His mother had been physically in the house, but emotionally just as distant. Now that Kyle was an adult, he couldn't blame her for her bitterness. Being married to Earl Haynes had to have been a living death. Her husband hadn't believed in fidelity, or seen the wisdom in being discreet. He'd flaunted his affairs, excusing them by pointing out he always woke up in his own bed. Kyle grimaced. Yeah, like the old man had been a saint.

His mother had finally left the summer he, Kyle, had turned fifteen. He wondered if she'd waited until he was old enough to be on his own, or if her patience and sanity had finally cracked. Whatever the reason, she'd disappeared. There hadn't even been a note.

For Kyle, life had gotten worse. Jordan had been his only brother still at home, but he'd been a senior and had arranged his schedule to be gone a lot. Craig and Travis already had their lives. He couldn't count on them. It was just him and the old man. He'd had three stepmothers in three years, each one younger than the previous one. The last one had walked into his bedroom one evening and hit on him. He'd been too shocked to do anything but duck out the window and spend the night in the tree house. He'd moved in with a friend for the rest of the summer, then had left for college in the fall.

He opened his eyes and stared at his living room. He'd tried to be different from his father. They all had. No one wanted to mess things up that badly. For Kyle, that meant leaving before getting left. He wondered if that was just another description of running away.

A hand-drawn picture pinned to the wall fluttered in the breeze from the open window. Nichole had made it for him. It showed a group of butterflies in a field of flowers. At least he thought they were butterflies. They could have been birds. One of Lindsay's books sat on the coffee table next to a baseball puzzle he'd been working on with Blake. In a few short weeks, Sandy's children had become a part of his days. He wanted to be a father, so he'd tried to be a father to them. It was temporary, perhaps even foolish. Now the thought of being without them made his bones ache.

He knew they would miss him, too. So where did that leave him? Was this a blessing in disguise? If they broke things off now, if he stepped out of their lives, they would recover quickly and get on with things. If he continued to be there for them, they would start to depend upon him. Was he willing to risk that? For the first time, Kyle began to see there was more at stake here than himself. Three other lives would be affected by his actions. Walking away from a woman was one thing, walking away from kids was something much worse.

Up until today, he'd been playing a game. Sandy was right. With her, he'd been toying with the past, teasing them both with sparks they felt when they were together. He didn't want to hurt her or the kids. He didn't want to get hurt himself. If it was just a game to him, he needed to walk away now. Before it got ugly.

Simple enough, he told himself. He would walk. Because it was just a game, right? Sure he liked her. How could he not? She would do anything to protect those she cared about. She had a giving heart. He'd seen it years before when his mother had walked out and Sandy had come by to pick up the pieces. She wasn't afraid of doing the right thing, even if it made her unpopular.

Okay, he could handle liking and respecting her. So what? His feelings weren't serious. He didn't want to risk it all and get involved. Because Sandy would leave. Everyone left eventually. The price of being wrong was too high. He didn't need her or the kids.

He finished the beer and picked up a book he'd been reading. But the silence filling the room made it impossible to concentrate. He missed the laughter. He missed them. It wasn't that they'd been gone so long, it was knowing he might not see them again. Or Sandy.

Since she'd come back, she was all he thought about. For a while, he'd thought it was an adult manifestation of his adolescent crush. But what if it was something more? What if she was the one and he let her get away? What if she wasn't the one and she left him broken and bleeding? He'd thought her marriage to Thomas had been perfect. According to her, it hadn't been. She'd made a mistake. What if he was making a worse one?

Sandy adjusted the sheets around her son's shoulders. There was a light blanket folded at the foot of the bed. It was warm during the day, but always cooled off at night. She glanced at the open window, then back at Blake.

"Are you going to be all right?" she asked.

"Mo-om," he said. "I told you, it doesn't even hurt."

Her gaze moved to the bruise next to his mouth. It was about the diameter of a baseball. The swelling had gone down some, but it still looked ugly. By morning, the red would darken to purple.

"I saw you wincing at dinner."

"The soup was too hot."

"Sure it was." She brushed his hair off his forehead. The rest of the family had had tacos for dinner, but she'd fixed something easier for Blake to eat.

She still couldn't believe her son had gotten in a fight. Just thinking about it made her furious. The problem was, she didn't know if she was angry with Kyle or herself. She wanted to blame him for not taking better care of Blake, but ultimately the responsibility was hers. When she was around him, she didn't think-she just reacted.

"Don't be mad," Blake said.

She forced herself to smile at him. "I'm not."

"Uh-huh. Your eyes are getting all scrunchy. You're still mad at Kyle, aren't you?"

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "That's between us adults."

"Lindsay said we won't get to see him anymore. Is that true?" He sounded lost at the thought.

During the day, when her children were moving around, she thought of them as growing, determined people. But at night, in their beds, they seemed smaller and defenseless. Easily hurt by the pitfalls of life.

"It's my fault," she said, and touched his uninjured cheek. "I shouldn't have let you kids get so involved with Kyle so quickly. I haven't decided yet, but maybe it would be for the best if we didn't-"

"No!" He raised himself up onto his elbows. "No, Mom. Don't say we can't see him. The fight was my fault. Really. Gary threw a ball at Robby on purpose. When Robby started to stand up to Gary, I said he'd done it, too. So after he hit Robby, he started coming after me." He sagged back to the bed. "Kyle said if I'd tried to defend myself, Gary wouldn't have hit me. He said he's a bully and bullies only go after people who don't know how to defend themselves."

Sandy blinked in confusion. "Who are Gary and Robby, and what does this have to do with your getting hit?"

Blake took a deep breath. "I went over to Robby's to play baseball with the guys…"

Her son gave her a more detailed explanation of what had happened. She listened carefully. When he got to the part about defending Robby against the neighborhood bully, she took his hand and squeezed it. "That was very brave of you," she said.

Blake squirmed. "I didn't know he was gonna hit me."

"Still, standing up for someone you just met isn't something most boys would do. I'm glad you did the right thing. What happened next?"

"Gary and his friends chased me out of the yard and onto that dirt road. Gary said he was gonna beat me up. I didn't know what to do, but I didn't want to run. Then Kyle came through the bushes and yelled at Gary to let me alone." He grimaced. "When I heard Kyle, I looked at him. That's when Gary punched me. Kyle chased 'em off. He said the best way to deal with a bully is to know how to defend myself. He started to show me how." The unbruised side of his mouth turned down. "That's when you came in and got real upset."

"I see." Sandy rose and walked to the window. She closed it halfway, then stared out at the night. From what Blake told her, Kyle had done what he could to stop the fight. Kyle had tried to tell her that, but she had been too busy assigning blame. Why? she wondered. Why did she always want him to be the bad guy?

"Mom, can I play with Robby again?"

She turned to look at her son. He hadn't had a friend in a long time. "Sure, honey. You can go over there, or have him come here. You two will probably want to avoid Gary, though."

"Yeah. I don't like him."

She needed to talk with Gary's parents. Then she realized she didn't know the boy's last name. She would have to ask Kyle. If he was still speaking to her.

"Are you mad at Kyle?" Blake asked.

"Not in the way you think. Grown-ups have different kinds of mad."

"But we didn't go to his house for the barbecue."

No surprise there. She'd told Kyle she wanted him to stay away from her. She flinched. She'd overreacted. She saw that now. Once again she'd reacted to the fear of not being in control. "You wouldn't have been able to eat anything," she said.

"I know, but I could have, you know, been there." Blake looked at her. "I like Kyle, Mom. He's gonna teach me how to defend myself so Gary can't hurt me again."

Sandy wasn't sure how she felt about that, but she didn't want to get into it tonight. "We'll talk in the morning. Right now, why don't you get some sleep?"

"Okay." He turned onto his side.

She moved next to the bed, then bent down and kissed his cheek, being careful to stay away from the bruise. Then she turned off the light and left the room. Nichole was already in bed, but Lindsay was waiting downstairs. Sandy wasn't ready to face her oldest yet.

She paused by the top of the stairs and tried to remember everything she'd said to Kyle. It was all a blur. She remembered parking the car and starting to get out. Lindsay had come running outside and told her Blake had been in a fight and was bleeding. Her next clear memory was standing in Kyle's kitchen and telling him she wanted him out of her life. He'd tried to explain, but she hadn't let him. It was so much easier to make everything his fault. If it wasn't, she would have to look to herself. She would have to question why she did things. She couldn't afford to let her carefully constructed world crumble. It was all she had.