From the Heart

midget.”
    “What the hell are you talking about? Even for you, that’s hard to follow.”
    “The child is bordering on middle age, and you’re so wrapped up in Jordan Taylor, you don’t see it. She reads Wuthering Heights and plays Brahms. She’s neat and quiet and doesn’t intrude on your life.”
    “Just a minute. Back up a bit.”
    “Back up a bit!” Her anger had a habit of springing quickly. She pushed at her hair again. “She’s just a little girl. She needs you, needs someone. When’s the last time you talked to her?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I talk to her every day.”
    “You speak to her,” Kasey countered furiously. “There’s a wealth of difference.”
    “Are you trying to tell me I’m neglecting her?”
    “I’m not trying to tell you anything. I am telling you. If you didn’t want to hear it, you shouldn’t have asked.”
    “She’s never complained.”
    “Oh, damn !” She whirled away, then spun back again. “How can such an intelligent man make such a ridiculous statement? Are you really so insensitive?”
    “Be careful, Kasey,” he warned.
    “If you don’t like being told you’re a fool, you shouldn’t behave as one.” She was past caring how angry he became. Her own temper—her own sense of justice—ruled her words. “Do you think that being housed, fed and groomed are enough? Alison’s not a pet, and even a pet merits affection. She’s starving right in front of your eyes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash this mud off.”
    Jordan took her arm before she could walk by him. Turning her around, he propelled her into a powder room down the hall. Without speaking, she turned on the water and began to scrub. Jordan said nothing as her words played back in his mind. In silence, Kasey cursed herself steadily.
    She hadn’t meant to lose her temper. Though she had planned to speak to him about Alison, she had intended to broach the subject diplomatically, calmly. The last thing she had wanted to do was pour out her thoughts in a torrent of abuse. It had always been her opinion that the more you shouted, the less you were heard. She continually told herselfnot to become emotional when dealing with Jordan Taylor. She continued to do so. Now she took the towel he held out to her and carefully dried her hands.
    “Jordan, I apologize.”
    His eyes were steady. “For what, precisely?”
    “Precisely, for shouting at you.”
    He nodded slowly. “For the delivery but not the content,” he commented, and Kasey sighed. He was not an easy man.
    “Exactly. I have a tendency to be tactless.”
    He noted the way she was running the towel through her hands. She was ill at ease, he observed, but she wasn’t going to back down. He felt a stir of reluctant admiration. “Why don’t you start again?” he suggested. “Without the shouting.”
    “All right.” Kasey took a moment to organize her approach. “Alison came to introduce herself to me the night I arrived. I saw an impeccably groomed young girl with shiny hair and beautiful manners. And bored eyes.” Her sympathies were freshly aroused at the memory. “I can’t accept boredom, Jordan, not in a child with her whole life ahead of her. It broke my heart.”
    Passion was back in her voice, but it was passion of a different kind. It wasn’t anger this time. She was pleading with him to see as she saw. Jordan doubted she was even aware of the intensity of her eyes. She was thinking of the child only. Her compassion moved him. It was one more surprise.
    “Go on,” he told her when Kasey paused. “Say it all.”
    “It’s none of my business.” Kasey pulled the towel through her hands again. “You’re perfectly free to tell me so, but it won’t make any difference in how I feel. I know what it’s like to lose parents—the rejection, the terrible confusion. You need someone to help you make sense of it, to fill the holes you don’t even understand. There’s nothing as devastating as the death of people you love and depend on.” She took a deep breath. She was telling him more than she had intended to but couldn’t seem to stop. “It isn’t something you get over in a day or a week.”
    “I’m aware of that, Kasey. He was my brother.”
    Her eyes searched his and found something unexpected. He had loved deeply, too. All of her guards dropped away.She reached out to touch his hand. “She needs you. Jordan, there’s nothing like the love of a child. They don’t put conditions on their