That’s when she knew she didn’t know enough about him and wanted to understand that mysterious gleam he had in his eyes. Was it for her?

Soon after that, on a rainy afternoon, her phone bleeped with a text.

I lit the fire and made a pot of tea. Want to make a house call while Winnie naps?

She felt panic rise within her. Could this be that moment that would define the next decade of her life? Throw the dice and see if he comes up as honorable and decent as he seems, or find out, in the end, he’s got an agenda about getting what he wants?

He helps poor kids, she told herself. He chased thugs with a tire iron to get her swatch back.

“Winnie, while you nap, I’d like to walk next door to Blake’s to visit with him for a while. Will you be all right?”

“Of course. You’ll have your phone. I can ring you if I need you.”

“I am here, of course, not that any of you appreciate me,” Mikhail said. “There is no walking in this weather, so I am here.”

Lin Su smiled at Winnie. “Don’t bother poor Mikhail. Call me. I’ll be right next door.”

When she settled Winnie for her nap after lunch, Winnie was smiling slyly. “You like him, I think.”

Lin Su laughed. “I haven’t met a person who doesn’t like Blake Smiley. He might be the most popular man in the world. Seriously, the world.”

“I think you like him,” Winnie repeated.

“Of course I do, as I just said. I think you’ll have a good nap in the rain.”

“And I think you’ll have a good time in the rain, too.”

She threw her jacket over her head and took the front walk that joined all the houses to Cooper’s bar straight to Blake’s front door. He opened the door with a smile.

“The girl next door has arrived. Come in.” He took the rain-drizzled jacket from her and hung it on a peg by the door. “This is a great afternoon. The rain. The fire.”

“It’s good you like it,” she said, slipping out of her clogs and leaving them by the door. “You’re going to see a lot of it. Rain, sometimes ice, slush, more rain. And the occasional sunny day. How will that affect your training?”

“Not very much. I have everything I need downstairs—treadmill, bike, weights. Wet suit,” he added with a laugh. “I bet that water gets damn cold. But there’s a pool at the high school and I have an in with the athletic director.”

“You do, don’t you. You know, people at the race who knew of you asked if Charlie was in any of your programs. What programs? Your foundation isn’t operational yet, is it?”

He shook his head and went to the kitchen to get them tea. “I’ve sponsored a few training programs for talented but underprivileged kids. Our program isn’t up but we already have foundation seed money and give some of it away while we’re working and planning. We find them or they find us out of schools, boys’ and girls’ clubs, neighborhood rec centers, that sort of thing. If the Smiley team sponsors them, they get the equipment and coaching they need to help them on the road to better things, maybe a scholarship. If we can’t get ’em early, they might miss the opportunity, and by the time they’re twelve or thirteen they’re on another course, not always the best course.”

“Too bad you can’t do the same for academic talent,” she said.

“We’re working on that. We talk a lot about the whole-kid campaign. They need the whole banana—emotional support, environmental and nutritional support, athletic, academic. The need is too big to imagine but I’m fool enough to imagine it.”

I think he’s either a fabulous con artist or a genuinely kind man. God knows he can’t get money for his cause out of me! she thought.

“Come and sit in here.” He picked up a tray with mugs of hot tea and carried it to the living room in front of the fire. “Charlie’s thriving,” he said.

“Working out is the best idea anyone has suggested.”

“It’s more than his workouts. I think he likes it here. He likes his school.”

“He likes his friends, and not just his fellow students. Friends he’s made through my job working for Winnie have been perfect for him, and of course that includes you.”

“I got a kick out of him the first day I met him.”

“Did you see him as an underprivileged kid?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not at all. He was a brilliant kid with a laptop.”

“But then you saw our trailer park and the mess we were in...”

He shook his head again. “It wasn’t that bad, Lin Su. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending but it wasn’t anything to feel ashamed of. You could’ve run into those problems in an upper-class neighborhood—break-ins, bullying, drug abuse, et cetera. The last place I lived, I rented a town house. Nice place, gated community. A lot of the kids drove late-model sports cars or flashy trucks to school. Cortega High School—the local police called it Cocaine High. The kids were overindulged, spoiled, disrespectful vandals. You can only solve so many problems with money.”

“I put too much importance on money sometimes,” she said. “I could have afforded something a little better, but...”

He reached for her hand and held it. “It was sturdy, warm, had hot water, a working stove and a door that locked. Not a bad little place, just some bad neighbors. A lot of people would be grateful for that little trailer.”

“You?”

“Oh, I would’ve been thrilled with it when I was a kid. My mother and I were in so many rotten flats, shared apartments, tenements... We moved all the time. We even spent time in shelters.”

“Where is your mother now?” she asked.

“Died when I was sixteen.”

“Can you talk about her?” she asked.

“She’s not easy to understand,” he said.

“Neither is my mother. Either of my mothers. Tell me about yours?”

He sipped some of his tea as he thought. “She was so pretty. I sometimes wonder if she really was or if that was a little boy’s image. She was pale and blonde and small. When I was little, under five, she was looking for the right man and went through a bunch of ’em. And then she found something that was more satisfying to her than a man. Drugs. She worked as a waitress in an all-night diner but that wasn’t enough money to keep us as long as she had a habit so she also cleaned office buildings when she could get the work. I’m not sure when the habit started—seemed like we lived with it forever. And I don’t know if you’ll understand this because I don’t understand it—she was an irresponsible mother but she was also devoted. She was whacked-out half the time but I never doubted she loved me. She adored me. She cried a lot because she was such a bad mother.

“By the time I was seven or eight, I was running in the streets. Half the time I got meals at neighbors’ houses or scrounged. I didn’t go to school regularly, I didn’t have discipline or a curfew or boundaries and I’m pretty sure my mother was dealing out of that diner. She might’ve been selling herself, too, but not around me. Social services took custody of me twice and she worked hard to clean up and get me back both times. But when I was thirteen she’d played all her cards. They took me to foster care again and she was too far gone to make it back. I took the bus to see her on the other side of town a few times, to bring her a can of soup or a sweater, and I saw I was losing her day by day. And a couple of years later she was dead. They said it was an overdose but it was more than that—her body must’ve given out. She was on a downward spiral my whole life.”