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her apron pocket and used it to stir her coffee. Sometimes, things served a purpose, even if it wasn’t what they were intended for.
    Satisfied, she sat on the corner stool and sipped her coffee, and she didn’t look up again until the door swung open, the chime on the hinge signaling the end of their conversation as effectively as any argument she could have made.
    Claire ordered Molly and Olga back to work as she delivered menus to the table herself, despite the fact that the Walsteads were regulars and knew every dish on the menu.
    “Hey, Steve, Shelby.” Claire greeted the two adults as she placed the silverware on the table. Then she ruffled the brown hair of the boy who sat beside his mother. “Hey, sport, how ya doing?”
    He wiggled away from her touch with a playful grimace. “Fine.”
    “I know, I know,” Claire groaned. “You’re too old for that kind of thing.”
    Shelby smiled up at her. “I can’t get used to it, either.” Then she reached out and tickled her adopted son in the ribs.
    “What can I get you to drink?” Claire asked, a warmth settling over her at the gentle interplay between Kyle and his parents.
    Steve and Shelby ordered sodas and agreed when Kyle asked if he could order a shake.
    She jotted down the order. “I’ll get this right out.”
    Kyle’s smiled beamed. Maybe as a way of apologizing for dodging her touch earlier.
    Not that she minded. She remembered eleven all too well. That awkward stage where you desperately wanted to be an independent teenager and still longed for the comforts of childhood.
    Watching Kyle with his parents, she felt a calm seep over her that she hadn’t felt since Matt had returned to her life. No, she was not as young and hopeful as she had once been. But she was content with her life and the choices she’d made. Kyle had parents who loved him. He had happiness and security. She couldn’t ask for more. She had sacrificed her relationship with Matt so that Kyle could have all of that.
    The decision may have been hard at the time, but in retrospect, she was glad she’d done it. Since that fateful day she left Matt, she’d realized one important thing. The Matt Ballard she’d fallen in love with didn’t really exist. He was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
    No, she could never love a man who willfully ignored a sweet and wonderful boy like Kyle just because it wasn’t convenient to acknowledge him. But that was exactly what the real Matt Ballard did.
    On the night of their date, she couldn’t let herself forget that. No matter how much money he threw around, she’d never forget what a jerk he really was.
    As Claire set the shake down in front of Kyle, she felt the slightest pang of regret, because he gazed up at her with eyes that looked so much like Matt’s.
    No, not regret. Sadness. Giving birth to him whenshe was only sixteen had nearly ruined Courtney’s life. When Claire had found out her younger sister was pregnant, she’d dropped out of college to help her. She’d left Matt to protect her sister and the child she’d carried. In the end her sacrifice had saved her sister’s future, but not their relationship. Courtney hadn’t contacted Claire in years. She’d never been able to make peace with the fact that Claire wanted a relationship with Kyle and his family. But the way Claire saw it, she was lucky the Walsteads were open to having Kyle’s birth aunt in his life.
    As strange as it seemed, Claire was far closer to the Walsteads than she was to her own sister. She supposed she could understand why Courtney didn’t want anything to do with the Walsteads. Maybe for her, it was just too painful to see the child she’d never wanted and chosen not to keep. But more confusing for Claire was the way the Ballards treated Kyle and his parents. Vic looked enough like Kyle that anyone could see they were father and son. They all simply ignored it.
    Of course, Claire had always known Vic was a jerk. Vic had been twenty when