I don't know how long I'd been daydreaming when Hendrix blew his whistle and shouted at the boys. The tone he used grated on my nerves, but the boys didn't seem to think anything of it. While Hendrix chewed out his star forward, I chewed my thumbnail (much easier than filing) and argued with myself about just how much to b.u.t.t heads with b.u.t.thead my first day on the job.

My personal threshold for ignorance is low, but all I had to do was look at Brody as he raced from one end of the court to the other, and I remembered that I wasn't there for myself. I was there for the boys. So unless b.u.t.thead stepped over the line, I'd do what he asked and try not to embarra.s.s my nephews.

I even managed to keep that promise for about ten minutes. That's when the b.u.t.thead in question blew another shrill whistle and shouted at the boys to stop what they were doing. All ten stopped running abruptly and turned to face him, faces red, chests heaving from exertion, eyes bright with expectation, as if they thought he held the keys to fame and fortune in the NBA.

"All right," Hendrix shouted. "Line up at the free throw line-the A team on the north end, B team on the south." He strode onto the court in the midst of them, his back rigid, his expression haughty. Brody immediately moved toward the north basket, but Caleb hesitated.

He stood in the middle of the court, his spindly legs sticking out the bottom of his red and white uniform shorts and disappearing again inside shoes that looked twice as big as he was. His pale hair lay plastered against his head, and his nostrils flared as he struggled to catch his breath. Something strong and maternal flared inside me, and I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to sweep him off the court and fill him full of electrolytes.

But I was their aunt, not their mother. If Caleb and Brody had wanted someone maternal around, Elizabeth would be sitting in my place. That convinced me all over again to keep my mouth shut. And I would have, if Coach Hendrix hadn't suddenly focused on Caleb. "What are you doing, Shaw?"

Caleb sucked in a breath and tried to speak. "I-I'm-"

I gripped a towel in both hands, hoping that would keep my backside firmly glued to the bench.

"You're supposed to be under your team's basket. What are you doing standing there?"

"I-I can't-"

"He can't breathe, you moron." I tossed the towel onto the bench and walked onto the court. "Can't you see that these boys all need a five-minute break, or don't you care?"

Blood rushed to Coach Hendrix's face, and he peered at me as if I'd crawled out from under a rock. "You're out of place, Shaw."

"I don't think so." I moved to Caleb and put my arm around his shoulders. Half a heartbeat later, I realized that might embarra.s.s him, and I pulled it away again. "I'm just asking you to give them five minutes, not forever."

"And I'll give them five minutes when they need it." His beady eyes bored into Caleb, who already looked less red. "You okay, kid?"

Caleb nodded eagerly. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded again without looking at me. "I'm fine. Sheesh. I'm not a baby."

Well, terrific. I'd been on the job barely more than an hour, and already I'd stuck my foot in it. Caleb hadn't wanted or needed rescuing, and I'd embarra.s.sed him thoroughly in front of his friends. "No. Of course you're not," I said. "I know that. I wasn't only worried about you."

Caleb lifted one shoulder and took his place beside his teammates. "Whatever. I'm okay. You can sit down again."

Right.

Under the weight of Coach Hendrix's disapproving glare, Caleb's resentful one, and Brody's blank-eyed stare that probably meant he was pretending he didn't know me, I returned to the bench and asked myself again what I was doing there.

Coach Hendrix blew his whistle, and the boys began another drill. I counted bottles of sports drink, straightened the stack of towels, and made a list of people I wanted to thank for this experience, starting with Karen.

After what felt like hours, practice was finally over, and Coach b.u.t.thead traded places with me. While I returned b.a.l.l.s to the wheeled carts and gathered stacks of sweaty used towels, Hendrix sat on the bench and leafed idly through a magazine.

By the time Brody and Caleb emerged from the locker room, I'd convinced myself that I'd made a huge mistake. There was no way I could sit on that bench day after day eating whatever Hendrix dished out for me. No way I could bite my tongue when I thought he'd pushed the boys too far. No way I could suffer the indignity I instinctively knew would be present whenever Kerry Hendrix and I were in the same room.

A mens' pickup team had reserved the court for the time slot directly after ours, and an odd a.s.sortment of players were taking warm-up shots as the boys and I walked through the gym to the doors leading to the back parking lot. Practice had lasted so long, the sun had already dropped behind the western mountains by the time we stepped outside.

All the way across the shadowy parking lot, I tried to figure out the best way to break the news of my quitting to my nephews. I unlocked the car doors and slid behind the wheel. Brody claimed shotgun, which left Caleb in the backseat by himself. I put the key into the ignition but waited for both boys to buckle themselves in before I started the car.

They were both depressingly silent. Caleb wouldn't even look at me, and Brody kept sliding glances in my direction whenever he thought I wasn't looking. Look on the bright side, I told myself. After what had just happened, maybe they'd be glad to find out I was bailing out.

"Listen, you guys," I said as I started the car and put it into gear, "I've been thinking."

Caleb's little head shot up, and his worried eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "You're not gonna quit, are you?"

"No, you dork, she's not gonna quit." Brody's eyes locked on mine. "Are you?"

What could I say to that? I knew I should say yes, but I couldn't form the word. I shifted in my seat so I could see Caleb better. "I thought I embarra.s.sed you in there. Why do you want me to stick around?"

He shrugged, just the almost imperceptible lift of one little shoulder, and his gaze drifted to his knees. "You did, kinda, but only because Coach thinks I'm a sissy."

My heart shattered at the look on his face. "He what?"

"He thinks Caleb's a sissy," Brody said slowly, as if he was talking to an old woman.

I shifted my gaze to him. "How do you know that's what he thinks?"

"Because he says so. He says it all the time."

"He says Caleb's a sissy? In front of the other boys?"

Brody nodded, but he seemed unconcerned. "Yeah. Why?"

"Because Coach Hendrix shouldn't say things like that, especially not in front of the other kids." I struggled to keep my voice from cracking with anger. "It's not right."

"How else is he going to get Caleb to toughen up? Coach says he's the worst player on the whole team."

"Caleb's almost three years younger than you and some of the other boys. He can't be expected to play at the same level."

Brody shrugged and glanced into the backseat at his brother. "I was better than him when I was his age. He's gotta focus, you know?"

I couldn't remember when I'd been so angry, but I reminded myself that Brody was just a kid. He was only parroting things he'd heard. If I was going to get angry with anyone, it would be the jerk whose truck was parked three rows over, and I wasn't going to get angry with him tonight. The boys had already suffered enough because of adults who couldn't shut up around them.

Pasting on a smile that I hoped would encourage poor Caleb, I said, "Look, kiddo, you're doing just fine. And you're not a sissy. You're a nine-year-old boy." I had a few other things to say, too, but just then I saw movement near Coach Hendrix's truck, and for the third time in the s.p.a.ce of as many hours, I completely changed my mind.

Maybe I should say something to him, I told myself. Just a word or two. Nothing that would upset the boys, though. Just a quiet word of warning . . .

I split a glance between my nephews and shut off the car. "Stay here," I said. "I'll be right back." Outside, I bent to make eye contact once more. "I mean it. Stay here."

Brody nodded, Caleb offered up a soft promise, and I was off across the parking lot as quickly as I could walk. "Coach Hendrix? Can I talk to you for a second?"

A head appeared above the truck bed, but it wasn't high enough off the ground to be Kerry Hendrix's. Maybe one of the boys had carried the equipment out after practice. "Sorry. I thought you were the coach. Do you know where he is? I need to talk to him for a minute."

Something heavy clattered to the ground beside the truck, and the shadowy figure began to run.

"Hey!" I shouted, taking off after him. "Wait a second!"

About twenty feet from the truck, the figure veered sharply to the right, and I saw him clearly for the first time. He ran awkwardly, dragging one leg behind him, and the shock of recognition brought me to an abrupt halt. I shook off my surprise and started running again, but my hesitation had given the man a large lead.

Maybe I should have gone back for the car, but Brody and Caleb were in there, and I didn't want to put them in danger. Kicking myself into high gear, I ran flat out. After only a few yards, my lungs burned, and my legs felt like rubber. While I was still at least forty yards away, the limping man jumped into a dark-colored SUV that had been idling at the curb, and the car shot away from the curb. I tried to get a look at the license plate, but I wasn't close enough. By the time I reached the street, the only thing left to see were their taillights.

Chapter 9.

"Aunt Abby!" Brody's voice cut through the wind and pulled my gaze away from the tail end of the car. Still fighting to catch my breath, I whipped around to see why Brody sounded so close. In spite of my warnings to stay where he was, he'd left the Jetta and Caleb. He stood about thirty feet behind me, looking like a kid who'd just seen Santa Claus.

A gust of cold November wind swept around me, and I shivered. The shock of seeing Brody standing there in the dark brought me back to earth in a rush. Brody and Caleb were my responsibility at the moment, and I'd just been hideously irresponsible by leaving them in the car alone. Sure, we were in Paradise, where the crime rate still hasn't risen to match the rest of the country, but still . . . bad things happened to good people every day.

Trying to look stern, I started across the pavement. "What are you doing out of the car? I thought I told you to stay put."

Brody wore only a light T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Even from a distance, I could see his bottom lip quivering from the cold, and his breath formed wispy clouds above his head. "That was the guy, wasn't it?"

His question startled the stern right out of me. "What guy?"

He craned to see around me. "The guy. The one with the limp. That was him, right?"

Praying that he wouldn't catch cold and earn me a black mark in his mother's book, I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the car. "What do you know about the guy with the limp?"

"I heard you telling Mom and Dad about him." He twisted away from me so he could see the road. "That's the guy who got shot, right?"

"n.o.body got shot," I said firmly. By now, that was obvious even to me.

"Uh-huh. Remember? Last night when you came back to get my dad."

Brody was obviously too excited to listen. I caught him by the shoulders and made him look at me. "n.o.body got shot," I said again.

"But you said he did."

"You shouldn't have been listening to our conversation," I said, sounding so much like my mother, I winced. "Did Caleb hear what we said last night?"

Brody nodded, and his chin quivered in the cold. "Yeah, but don't worry, he's okay. And I wasn't eavesdropping. You were in the kitchen, and that's right under our bedroom. We can hear anything anybody says through the heat vent."

My skin tingled, but I couldn't tell whether it was from irritation with myself or from the weather. I knew how those old farmhouses were built. I should have known the kids would hear us.

Still trying to look like someone Brody should pay attention to, I pointed toward the car and snarled, "Back. Right now. If you're not inside that car with your seat belt done up by the count of three, I'm quitting the team."

Brody stared up at me for half a second, judging my sincerity, then spun away and raced back to the car. I joined him there, checked to make sure Caleb really was all right, and started the car again.

I turned up the heat and shifted in my seat so I could look at both of them. "Do your mom and dad know that you heard us talking?"

Brody shook his head quickly. "Are you kidding? Dad would be all right, but Mom would have a fit."

"Well, then listen to me," I said, "and listen good. n.o.body got shot last night. Whoever it was, they were just pretending."

Caleb leaned forward as far as his seat belt would allow. "Pretending to get shot?"

"That's right. Pretending to get shot."

"He's getting away," Brody pointed out with a worried frown. "We should go after him before he can hide."

I looked him square in the eye, hoping to make some kind of contact with his excited little-boy brain. "We're not going after him."

"But he's getting away!"

"He's already gone," I said. "And even if he weren't, I'm not putting you two in danger just to chase some creep with a limp who was trying to steal my car."

"He wanted to steal your car?" Caleb asked.

Brody shot an exasperated look into the backseat. "They do it all the time, Caleb. Don't you ever watch TV?"

"I watch it all the time," Caleb protested. "But why would they want this car? It's old."

Brody sighed heavily and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you? For the parts."

He seemed so sure of himself, I didn't have the heart to tell him Caleb was probably right. The Jetta wouldn't be worth much, even stripped. Whatever the man with the limp wanted, it hadn't been my car.

"Was he trying to steal Coach's truck tonight?" Caleb asked.

I put the Jetta in gear and shook my head. "I have no idea what he was doing." But that didn't mean I couldn't take a look.

Detouring on my way across the parking lot, I pulled up next to b.u.t.thead's truck a few seconds later. He'd parked beneath a light, so it was easy to see the scratches in the paint as soon as we got close enough. I couldn't be absolutely certain the man with the limp had put them there, but it seemed like a pretty good bet that he had.

The only question was, why? It didn't make any sense.

"Ooooh, look at that," Caleb breathed from the backseat.

Brody's face puckered into a frown that made him look like his father. "Coach is gonna be p.i.s.s-" he caught himself, shot a guilty look at me, "-really ticked off when he sees that."

Trying to keep her sons from using language like my brother is just one of the lost causes my sister-in-law has undertaken. My mother tried for years to keep Wyatt from talking like Daddy, and she'd failed miserably. Knowing how the boys looked up to their dad, I thought Elizabeth would have better luck beating her head against the wall.

"Speaking of Coach," I said with a glance toward the recreation center's doors, "I wonder what he's doing inside for so long."

"He always stays late," Brody said. "I think he works out in the weight room or something."

That made me think about the clang of metal as the limping man ran away, so I backed the Jetta up a foot or two and scoured the pavement for something he might have dropped. After a few minutes I saw a long piece of metal with an odd hook at the end lying a few feet from the truck.

With a stern glance at the boys, I slipped out of the car and picked it up by the ends, being careful not to smudge any fingerprints that might be on it.

I propped one end against my leg and pushed the b.u.t.ton on the dash to open the hatch. When it popped up, I carried the metal piece to the back of the car and found a safe place for it. I slid behind the steering wheel and finally managed to get the Jetta all the way out of the parking lot-just as the door to the recreation center opened and Kerry Hendrix came outside.