents onto the Formica folding table. Whites. Colors. Cold. Hot. Impossible. The latter pile would include Eli’s lucky skateboarding socks.

      “Beth?”

      Uttering a brief, humiliating scream, she landed safely back on the floor. “Van—do you have to sneak up on me?”

      Her brother stood in the doorway, a half-eaten sandwich dangling from his left hand, one of those magazines that loved to cover Aidan Nikolas in his right.

      “Isn’t it late to start laundry?” he asked.

      “Not when I have to work on the lodge tomorrow.” She’d put her pennies together to have the charred remains knocked down. Removing it to clear the lot for new construction seemed sure to take her the next year. She pretended to be vitally interested in the clothing so she didn’t have to look at him. Should she tell him what Jonathan Barr had said? She was hardly in the position to offer help and he must not want her to know or