"No, I'm not mad at you."

The tears dried up. "Kate said you weren't."

"Kate was right." He picked Jack out of the chair for a hug before setting him on his feet.

''Can I go back to work with you? I won't be bad.''

"Well, you could, except I'm not going back to work today."

"Man knocks off middle of the afternoon isn't putting in a good day's work." Brody glanced over at his father, nodded. "True enough. And a man who doesn't take a few hours now and then to be with his son isn't working hard enough at being a father."

"You always had food in your belly," Bob shot back as he shoved away from the table.

"You're right. I want Jack to be able to say more than that about me. I've got something for you," he added, cupping Jack's chin as it had begun to wobble as it always did when Brody and his father exchanged words. "It isn't Disney World, but I think you'll like it even better than a ride on Space Mountain."

"Is it a new action figure?" Thrilled he began tugging at Brody's pockets.

"Nope."

"A car? A truck?"

"You are way off, and it's not in my pocket. It's outside on the porch."

"Can I see? Can I?" He was already running for the door, tugging the knob. And when he opened it, looked down, looked up again at his father, Brody had, in that wonderful moment of stupefied delight, everything that mattered.

"A puppy! A puppy!" Jack scooped up the black ball of fur that was trying to climb up his leg. "Is it mine? Can I keep him?"

"Looks like he wants to keep you," Brody commented as the pup wriggled in ecstasy, yipping and bathing Jack's face with his tongue.

"Look, Grandma, I got a puppy, and he's mine. And his name is Mike. Just like I always wanted."

"He sure is a pretty little thing. Oh, just look at those feet. Why he'll be bigger than you before long. You have to be real good to him, Jack."

"I will. I promise. Look, Kate. Look at Mike."

"He's great." Unable to resist, she got down and was treated to some puppy kisses. "So soft. So sweet." She turned her head, met Brody's eyes. "Very, very sweet."

"It's a good thing for a boy to have a dog." Still stinging from his son's comment, Bob gestured. "But who's going to tend to it when Jack's in school all day and you're working? Problem with you is you never think things through, just do what you want at the moment you want it, and don't consider."

"Bob." Mortified, Mary reached up to pat her husband's arm.

"I have a fenced yard," Brody said carefully. "And I've worked on plenty of jobs where dogs were around. He'll come with me till he's old enough to be on his own."

"You buy that dog for the boy, or to patch up your conscience because you can't give him a holiday like his friends?"

"I don't want to go to Disney World," Jack said in a quavering voice. "I want to stay home with Dad and Mike."

"Why don't you take Mike outside, Jack?" Fixing a smile on her face, Kate walked to the door.

"Puppies like to run around as much as boys do. And you need to get acquainted. Here, put on your jacket first."

Brody held it in until Kate nudged the boy out the door.

"It's none of your business if I get my son a dog, or why. But the fact is I had this one picked out from a litter three weeks ago for him, and was waiting until he was weaned. I was going to pick him up Sunday for Easter, but Jack needed a little cheering up today."

"You're not teaching him respect by giving him presents after he's sassed you."

"All you taught me was respect, and look where that got us."

"Please." Mary all but wrung her hands. "This isn't the place."

"Don't you tell me where I can speak my mind," Bob snapped. "My mistake was in not slapping you back harder and more often. You always did run your own way, as you pleased. Nothing but trouble, causing it and finding it and giving your mother heartache. Run off to the city before you're dry behind the ears, and pissing your life away."

"I didn't run off to the city. I ran away from you."

Bob's head jerked back at that, as if he'd been slapped. He went pale. "Now you're back, aren't you?

Scrambling to make do, shuffling the boy off to neighbors so you can make a living. Stirring up gossip

'cause you're fooling around with women down the hall from where that boy sleeps, and teaching him to run wild as you did, and end up the same way."

"Just one minute." If her own temper hadn't hazed her vision, Kate would have realized she was stepping between two men very near to coming to blows. "It so happens Brody isn't fooling around with women, he's fooling around with me. And though thatis none of your business, the fooling around has never gone on when Jack's asleep down the hall.

"And if you don't know that Brody would cut his own arm off rather than do anything,anything to hurt that child, then you're blind as well as stupid. You should be ashamed to speak to him as you did, to not have the guts to tell him you're proud of what he's making out of his life, and of the life he's making for his son."

"You're wasting your breath," Brody began, and she rounded on him.

"You shut up. You've plenty to answer for, too. You have no right to speak to your father as you did. No right whatsoever to show him disrespect. And in front of your own child. Don't you see that it frightens and hurts Jack to watch the two of you claw at each other this way?" She spun back, searing both of them with one hot look. "The pair of you haven't got enough sense put together to equal the brains of a monkey. I'm going outside with Jack. As far as I'm concerned the two of you can pound each other into mush and be done with it."

She wrenched open the door and sailed outside.

She was still simmering when Brody joined her a few minutes later. Saying nothing he watched Jack wrestle with the puppy and try to get Mike to chase a small red ball.

"I want to apologize for bringing that into your house."

"My house has heard family arguments before, and I expect it will hear them again."

"You were right about it being wrong for us to start on each other in front of Jack." When she said nothing, he jammed his hands into his pockets. "Kate, that's just the way it is between me and my father. The way it's always been."