Fireside by Susan Wiggs (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

was young—Superfudge, Maniac Magee, the whole series of Matt Christopher books. My friends used to think I was weird because I liked Matt Christopher books so much.”

“Why is that weird?”

“They’re sports books, and I guess some people didn’t think a girl could be interested in sports stories. I was, though. I still am. What about you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really like sports.”

At that moment, Bo Crutcher stepped into the room, laden with bags. His color was high from the cold, his eyes bluer even than they’d looked a few minutes ago. “Hey,” he said, “I thought it was just baseball you didn’t like.”

AJ stiffened, tossed his glossy straight hair out of his eyes. “I’m not a big fan of any sports,” he said. “It’s not like that’s a crime or anything.”

Bo regarded him warmly, ignoring the attitude. “It’s not a crime. Just a surprise. I don’t mind a surprise every now and then.”

AJ nodded. “Okay.”

Interesting, Kim thought, watching them. They acted like strangers. Yet when each didn’t think the other was watching, they took turns studying each other with hungry eyes. She showed AJ a recreation guide to the area. “There’s lots to do around here,” she said, spreading out a colorful map. “That’s the golf course, Avalon Meadows. In the winter, it’s used for cross-country skiing and sledding on the hills.” She indicated Saddle Mountain at the western edge of town, scored with cleared ski runs and webbed by the black threads of the ski lifts. “Up there, that’s a ski resort. A lot of the kids are into snowboarding, too.”

AJ shaded his eyes to look, but made no comment.

“My favorite winter sport is sitting by the fire, watching a football game on TV,” Bo chimed in. “What about football, AJ? Think you’d like watching football?”

“Not really,” the boy said.

“Winter sports are my favorites,” Kim told AJ. “I love snowboarding, sledding, ice-skating—anything in the great outdoors. Willow Lake freezes hard enough to skate on. Ever tried ice-skating?”

“I’ve never tried any snow sports,” AJ confessed.

“Maybe you’ll give them a shot this winter.”

“To me, being out in the snow is about as much fun as a trip to the dentist,” Bo said. “Never tried skiing or snowboarding. Never had the urge. I think it’s purely nuts to strap a board on your feet and head down a mountain at sixty miles an hour. You won’t see me doing it, not in a million years.” He turned on the television, handing the remote to AJ. “You get settled in, okay? I’m going to go downstairs and have a word with Miss van Dorn.”

She sensed he was leaving a pause so she could say, “Call me Kim.” She didn’t. “AJ, we’ll be down in the front room.” She was dying to hear what was going on between this man and the boy he seemed to barely know. She led the way down to the main floor, keenly aware of Bo’s eyes on her. What did he see? she wondered. The person he’d accosted in the airport? A woman who’d been defeated by her own career? Or a throwback to a simpler time—a landlady?

When she reached the bottom of the steps, she turned to look at him, and saw him checking her out. Great. Just what she needed. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry,” he said, “I don’t—I mean, just…give me a minute.”

“A minute for what?” She reached up and touched her hair.

“You know, when I saw you at the airport, I thought you were the prettiest thing in the world.”

His words disarmed her. Despite all her experience in the PR business, she could still be disarmed by certain things, like a tall, blue-eyed baseball player looking her in the eye and telling her she was the prettiest thing in the world.

“I was wrong, though,” he went on.

Oh.

“Now I’m thinking you’re the prettiest thing anywhere. Seriously.”

Oh.

“Mr. Crutcher—”

“I know, I shouldn’t have said anything, but everybody who knows me says I got a mouth like a bullfrog in springtime. I go on and on. My agent—I just started working with him—says I need to quit talking so much.”

She fought to master the creeping blush, lost the battle and said, “Would you like something to drink?” Immediately, she regretted the offer. It sounded too social.

“Maybe in a while,” he said easily.

They went to the living room, the largest of the downstairs spaces. It was filled with her grandmother’s furniture and keepsakes, her old-fashioned lamps and art on the walls. It had been painted a startling shade of robin’s egg blue, another discontinued color. Her mother called this a house of discontinued colors.

Bo took a seat on a spindly legged chair, his lanky frame dwarfing the piece. He leaned back, settled his ankle on the opposite knee and watched her expectantly.

She grew unsettled by his scrutiny. “Tell me about you and AJ. He seems like a good kid.”

“I hope so, but to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know.”

What an odd thing to say about one’s child, she thought.

“AJ’s twelve years old,” Bo continued. “He was born in Texas and lived there all his life. I never met him until yesterday morning. That was what I was doing at the airport, when we—when I was there to meet him.”

“You hadn’t met him before then?”

“His mother’s choice, not mine. After AJ was born, she married some other guy, and he was the only father AJ knew. Yolanda—his mom—didn’t want me coming around, confusing the kid.” Bo’s voice was low, filled with regrets. “I never had a dad, growing up, so it bugged the sh—heck out of me, knowing AJ was in the world but never seeing him. I respected his mama’s wishes, though. Never tried to see him, until she called me Friday and said she needed me to look after him for a while.”

Kim tried to imagine what would compel a woman to send her own child to a person he’d never met. “Is she…all right? What made her change her mind about getting you and AJ together?”

“It’s a long