“Not this time, Melanie.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Um…what?”

“A one-night stand isn’t going to be enough for me. Not with you. If you ever want more, you know where I live.” Then the cocky bastard walked out on her.


ON MONDAY, Ben picked Emily up from school. He liked to do that when he didn’t have to get Rachel to a doctor’s appointment or if he wasn’t busy taking pictures or writing. He liked picking her up in person, if only to spend an extra twenty minutes a day with her. In the car with him was the wriggling Patches pacing the passenger seat, waiting hopefully for the center of her universe to join them.

The middle school sat on a relatively quiet street of South Village, and like so many others it was a historical building. It had been one of the first schools built here in the late 1800s, though it’d been redone three times due to fires. Now a brick building with white trim, mock verandas and vines crawling up the sides, it seemed like a place out of time. Ben might have sat there in 1890 in his horse and buggy waiting for his daughter.

But then the bell rang, and kids-all pierced and dyed, wearing hip-huggers, bell-bottoms and leather, carrying laptops and cell phones-emerged from the building in droves. He had to laugh at himself, as his daughter was right in the middle of them, looking decidedly twenty-first century.

She walked out alone, but halfway down the path, someone called out to her.

Ben tensed when he saw it was a boy about her age. He wore jeans and a plain T-shirt-nothing tattooed, torn or slashed. A normal kid. He said something to Emily, to which he got a shrug as a response. After a few more moments of trying, he gave up.

Emily kept walking.

The boy watched her go with an expression on his face Ben knew all too well. Rejection. Not knowing a thing about the kid, Ben’s empathies were firmly in his court.

Emily, oblivious to the heartbreak behind her, looked up and saw Patches waiting for her. With a squeal, she tossed her backpack into the car and followed it in, grabbing the puppy and hugging her close. A love fest ensued, with lots of girl smiles and puppy kisses.

“Hey, sweetness.” Ben knew better than to lean in for his own kiss. Public displays of affection were equivalent to the torture rack for twelve-going-on-thirty-year-olds. “Don’t look now, but he’s still looking.”

She rubbed noses with the puppy. “Who?”

“The boy you were talking to.”

Horror crossed her face. “You were watching me?”

“No, I was waiting for you.”

Given her expression, she didn’t see the difference. “Dad, just drive away. Quick!”

But he couldn’t drive away. The street had come to a standstill, thanks to an accident in the intersection one hundred yards ahead. “We’re not going anywhere.” He turned off the engine. Since they were still at the curb, he pocketed his keys and got out of the car.

“Dad!”

Walking around, he opened her door. “Want to show me your classroom?”

“No! I can’t!”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t walk around with you at my school!”

“Why not? Hey, let’s take some pictures. You’ve been wanting to learn how to use my camera, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, now’s a perfect time. We have a captive audience.” He clipped a leash on Patches. Grabbing his camera, he tugged his daughter free of the car and handed her the leash.

On the grass around the front of school sat hundreds of kids, waiting for their rides, socializing, reading, talking, with a few even studying. A perfect place for a man fascinated by people and the way they looked through his lens.

“Dad!”

He’d started walking and grinned-wisely with his back to his daughter-when he heard her and the puppy scramble to keep up with him.

There were a group of cheerleaders on the grass practicing. On the steps sat four guys disagreeing about some game they’d seen that the night before on television. Kids of every size and color, all doing their own thing, walked the path. Feeling lighthearted for no reason other than he had his daughter with him, Ben started snapping shots, explaining to Emily why he focused on certain things as he went. They’d been at it ten minutes when a man in a suit stood at the double doors to the school, squinting at him.

“Excuse me,” the man called. “What are you doing?”

“Taking pictures.” Ben hoisted the camera.

The man squinted some more in disapproval that wasn’t anything new for Ben, but then suddenly he blinked. “Ben? Ben Asher?”

While Ben just looked at him, wondering who the hell knew him and why, the man grinned and thrust out his hand. “Ritchie Atchison.”

“Ritchie.” High school. Skinny runt with an even lower profile than Ben had had.

“Yep.” Ritchie, balding and wearing reading glasses, laughed. “It’s me. I’m principal of this joint. What do you think of that?”

“That you moved up from The Tracks.”

Ritchie laughed again and slapped him on the back. “You know it. Now I’m torturing the kids of the kids who tortured me.” He sighed in bliss. “Nothing better than that. So…I’ve enjoyed your articles and pictures over the years. You hit it big. What are you doing taking pictures here?”

“I’m Emily’s father.” He put his hand on Emily’s shoulder, wanting to grin when he felt her tense. Oh, yeah, he’d definitely turned into a dad, one who was talking to the enemy. “Traffic isn’t moving so I thought she could show me around.”

Ritchie nodded to his camera. “Maybe you’ll share some of those with our yearbook committee. For old times’ sake.”

Ben didn’t do anything for old times’ sake, but he did love taking pictures, and the kids lounging around spitting attitude and spunk drew him. He glanced at Emily, who was saying don’t-you-dare with her eyes. He grinned.

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Love to,” he said in tune to her loud sigh, which he ignored. “Here, hold this, sweetness,” and handed her his light meter.

Over the next hour she became his apprentice assistant. She started out silent, resentment pouring off her in palpable waves, but he kept asking her to hand him something, or her opinion on which shot to get, so she had no choice but to get involved.

“What do you think about them, Em? Should we grab the pic?” He pointed to a couple sitting side by side, nose to nose, lips to lips. Had he ever been that love-struck?

Oh, yeah, he had.

“They were homecoming queen and king,” she said. “He helped me reach a book in the library once.”

“So, let’s give them a shot at fame and fortune.” He took the picture to Emily’s smile.

God, he loved her smile. Wished she’d always smile.

Startled at the click of the camera, the couple looked up. He waved. When they waved back, Emily groaned. “Dad-”

“Look,” he said. A group of basketball players in jerseys sat on the brick planter, huddled over what looked like a play book. He moved closer, tugging Emily with him. She still held Patches, who let out one “hello” bark.

“I’m taking people shots for the yearbook today,” Ben told them, and lifted his camera. “Picture?”

They tossed their arms around each other and yelled “Cheese,” hamming while he snapped a handful of shots.

“Uh, excuse me?”

He and Emily both turned and faced a tall, gangly kid who nodded toward a group sitting on the grass. “Chess Club. Can you get us, too?”

Ben looked at Emily. “What do you think?”

She bit her lip and looked over at the group, where the boy who’d tried talking to her earlier sat. He looked up at her. Smiled.

Emily went beet red. “Your call.”

“Nope. It’s an assistant call.”

The gangly kid looked at Emily with new respect. “Emily? Please?”

She hadn’t taken her eyes off the boy. “Okay,” she whispered.

“So…” Ben leaned in. “What’s his name?”

“Who?”

He laughed. “You know who.”

“Oh. He’s Van.”

“Should we get him in the picture?”

“I don’t care.”

“Em. Should we get him in a picture?”

“Yeah.” Then she giggled. Giggled. His heart lit at the sound.

By the end of the next hour, Ben had used up eight rolls of film, the kids were in hog heaven, and Emily had been transformed into Lady Popular and looking at Ben with hero worship. He loved that she’d come out of her shell a bit, which had been his goal. He loved that he’d brought joy to a few kids with nothing more than his camera.

But the hero thing… He was no hero and never would be. He brooded over that on the drive back. “Em…” He turned down their street and by some miracle got a spot out front of the house. He stared up at the red brick and felt the noose tighten around his neck. “Your mom is getting better every day.”

“Yeah.”

“Soon she’ll be without the cane entirely.”

“Her hair is still short.”

“That’s not exactly a handicap, Em.”

She turned to him, a surprising resentment in every line of her body. “You want to go.”

Beneath the resentment was hurt; he’d be an idiot not to see it. Damn it. How was it he could be nearly thirty-one years old and still be such an idiot? “I don’t live here, sweetness. You know that.”

“I hate her!”

Ben blinked. The intricate workings of a twelve-year-old mind had completely escaped him. “What? You hate who?”

“Mom! She’s making you want to leave! I hate her!” She grabbed Patches and slammed out of the car, running up the walk.

God, how had he managed to screw this up? Ben ran after her and the puppy. “Em, wait.” Of course she didn’t, and by the time he caught up with her, she’d run up the circular staircase, and was heading straight for Rachel’s studio. “Hold on a sec,” he said, catching her shoulders. “Hold on. We need to talk about this.”