Have You Seen Her? by Karen Rose Page A

appointment with one of Brad’s teachers.”
    “Oh, dear.”
    “Yeah.” His fork drew an aimless design in his gravy-laden mashed potatoes. He looked up to find Helen patiently waiting. “He’s failing chemistry, Helen. His teacher wanted me to know.”
    Helen closed her eyes and sighed. “What’s happening to our boy, Steven?”
    He kneaded his browbone. “I don’t know. Jenna recommended I see his guidance counselor.”
    “And will you?”
    “I’ll call him first thing Monday morning.” He shrugged, feeling utterly helpless and hating the feeling. “I tried to talk to Brad, but he shut me out.”
    “I know.” Helen reached across the table to squeeze his hand and they held on quietly until she asked, “So who is Jenna?”
    Steven’s fingers tightened on his fork. His face was turning red, he could feel it. He damned the involuntary response that was the curse of redheads and he damned the light that came on in his aunt’s matchmaking eyes. He pulled his left hand from Helen’s. “Brad’s teacher,” he muttered, dropping his eyes to his potatoes.
    “I see.”
    “No, you don’t see anything, Helen,” he ground out. “She is a nice woman who cares about my son. She stayed late on a Friday afternoon to tell me he was failing her class. That’s all.”
    “Okay.”
    He glanced up to find her expression serene. Chills went down his spine. Extreme measures were called for. “She’s married, okay? She’s sixty and married with four children.” He’d confess the lie whenever he made it back to church.
    Helen sighed in resignation. “Do you really have to go back out tonight?” she asked, changing the subject.
    Steven thought of the Egglestons. “Yes,” he answered. “I do. I should be home before midnight, though. I read Nicky a story and put him to bed already.” Which meant tucking his baby into a sleeping bag on the floor. Since being abducted from his bed in the middle of the night six months before, Nicky had refused to sleep in his own bed. The counselors said Nicky would return to his bed in his own time. He wondered what the counselors would say about Brad.
    “Then eat your dinner, Steven.”
    He ate the rest of his dinner in silence, trying to ignore his aunt’s watchful stare. Truth be told, he loved her more than any other woman in the world. He could tell her fifty times a day he never planned to marry again and it was like talking to the wind. But Helen loved him and loved all his boys dearly. At the end of every argument it always came back to that.
    He cleaned his plate. “Thanks, Helen. That beats dinner out of a sack any day of the week.”
    “Do you want any more? I made plenty.”
    Steven stood up and pecked her weathered cheek. “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t want to get fat.”
    Helen had the good grace to look embarrassed before she laughed aloud. “I’m going to have to teach that son of yours when to keep his big mouth shut.”
    He arched a brow. “You can try.” He got to the front door and stopped short. “Shit.”
    “Steven!” Then she saw it too. “Oh, no. Cindy Lou!” She ran to the door and pulled the hundred-pound sheepdog away from Steven’s briefcase. “She didn’t mean to, Steven.”
    With a grimace, Steven fetched a towel from the kitchen and cleaned the dog drool from the handle. “Look at these teeth marks! That dog’s a menace.”
    “She’s a sweet dog.” Helen’s lips twitched. “She just has overactive drool glands.”
    “So get her a glandectomy.” He wiped the bag, then cleaned his hands. “I need to go now.”
    She followed him to the driveway, the drooling ball of hair from hell in tow. “Drive carefully.”
    “I always do.” He opened the rear passenger door and stopped short again. “Shit,” he repeated, this time in a whisper.
    “I heard that,” Helen said from behind him, then peered around him to peek inside the car. “Whose briefcase is that?”
    He could feel his cheeks heating again. “It belongs to Brad’s