She looked from Juan to Logan. “I’m glad you didn’t see him then.”

  “Tell me about it.” The tone of his voice gave away the tension he felt.

  When she lowered her lashes and looked away, he pressed her, sensing she needed to talk about it even though it might be difficult for her.

  “Tell me, Carmen. Rico’s told me bits and pieces,” he lied, knowing he was pushing his luck. “I’d like to see the whole picture. And I think,” he added intuitively, “that maybe you need to talk about it.”

  She turned her back on him, drew a deep breath then started rummaging around in the cupboard. Slowly, methodically, she set about popping popcorn as she reluctantly began relating Juan’s story.

  “Juan’s mother was little more than a child herself when he was born. She was alone and didn’t know how to take care of herself, let alone a child like Juan—and the three other babies that came in rapid succession. Ignorant, alone, totally at a loss as to how to deal with him, she’d leave him in a crib or a bed all day, never talking to him, feeding him when she thought about it, but for the most part ignoring his existence and the reminder of her own failures and imperfections and hopelessness.”

  Tension, anger, outrage. They all swelled inside him as he listened. He tried to feel some of the compassion he heard in Carmen’s voice for Juan’s mother, but all he could see was the pain she had inflicted on the child.

  He knew about neglect. He supposed that if it were reduced to black and white, he’d even suffered it as a child. But his experiences were nothing compared to the neglect coupled with ignorance and poverty that Juan had endured. He’d wanted only for affection. Juan and thousands of children like him wanted for something as basic as food and health care and the assurance of a roof over their heads.

  “It was an accident that a neighbor found him that day.”

  He snapped himself back to the sound of Carmen’s voice. Difficult as it was, he wanted to hear everything she was telling him.

  “His mother had left him alone. It wasn’t an isolated occurrence. What was different about this time was that while she was gone, someone broke into the apartment. When they found nothing worth stealing, they left the apartment door wide open and moved on. A neighbor happened to walk by and see the open door. When she called out and no one answered, she peeked inside and saw Juan. Alone. Filthy. Hungry. Silently staring and rocking.”

  She stopped, swallowed, and began again. “Anyway, fortunately for Juan, she didn’t think about the possible consequences. She became involved. She picked him up and brought him to the clinic. I was working the night shift when she brought him in.”

  She walked over to the table and touching her hands to Juan’s shoulders, leaned over and gave him a hug. Juan stretched his arms over his head, wrapped them around her neck, and hugged her back. As soon as he returned her quick, nuzzling kiss, his attention shot back to the game.

  “Do you know how special that is?” she asked with a watery smile. “That spontaneous reaction? And then the quick dismissal? At one point he didn’t react to affection at all. When he finally did, he tried to gorge himself on it. He clung and demanded and acted out violently if he didn’t feel he was getting his share of hugs. Now he accepts them, gives them back, and then forgets about it. It shows that he feels entitled. He’s feeling more and more secure. And it means he trusts me to be here for him.”

  “And you hold that trust sacred,” Logan said, knowing, before she confirmed his statement, just how sacred.

  “I was a little worried about the way he reacted to you, though.”

  “You mean the clinging-vine routine?”

  She nodded and Logan knew that while she was remembering Juan’s insistent grip on his legs, she was also remembering the circumstances. So was he. He’d been wet from the shower, barely hanging on to a towel that covered little and had threatened to reveal more than either of them had been prepared to deal with.

  “The more I think about it, though,” she said, averting her gaze from the path it had taken to his chest before straying to his mouth again, “I think it’s okay. He hadn’t seen you for a while. It was an affirmation on his part that you were okay in spite of your bruises.

  “How are you feeling, by the way? If he’s wearing you out—”

  Logan cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m fine. I’m okay,” he amended when she scowled at him. “I feel a damn site better than I did yesterday. Or for that matter than I did this morning.”

  This morning.

  This morning in her bed.

  They stared at each other. The taste of morning desire, the glide of his hands across her body, the erotic brush of lips and tongues—the memories of their aborted lovemaking lingered in the room like an alluring fragrance. Tantalizing, seductive, demanding attention.

  They had both felt the flame when they’d come together. Spontaneous combustion. Sizzling heat.

  He wanted to feel the fire again. He could see in her dark, telling eyes that she wanted it too. He could also see she was fighting the lure.

  “It’s quite amazing, really,” she said, her voice laden with a telltale huskiness.

  She was amazing. The way she looked, the way she cared, the way she turned him inside out with the guileless drop of her lashes.

  He forced himself to respond to her words. “What’s amazing?”

  Very deliberately she avoided looking at him. “How Juan took to you from the beginning.”

  Logan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. More complications. He was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. They were both pretending they hadn’t been affected by everything that had happened between them the past forty-eight hours. And to top it off, he was beginning to feel royally ticked that Dallas not only had her heart, but Juan’s as well.

  Juan had taken to Dallas, not to him. It was small consolation to know that at least he wasn’t maligning that affection.

  Her soft voice dragged him back to the here and now.

  “As little as three months ago, he fought any show of emotion like a tiger. But you should have seen him at the museum this afternoon. Once, those beautiful eyes of his had been bleak with the despair of isolation. Today they were round and bright with excitement.”

  She laughed softly. The gentle sound made Logan’s chest ache with emotion.

  “I had to struggle to keep up with him,” she said happily as she filled three small bowls with popcorn. “He wanted so badly to communicate that his little fingers were flying like crazy. His signing vocabulary is still pretty limited but wow popped up regularly. I felt every wow full measure.”

  Logan was feeling a wow or two himself. And the reason for and dangers of those feelings had ceased to amaze him. A week ago he wouldn’t have taken the time or invested any interest in the state of the human condition. Corporate structure, interest rates, and the stock market were the very air he breathed. A week from now he’d be back in that atmosphere. When he compared it with the reality Carmen and Juan had injected in his life, the prospect seemed stifling and stale.

  When he contemplated the possibility of leaving Carmen behind—He cut that thought short. Possibility? The word implied he had an option. No options were open on that front. He would leave her behind. He would leave them both. The reality weighed heavy and dark.

  “When did you learn to sign?” he asked her softly.

  She walked to the table, a bowl of popcorn in each hand. Logan shifted to give her access as she leaned between him and Juan to set the bowls on the table. He touched a hand lightly to her waist as he made room. It was a careless gesture on his part. Careless and uncalculated. And dangerous. He was totally unprepared for the bonfire that ignited at the exact spot where his hand settled and lingered.

  A glittering awareness told him she felt the heat too. The fire spread between them, aided by the dry tinder left over from memories of the night with her in his arms and of this morning when he’d almost made love to her.

  Had it only been this morning? It seemed a lifetime had passed since he’d held her. Since he’d tasted her and wanted her. Since he’d hurt her and sent her away.

  Slowly he let his hand drop.

  Just as slowly she moved back from the table.

  “When did I learn to sign?” she repeated, busying herself at the sink, working overhard at pretending she hadn’t been affected by his touch and by the look that had passed between them. “I’m still learning. It’s not really that difficult. It only takes practice. Hearing-impaired children who are raised in a normal, loving environment usually begin signing as two-year-olds.” She smiled sadly at Juan. “Juan never had that opportunity. He’s a fast study, though, now that he knows there’s more to life than endless silence and cracked, colorless walls.”

  As she talked Logan forced himself to swallow back a feeling of outrage that threatened to strangle him. Outrage at Juan’s biological mother for the abuse and neglect she’d inflicted on this child, and outrage at a society that had closed its eyes to his suffering.

  “How did this happen? Why didn’t someone know about him? Hadn’t she ever taken him to a doctor, for God’s sake?” He steeled himself to look away from Carmen, not wanting her to see the rage that must surely be written in the taut muscles of his face. “Didn’t she have any family or a social worker or someone to make sure she took care of him?”

  He must have pounded his fist on the table. He didn’t remember doing it, but Juan’s wide black eyes flashed to his with wary curiosity.

  He forced a smile of reassurance and was rewarded with a tentative grin. “My move?” he asked hopefully.

  Juan nodded in confirmation.

  “Alone in a city of strangers,” Carmen commented.

  Her quiet statement told Logan a great deal.

  When he closed his eyes and shook his head, she continued. “We searched all the hospitals and found no records of any kind. His mother’s not talking, but we suspect it was a home birth. And we’re not taking any chances. Poor Juan has had to endure the complete gamut of vaccinations, just to be sure.”

  “What about the other children? What’s happened to them?”

  “Juan’s brother and his two sisters have been placed in a single foster home. It’s a temporary fix until a decision can be made as to what will best serve their interests.”

  “How is it that you ended up with Juan?”

  She joined them at the table, attempting for the boy’s sake to be intrigued with the action on the game board. “I didn’t.”

  She looked up and shrugged when he frowned. “I wanted him. I still do. But I’m not family. In the eyes of the court, I’m only an interested party, even though I’ve gone as far as applying for and being approved for a foster-parent license. But he needs specialized care right now. Care that I can’t give him. Not yet. That’s why he’s living at the group home. If he keeps improving, though, there’s a chance I can have him with me soon.”

  “He’s with you now,” he said quietly. “Why? How?”

  “Special-needs children are harder to place than quote ‘normal, healthy children’. I expressed an interest. Given the shortage of other options, my interest was enough. The group home he’s in is geared to his needs. The only thing it can’t provide is long-term stability. A long-term family setting. My willingness to bring him home with me for short visits is in keeping with their case plan. It’s important that he’s exposed to a family setting—or something reasonably close to it. I fall in the category of ‘reasonably close.’”

  “And when the time comes and he’s ready for that long-term family setting,” he began, feeling an uncomfortable sense of unease creeping up on him, “are you assured you’ll get to have him then?”

  She clasped her hands on the table and stared at them. Logan stared at them, too, aware of how tightly she gripped her slim fingers together.

  “No guarantees,” she said without looking up at him. “There is his mother to consider.”

  “His mother?” He couldn’t keep the disgust from his tone. “What does she have to say about it after what she’s done? What rights could she possibly have?”

  “She has all the rights.”

  He could see that she was struggling with that inequity even as she tried to explain it.

  “She has the parental rights—at least she does until the courts say otherwise. We won’t know for some time if those rights will eventually be taken away.”

  Logan had to work at unclenching his jaw. “What about his rights?” he demanded, nodding in Juan’s direction. “After what she’s done to him, I can’t believe any judge would consider that putting him back with her would be an option.”

  She drew a deep breath. “After several months of counseling, she’ll be offered an opportunity to prove she’s got her act together.”

  Incredulous, he stared at her. “You mean, she really could get him back?”

  She looked grim. “It’s a definite possibility.”

  “This is crazy. Why would she even want him? She didn’t take care of him when she had him. I would think she’d be glad to be relieved of the burden.”

  “It’s more a question of economics.”

  Some of the bitterness he sensed she’d been fighting had finally crept into her voice.

  “I don’t follow.”

  She sighed in resignation. “As a single mother with children who are dependent on her for their care, she’s eligible for a monthly payment from the state to help her meet their needs. If she doesn’t have the children with her, she doesn’t get the money.”

  “But if she was receiving the money and still wasn’t providing for them, what makes you think anything will change?”

  “Maybe she didn’t know how,” she said generously.

  He slumped back in his chair. “I don’t understand how you can defend her.”

  “I’m not defending her. I’m trying to prepare myself for all the possibilities. Quite frankly the chances of Juan returning to his mother are much greater than the court placing him with me.”

  Logan didn’t much care for the possibilities, especially if it meant she could end up losing Juan . . . which would mean Juan, too, would be a big loser.

  He looked from Juan to Carmen and decided there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen. He might have to leave them, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do something to help them. He drew a deep breath, determined, before he left, to get the full picture. Determined he would help them.

  And when she rose and started making noises about it being time for Juan to go to bed, he decided something else. It was time to tell her the truth about himself.

  Carmen smoothed the sheet over Juan’s little body then leaned to press a soft kiss on his cheek. She lingered awhile at the door, watching him, wishing she didn’t have to take him back tomorrow. This visit was far too brief.

  While his initial progress had been slow, he had really blossomed during the past few months. The breakthroughs the counselors had accomplished had been phenomenal. Juan’s efforts to close himself off from the world by refusing to sign had been completely thwarted. For the first time she could see the possibility of a happy, healthy future for him.

  Mom. She hugged herself, remembering. He’d called her Mom. Her eyes filled and she felt warm all over just thinking about it. She should have corrected him. She hadn’t been able to find it in her heart to do so.

  After a last, lingering look, she turned off the light and slipped out of the bedroom. She found Johnny on the sofa in the living room. A deep scowl on his face, he stared in silence, unaware that she was there.

  She leaned against the door frame, watching him. Without asking, she knew he was thinking about Juan and the precarious circumstances under which she was able to have him with her.

  Life, she’d found out, was precarious. And Johnny Dallas, a man she’d thought she’d known, was a major contributor to the sense of loss she felt where her own sense of equilibrium was concerned.

  He was becoming such an enigma to her. He’d been much easier to deal with when she’d had him pigeonholed as nothing more than a good-time Charlie with a pretty face. Just another heartbreak with a Texas-size grin.

  But now she had this new side of him to cope with. This caring, concerned side that was more compelling than the flirt had ever been.

  She didn’t understand this unprecedented interest he had taken in Juan’s future. While he’d always been kind to Juan, the extent of his involvement had been limited to a big smile, a pat on the head, and the gift of a candy bar.

  In many ways since the beating, he seemed so very different from the man she’d thought she’d known. So different, she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever really known him at all. And she was feeling guilty for selling him short.

  She pushed away from the door and walked toward him, trying to block the memory of this morning. She wanted to get past the physical, beyond the humiliation, and find out what this man was really all about.

  She sat down beside him. Tucking her feet under her, she draped an arm over the sofa’s back.

  “Who are you?” she asked very softly

  After a long, guarded silence, he looked at her.

  The room was very quiet, she thought, listening to the tick of the clock on the wall, hearing the muffled sound of an apartment door opening and closing outside in the hallway. The rush of her blood pounded in her ears.

  “Who are you really?” she repeated. “I thought I knew. Lately, though, I’m not so sure. The Johnny Dallas I believed I knew was quick with that winning grin and quick to help, but he was even quicker to run when a situation started reeking of complications or involvement.”

  He looked away, but not before she saw an expression of wrenching agony on his face.

  She studied his profile, wondering what was going on in his head that would cause such a look. Shaking off a niggling sense that she should be wary of the Pandora’s box she was opening, she probed further.

  “The Johnny I knew would never have asked the questions you asked tonight. He wouldn’t have asked because he wouldn’t have wanted to know the answers. If he knew the answers, he might have to get involved in finding better ones.”