But no. Father and son walked into the pizza parlor without even giving her the courtesy of a glance. She trudged after them. They had a spirited consultation and ordered, neither apparently interested in the salad bar. Then they headed for a booth, leaving her to order her own food.

  Would Duncan be hungry? Would he want to share with her if he was? Who knew? She decided to be gracious and order a pizza large enough for both of them. If he didn’t want any, she’d take the leftovers home.

  She’d gotten her salad and drink and plopped herself into the booth right next to Tito and Hector’s when she saw Duncan come in. He swept the room with a glance and homed in first on Tito and then her like a heat-seeking missile.

  Jane waved him over. “I ordered a pizza. It’s got pretty much everything on it. If you want to share, you’re welcome. Anything else, you’re on your own.”

  “Fair enough.” He went to the counter, and soon returned with a salad, as well, and a drink. He slid into the booth across from her.

  Jane had decided to let him sit facing the other booth in hopes he wouldn’t be close enough to eavesdrop. She’d been trying, but was frustrated by the rapid-fire Spanish father and son were speaking.

  Duncan was as intimidating as ever. Today he must have been wearing a suit, although he’d left the coat in the car and had pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned the top button on his white shirt, which was rumpled. She was a little surprised to see that he looked tired. His hair was disheveled and his eyes bloodshot. He let out a breath that was almost a sigh as he leaned back in the booth.

  “Bad day?” she asked.

  “Average to lousy.”

  “Which part was lousy?”

  His eyes met hers. “Do you really want to hear about my day?”

  “We have to talk about something,” she pointed out.

  He grunted, displaying his excellent male communication skills. “What are they talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed, keeping her voice low. “Well, I’m getting the gist of it, but they’re talking fast.”

  “In Spanish,” he realized.

  “Yes.”

  “You speak it.”

  “Yes, but not well enough to keep up when somebody is chattering away at full speed.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Which makes you a lousy chaperone.”

  “There’s no requirement that I have to hear every word they exchange.”

  With clear disapproval, Duncan said, “He shouldn’t be talking to Tito in Spanish. He needs to improve his English.”

  Jane sympathized, but felt compelled to argue. “Spanish is their native language.”

  “Which Tito can’t use in school.”

  Suddenly tired herself, Jane pushed her half-eaten salad away. “Should I turn around and demand they switch languages so we can understand them?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  She studied him in fascination. “You’re grinding your teeth. That can’t be good for you.”

  He quit grinding and clenched instead. Strong muscles flexed in his jaw. Finally he set down his fork. “Thank you for pointing out the obvious to me.”

  Jane smiled. “I take it I’m not the first.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well. I guess we all need a bad habit.”

  His expression relaxed and she thought she saw a glint of humor in his eyes. “What’s yours?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I have dozens.” But did she want to admit any of them to Police Captain MacLachlan? “Ice cream.”

  One of those fascinating half smiles curved his mouth. “In large quantity?”

  “When I’m in a bad mood, a pint of mint chocolate chip makes me feel way better.”

  “Since it’s obviously not going to your hips, that doesn’t sound like a bad habit. Only a habit.”

  “I suck on my hair.”

  He stifled a laugh. She loved what that did to his face. “You what?”

  Oh, why had she told him? Resigned, she lifted the hank, a little bit stiff and clumped together, that provided her with comfort. As a kid, it had been the tail end of her braid.

  The laugh burst out of him, low and deep. “Now that I have to see.”

  “I only do it when I’m by myself,” she said with fraying dignity.

  “That’s worse than grinding your teeth.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’m, well, soothing myself. It’s like cracking your knuckles or nibbling on your fingernails. It’s a nervous habit. I’m not suppressing an overflow of anger or hostility like you are.” So there.

  “If you had my job, you too might have some hostility that needs suppressing.” Apparently unperturbed, he ate hungrily.

  A number was called and Tito hopped up.

  Duncan laid down his fork and said, “Hey, kid.”

  Tito looked embarrassed. “Hola, I mean hi.”

  Jane was aware that, behind her, Hector had turned to watch his son.

  “Your pizza ready?” Duncan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” All amusement had left the wintry gray eyes when they apparently met Hector’s over Jane’s shoulder. “I hope ours will be soon. I’m starved.”

  The boy shuffled his feet and finally took himself off to fetch the pizza. Duncan kept staring what was plainly a challenge at Tito’s father. Jane let it go on longer than she should have. Finally losing patience, she kicked him, hard, under the table.

  “What the…?” He switched the hard stare to her.

  She glared at him. “Enough already.”

  Tito returned, triumphantly bearing pizza. Jane looked away from Duncan long enough to smile at the twelve-year-old, who smiled shyly in return.

  She realized that her number was being called, and slid out of the booth. “Will you behave yourself while I’m gone?” she asked.

  Duncan’s look reminded her painfully of ones all too familiar from her childhood, the kind that had once hammered at her self-confidence. Wow. And she’d been glad he was joining her. What had she been thinking?

  He’d finished his salad by the time she returned with the pizza and two plates.

  She didn’t say a word, only helped herself to a piece and then reached for a napkin from the holder.

  After a minute, Duncan said, “Thanks for ordering for both of us.”

  “You’re welcome.” But she didn’t mean it.

  “My day was lousy because the city council is pushing us for layoffs and because one of two teenagers who were in a car accident last night died this morning.”

  “Oh, no.” The morning news had mentioned the accident. A boy who’d barely gotten his license had been taking his fifteen-year-old girlfriend for a drive, even though in Washington State he wasn’t allowed to have minors in the car with him unless an adult was also along. He’d apparently been showing off by speeding. They’d left the road and rolled several times before coming to rest in a large drainage ditch. “The girl?” Jane asked.

  Duncan shook his head. “The boy. The girl’s still hanging in there.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry.” She made a face. “When I have a lousy day, it means my receipts are down or an employee called in sick. Not that someone died.”

  Duncan took a bite and didn’t say anything else for a long time. Somehow she knew he intended to, however, so she waited.

  “The boy’s mother is a dispatcher. She was at work when…” He stopped.

  “Oh, no,” Jane whispered again.

  “Oh, yeah.” He sighed. “It really brings it home. You know?”

  “I can imagine.”

  He told her about how hard the responding officers were taking it, about how the car had been nearly flattened, about calling the boy’s parents himself. And then he talked about the proposed budget and about the maddening inability of city council members to grasp the needs of the police department they took for granted. His voice grew hoarse. Jane ached to reach across the table and take his hand in hers, but she kept hers on her own side of the table.

  We are not friends, she told herself, and had to repeat it. We are not friends.

  Uneasiness stirred in her. She hardly knew Duncan. They were strangers sharing a pizza. So how had this conversation morphed into something so…intimate?

  They were both startled to discover Hector and Tito stood beside their table.

  “I’m taking my son home now,” Hector announced.

  Jane smiled, but injected steel into her voice. “I’d better do that, Señor Ortez. Tito, why don’t you say good-night now?”

  Hector’s nostrils flared. “I can’t drive my own son home?”

  “Your visitation is supervised. You understand that.”

  “I’m a good father. I don’t deserve to be embarrassed in front of my son.”

  She sympathized. This whole process must be humiliating for a man of any pride, but at the same time the arrogance in his stance and voice made her wary. They were still in the first week. Did he understand what he risked if he chose to be uncooperative?

  “If all goes well, it’s not for long,” she reminded him, very conscious of Duncan across the table. He sat utterly still, but she knew without touching him that every muscle in his body was rigid.

  Hector said some uncomplimentary things in Spanish, but finally left Tito with Jane and Duncan and stomped out, his displeasure evident in his body language. Tito waited, head hanging low, while Jane got a box and put the leftover pizza in it.

  She offered it to Tito. “Why don’t you take it home. The last thing I need is leftovers.”

  His head came up and she saw that she’d offended him. “It’s not my pizza.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have bothered with the box, then. I don’t want to take it home. Duncan, do you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m having both lunch and dinner out tomorrow. Tito, are you sure you don’t want it?”

  Tito hesitated, suspicious, but finally grabbed the box. “If nobody else wants it. Yolanda and Mateo might like some.”

  Jane knew they were his small niece and nephew. She couldn’t remember the baby’s name, if she’d ever heard it.

  “Good,” she said with a big smile, and laid a hand on Tito’s shoulder as they walked out, Duncan silent beside them. Somehow she wasn’t surprised when he accompanied them to her car, waiting until Tito had gotten in and she’d opened her door.

  “Nicely done,” he murmured in her ear, so close she felt the warmth of his breath and heard him more as a vibration than actual voice.

  “Good night, Duncan,” she said firmly.

  He bent to look into her car. “When’s our next visit?”

  Tito shrugged. “Papa said he would call.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you want to shoot some baskets in the meantime.”

  Tito nodded but didn’t say anything. Duncan didn’t allow himself to show disappointment or hurt, but she was very sure that he felt both.

  “All right, Tito,” he said in a voice that astonished her with its gentleness. “Good night.” He nodded at Jane, waited until she’d gotten in and closed her door, then walked away.

  JANE’S WEEK GOT EVEN MORE stressful as the court date for another case she’d taken on neared. It was a far more contentious custody dispute with both parents and one set of grandparents all using the children as a battleground. If she’d known she would be handling the supervised visitation for Tito, she wouldn’t have done both, but it was too late now. The fact that she was so busy was her only excuse for not wondering sooner why Hector and Tito hadn’t scheduled another outing.

  Duncan’s call triggered her alarm.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded in his usual charming style.

  She injected an excess of sugar into her voice. “Why, hello, Captain MacLachlan. How nice to hear from you.”

  “Jane…” It was a clear warning.

  Did the man have friends? Date? Or could he be charming when he chose? Jane grimaced. She was never likely to find out since he obviously had no interest whatsoever in anything but butting heads with her. And she ought to be amending, Thank God.

  “I haven’t heard a peep from Hector,” she said.

  “It’s been four days.”

  Her gaze flew to the calendar that hung beside her desk in the small office at Dance Dreams. “I’ll check and let you know.”

  After she’d ended the call, she considered whether to try to reach Hector or whether she should stop by Lupe’s and potentially talk to Tito instead—or first. Or better yet, both. She’d be closing the store in fifteen minutes. Today, if she remembered right, was one of Lupe’s nights off. It was likely, therefore, that Hector would be joining his family for dinner.

  Stop by, she decided. Surprise them.

  Or waste half an hour on the one-and-only evening she’d had all week without an interview scheduled for the other case for which she stood as Guardian ad Litem.

  Still.

  She was nearing Lupe’s apartment house when she spotted Hector and Tito walking toward it. Tito was dribbling a basketball and they were talking. Feeling a headache coming on, Jane drove a circuitous route so that they didn’t see her and parked around the corner. Then she hustled into the vestibule of the front door and waited, arms crossed, toe tapping in irritation.

  They all but bumped into her. Worry flared on Tito’s face, anger on his father’s.

  “What are you doing here?” Hector asked.

  “Tito,” she said calmly, “please go up to your sister’s apartment. Your father and I need to talk.”

  Tito looked anxiously at Hector, then nodded and hurried inside. Jane didn’t say a word until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. Then she said, “You’ve violated the conditions of your visitation with your son. I could go to the judge right now and tell him I think you shouldn’t be allowed to see Tito at all.”

  He leaned toward her, his face flushed. “I’m allowed to have dinner with my children.”

  “You heard and understood Judge Lehman. You cannot spend time with Tito unless either I or Lupe are with you.” She looked around ostentatiously. “Where is Lupe?”

  “We went out only for a few minutes while she cooked.”

  “This isn’t the first time, is it?”

  His furious stare gave her his answer.

  “Señor Ortez, I will be calling Judge Lehman tomorrow. I’m going to give you one more chance to comply with the order. However, you can no longer visit Tito at your daughter’s apartment.”

  He slammed a fist against the wall to one side. Jane couldn’t help jumping.

  “Hijo de puta. This isn’t right! I would never hurt one of my children. I’ve done nothing to deserve to be treated like some kind of monster!”

  “Please don’t swear at me.” Doing her best not to let him see that she was beginning to be frightened, Jane said, “If you love your son, you’ll cooperate for one month. That’s little enough to ask. If you can’t do that, tell me now.”

  They stared at each other, his eyes dilated and red suffusing his face. His lips were drawn away from his teeth and he was breathing hard.

  Jane held herself still, refusing to let him see that she was quaking inside.

  He said finally, “I have no choice, do I? But I see now that you want to take my son away from me. Perhaps you want to give him to that policeman who was spending so much time with Tito. These visits—” he spat to one side “—they’re nothing but a front, are they? So if I say later, I wasn’t treated fairly, you can say, see? He had his chance. But it’s a lie. Now I know.”

  “No,” she said. “I promise you, Hector. Your future with your son is in your hands. If Tito doesn’t come to live with you it will be your fault, because you didn’t follow through with the judge’s requirements. You can make this hard or you can make it easy. You can be smart. Why not be smart, Hector?”

  He rocked on his heels. “Am I permitted to go upstairs and tell my family why I can’t eat dinner at their table?”

  She didn’t dare back down at all. “I’ll tell them.”

  With a vicious curse—in Spanish, thank God—he punched the wall again and swung away. A minute later, Jane heard the cough and uneven roar from Hector’s pickup, and then it accelerated past on the street.

  She leaned against the wall for a minute and let herself shake.

  “Well, that was fun,” she said out loud. “To answer your question, Captain MacLachlan, this is what I do for fun.”

  DUNCAN WAITED UNTIL SEVEN and, when he still hadn’t heard from her, called Jane’s cell phone. When she answered, he said, “Well?”

  “Has anybody ever told you your conversational skills stink?”

  “You’ve hinted as much.” He frowned. There had been something in her voice. Only tiredness, or had something happened to upset her? “So?”

  She sighed. “About what you probably expect. Lupe couldn’t say no to her own father. I caught Hector taking Tito out to shoot baskets without supervision.”

  Duncan swore. “Are you going to do anything about it, or did you issue a gentle warning?”

  “Do I really give the impression of being such a pushover?”

  She sounded offended enough, he was taken aback. No, he thought, Jane Brooks was anything but a pushover.

  He’d been silent long enough she didn’t wait for an answer.

  “I’ve told Hector he can no longer see Tito at Lupe’s apartment. No family dinners. He will see his son only under my direct supervision. Does that satisfy you, Captain?”

  He didn’t know. The same indefinable something was in her voice.

  “How did he take it?”

  “Not well,” she admitted.

  Duncan tensed. “He didn’t lay a hand on you?”

  “No. Nothing like that. Only said some bad words, complained we have no intention of really letting him have custody of his son and stormed away.”

  Duncan’s doorbell rang. Frowning, he went to answer it. To Jane, he said, “I should have gone with you.”

  He was flinging the front door open to find his brother on the porch when Jane said, “Get real. That would have made everything way worse. He suspects you want to steal his son from him.” After a brief pause, she said, “With reason.”