Hot Secrets Read Free Page B

the past year by his stepfather and was in the hospital right now.
    “Because?” Caroline said.
    “Because it showed how much he loved her.”
    “That’s right, Manuel. Not stealing the comb—but rather, sacrificing something he cared about to buy something for her—showed how much he loved his wife. And she made a sacrifice too, didn’t she? Who can tell me what she sacrificed?” Another forest of small arms. “Lucy?”
    “Her hair. She sold her hair for him,” Lucy sighed. Her mother was an addict who sold herself to buy drugs. Lucy’d been a ward of the state several times while her mother went to rehab. True love wasn’t a big part of her world.
    “That’s right. So, kids, if you could buy anything at all for your mom or your dad or a sister or brother—what would it be?”
    “Anything at all?” Jamal asked, scrunching his face up in puzzlement.
    “Go wild,” Caroline smiled. “Anything at all.”
    “PlayStation 4, for my mom,” Jamal said decisively, and the room erupted in laughter.
    It was an interesting exercise. It was probably the first time they’d ever thought about being able to get anything themselves without stealing it. And, for many, the first time they’d thought of sharing. Their lives were impoverished in every way there was. The gift ideas were all over the place—a house, a job, a dad out of prison, a trip to Disneyland, a pair of red shoes, a new car. Everyone spoke but Manuel.
    Caroline watched him, sitting small and quiet. Trying very hard not to be noticed.
    Jack had told her about his early childhood, when he’d been small and weak. Perfecting the art of sliding by without attracting attention because attention was, more often than not, painful. Hiding in the shadows, never speaking, because anything could set his father off. And even when not speaking, his father could fill himself with rage all by himself.
    Then Jack had grown big and strong and no one bothered him after the age of fourteen.
    But before then, before filling out, he’d been prey. He’d taken care of that by joining the army and then the super elite soldiers, the Rangers. Jack was definitely not prey any more. And Jack had made it his life’s work to teach the weak to defend themselves.
    He was a security consultant, a very successful one. If you were a bank or a corporation and you wanted his expert help, he was happy to give it, at a premium price. He also ran a dojo school and fitness center, and if you were a lawyer or an executive hoping to firm up your abs and glutes, why, Jack was your man—at two hundred dollars an hour, when you could get him.
    But if you were young and poor—and above all, if you were female—you got the best help in the world and the bill was torn up.
    While the kids proposed wild presents, she glanced out the window at the Cup of Tea. Across the street her friend Sylvie waved. A big table with a red tablecloth, plastic cups and a huge thermos, and festive red plates had been set out in the center of the tea shop. Along the counter were enough muffins to feed a brigade of soldiers—just waiting for the kids. Time to wrap this up.
    One more kid.
    “Manuel? What do you think your mom would like as a present?”
    He was silent a long moment, long enough for the chattering of the kids to die down. He swallowed, small Adam’s apple bobbing. “For my step-dad to die,” he whispered.
    Caroline actually felt her heart contract—with pity, with sorrow, with the heaviness of painful truth. Because it was true. Manuel’s life and his mother’s life would be infinitely better without that violent monster in it.
    It wasn’t until she’d worked in the shelter that she’d even known there was such a thing as bad fathers in the world. Her own father had been wonderful—loving and generous and fun. A larger-than-life figure whose love for his wife and children was manifested a thousand times a day.
    Caroline was pregnant. She’d taken the test first thing this morning in the