RECLAIM MY HEART(5)

The drive home was made in stony silence. Tyne knew she and Zach would have to talk, but her son wasn’t ready for any more scolding. She’d seen him switch off when the officer reprimanded him before they’d left.
The teetering emotional triangle she was attempting to balance had her feeling very much off kilter. Concern for Zach weighted one corner. Another sagged with motherly guilt. And the third? Well, that corner was heavy with anger. She wanted firm control over her emotions before she talked to him about his actions, about what had precipitated this craziness, and about the legal repercussions he was facing.
She braked the car to a halt at a stop sign, looked down the deserted street in both directions and then crossed the intersection.
Legal repercussions. The phrase sounded ominous.
Damn, she was tired. She wished she had someone to lean on. Someone to talk to. Someone to reason this out with. She’d traveled a solitary road for years.
There was Rob, of course. But although she knew he cared for her deeply, she also knew how he felt about taking on the task of raising a teen. He hadn’t come right out and expressed his anxiety about becoming an instant parent, but Tyne sensed his hesitation. Who knew how he’d react if she dumped this problem on his shoulders? She certainly couldn’t keep it from him, but she could handle the bulk of it on her own.
How would she handle it, was the question.
Find Zach a lawyer. He won’t fare well without one.
The officer’s advice hit her like a kick to the gut. Then another thought breezed through her mind; Lucas Silver Hawk was a lawyer.
No way. No how.
“What?” Zach’s short, sharp question broke the quiet.
Startled to realize that she’d actually voiced the thought, she attempted to downplay it by murmuring, “Just working out some things in my head.”
Zach’s father wasn’t just any lawyer. He was a prominent, high-powered attorney who made the city news often. Judging from what she read about him in both the business and society sections, it seemed Lucas was Man of the Hour in Philadelphia’s courtrooms and in the bedrooms of a multitude of women. She rarely saw a picture of him when he didn’t have a beautiful female nearby.
Acid churnedh="Acid ch in her gut and she leaned a little closer to the steering wheel.
Lucas was part of the past. A past she’d grappled with for a hell of a long time. A past that, for years, she wasn’t sure she would ever overcome. But she was beyond all that. She’d left it behind.
She pulled into the empty parking space on the street in front of the brownstone she and Zach called home.
Your son needs a lawyer.
“No!”
Zach plucked the car keys from her fingers and shoved open the car door. “Talkin’ to yourself now? Mom, you’re freakin’ me out.”
The slam of the door reverberated in her head.
She wouldn’t go to Lucas. She just couldn’t. What would she say to him? How would she explain?
“Lucas,” she whispered aloud in the darkness, “I have something I need to tell you.”
Guilt eddied in her chest. The thought of facing his questions—not to mention his fury—made her entire body flush with heat. But all of that was preempted by a stiff resentment when she remembered all the years she and Zach struggled and went without.
The far off bark of a dog broke the silence and she sat up straighter.
Zach had found himself a heap of trouble. Tears stung her eyes and she did her best to blink them away.
He’ll come down on Zach hammer-hard.
Tyne could think of a dozen reasons why she couldn’t go to Lucas for help, but then she swung her weepy gaze toward the porch where the treasure of her world was letting himself into the house—and she realized in that instant that there was one crucial reason why she would.
CHAPTER TWO
Summer sunlight heated the crown of Lucas’s head as he weaved his way through the tourists and business people crowding the sidewalk. Cars, taxis, and buses rumbled along Market Street, sending dust swirling in the sultry air. One perk he loved about working in Philadelphia was that his office was within walking distance of the court house. He thrived in the outdoors, and the trek he made sometimes several times each day offered him the opportunity to be out in the open air rather than cooped up inside.
Rain, snow, sun, it didn’t matter. His colleagues thought he was nuts. They simply didn’t understand his affinity for nature.
Today his steps were lighter than usual. The petition he’d just filed would assure victory in the Jamison case. Winning the complicated litigation would be a feather in his cap. No one in the office had thought it could be done, and that’s exactly why he’d accepted the challenge. Life was good. No, he decided as he entered the revolving door of his office building, life was great.
He whistled as he crossed the high-ceilinged atrium and stepped into a waiting elevator that shot him toward the top of the high rise. He shifted his briefcase to his left hand as the doors slid open and he entered the bright and ultra modern vestibule of Young and Foster.
“Martha.” He nodded at the firm’s receptionist, pausing at her desk.
“So—” excitement dripped from her sneaky whisper “—did you do it?”
He offered up a mischievous grin.
Her brown eyes glittered. “You’re in, Lucas. You’re going to be the youngest partner this firm has ever seen.”
More importantly, the first of Native American descent too. The idea gave him a great deal of satisfaction, but he said nothing.
Martha beamed and Lucas gave her shoulder a warm pat.
“I hope you’re right, Miss Martha.” He picked up an envelope that had his name scrawled across the front of it. “Any calls?” he asked.