Father in Training

but he had to. Was he irresponsible and immature?

'Hell, no,' he said aloud, then wondered if he was just whistling in the dark.

Sandy was right about one thing. He didn't have a record of long-term relationships. He'd never been willing to risk committing before. In the back of his mind had been the fear that the woman he gave his heart to would walk out the door. People he cared about left. It was a fact of life.

But he wasn't a charming flirt who got by on his looks. At least he tried not to be. As a teenager, it had been convenient to take the easy way out. Most things in life had come to him without a lot of work. But that didn't mean he was irresponsible. He usually didn't care about the things that came easily. What he remembered the most was what he'd had to work for. Or what he'd never gotten. Like Sandy. Sixteen years ago, she'd trampled all over his male pride, and here she was, doing it again.

He walked into the living room and sat in the large chair in front of the fireplace. The leather was cool against his bare back. He closed his eyes. He knew for a fact he didn't act like a kid. He had a responsible job. He'd worked hard at the police academy, graduating third in a class of a hundred. He'd taken a job in San Francisco for a year, and he'd been the top rookie. But he'd missed life in Glenwood, and when Travis had offered him a job in the county sheriff's department, he'd been glad to come home. He knew deep inside that he could have made it in San Francisco, or in any other big city, if he'd wanted to.

He shifted on the chair and tried to look at it from Sandy's point of view. She'd been gone less than an hour and had come home to a bleeding kid. That would be enough to send anyone into a tailspin. She'd overreacted. He was pretty sure she would see that she'd been unreasonable and apologize. He'd been trying to help Blake by teaching him how to protect himself. Could a woman understand that? He smiled. He doubted Sandy would appreciate that particular question. Walking in on him teaching Blake to defend himself had only made it worse for her. In time, she would see that lesson was important to the boy.

He took another swallow of beer and settled the bottle on the floor. He was rationalizing because he didn't want to face the truth. Sandy could be right about everything. After all, he was a Haynes. Four generations of failed marriages and broken families were hard to argue with. So far, the only brother that was making his relationship work was Travis. He wondered how he'd gotten so lucky.

Kyle didn't know what a happy marriage looked like. His old man had been gone more than he'd been home. His father's idea of good parenting was to smack the boys up the side of the head every now and then, whether or not they needed it. He always said, if they hadn't gotten into trouble, they would. To consider it punishment in advance.

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