Huntington Family Series

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I was going to call a car rental place and then find a motel.” Bending her knees, she reached down for her duffel with her left hand.

  “I could drive you. I know a motel in Sandy that has good weekly rates.”

  “Sandy?”

  “That’s where I live. Just around the mountain.”

  “You could give me directions. I’m going to need a car anyway.”

  “I could,” he said, “but I thought I’d show you where I live so you could visit Emily Jane.”

  He had her then. If she didn’t come with him, she’d lose valuable time searching for his address, but she clearly wasn’t happy about accepting help from him. Hey, maybe that was a good course for him to pursue. He’d conquer her with kindness, all the while showing her how well he could take care of Emily Jane.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “Thank you.”

  He thumbed over his shoulder. “I’m going to check with my family to make sure they don’t need me to clean up or anything.”

  “I’ll wait in the foyer,” she said, pronouncing it foi-yay.

  Boy, does she have a lot to learn about Mormons, he thought, grinning.

  Amanda, Kerrianne, and his mother had everything well under control. They had already cleared the plates and were supervising as the men folded the tables. “You go on, Mitch,” his mother said when he told her what had happened. “We have things taken care of here.” She held up a hand. “But remember, you need to be an example. The best way to share the gospel with someone is to live it.”

  “Uh . . . okay, Mom.” He wondered where she’d gotten the idea that he was trying to teach Cory the gospel.

  He snapped his fingers. That was it! If Cory were a believer, he’d feel a lot better about sharing custody. He wouldn’t worry about her teaching Emily Jane poor habits that might damage her testimony later. In time, if Cory proved to be really dedicated, he might actually feel good about allowing Emily Jane to stay with her for part of the week.

  The thought of not having Emily Jane with him every instant was at once a relief and an awful, fearsome thing. While it would be wonderful to have someone to share decisions and responsibility with, what would he do on the days that he couldn’t have her trusting little arms around his neck?

  Well, Cory’s not a member and not likely to become one, he reasoned. The best I can hope for is to teach her not to disdain our ways. Maybe that would be enough for her to still have a relationship with Emily Jane. Besides, being a member didn’t automatically make someone fit to be a parent. The ill feeling in his stomach subsided.

  He retrieved his jacket as his nieces and nephews gathered around him. “Uncle Mitch, aren’t you going to show us your gerbil?”

  “Oh, sure.” Emily Jane was growing sleepy, but he squatted anyway, cradling the baby along the curve of his left arm. One by one, he allowed the children to hold or pet Dizzy, who was ecstatic to be released from her plastic ball. “Okay, that’s enough, guys,” he said after only a few minutes. “I have to take Emily Jane’s aunt home.”

  “Awww,” came the disappointed cries.

  “Hey, don’t worry. I bet your moms will bring you over to my house today if you ask. Come on now, give me a kiss so I can get going.”

  They showered him with wet, affectionate kisses until he laughingly begged for relief. Standing, Mitch tucked the ball with Dizzy into his pocket, turned Emily Jane so that her cheek lay on his shoulder, and sprinted for the door.

  As promised, Cory was waiting for him in the foyer. She stood by the double glass doors, staring out at the church lawn. Her bright dress hung down to her sandaled feet, emphasizing her femininity. Mitch couldn’t help noticing again how attractive she was, though at the moment her face was forlorn. Was she thinking of her sister? It comforted him to know that she had loved Ashley.

  She gave a little start when he touched her arm. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “You look about a hundred miles away.”

  “Just thinking.” Her eyes went to Emily Jane. “Ah, she’s almost out. Must be nap time.”

  Mitch didn’t reply. Emily Jane didn’t exactly have a nap time. Instead, she fell asleep wherever she was—usually in his arms—at any time she felt like it. He wondered now if it would work better to schedule a regular nap time. He’d read something about it in one of the childcare books he’d been reading, but it seemed rather senseless to him. If a child was tired, she would sleep, right? Sometimes the experts fussed way too much about details. But maybe he was wrong.

  He certainly wasn’t going to admit that to Cory. “So, aren’t you going to guess which car is mine?” he asked as they went out of the building and down the sidewalk to the parking lot.

  “Okay.” She brought her left forefinger to her chin. Mitch noticed that the nails were extremely short—probably bitten. “Let’s see,” she said. “Not either of the minivans—I’d say those belong to your sisters—nor that sleek-looking car there. I bet that’s your parents’. That old green truck is probably your little brother’s, and that tiny red Subaru there must belong to his girlfriend.”

  “Savvy’s not actually his girlfriend,” Mitch interrupted.

  “They act like they belong together.”

  Mitch frowned. “He’s the only one who doesn’t think so.”

  “Isn’t that the way it always is?” Cory pointed at his Mustang. “That must be yours. Those others are just too blah. Nice car, but that color is really atrocious.”

  Mitch didn’t know whether he should be pleased or offended. “Yeah, maybe so.” He feigned deep contemplation. “You know, I think my car is the exact same color as your hair.”

  She blinked. “My hair is not that color!”

  His gaze swung between her and the Mustang. “You’re right,” he said gravely. “Your hair is definitely more orange.”

  She glared at him—or tried to. A smile kept trying to creep its way onto her face. He laughed, and she allowed her smile to emerge fully until she was laughing with him.

  At the car, he unlocked the trunk for her large duffel bag. He could tell by the way her arm muscles flexed that it was heavy to lift, but while carrying the sleeping baby, he wasn’t in a position to help. He walked around to the passenger side door and awkwardly unlocked it for her.

  “Can I help you with anything?” she asked.

  “It’s okay. I’m used to doing things with her sleeping in my arms.”

  “Let me at least hold your jacket.” She took it from his arm. “Though why you have a jacket with you in the summer is beyond me, especially when you’re wearing that suit.”

  “You never know,” Mitch said, unwilling to tell her of his allergy to cold. “I like to be prepared.”

  “A Boy Scout, huh?”

  “Yep. That’s me, a Boy Scout through and through.” Mitch placed Emily Jane in her car seat and clipped the fasteners shut. She didn’t even stir. “Besides, that jacket has the perfect pocket for my especially designed gerbil ball.”

  “Oh, the ball that holds the famous Dizzy.”

  He was surprised she remembered the name. “Infamous, you mean,” he corrected. When he came around to his seat, she’d already extracted the ball from his pocket.

  “May I?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, just don’t forget that I gave her the name for a reason. I normally bring Hiccup, but she and Elvis had babies, and she would hate me to take her away from them.”

  “Elvis?” Cory gave a little chuckle.

  “Yeah. Hiccup and Dizzy used to be cage mates until I decided it was time for them to have babies. If you know anything about gerbils, you’ll know that they’re very territorial and don’t take to new gerbils easily. So I had to go through the whole routine of putting a metal screen between Hiccup and Elvis until she wouldn’t attack him. He didn’t have a problem because he was so young and just wanted to snuggle. She was older, though, and didn’t like him at all. Anyway, Elvis would go up to the screen and stroke his paw against it like a guitar.
It was hilarious. Must have worked because after only a week, she was ready to be friends. Now they have nine children.”

  “Nine?” Cory looked up from the gerbil in her hands.

  “Yep. Nine. That’s a problem, too, because Hiccup can only feed eight babies at a time.”

  “Aaaa!” Cory reacted as Dizzy took a flying leap from her hands in a valiant effort to escape. Once on the floor, the gerbil scurried under the seat. “I’m sorry,” Cory said, making a face.

  “Don’t worry about it. She’s always been a live wire.” He reached near her sandaled feet, making a clicking sound with his tongue. After a few seconds, Dizzy ran from under the seat and climbed onto his hand. Mitch gave her a sunflower seed from the cup holder in the dash and then stroked the white stripe between her eyes. “Give her some seeds,” he advised, “and she’ll be all right. She’ll do anything for sunflower seeds.”

  When Cory had a few seeds in her hand, Mitch passed the gerbil to her. Satisfied that Dizzy would behave, he started the engine and put the Mustang into gear.

  “So how is Hiccup doing with her nine babies?” Cory asked after a few moments of comfortable silence.

  Mitch grinned. “Well, there was a runt. Tiny little fellow that I was sure was going to die. Elvis kept taking the baby off by itself, and I worried that it would starve or that Elvis might hurt the little guy. It’s rare, but sometimes the fathers do that. But Elvis would only cuddle up with the baby. I tried to give it some of Emily Jane’s formula in an eye dropper. Didn’t get much down. Then a while later when I came back to give it some more, I saw that Elvis and Hiccup had changed places. Now he was with the other babies and she was curled up nursing that little runt all by himself.”

  “That’s incredible!” Cory shook her head.

  “Yeah, it’s been three weeks. He’s still small, but he’s as active and as strong as the others. They don’t need to keep him separate anymore.”

  Cory held Dizzy closer to her face. “So what about you, Dizzy? Are you all alone now?”

  “Oh, she has the others for company.”

  “Others?” Cory looked at him with one eyebrow arched. Mitch noticed that her eyebrows were a darker orange-red than her hair and thick above the beautiful blue eyes.

  “Excuse me?” he asked, momentarily losing the thread of their conversation.

  “You said others. How many gerbils do you have?”

  He shrugged. “Just the three—plus the nine babies. By others I meant my other pets.”

  “You have more?”

  “A few.” No use in overwhelming her all at once. “Look, here’s my street. I live on the left, second to the end.” Ordinarily, he was proud of his house, but now as he imagined how it must look through her eyes, the brick rambler looked rather small and outdated. He’d bought the house in January when the owner of the apartment he’d lived in before complained about the smell of his outdoor rabbit cages. Then there was the time a ferret got loose, but Mitch didn’t like to dwell on that memory.

  He and his animal friends were much happier here. The house was in an older area, surrounded by newer construction. It was small, with two tiny bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, a mini cement storage room in the basement, and a garage barely large enough for his ferrets and his sports equipment. The yard was another story. Mature trees bordered the property line, and the spacious, fenced backyard was perfect for his lifestyle.

  “You ought to see the backyard,” he said, as the car rolled to a stop. “In fact, would you like the grand tour?”

  She was quiet for a moment as she returned Dizzy to her plastic ball. Mitch began to feel uncomfortable during the silence. Why had he made the offer? After all, she was the enemy. He knew, though, that he had asked because despite everything, he was enjoying her company.

  “Perhaps another time,” Cory said, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’d better go to the motel. I need to call my agent—among other things.”

  “You want to call a lawyer.”

  She didn’t respond, so he knew he’d guessed correctly.

  “Might as well wait until Monday. I can’t imagine many lawyers working on the weekend.”

  “The best ones do,” she countered.

  Mitch was suddenly irritated with her. He’d done nothing this past half hour but try to maintain their truce. However, he had the sneaking suspicion that she was only biding her time to shove his tolerance in his face. “Okay,” he said tightly. He put the car into gear and stepped on the gas.

  At the motel he made sure there was a vacancy before he hopped out to get her duffel. She was nearly as quick, racing around before he could pull it completely out. “Be careful,” she warned. “My laptop and cameras are in there.”

  Now he understood why it was so heavy and awkwardly shaped on top. Resisting the urge to toss it onto the ground, he set it in her arms with slightly more force than necessary. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Let me say good-bye to EmJay.” She opened the back door and leaned in to kiss the sleeping baby, whispering something Mitch didn’t catch. Straightening, she faced him. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m sure you will,” he said with more than a little bitterness.

  She eyed him silently.

  At that moment, he remembered his mother’s comment at the church about introducing her to the gospel. He felt reluctant, knowing that she was entirely capable of shooting down his offer. Maybe he could phrase it in a way she couldn’t refuse.

  “Look,” he said, keeping his voice even. “You told me you loved Ashley, and now you want to raise Emily Jane. If that’s true, then you should find out what it was your sister believed. Why don’t you come to church tomorrow and see for yourself?”

  “My father was a Baptist, and he knew plenty about Mormons.”

  Mitch shook his head. “Apparently he knew how to hate them. Even his own daughter.”

  “She’s the one who left us!”

  “She followed her heart.”

  A shadow crossed her face. “He told me not to see her,” she admitted.

  “And you just went along with it?” Mitch strode around the car to his door, once more letting his emotions show. “Forget I asked. You don’t really care to know how Ashley felt at all. You’re too blinded by your father’s beliefs to see anything else. Beliefs, I might add, that aren’t exactly shared by all Baptists. My parents have good friends in Arizona who are Baptists, and they don’t hate us.”

  He jumped in the car and was about to slam the door when he heard her say, “Wait!” Standing again, he looked at her over the top of the car. “I’ll go,” she said. “What time?”

  Her abrupt about-face was so unexpected that he stopped for a moment to take it in. “Nine,” he recovered enough to say. “I’ll have to pick you up about eight forty-five.”

  “Okay.”

  He continued staring at her, and she stared right back. Finally, he folded his tall frame back into the car and sped away. She’s crazy, he thought. One minute she’s defensive and angry and the next she’s agreeing to go to church with me.

  One thing for sure, he couldn’t allow her to take Emily Jane away from him. He only hoped the courts would support his claim of guardianship.

  When he arrived home, he discovered a message on his new answering machine. It was from the lawyer in Texas, warning him that a woman claiming to be Ashley’s sister might be at the memorial service. He shook his head and sighed.

  Chapter Ten

  Cory watched Mitch drive away, wishing she had something to throw at that stupid orange Mustang. He was infuriating, condescending, and annoyingly devoted to EmJay. Of course, Cory wouldn’t allow that last character trait to affect what she had to do. EmJay needed a mother figure. Cory knew what it was like to grow up without a mother; she wouldn’t let that happen to EmJay—especially after feeling such a strong connection to her.

  Hefting her duffel, she stomped over to the motel office and checked in. The place was nicer than expected, though th
ey didn’t have high speed Internet. Cory would have to use the regular phone line and her laptop modem to send her photographs to her agent because she hadn’t mailed the CDs yet. While she e-mailed the pictures, she’d use her new cell phone to let Vikki know she was back in the States. Afterward, she’d find an attorney.

  Vikki picked up her cell phone on the second ring. “Good, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “I’ve sent you e-mails and even a letter, but I had no idea how long it would be before you got them. You know, if you’re going to work halfway around the world, you really need a continuous connection, dear. At the very least a satellite phone.”

  “It was a little expensive at the time.” Cory sat on the bed and kicked off her sandals.

  “When you hear what’s happened, dear, you won’t care about the expense.”

  The skin on the back of Cory’s neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that idiot writer. Yesterday he sent in his article early—along with a bunch of pictures that he took.”

  “He sent a CD?” Cory couldn’t imagine how he’d had the time. She’d only left on Wednesday.

  “No, the pictures came through e-mail. Low resolution. Said he’d send a CD if they were interested. Of course, the magazine called me because they didn’t understand what was going on. They e-mailed me the pictures, and it took me only one minute to realize they weren’t yours. All of them were poor quality. Well, I shouldn’t say all of them. There were two that I’d lay bets were yours. One was a fabulous closeup of a mother jaguar and cubs. Anyway, the writer said you’d been called away and asked him to finish.”

  “That worm!” Cory experienced a sickening sense of betrayal. “He knows those pictures are the last thing on my mind right now. He’s just trying to get paid double.”

  “I thought as much. Fortunately, the editor contacted me, and I assured him you would send in your work by the deadline. You do have it, don’t you, dear?”

  “I’m sending the low resolutions now.” As she spoke, Cory was setting up her laptop and plugging it into the waiting phone jack. “The connection’s slow, but you’ll soon see the best of what I’ve got. I’ll overnight you the CDs with the high resolutions.”