"I should have told you about Nathan years ago, but don't punish him because you're mad at me." She followedclose behind him to the front porch. "He's been through so much. He lost his dad and now this."

Jack turned around so fast she almost ran into his chest. "He didn't lose his dad. Steven Monroe wasn't hisfather."

Daisy wisely didn't point out that Nathan thought of Steven as his dad and had loved him. "Nathan's beenthrough a lot in the past few years. He needs a little peace. Some calm in his life." She didn't add that sheneeded it too. "I'll talk to him. See what he wants to do, and I'll call you."

"I'm not going to wait around for you to call me, Daisy Lee." He moved down the steps toward his Mustangparked at the curb. "After I talk to Nathan, I'll tell you how it's going to be," he said as he walked away, themorning sun shining down on his straw hat and his wide shoulders.

"Wait." She ran down the steps after him. "You can't talk to him alone. I'm his mother. He doesn't know you."

He walked around the front of the car then stuck his key in the driver's side door. "Whose fault is that?"

She looked at him from across the top of the car. "I should be there."

He looked back at her and laughed. "Like I should have been there for the past fifteen years?"

She grabbed the door handle to jump in his car but the door was locked. Then she remembered Pippen andrealized she couldn't go even if she forced her way into his car. "Nathan is my son. You can't exclude me."

"Get used to it."

"We can work this out. I know we can." She didn't know anything of the sort, but she was determined to keepthings from getting too ugly. "I should have told you. I know that, and except for handing over my son, I'll tryand make it up to you."

"How? On the trunk of a car?" He unlocked the Mustang's door. "Not interested."

So much for keeping things from getting too ugly.

Nathan sat with his back against the basketball pole at Lovett High. The backboard and hoop cast an oblongshadow on the court to the free-throw line.

He gazed across the football field to the tennis courts. He didn't like it here. He didn't know what he expectedTexas to look like, maybe like Montana. He and his dad had been to Montana once, but Texas wasn't like that.

Texas was flat. And hot. And brown.

Texas was nothing at all like Seattle.

He pushed with his feet and slid up the pole until he stood. He adjusted the chain around his neck and glanced atthe high school behind him. "High school," he scoffed. It wasn't even as big as the grade school he'd gone too.

They probably all wore cowboy boots and rode horses to school. Probably all listened to crappy country andwestern music and chewed tobacco. Probably nobody rode skateboards or listened to Korn or Weezer or playedSniper Fantasy for XBOX.

Nathan pulled up his pants and hardly noticed when they slipped back down his hips. Problems bigger than hisbaggy pants occupied his thoughts. He'd dropped his skateboard at Jack Parrish's garage, and then he'd run awaylike a big scared baby.

He really wished he hadn't done that, but the way Jack had grabbed his arm had freaked him out. And the wayhe'd looked and swore at him, too. One second they'd all been laughing, and in the next, Jack had grabbed himand stared at him so intensely, he'd about capped his pants. Nathan didn't know if Jack had figured it out in thatmoment, but by the look on his face, he thought maybe he had. Then before Nathan had even realized what hewas doing, he ran away like a little kid.

Jack probably thought he was a dork.

With a shrug of his shoulders he told himself he didn't care. His dad had told him lots of stories about Jack. Hemade him sound real cool, like someone Nathan would really like. But he didn't think he liked Jack. He likedBilly, though. Billy watched "Monster Garage." Billy was cool.

He picked up a rock and threw it hard against the backboard. It made a satisfying thwack, rebounded and almosthit him in the head. Obviously, his mom hadn't told Jack yet. Nathan had just assumed that she'd told himalready or he never would have walked into that garage today. After all, that's why she was here. To tell Jackabout him. At least, that's why she'd said she was coming here.

He moved back across the field toward the opening in the chain link fence. He was pretty mad at his mom, andfeeling really stupid. Plus, he had to figure out a way to get his board back. Maybe he'd just let Jack keep itbecause he really didn't want to walk back into the garage and ask for it back. Not now.

The grass beneath his black skater shoes squished and he figured the sprinklers had been on that morning.

Water droplets collected on the leather toes of his shoes and he watched them roll off. His mom should be backfrom the hospital by now. He had to tell her where he'd been. She'd probably get mad at him, but he didn't reallycare. The more he thought about it, the madder he got at her. If his mother had told Jack, or at least told Nathanthat she hadn't, he wouldn't have gone to the garage and made such a dick weed out of himself.

When he looked up, he noticed a girl walking toward him a few feet away on the other side of the fence.

Through the links he could see that she had shiny dark hair and smooth tan skin like she spent time sunbathing.

They met at the opening at the same time, and he stepped aside to let her go through first. Instead, she stoppedand stared at him.

"You're not from around here. I know most everyone, but I've never seen you," she said with a definite Texastwang, drawing out her words. She had big brown eyes, and beneath one arm she held poster board andconstruction paper.

"I live in Washington," he told her.

"Washington, D.C.?" She said it like his mother and grandmother did. Like there was an r in the word "wash."

She wore a blue T-shirt with the words Ambercrombie and Fitch in silver glittery letters. She was a prep, and hedidn't like preppie girls. Girls who shopped at Ambercrombie and Fitch and The Gap. Goodie-two-shoe girls.

"No. State."

"Are you here visitin' someone?"

No, he had no use for preppie girls... but she had the kind of lips that made him think of kissing. Which he'dbeen thinking about a lot lately. "Yeah, my grandma, Louella Brooks, and my aunt Lily." He'd kissed one girl inthe sixth grade, but he didn't think that counted.

A frown pulled at her brows. "Lily Darlington?"

"Yep."

"Ronnie's cousin Bull is married to my aunt Jessica." She laughed. "We're practically related."

He doubted that made them related at all. And what the heck kind of name was Bull? "What's your name?"

"Brandy Jo. What's yours?"

Despite being a prep and having a drawl, Brandy Jo was hot. The kind of hot that made his stomach feel fuzzyand his chest feel heavy and made him think about how complicated girls were. And it was at these times, whenhe was thinking about girls, that he missed his dad the most "Nathan," he answered. A guy just couldn't ask hismother about certain stuff.

She studied him a moment and her gaze lowered to his lip. "Did that hurt?"

He didn't have to ask her what she was talking about. "No," he answered and hoped his voice didn't crack. Hehated when that happened. "I'm getting a tattoo next."

Her big brown eyes rounded and he could tell she was impressed. "Your parents will let you?"

No. He'd have to get it without his mother knowing somehow. A few months ago they'd made a deal, he couldkeep his lip ring if he promised to never get a tattoo as long as he lived. He'd promised, but he figured he onlyhad to keep his word until he was eighteen and old enough to get one himself. Tattoos were cool. "Sure."

"Where?"

He pointed to his shoulder. "Right there. I don't know what I want yet, but when I do, I'm definitely getting atat."

"If I could get one, I think I'd get a little red heart on my hip."

Which Nathan thought was pretty lame and really girly. "That'd be cool." He dropped his gaze to the posterboards beneath her arm. "What are you doing with that stuff?"

"I'm gonna teach city-rec art classes to little kids this summer. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and I'll get paid five-seventy-five an hour."

Teaching art to little kids didn't sound like a lot of fun to Nathan, but getting paid five-seventy-five an hour wassweet. He quickly did the math in his head and figured that if a kid worked five hours a day, five days a week,he could make around five hundred and seventy dollars in one month. He could buy a lot of CDs or new boardtrucks with that kind of money.

A black Mustang pulled alongside the curb on the other side of the fence, and Nathan watched Jack Parrish getout. He pushed his cowboy hat up his forehead and gazed at Nathan over the top of the car. "You forgot yourboard at the garage."

Jack didn't look so scary this time, but the fuzzy feeling in Nathan's stomach got worse. Like when he rode theZipper too many times at the Puyallup fair. "Yeah."

Brandy Jo looked from Nathan to Jack then back again. "See ya around."

Nathan glanced at her. "Okay, see ya." As she walked away, he returned his attention to the man both his momand dad said was his biological father. As far as Nathan could see, he didn't look much like Jack.

"I took your skateboard to your grandmother's."

Nathan stepped through the opening in the fence and stood next to the passenger door. If the feeling didn't goaway, he was afraid he'd get sick. And he really didn't want to do that. "Was my mom home?"

"Yes. She and I talked." He rested a forearm on the top of the car "She said you've always known that I'm yourfather."

"Yeah." He swallowed past the lump forming in his throat. He didn't know why he felt so weird. It wasn't likehe cared what Jack thought. He'd gone to the garage earlier out of mild curiosity. That was it. He didn't carewhat anyone thought. "I've known."