Home with You

by Shirlee McCoy

  He hadn’t.

  He wouldn’t.

  Because, that wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

  Life was currently at an all-time high level of crazy. He had big decisions to make, limited time to make them, and a lot of pressure to make them right.

  He didn’t have time to lose himself in the arms of a gorgeous woman. Even if he did, he didn’t think Rumer was the kind of woman who’d want to get lost. Not unless it was forever.

  And for Sullivan, forever was about as likely as a beam of moonlight landing on Sunday’s face and waking her.

  Another one of Moisey’s fantasies, and he let himself concentrate on that, on wondering what kind of trouble she might get into in her bid to make that happen.

  A moonbeam on her mother’s face. Magic flowers to make a potion. Moisey had dozens of ideas for bringing her mother back from the brink of whatever chasm she was standing on.

  He could imagine her climbing out the window of her second-story bedroom and using the downspout to scramble to the ground.

  He could also imagine her falling and breaking her neck.

  He frowned, walking to the front of the house and eyeing the window in question. Moisey shared a room with Twila—white twin beds with soft gray sheets and comforters, small desks shoved up against a neutral blue wall. The light was off. Of course. Twila was great at following the rules to a T. She liked order and predictability. She loved organization and neatness. Her side of the room was a clutter-free zone. Moisey’s was filled with origami creations and dried flowers, yarn dolls and bits of bright fabric.

  Twila never complained, but then, she seemed to enjoy Moisey’s free-spirited approach to life. Maybe she lived vicariously through her sister. Whatever the case, the two seemed to get along well, their room one of the few argument-free zones in the house.

  He eyed the window and the downspout that was a few feet away from it. Too far for Moisey to reach, and hopefully, too far for her to think much about. He knew his niece well enough to know that once a seed was planted in her, it grew quickly.

  He wasn’t sure who had told her that moonbeams could wake people who were in a coma, but someone had, and she’d told him all about it when he’d said good night. She’d also told him it was going to be a full moon—the perfect time for magic to happen.

  And, probably, for little girls to get lost or hurt or worse.

  He made a mental note to check the window and the integrity of the screen. He could imagine Moisey opening the window and pressing her nose to the mesh, trying to figure out a way to get down without falling. He could also imagine the screen coming loose and Moisey tumbling twenty feet to the ground.

  Not a good image, and not a good thought.

  He shoved it away. Tomorrow, he’d talk to Moisey and make certain she understood that magic wasn’t real. He’d also talk to Rumer and let her know that Moisey might be hatching another plan to escape. He should have mentioned it tonight, but he’d been sidetracked by other things—the hospital’s call, Sunday’s lack of improvement, Rumer’s full lips and sweet smile.

  “Damn,” he said again, because there were no kids around to hear it. He’d cleaned up his language for them, and been doing a pretty good job of keeping it clean.

  Sometimes, though, he wanted to go back to the time when he didn’t have to worry about what little ears were hearing and little mouths were repeating. He wanted to go back to a time when the kids he dealt with were college age and no responsibility of his.

  Sometimes?

  Every minute of every day, because this life wasn’t something he’d ever have signed up for.

  His cell phone rang, and he answered, stepping away from the house, because he could picture Heavenly in her room, ear pressed to the floor or the vent or the window, trying to get as much information as she could.

  “Hello?” he barked, all his frustration seeming to spill out in that one word.

  “You sound cheerful,” Flynn said.

  “I’m about as cheerful as a mouse trapped in a cat carrier.”

  “Have things gotten worse?”

  “With Sunday or with the kids?”

  “I just got your message about the surgery.”

  “I left it four days ago,” he said dryly.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I was out in the middle of nowhere finding and branding calves. That’s a weeklong process that I squeezed into four days because I didn’t want to be off the grid for too long.”

  “I figured it was something like that.”

  “You know if there’s an emergency, you can call the house, right? My housekeeper will send someone out for me.”

  “It wasn’t an emergency. Or, at least, not one that you could have done anything about.”

  “How’d the surgery go?”

  “Okay.” He paused, because this was going to be hard to say. Admitting that they might have reached the end of the road, that there might not be any more improvement, didn’t feel right. It felt like a betrayal of the deepest kind of trust. As if he’d given up on Sunday much too soon.

  “I hear the word but in your voice,” Flynn said quietly. That was Flynn. Of the four Bradshaw men, he was the calm one, the quiet one. The one who thought a lot of things he’d never say.

  “The doctors are talking about palliative care.”

  A heartbeat of silence, and then, “They don’t think she’s going to wake up?”

  “That’s the impression I get.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I wish I knew. I’d like to have some hard facts to share with the kids. Right now, we’re all just in limbo. Thank God for Rumer. If she weren’t around—”

  “Rumer?”

  “The housekeeper.”

  “You found one already?”

  “That was the purpose of the ad, right? For me to find someone to help around here.”

  “It was the purpose, but Porter and I weren’t sure if you’d get a response. We were thinking we’d have to run the ad in Spokane, Oregon, and Seattle. Just to get a bigger pool of potential candidates. Is Rumer local?”

  “To Benevolence? No. She’s from River Way.”

  “That tiny town to the southeast?”

  “If you can call it a town, yes.”

  “And, she just happened to be in Benevolence and picked up a copy of the local paper?”

  “I have no idea how she got a copy of the paper, but she had it, she saw the ad, she applied. I hired her.”

  “How long has she been working there?”

  “This was day three. Night four.”

  “She’s a live-in?”

  “On the weekdays. On the weekends, she goes home.”

  “Her credentials?”

  “A special education teacher with a master’s degree.”

  “And, she was living in River Way and just happened to see our ad?”

  “As implausible as it seems, yes.”

  “You know what I think about things that are too good to be true? They usually are.”

  “Agreed, but Porter ran a background check. It was clear. He spoke to her employer in Seattle, and she’s in good standing with the school. They’re looking forward to her returning in the fall.”

  “So, why isn’t she there now?”

  He explained as quickly and succinctly as possible. Flynn might be the quiet brother, but he was also the most opinionated and the most stubborn.

  “I guess that sounds reasonable,” Flynn said when he finished.

  “I’m a lot of things, Flynn. Stupid isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t let someone with an unknown background care for Matt’s kids.”

  “I know.” Flynn sighed, the sound carrying a world of worry, concern, and frustration. “I hate being out of the loop, and I hate not being there. If I didn’t have this ranch, I’d quit my job and move back to that area, but this is a thriving business with a dozen people counting on it for income.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “I feel like I do. I’
m the oldest. I should be making the sacrifice.”

  “What sacrifice? I’m still working. I’m just doing it in a different location.” The last thing he wanted was for either of his brothers to feel guilty. Sure, he’d had the bad fortune to be the only one who could relocate immediately, but they were a family, and they were working together to solve the problem.

  “You’re downplaying things, Sullivan. None of us want to parent that crew. You’re the one who’s doing it.”

  “With some help.”

  “The housekeeper. Right. I guess I’ll meet her this weekend.”

  “What time are you flying in?”

  “Early. I’m leaving here Thursday night, and I’ll land around five a.m.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “No need. I’m renting a car. I’ve got a meeting in Seattle Monday morning, so I’m flying out from there.”

  “Are you coming here first, or heading to the hospital?”

  “There. We need to sit down and come up with a plan of action. I’m not in love with the palliative care idea. Unless they can prove to me that she’s not going to get better, I want her in a rehab facility.”

  “I agree.”

  “Good. Sounds like you have things under control there. If you have issues between now and Thursday evening, give me a call. I may be able to change my flight arrangements and get there earlier. You shouldn’t have to deal with all this on your own.” From anyone else that might have sounded condescending, but Flynn didn’t have an arrogant bone in his body. He was tough as nails, hard as rock, and intimidating as hell. When he had to fight, he won. As far as Sullivan knew, he’d almost never had to.

  “I’m about as close to having this under control as I am to solving the mysteries of the universe,” he admitted.

  “You’re doing a better job than I would be. I can manage ten thousand acres and five thousand head of cattle, face down rattlesnakes and rustlers and not even blink an eye, but kids? They scare the hell out of me. I’ll see you Friday, okay?”

  “See you then,” he responded, disconnecting the call and looking up at Moisey’s window again. Still dark. Still closed. Not even a hint that she was plotting something.

  She was. He knew that.

  Just like he knew that Heavenly was in her room with earbuds in and her music turned up, and that the twins had pushed their beds together so that they could whisper to each other when they were supposed to be asleep. He knew Twila had a book under her pillow and a little flashlight under her mattress and that Oya would wake up in the morning smiling. He hadn’t figured things out, but he at least knew that.

  It wasn’t much.

  It wasn’t everything.

  But, it was a start. And that, he guessed as he walked back inside, would have to be enough.

  Chapter Seven

  Getting six kids ready for a hospital visit had taken its toll. Rumer had rushed them home from school, signed their daily planners, looked through their assignment books, and gotten them snacks. As soon as that was done, she’d sent them to comb their hair, brush their teeth, and get ready to go.

  That, of course, had meant helping kids find shoes and combs and—God help her—toothpaste lids that had fallen into sink drains. It had meant separating the twins when they got into a fight over whose toothbrush was whose, untying the knots in Moisey’s favorite laced boots, helping Twila choose just the right lip gloss and hair accessories, and ignoring Heavenly’s irritable glares and muttered curses every time she was reminded that she needed to get ready.

  At some point, Rumer had convinced the tween to get moving. Heavenly had one-upped the request and taken Oya with her, claiming that if she was going to be forced to go, she might as well get the baby ready, too.

  Now, nearly an hour after Operation Getting Ready to Go had commenced, Rumer was shoving herself into the only clean clothes she could find—a poodle skirt and sweater set. They’d been packed in the suitcase Minnie had dropped by on Rumer’s first day of work. There’d also been makeup, hair products, a few herbal headache cures, three romance novels, and a box of emergency chocolate.

  The emergency chocolate was gone.

  The rest of the stuff was sitting in the bottom of the suitcase. Aside from the 1950s getup Rumer had donned, all the clothes Minnie had brought were dumped in the hamper, most of them splattered with pig slop, baby spit-up, or good old-fashioned dirt from working on the farm.

  She zipped the poodle skirt, running her hand down the front to smooth out a few wrinkles. The sweater was a little short, the bottom edge of it hitting right above the waistband of the skirt. She tugged it down as far as it would go, ran fingers through crazy-wild hair, and hoped to Heaven she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt.

  She glanced in the mirror and winced. Yep. Frazzled in the extreme: hair poking out in a million different directions, light pink poodle skirt falling nearly to her ankles, one earring in and one missing.

  She thought she might have lost it in the middle of the night and been walking around all day without it. Moisey had woken screaming around midnight, and she’d run downstairs to see what was wrong. The screaming had woken Oya, whose crying had woken Heavenly. Eventually, every one of the six kids was down in the kitchen having warm milk and toast.

  Sullivan had been there, too, wearing dark blue pajama bottoms that clung to his lean hips. That was it. No shirt. No robe. She’d been fiddling with the darn earring, trying not to notice his lean, hard muscles, the smooth expanse of his skin, the contraction of biceps and triceps as he helped kids get toast and clean up messes.

  Yeah.

  She’d probably lost the earring then.

  She scowled, grabbing her purse, her cell phone, and the journal she’d purchased that morning. The handmade leather-bound book contained hand-pressed paper. No lines. No margins. Just beautiful raw edges and the thick, uneven feel of pulped wood.

  She’d already written in it, outlining a conversation she’d had with Moisey. The girl thought moonbeams could cure her mother’s coma, and Rumer had jotted down all the details of her theory. When Sunday woke, she’d be amused by it.

  If she woke.

  Sullivan had been quiet since his conversation with the hospital. She’d noticed that. Just like she’d noticed the fact that he still hadn’t shaved. Soon, he’d have a full-out beard and mustache.

  He already looked sexy as heck.

  That was going to be the frosting on the cake, the ice cream on the pie, the—

  “Rumer!” Twila called, her voice faint but audible.

  Rumer could picture her standing near the front door, holding a stopwatch and a checklist.

  The kid had more organizational skills in her left pinkie than most people had in their entire bodies.

  Knowing her, she’d already herded her siblings to the foyer and had them lined up by age or height or troublemaking ability. That was good, because they were leaving in T minus—Rumer glanced at her watch . . .

  Now!

  They were leaving now.

  “Darn it,” she muttered, tossing the notebook into her bag and grabbing the baggies of snacks, the packages of crayons, and the coloring books that she’d purchased for the visit. She tossed them in with the journal, flicked off her light, and ran down the stairs.

  She hit the lower landing and skidded across the wood floor, nearly slamming into the wall.

  “Smooth,” Heavenly said. She was a foot away, Oya in a baby carrier strapped to her chest. Both were wearing dresses. Oya’s was a frilly teal concoction that had been paired with thick white tights and black patent-leather shoes. Heavenly’s dress skimmed her narrow frame and fell to an inch above her knees. She’d taken her hair out of cornrows and it hung around her face in glossy dark blond strands. No combat boots or holey tights. She was wearing cute ankle boots with purple laces and patterned tights that matched the dress.

  “You look lovely, Heavenly,” Rumer said, both pleased and discomfited by the tween’s choice. She’d never seen her in anythi
ng other than skin-tight holey rags.

  “Whatever,” she muttered, stomping to the door. “Are we going? I have stuff to do tonight.”

  “Like what?” Sullivan asked, walking out of the kitchen, a sketch pad in his hand, a pencil behind his ear. He’d dressed in denim and flannel again, the T-shirt he wore beneath the flannel shirt the same bold green as his eyes.

  “Homework,” Heavenly snapped, opening the door and walking outside, her siblings filing out behind her. Twila in a knee-length skirt and navy peacoat, Moisey in a wool blazer and a bright pink dress, the twins dressed in slacks and ties and suit coats.

  She did a double-take at that, skimming them from the top of their combed hair to the toes of their polished shoes. Not a smudge. Not a speck of dirt. Their clothes looked freshly washed and pressed. Even Henry was wearing a suit, the gray-black rock shrouded in what looked like a Ken-doll suit coat.

  “What the heck?” she muttered.

  “I was wondering the same,” Sullivan responded, touching her lower spine and urging her outside.

  “Did you tell them to dress up?”

  “I figured you had,” he responded, his gaze on the kids. They were marching single file toward the old red van.

  “I told them to brush their teeth and comb their hair. I didn’t mention clothes. I didn’t think—” She glanced at the kids. They stood next to the locked van staring somberly in her direction, listening to every word she said. “I didn’t think of how wonderful it would be if everyone dressed up for the occasion. If I had time, I’d go change into something a little fancier, then we’d all be looking our best.”

  “I don’t know,” Sullivan murmured, his hand still on her back, his long stride shortened to match hers. “The outfit you’ve got on seems pretty fancy.”

  “It’s a poodle skirt,” she replied, brushing her hand down the old cotton fabric. “Minnie packed it with the other things she brought over.”

  “Vintage?”

  “Of course, so is the sweater.” They were a matched set—pale pink poodle skirt and white mock turtleneck sweater, both soft from years of wear.

  “Vintage looks good on you,” he said, and she blushed.