Chapter 1

She sat on her suitcases at the Arrivals curb, elbows on her knees and chin on her fists, and looked ready to commit wholesale mayhem. I couldn't blame her. She'd arrived at the airport against her will forty-five minutes earlier. The overcast sky still threatened rain. Should I be thankful the rain hadn't materialized or should I wish that it had because it might have cooled her down? I decided to be thankful. I raised a hand above the convertible's windshield and waved.

My angry niece spotted me. The angry look changed to one of unrestricted warfare before she rose smoothly on long tanned legs that stretched from here back to Dallas. The khaki shorts and the camouflage-patterned sleeveless blouse that missed the waistband of the shorts by two inches helped emphasize the military nature of the look. While on a location photo shoot in Mexico for an advertising company last year I'd been attacked by both a rabid pit bull and a javelina. The two together looked more warm and loving than Cheryl at that moment.

She glared at me as I braked beside her and hit the buttons for the trunk lock and the door lock.

"Hi!" I said as cheerfully as possible under the circumstances.

I carefully noted the strength in those slender arms as she lifted one suitcase in each hand and threw them plus a make-up case and small purse into the back seat. Note to self: stay out of throwing range of heavy missiles while she's mad in case she's as accurate as her mother. She used one hand for support as she vaulted over the door and into the passenger seat, propelled by what I call "tween legs." They were in that between stage: last week girlish slender, next week womanly sculpted. I was lucky enough to catch sight of them in the brief transition stage.

"You're late," she growled in a voice that made the pit bull and javelina sound as if they were crooning love songs. Translation: a slow, agonizing death is too good for you. I checked her eyes. Nope. They were still brown, not flaming red. Not yet.

"I have a good excuse."

"Yeah," she sounded like she was clearing her throat. I thought her next move would be to spit at me, but I was lucky. "You've probably been making it up all the way here."

I opened the car door. "It's in the glove compartment."

"Where are you going?" Maybe her eyes weren't flaming yet, but her vocal cords had to be on fire to generate that much heat.

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "You didn't put the bags in the trunk, so it still needs closing and locking." I smiled and pointed. "Glove compartment?"

I closed the trunk and returned to the driver's seat.

She looked up from the summons. "Speeding? You're an hour late because of a speeding ticket?"

"Forty-five minutes late. No, that took just twenty minutes. They have a speed trap set up about twenty-five miles down the road. They're pulling lots of people over into a line and writing tickets. You have to wait until they eventually get to you. The rest of it was a wreck in front of me that temporarily blocked the highway and kept me from actually arriving early. And that's why I was speeding. I was trying to make up lost time."

She stuffed the summons back into the glove compartment and glared accusingly at me. "A wreck." Translation: you should have said a flying saucer had landed and blocked the road because that's more believable. "Why not? Maybe you'd better, like, let me drive."

I shrugged. "No problem. Got your learner's permit with you?"

She slumped in the seat and slammed her head backward into the headrest. "God, I hate you." Translation: "God, I hate you." Sometimes she says what she means

I put the car in gear, checked to the rear, and pulled away from the curb. "Now what? You can get a permit at fifteen in Texas. Didn't you know that?"

Her glare focused on the top of the windshield. "Not if your mother is Mandy Kuczynski."

"Oh." Silly me. I should have known that without asking.

"Yeah. 'Oh.'"

"Well, I can't get you a Colorado permit because I'm not your legal guardian, but there's no reason you can't start learning to drive while you're here. It's a big..."

She rolled her head around to fix her glare on me again. "Look, don't try to bribe me to be good. We both know why I'm here."

I grinned. "Oh, I doubt that."

She snorted. Translation: starving buzzards wouldn't eat your festering corpse because they have standards. So much derision in such a small sound was nothing less than amazing. "You're saying you don't know why I'm here? I'm supposed to believe that?"

"No. I'm saying that I doubt you know why you're here."

"Are you, like, out of your fucking mind?" She seemed to wait to see what effect the accusation and dirty word would have on me. She seemed surprised that I didn't react, then continued. "I'm here because Mom caught me making out with Allen Kirk and now I'm being punished by being sent someplace where all the boys will be more interested in you than me. It's her idea of tough love."

I grinned at her. "I was right. You don't know."

She couldn't decide whether to look surprised, disbelieving, or angry, so her face flickered between all three. "Okay, Uncle Smartass, why am I here?"

Again she seemed surprised because I didn't react. Instead, I calmly replied, "You're here because your mother is trying to punish both of us."

The overcast broke, and the sudden glare of sunshine in her face caused her to squint. "So. My being here is a punishment for you."

I shook my head. "No. Pay attention. That's not what I said. I said that your mother was trying to punish both of us. I did not say she'd succeeded. That bright sun will give you a headache in short order. Do you have sunglasses or a cap with a visor?"

"No!" Translation: I have sunglasses in my purse, and I'm not about to get them out because it's your idea.

I opened the compartment in the console and pulled out a cap. I keep it handy for clients who don't know I'll be picking them up in a convertible and need eye protection. "You may have to adjust the headband."

She took it and deliberately avoided thanking me, expecting me to correct her manners the way Mandy would. She again seemed surprised when I said nothing. "So, why would Mom want to punish you?"

It was my turn to look incredulous. "Come on, honey. You've known your mom for fifteen years. How many times have you seen her when she didn't have a corncob up her ass about everybody and everything?"

She looked startled, started to grin, and then remembered that she was mad at the world. She had inherited that sequence from Mandy. She slipped on the cap, decided it didn't need adjusting, and slumped in the seat again. She lifted her hands in front of her face and inspected her fingernails. "I guess you're right. She's gotta punish you because you aren't perfect, either, being a faggot and all that."

I paused to yell curses at a pickup that almost sideswiped me while trying to pass in the no passing zone as the highway went from four lanes to two. "Honey, you don't have to worry about being perfect while you're here. Just be yourself. Whatever you want to do—within reason—is okay with me. Think of it not as punishment but as a long vacation from your mom."

She turned her head away from the task of adjusting one cuticle with a fingernail from the other hand. I knew that under that cap the third of her face that was high, smooth, lovely forehead had wrinkled like crumpled foil. "Within reason, huh? Which mean, I suppose, that you won't let me get a tattoo, either?"

I shook my head. "No."

"I thought not." She returned to her cuticle grooming.

"That exceeds my mandate. Mandy specifically said you couldn't get a tattoo."

"No, she didn't."

"Cheryl, you're fifteen now. You deserve the truth, and that's what I'll always give. I won't lie to you. There's no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy. There! Satisfied?"

"Sure."

"Okay. How about this. Do you know how old I am?"

"Duh! You're thirty-three."

"No." I waited to see if I'd get a slow turn of her head or a quick snap-around. She did the first one, again something she'd inherited from Mandy. "I'm thirty-two."

"See? You're already lying to me. You and mom are twins."

"That's right. We are. And I'm thirty-two. You can check the date on my birth certificate when we get home if you want."

She thought about that. I had to be telling the truth if I was offering proof. "Mom's been, like, lying about her age?"

I nodded. "Obviously you've never checked her birth certificate."

Several emotions flickered across her face before she decided to believe me instead of Mandy. Her hands dropped to her lap. "Okay. Why would she lie?"

I decided to let her work out the answer. She was a smart girl. "The answer to that is the date on your birth certificate. Think about it."

It didn't take long. "So that's why she wore that ugly wedding dress. And why all the wedding reception photos are above the waist."

"That's the reason. And for the record, she caught you in the garage, making out in the back seat of the car."

Eyes wide, her face reddened in embarrassment for a moment, but then the angry look returned. "So what? Don't you and your boyfriends ever use the back seat? Of a car, I mean, not of each other."

I let that comment slide, too, and smiled at her. "Behind that pretty oval face, those eyebrows naturally arched like a bird's wings, those soft brown eyes that make Bambi's look hard as a snake's, that sensuous nose, and that full, pouty lower lip is a brain that's just as beautiful as your exterior. Use it and tell me where Mandy and Marek were when you first started the journey to this moment."

Her eyes widened again, and she involuntarily glanced over her shoulder.

"In the garage, too. Back up nine months for the gestation period. It was the day after our fifteenth birthday. Fast forward. She has a fifteen-year-and-one-day-old daughter being fondled by a boy in the back of a car in the garage. For a change, your mother has a reason that almost makes sense. So you see, you're here not just as punishment for both of us, but also because your mother doesn't want you getting pregnant at fifteen, too. She doesn't realize you're smarter than she was."

"Like, what's that supposed to mean?"

I gave her a sideways glance. "Allen was smart enough to have a rubber."

She looked totally surprised, then suspicious, then angry. "No, he didn't! We were just kissing and groping. I've never ... I mean ... I'm ... Uh..."

I shook my head. "Cheryl, Marek found it in the floorboard. For the record, I got that info from him, not from Mandy. Allen had already ripped the foil open, apparently not wanting to give you time to change your mind if you said yes. If you say you didn't know that, then I believe you."

She blinked. Twice. "No shit?"

"No shit, there actually was a rubber. No shit, the foil was open. No shit, I believe you. Also for the record, I'd try to discourage you from getting a tattoo anyway, even if Mandy had okayed it, for other reasons."

Angry was giving way to sullen now. "Yeah? Why? Hepatitis?"

"No, I'd take you to a licensed joint where disease wouldn't be a concern. Imperfection. I'm sure the daughter of Mandy Kuczynski understands that word."

She leaned forward and pulled off her sandals before replying. I'd forgotten just how long and narrow the girl's feet were. Not to say that they were grotesque or otherwise unattractive. They were like mine, so they couldn't be unattractive. She shook her head, as if in reply to something she'd asked herself. "So, getting a tattoo would make me imperfect."

I held up an index finger and waggled it. "MORE imperfect according to your Mom. Remember?"

She had to fight to keep from grinning, but she won and her face stayed sullen. "Yeah."