“It won’t burn down?”
She grinned. “Well, it’s mostly plastic and metal, so not burn exactly, but melt or something. I don’t want to lose my greenhouse before I ever get to use it.”
“You won’t.” He began checking the lines along the wall. He knew the ones running in the PVC piping to the house were fine because he’d done those himself earlier.
Kerrianne sneezed again.
“I hope you’re not getting sick.”
“I do feel a little hot.”
“That’s because your brother turned on the heat pretty high. Too high. I know it’s insulated, but that’s a little much.” He adjusted the knob. “Even at this temperature, your electricity bill will be going up, you know.”
Kerrianne turned around, surveying their handiwork. “It’s worth it. Thank you so much, Ryan.”
“It wasn’t me. You said yourself the Lord would provide.”
“I’ll remember to thank Him, but you deserve credit, too. How can I ever repay you?”
He closed the space between them. “You could go out with me.”
“All right,” she said so readily that he felt dizzy. Euphoric and dizzy. “When?”
“Tomorrow, the next day, and the next day would be a good start.”
Again the smile that made him want to hold her. “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. You’ll be with your family. But call me tomorrow and we’ll plan something for the weekend. I think I may have promised Maxine that I’d go to another dance with her, so I’d better talk to her first. I’m too exhausted to remember what day we talked about.” She sneezed twice and then a third time.
“You’d better get inside. Looks like you’re getting a cold.”
“You’re right. Besides, I’d better go see how big the boys’ tent is now.”
The boys were still playing in the family room, their tent covering the entire area. The girls were absent, but their raised voices echoed throughout the house. Giving him a despairing look, Kerrianne started for the stairs. Ryan followed her.
“You’re stupid, and I hate you!” Misty shouted.
“Well, you’re dumb, and so are your dolls! I don’t care if I broke their clothes.”
They found the girls glaring at each other, Misty holding a broken doll dress in her hand.
“Ria,” Ryan said sharply, “what’s going on?”
“I was just looking at the dolls. I tried to put the clothes on, but they broke.”
“You weren’t careful,” Misty said spitefully. “You’re too rough.”
Ria glared at her.
“Girls.” Kerrianne’s voice demanded attention. They looked at her. “I’m quite sure this was an accident. No, Misty”—she held up a hand—“I don’t want to hear it. We’ll buy a replacement dress later. Meanwhile, Ryan has spent his entire day off helping me build the greenhouse. I think I owe him dinner. We’re too tired to take you all out, but maybe we could get pizza and watch a video.” Kerrianne looked to Ryan for support, and he nodded quickly, happy to agree to any plan that kept them together. “But if you two are going to act like this, maybe we shouldn’t do it at all.”
“What movie?” Misty asked, mollified as much by the promise of the movie as by a new dress for her doll.
Kerrianne thought a moment. “How about The Princess Bride?”
“Okay,” Misty agreed with only a touch of sullenness. “But I don’t want pepperoni.”
“Ria?” Ryan asked.
“Princess Bride? It sounds stupid,” she muttered.
Misty gave her a black glare. “It’s not stupid. It’s really funny.” She turned to her mother. “I’ll go get it from the cupboard.” With another dark look at Ria, she started down the stairs.
“It really is funny,” Kerrianne said to Ria. “Well, at least all the kids think so. Do you think she’ll like it, Ryan?”
He shrugged. “I never saw it.”
“You’re kidding!” She let her mouth fall open in exaggerated surprise. “I can’t believe it. It was popular when we were kids.”
“It always sounded kind of, well, girly.” He winked at Ria, who was nodding vigorously.
“Don’t worry. You’ll both like it.” Kerrianne turned. “Let’s go downstairs, and I’ll call for pizza.”
“Can’t we have something else?” Ria asked.
Kerrianne cast Ryan a smirk. “Bored with pizza, huh?”
“Kind of.” Ria looked at her hopefully.
“I have some leftover tuna casserole in the fridge.”
“I’ll try it.”
Ryan hoped he could get some, too.
Hours later, full of tasty casserole and belly laughs, Ryan knew it was time to leave for home. The thought made him feel bleak. There was nothing awaiting him there. Just a cold bed and dishes he’d left in the sink for two days. But he couldn’t very well ask to stay here.
“I’ll go start the truck and get it warm,” he said. “Then I’ll carry Tiger out.” Tiger was sleeping between Benjamin and Caleb on the floor, their small heads peeking out of their blanket tent.
Kerrianne didn’t respond immediately, and Ryan wondered if she was okay. She was no longer sneezing, but her face was flushed and slightly glistening. “You all right?” he asked.
She rubbed her forehead. “Just tired, I guess. I’d better carry these boys to bed. Better yet, maybe they can just sleep here.” She yawned, covering her mouth with a hand.
Misty touched her arm. “Mom, you’re boiling hot.”
“I am? I feel kind of cold.” She shivered.
Ryan stopped himself from feeling her forehead. She was a grown woman and could take care of herself. Yet later when he touched her hand in farewell at the door, not daring to steal another kiss with Ria and Misty watching so intently, her skin felt hot. “You’d better get to bed,” he said gruffly to hide the tenderness he was feeling.
“I will. I’m really tired.”
He wished he could stay and take care of her. He was good at that. Laurie always said he had a great bedside manner.
Sudden fear gripped him. What if Kerrianne had something serious? Something that would take her from him? Ridiculous, he told himself. It’s just a cold. She’s been outside too much these past days. With great effort, he forced himself to leave.
On the drive home, Ria heaved a long sigh. “I wish Misty didn’t hate me so much.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She gave you that dress, remember?”
“I know. I thought it was Kerrianne until Misty yelled at me at the school.”
“Me too. It was a nice thing to do.”
“She shouldn’t have yelled.”
“You shouldn’t have told private things to your friends.”
Ria looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
“But you do like her, don’t you?” Ria looked up, her face eager. “Even better than Sam.”
“I like her loads better than Sam.” He stopped, not ready to tell his daughter he was falling in love. How could you tell your child that you loved a woman who was not her mother? It didn’t make sense.
Unless her mother was dead.
“I don’t know how things are going to play out,” he told Ria. “So maybe it’s better to keep you and Misty apart until we figure it out.”
“But I like the boys.” In a smaller voice, she added, “I like Kerrianne, too. So does Tiger. If you’re going to keep me away, then are you going to find a new teacher for Tiger?”
“No.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t want to be the only one left out. I like being with Kerrianne, even if I have to see Misty.”
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, that’s all.”
“I won’t—I promise.”
Ryan glanced at the sleeping Tiger, sitting between them with his head on Ria’s lap. He didn’t know what to say. Maybe his parents were right. Maybe getting involved with a woman who had three children wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he was putting his own c
hildren at risk by letting them love her. What if she turned away from them in the end? It was an entirely possible scenario.
No, he thought. Even if she and I don’t end up working out, she would still be Tiger’s teacher, and she might even agree to let Ria hang around after school. If they weren’t involved romantically, he would have asked her already.
“Dad, do we have to go to Grandma’s tomorrow?”
He sighed, pulling his mind away from Kerrianne. “I don’t want to. She’s having two other families there.”
“With women for you to date?” Ria giggled.
“Something like that.”
“Well, I don’t want to go, not even if Grandpa plays ball with me. You know what I think?”
“No. What?”
“I think we should stay home and cook Mom’s casserole.”
The casserole. The last casserole.
His throat felt dry. “Didn’t you have enough casserole tonight? Between you and Tiger and me, we finished off every last drop, more than half the pan.”
“That’s what made me think of it. I bet Mom’s chicken casserole is just as good—better than turkey any old day.”
Ryan grinned. “Okay, it’s a deal. Tomorrow, we’ll stay home and have the casserole all by ourselves.” Maybe with Kerrianne in his life it would be possible to cook the last meal Laurie had made.
“What are you going to tell Grandma?”
“I’ll tell her that I’m having Thanksgiving with the most beautiful girl in the world, and it’ll be the truth.”
Ria smiled shyly. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I love you, Ria.”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Twenty
Kerrianne awoke to a pounding headache, fever, chills, and aches everywhere that had little to do with her physical exertions in building the greenhouse. She either had one whopping cold or the flu—it was hard to tell which. Groaning, she put her head under the pillow and tried to block out the light. At least there was no mail to worry about. In the past that had meant holidays were always worse for her. There had been no reason to get out of bed until the very last moment—and then only because her family expected her.
Today, on the first holiday she hadn’t woken up from a dream about Adam, she would have loved to jump from bed, singing at the top of her lungs, and eagerly await a call from Ryan. Instead, she was sick.
The heater was on, triggered by a timing switch she’d put in last year, but she still felt cold. She kept her head under the pillow, shivering under a pile of blankets she’d torn off the boys’ tent in the family room last night.
The children wandered in some time later. “What time are we going to Grandma’s?” Misty asked.
“At noon,” Kerrianne said with a groan.
“Are you sick?” Misty’s face creased with concern.
Kerrianne nodded.
Benjamin tried to climb up on the bed, but Kerrianne waved him off. “You might get sick, sweetie. Look, Misty, can you get the boys breakfast? We have cold cereal in the cupboard.”
“Yay!” The boys were out the door before she’d finished speaking, and Kerrianne stifled the urge to yell after them, “Hey, what’s wrong with my oatmeal?” She was really too sick to be worrying what they ate for breakfast.
If Adam were here, he would take care of . . . She stopped the unexpected thought. In the beginning she’d always thought that way. Once or twice, she’d actually called Adam’s work to ask him to pick up some items from the store on his way home. She’d hung up when a voice she didn’t recognize answered—and then she spent the rest of the day crying and eating baking chocolate.
Not anymore.
She groaned again and replaced the pillow. At least she wasn’t throwing up. That was good news.
By eleven she showed no signs of improvement and decided to call her sister. “Hi,” she said.
“Is something wrong? You sound terrible.”
“I’m sick. I can’t go to Mom’s today. I can’t even get out of bed.”
“Oh no! What do you have?”
“A cold, the flu. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s terrible.”
Amanda thought a moment. “I know, we’ll move Thanksgiving to your house. Mom’s got most of the food, but it shouldn’t be too hard.”
The idea of having a houseful of partying people made Kerrianne feel worse. Especially the idea of numerous children running wild without her to watch what they might do to her house. “No way,” she said. “I won’t be able to participate anyway, and I’ll just sit up here and wonder what’s going on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very. I really just want to sleep in peace. But I don’t want to disappoint the children, so I was wondering if you’d come by for them. You wouldn’t mind watching them at Mom’s, would you? That way, I could get some sleep.”
“I’d be glad to. And don’t worry, we’ll drive very carefully. Blake’s good with snow.”
“Snow?”
“Yeah. You probably haven’t seen. It snowed early this morning. There’s several inches out there on the ground. Even the road is patchy.”
Kerrianne stifled a desire to tell Amanda not to come for the children after all. Since Adam’s car accident, it had been difficult to allow her children to drive with anyone else, especially in the snow, but she knew she shouldn’t permit herself to be ruled by fear. But what if something did happen? What if another truck barreled into Blake and Amanda’s van? She shivered violently—with fever or fear she couldn’t say. She took a deep breath and then another. “I know you’ll be careful,” she whispered. Amanda of all people knew what keeping her children safe meant to her.
“Of course. Look, we’ll be over in a minute. I bet you haven’t eaten or taken anything, have you?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“But you could use some aspirin.”
“I don’t want you to get sick. Really, I’m fine.”
Amanda laughed. “Yeah, that’s what you always say. Remember how Adam said that the only time you didn’t say you were fine was after you’d been in hard labor for five hours with Benjamin and they couldn’t find the anesthesiologist to give you an epidural?”
Kerrianne smiled at the memory. Adam had said that a lot, though it wasn’t exactly true. She’d liked being strong for him. Yet in the past four years there had been many times she hadn’t been strong at all. Emotional anguish reached far deeper than any physical pain she’d experienced.
“Kerrianne, are you okay? Does my talking about Adam like that bother you?”
“No, I’ve told you a hundred times that I want you to talk about him. I was just remembering. Thank you.”
There was a sniff on the other end of the line. “I’ll be right there, okay? I just have to get Blakey some clean underwear. I hope he doesn’t have a potty relapse when the baby comes.”
Kerrianne said good-bye, leaving the phone next to her on the bed.
Less than an hour later, Amanda was forcing a few bites of oatmeal into Kerrianne’s mouth. “Just a bit more,” she said, “and I’ll let you take the aspirin. You should never take aspirin on an empty stomach.”
“Where’s Blake?” Kerrianne asked.
“Getting your kids ready. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of them.”
“I know you will.”
Even so, Kerrianne worried for a full fifteen minutes after they left, her head once again under the pillow. After that, she relaxed because there had been no phone call from her mother saying they hadn’t arrived. She thought of her family around the table, each voicing a blessing they’d received the past year. The ritual was always hard for her because she so vividly remembered the last Thanksgiving she’d shared with Adam. He’d said how grateful he was for his testimony and for the Savior’s sacrifice, how he felt he’d come to know the Savior and feel the love He had for him and his family. Mere weeks later, Adam had gone home to that Savior. The memory of his words had given Kerrianne great comfort, but it also carried
its share of pain. After each Thanksgiving dinner, Adam would always pull out his guitar and the whole family would sing until they were hoarse. Now there was only conversation, which was good, but for her the day had always come up lacking.
On the whole, Thanksgiving was hard—too hard.
She drifted into sleep, hearing guitar music, though she hadn’t put any on. Guitar, and maybe just a little bit of harp.
* * *
A ringing pulled her from the music. Kerrianne was reluctant to leave the dream, but it was gone and she couldn’t recapture the feeling. She felt for the phone that had become embedded in the blankets. “Hello?” she said, somewhat hoarsely.
“Kerrianne, is that you?”
She knew the voice immediately. “Hi, Ryan.”
“I didn’t know if you’d be home. I thought you were going to your parents.”
“I thought you were going to yours.”
“We decided to stay home.” He laughed. “I wasn’t up for matchmaking today.”
Smiling, Kerrianne grabbed Adam’s pillow and put it under her head.
“What about you?” Ryan asked.
“I woke up with a fever. But I’m feeling a little better now. My sister gave me some aspirin when she came to pick up the kids.”
“You’re there all alone?”
“I’ve been sleeping.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
“It’s great. They offered to move Thanksgiving here, but I declined.”
“I don’t blame you. Not very restful to have a houseful of people over when you’re sick.”
“Exactly.”
“Have you eaten?”
Kerrianne grimaced. “Manda made me eat oatmeal, and I’m sure she’ll bring back leftovers.”
“I love leftovers.”
“Well, I hope no one misses the pies I usually make,” Kerrianne said.
He laughed. “I’m sure they’ll muddle through. I took out a frozen pie from the freezer. They’re really good—if you haven’t had real pie in a while.” They laughed at that.
“Well, I was going to ask about our date,” he said, “but maybe we’d better see how you feel tomorrow.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” Even so, Kerrianne felt deflated. Why’d she have to get sick now?
Huntington Family Series Page 111
