2007 RITA Award winner for Best Long Contemporary Romance 

Lori Handeland
Author Book List

Life has never been easy for Tim. Abandoned and left to fend for himself, he's finally found a home with Dean Luchetti. But something's missing. Tim's convinced that what he needs is a mother and what Dean needs is a wife. And he thinks he's got the perfect candidate in Stella O'Connell, his school's principal.

The last person Stella expects to encounter at her new school is Dean Luchetti, the man who broke her heart as a teenager. Dean and Stella may have a difficult past, but they feel the same strong attraction they always did — and if they're not careful, history could repeat itself. Breaking each other's hearts is one thing, but breaking Tim's is an altogether different matter.

Excerpt

"HEY, LUCHETTI! If that's really your name."

Laughter broke out on the playground. Tim glanced up from his own private game of football. In his world he was Brett Favre throwing a touchdown pass to win the Super Bowl.

Of course, he never told anyone how much he loved Brett. He lived in Illinois, land of Lincoln and the Chicago Bears. If he said Favre was the greatest quarterback of all time, he just might get a bloody nose.

Tim eyed the circle of boys who'd suddenly decided to pay attention to him, but not in a nice way, and thought he might end up with a bloody nose, anyway. Even though they were laughing, they looked big and mean and ready to stop laughing real soon.

Tim had been in this situation before. When bullies came it was best to hide and get small. Except he was gettin' really tired of hiding. Besides, his father had told him he never had to worry about people hurting him again. Not in Gainsville. Not while Dean Luchetti was around.

Too bad he wasn't around right now. "My name's Luchetti," Tim insisted. "Just like my dad's."

The leader, Jeremy Janquist, a kid so big everyone secretly figured he'd been held back, stepped away from his buddies with a sneer. "He isn't really your dad. He just took you in when you showed up in the yard."

That was kind of true. Except Dean was adopting him, and then they'd be a family forevermore.

"My name's Luchetti," Tim repeated.

"Say that on your birth certificate, dim bulb?" Tim winced, then wished he hadn't when Jeremy grinned. He had problems in school, not because he was dim, but because he had a tough time payin' attention. Even if there weren't so many fun things to see and do in any given day, sittin' still was hard!

Tim tried to walk away as his new gramma had told him to do when kids teased, but Jeremy wasn't the kind of guy you turned your back on.

"Moron." Jeremy grabbed Tim's arm and spun him around. His fingers seemed to crunch against Tim's bones.

Tim's hands automatically curled into fists. He'd lived on the streets before he came to Illinois; he'd faced bigger, meaner kids than Jeremy. If he had to, he could fight. But he sure hoped he wouldn't have to.

"Do you even have a birth certificate? I hear you ate garbage. That your mom hated you so much she dumped you in an alley and took off. You made up your first name, stole your last one, and you don't even know when your birthday is."

Jeremy had heard right, but Tim wasn't going to tell him so. Tim wasn't going to tell him anything. He tightened his lips along with his fists and counted to ten.

Sadly his silence only seemed to make Jeremy's friends brave. They inched closer and started to shout.

"Loser."

"No name."

"Stupid."

"Hyper."

"Drug baby."

Tim's eyes stung with the effort of holding back the rage and the tears. Every single one of those names was true.

Still, he yelled, "Am not!"

Someone shoved Tim from behind. He stumbled into a boy directly in front of him who shoved right back. Tim fell, landing on his knees. He scrambled to his feet, knowing if he was down they might kick, or worse, but as Tim got up someone's shoulder met his face. The bloody nose he'd expected began.

Tim glanced around to see if the blood would scare them, or only make them madder. Every single boy was bigger than Tim, who wasn't very big at all.

His dad said he'd catch up to all the other kids, just look at his feet. Tim's feet were huge, which was why he tripped a lot.

"You don't even have a mom," Jeremy sneered.

"Do, too."

She was just...gone. Tim didn't remember a thing about the woman who had left him somewhere, then never come back.

"Only losers don't have moms."

Tim had Dean — the daddy he'd found when he'd gone on his daddy quest. He had aunts, uncles, cousins and the best gramma and grampa in the world, who lived right across the cornfield. Everyone loved him. On the farm, Tim wasn't an orphan, he was a Luchetti.

But most kids had moms, even if she didn't live with them. They knew their mom's name, where she was, why she'd left.

Most kids, but not Tim. "I don't need a mom," Tim muttered. "That's good, because you ain't gonna get one. Loser."

Jeremy headed for the open area behind the school, where the other boys were playing real football. Tim breathed a sigh of relief that he'd avoided getting punched or landing in trouble. Then Jeremy tossed one final taunt over his shoulder.

"I hear your dad is as big of a dimwit as you are. No one'll marry him."

"What did you say?"

The playground went silent. Was every kid staring at them?

Jeremy came back, towering over Tim, wearing a nasty grin that said he'd been waiting for this. "I said your dad is an idiot. The only job he could get is bein' a farmer, and that's because his dad gave him the farm. He's never been married, "cause he can't get a girl, and he had to adopt a kid that was as dumb as an old cow, just like him."

Tim stopped listenin' to Gramma Ellie's advice and moved on to his dad's. When all else fails...

Tim socked Jeremy as hard as he could in his big, soft belly. While Jeremy writhed on the ground, Tim said quietly, "Don't ever talk about my dad again."

He lifted his gaze and the others shrank back. Tim might be little, but he'd lived in a place where meaner kids than this had tried to do a lot worse. And no one, no one, talked about his dad like that.

Tim left Jeremy on the pavement with his friends gathered around. He ignored the other children and headed toward the school, where he took a seat against the building and dabbed at his nose with his shirt.

Someone would come and take him to the principal's office. They always did.

Until he'd met Dean Luchetti, Tim had never known love or home or family. He'd do anything for Dean.

Tim sat up straight, focusing on his idea. Why hadn't he thought of this before? He'd prove everyone wrong. He'd find Dean a wife and himself a mother.

The time had come for the mommy quest.

"STELLA? I mean, Ms. O'Connell?"

Stella lifted her head and waited for Laura Benedict, her secretary, to get on with it. Instead, the woman just stared at her.

"Yes?" Stella tried to keep the impatience out of her voice and failed.

She had to remember that she was new here. Well, not new, exactly. She'd attended this school. But she was the new principal of Gainsville Elementary.

She just needed time to get used to how things were done in Illinois, which was different than they'd been done in Los Angeles. Some of those changes were the result of working in an elementary school in the Midwest, rather than a high school in the center of one of the largest cities in the country, and then again some weren't.

"I'm sorry," Laura said. "I keep forgetting and calling you Stella. It's just, I remember you that way."

Laura had been a year behind Stella at Gainsville High. Now she was the mother of four preteen boys, the wife of a farmer and the secretary at the grade school.

There but for the grace of God go I, Stella thought.

Laura had been one of the popular girls. Once slim and lovely, she was now round and cute. She was also happy. Or at least Stella thought she was. She'd seen so few happy people over the past several years.

"Stella?" Laura made an annoyed sound deep in her throat. "I mean, Ms. O'Connell."

"Never mind, Laura. Just tell me what you want." Her secretary blinked at Stella's tone. She'd been too abrupt again. Would she ever be able to fit into the slower, kinder, gentler world of Gainsville Elementary? Stella was having her doubts.

"There's been a fight on the playground."

Stella came to her feet. "Is an ambulance on the way? Were shots fired?"

Laura's eyes widened, and she stared at Stella with both confusion and horror.

"Sorry," Stella muttered. "Wrong time zone. What happened?"

"You get to find out."

"I do?"

In L.A. she'd had assistants for that. By the time the students reached her office, they'd not only been interviewed, they'd usually been booked.

"We've got one in the nurse's office with a bellyache the size of the Sears Tower. The other's cooling his heels at my desk waiting to talk to you."

"Swell."

"Just ask him what happened," Laura said. "Being sent to the principal's office is enough to get most kids to spill their guts."

"Okay." Stella sat down.

"Oh." Laura stopped half in and half out of the door, eyeing Stella's favorite suit, a light pumpkin shade that brought out the auburn highlights in her short, dark hair and the green in her hazel eyes.

"Don't hug him — he's kind of bloody."

Hug him?

Stella was still pondering those words when the child walked into her office. He didn't look scared; he looked like a refugee from her world.

Short, skinny, with huge feet and knobby, scraped knees, there was something in those blue eyes she recognized. This child had been beat on before.

Stella frowned. "Have a seat."

Someone, probably Laura, had tried to wipe the blood off his face. But noses bled pretty badly, and his white T- shirt was now garbage. She'd have to ask Laura to get him a new one from the donation box. Parents tended to freak out when they saw their children covered in blood.

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