He frowned at her. “I came to help you.” Well, to see her. To spend time with her. But planting was third on his list of reasons for being there.
She looked pleased. “Trailing after me at the nursery was the best I could expect from Jeff. He hated even the idea of getting down and dirty with flowers.”
Dane forced a smile, but Lord, it was hard. “I’m not Jeff,” he pointed out.
He half expected a flash of sadness to cross her hazel eyes, but it didn’t happen. “No, Dane,” she replied. “You’re not.”
And he would have sworn, with her sweet, warm, perfect smile, that the fact didn’t disappoint her in the least.
There were twelve for dinner, so Carly rode with Therese and Ilena, plus two of their semiregulars, Bennie Ford and Leah Black. Conversation never lagged on the drive, though she was fairly certain the others were a tad more boisterous in Marti’s Suburban.
“If this were school, they’d be the naughty girls,” Ilena said, “while we’d be the good ones.”
“They’re probably discussing sex as we speak,” Leah agreed.
“Not that we’re boring,” Bennie said. “At least five men in the world appreciated good girls.”
There was a sigh from the backseat at that, and Carly joined in. Therese didn’t. She’d hardly spoken since they’d met at The Three Amigos parking lot, other than saying hello and smiling a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. More trouble with the Bitter Princess and her faithful follower?
At Highway 97, their little caravan turned south. In the parking lot, Marti had debated taking the freeway into Tulsa, then traveling south, but had decided to save a few miles and get a more scenic drive. They drove through part of Sand Springs, then reached Sapulpa, a small town located on Route 66 whose business district, with its two- and three-story buildings and large murals painted on the walls, reminded her of Tallgrass.
A few miles south of Sapulpa, they reached Kiefer, then turned east. Soon they were parking in front of KariOkie in a small strip center. “I hope they can seat us all together,” Leah said as she got out and stretched her legs.
“I called ahead,” Lucy said. “I didn’t want to have to rearrange the dining room without permission.”
Jessy fisted one hand on her hip. “Hey, we had a reservation at that place, and they weren’t going to put us together. When Fia and I started moving tables, they got their butts in gear and managed to seat us where they should have in the beginning.”
As the others started across the parking lot, Carly linked arms with Therese. “Dane’s right. Life’s never dull with these guys.”
“Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a little dull,” Therese murmured with a grimace.
“What’s up, sweetie? The kids stirring things up at home?”
The grimace deepened, and she raised one hand to her face. “Kids? Oh, you mean the sullen boy and the self-absorbed brat?”
The response so startled Carly that she tripped over the curb and grabbed Bennie’s shoulder to catch herself. “Sorry.”
“Any time, doll.” Bennie pulled her up for a hug, not releasing her until they’d filled the small lobby. “I wish I could make it to these things more often. I miss you guys so much.”
Bennie was a nurse’s aide at a local hospital while attending nursing school part-time and taking care of her elderly grandmother, who’d raised her. Tuesday nights were class nights most weeks, but she joined them when she could.
“We miss you, too. But you’ll be graduating before long, and we’ll all be there to cheer you on.”
Bennie pulled a long face. “Before long? Doll, I’ve got another eighteen months to go. I’m gonna dance across that stage.”
Eighteen months could be an eternity…or the blink of an eye. Bennie knew that better than most. It had been eighteen months ago that J’myel died in combat, eighteen months before that when they’d gotten married.
“We’ll form a conga line with you,” Jessy offered. To demonstrate her willingness, when the waitress led the way to their tables, she hooked her hands on Bennie’s waist and danced, with Fia and Lucy joining in.
Carly fell back beside Therese again, snagging the two chairs at the end for them. If the others got noisily distracted—no bookie would offer odds against that—she wanted to probe a bit more. She hated seeing her friend look so…defeated. Down and depressed—any of them could handle that in their sleep. But defeat…that was just scary.
They’d hardly gotten settled when music started and a young man with a microphone stepped onto the stage and started singing a country tune. “Boots, jeans, and a belt buckle as big as my head.” Halfway down the long table, Fia swooned. “I love Oklahoma.”
“And a voice better than most that come out of Nashville. Happy birthday to me!” Lucy clapped delightedly.
They ordered iced teas and lemonades, laughed and talked, ordered meals and laughed and talked more. At least, all of them but Therese. She was morose—trying to hide it, but failing. Carly didn’t have a chance to talk to her until they’d eaten, enjoyed a half dozen songs from other diners, and three of their own—Fia, Jessy, and Marti—were approaching the stage for their own performance. She leaned close and whispered, “Is Abby pregnant? Did she start a live website where she talks to pervs in her underwear? Did she pierce her girl bits?”
Therese didn’t smile at any of her suggestions. As the opening bars of Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” started, she shifted her grim gaze to Carly. “She slapped me.”
“Oh.” A knot formed in Carly’s gut, pushing her back into her seat. No. That was wrong on so many levels. Thirteen-year-old girls just didn’t get to turn violent with their parents, no matter how unhappy or bratty they were. It simply wasn’t allowed.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, then fiercely added, “I hope you smacked her into next week.”
Therese’s voice was an unemotional drone. “You can’t respond to violence with violence. It’s a lose-lose situation.”
Carly snorted. “I beg to disagree. ‘Walk softly but carry a big stick.’ Remember that from history class? Some things can’t be tolerated, Therese, and that child getting physical with you is at the top of the list. How dare she touch you?”
Therese stared at the stage, where their friends were belting out the song on key and with practiced moves. Had they choreographed it in anticipation of tonight, or did it come naturally to them? Carly wondered vaguely while waiting for a response.
The song ended to rousing applause and great bows and waves from the singers. In the moments while the next scheduled act moved to the stage, Therese finally whispered, “I’ve tried, Carly. I’ve tried so hard. She’s Paul’s daughter, his baby, and I promised him I would take care of her and Jacob, but I can’t do it anymore. I don’t care anymore. I’m miserable and stressed out and sick of it all. I’ve survived deployments and Paul’s death and I’ve managed to live nearly three years without him, but this child has forced me to give up. I surrender. I’m done.”
“Oh, Therese,” Ilena said with a small gasp, and Carly realized the others nearby were straining to listen in.
“What did the snot do?” Jessy demanded, still standing after her triumphant performance. Her stance was aggressive, her jaw jutted forward. If Abby were present, just one look from those angry green eyes would be enough to scare her straight, at least for a while.
Therese’s face flamed. “Guys, I’m sorry. Let’s not discuss this. It’s Lucy’s birthday. We’re here to have fun with her.”
Lucy came to the end of the table to hug her. “Honey, don’t worry about me. I’ve had a great time. I’m just thrilled to be with all of you. It doesn’t matter what we do. It’s all important. You’re important. We take care of each other, right?”
“Go on,” Marti encouraged, and Therese sighed, then related the incident in low tones. Eleven stunned faces stared at her when she was done, all with varying degrees of other emotion.
Therese ducked her head, shielding her face
with her hands. “You all told me I was being too lenient with her—”
“Ah, I believe what we said was you were taking too much sh—crap from her,” Jessy interjected, making Therese drop her hands and smile faintly.
“I just thought she needed time. That was what the counselors and the chaplains and my parents and Paul’s parents all said. Do you know I got through the first year after Paul’s death with nothing more than an occasional sleeping pill? But since then, I’ve had to take antianxiety medication. Every time I walk into the house, my chest tightens, my heart races, and I can’t breathe.”
Carly had known about the medicine. She didn’t know it was directly tied to the kids.
“Send her to stay with Auntie Bennie for a few weeks.” Bennie pointed at herself with a grand gesture. “She’d be so happy to get away from all the rules that Mama Maudene raised me with that she’d be a whole different person when you got her back.”
“Rules don’t mean anything to her,” Therese muttered. “That’s part of the problem.”
“No, doll, rules without consequences don’t mean anything to her. Getting grounded or losing her cell for a week don’t mean nothing. Mama Maudene’s rules—they’ve got consequences. And that scrawny little girl of yours ain’t about to go toe to toe with Mama Maudene and win.”
“She’s right, Therese,” Marti spoke up. “There were never any consequences in our family. As long as we stayed out of our mother’s way, we could do anything we wanted. We thought it was cool at the time, but she didn’t do us any favors. And it wasn’t fun when I moved out of the house and found out that other people had expectations, even if my mother didn’t.”
“I have expectations,” Therese said quietly. “I expect her to be living somewhere else when the school year is over.”
That stunned everyone into silence again. They all knew, as Carly did, about her promise to Paul. They knew she felt as if she were failing him every day things weren’t all happiness and light. Carly couldn’t even imagine the number sending them away would do on Therese’s self-esteem.
Surprisingly, it was Jessy, who’d never shied from stating her blunt opinion of Abby and Jacob, who spoke up. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now, Therese. The kids are going out of town for a week, then you’ve got more than a month before school is out. That’s plenty of time to figure the right thing to do.” She looked around the group. “I think it’s time for cake and ice cream, and then another go-round on the stage. How about it, GI sisters?”
The others cheerfully agreed, and Lucy waved their waitress over as they all resettled. While their attention was on the list of desserts the woman recited from memory, Therese softly said to Carly, “My mind’s made up. But, hey, there’s never a bad time for cake and ice cream, right?”
Back in Tallgrass, Therese dropped everyone off at their vehicles in The Three Amigos lot, hugging Lucy and wishing her happy birthday, accepting hugs and promises of prayers from everyone else. By the time she parked the van outside her house, she was bone-tired.
The only lights on were the ones she’d left in the kitchen and the hallway. The kids were spending the night with Nicole and Liam. Jacob probably hadn’t said a word about this latest showdown, while Abby had surely spun it into some great drama where she was the victim of her evil stepmother’s evil ways.
Was she evil for wanting to send Paul’s daughter away? Was she selfish?
“I’m not their mother, their grandmother, their grandfather, their aunts, or their uncles,” she said fiercely as she climbed the steps and let herself inside. “I’m not their family at all.”
But she was their legal guardian. She would have to check with a lawyer at the judge advocate general’s office on post to find out how to go about finding them a new home.
A line from an old hymn ran through her mind. And there will be peace in the valley for me.
Dear God, she needed peace.
She left the light burning in the kitchen, shut off the one in the hallway, and switched on the bulbs that illuminated the stairs. The house was quiet, but not peaceful yet. That wouldn’t come until long after it had been cleansed of Abby’s presence.
She’d just shut off the stair lights and reached her bedroom door when a sound below froze her: the front door opening, then softly closing again. She fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone and slowly forced herself to turn back the way she’d come. “I’m calling nine-one-one,” she said, her phone a bright spot in her hand.
The tall, lanky shadow stopped a few steps up. Even without the faint light from the kitchen, she would have recognized Jacob: his height and leanness, the way his head was ducked and tilted to one side, his shoulders hunched, his hands shoved in his pockets. “It’s me.”
Relief settled with a whoosh in her chest. “Does Mrs. McRae know you’ve sneaked out of the house?”
“No. If it comes up, Liam’ll tell her I’m in the bathroom or something.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably before looking up at her. “Abby didn’t mean to do—what she did.” He indicated the bedroom with a jerk of his head. “She was wrong, but…Are you all right?”
“I guess.” Putting the phone away, Therese sank to the top step, her arms folded across her middle. “Am I so horrible to live with, Jacob?”
She didn’t need to see to know his face had turned bright red. Talking with adults who weren’t coaches wasn’t one of his favorite or most comfortable things. He shifted back and forth a couple times, then, in stops and starts, climbed until only six steps separated them. There he slumped down, his back against the wall. “No. It’s just— She wants to live with Mom and Dad.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know. She knows. And if she can’t have both of ’em, then she wants to be with Mom.”
Mom, who’d given her up like a hobby she’d grown tired of. Heedless of her mascara, Therese rubbed her eyes wearily. “Do you want to live with your mom, too?”
He was silent a long time, though not still. His knee bounced and his fingers drummed a beat on the carpeted step. “I love my mom,” he said at last. “But she didn’t want us when we were little. Why would she want us now?”
He’s eleven, Therese reminded herself, her heart aching, and already so cynical. And so right. Catherine wouldn’t want them unless they came with some real benefit to her. Maternal love and accepting responsibility for the lives she’d brought into the world weren’t enough for her.
Wishing he was close enough to touch—not a hug, she wouldn’t try that, but maybe ruffling his hair—she smiled sadly. “You know your dad wanted you. He was so thrilled when he found out you were coming to live with us.”
“I bet you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t thrilled, no, but I thought…I thought we could be a family. I never wanted to replace your mom…or your dad,” she added even more sadly. “But I thought we could be friendly and respect each other and even come to love each other.”
“So did…so did Dad. He told us that when we came.”
“He had such hopes for us all.”
Jacob grunted, then shifted on the steps to stare off into the living room. A little light filtered in the blinds, not enough to show the details, but she imagined his gaze was directed right at the fireplace where Paul’s photographs and the medals he’d earned were displayed.
After a long time, he made a choked sound, then demanded, “Why did he have to die?”
Hesitantly Therese moved down a few steps, then laid her hand gently on his arm. He didn’t relax or move toward her, but he didn’t flinch away, either. “I don’t know, Jacob.”
“Liam’s dad went and came back. All the kids at school—their dads and moms went and most of them came back. Why didn’t our dad? Our mom already didn’t want us. Why did we have to lose him, too?”
Her own choked sound escaped, and she raised one hand to find tears had slid from her eyes. “Sweetie, that’s probably the only question in the world that has absolutely no answer. No one kn
ows why this person lives and that one dies. When I was six and my grandfather died, my grandmother told me it was because God needed him more than we did, and even then I knew that absolutely was not true, because no one needed him more than me. No one needed your dad more than us. We’ll never know why it happened. We just have to live with the fact that it did.”
“I don’t want to!”
“Me, neither.”
They sat that way a long time, her hand lightly on his arm, until he abruptly shuddered and pushed to his feet. He swiped at his face and said without looking at her, “I’d better get back over to Liam’s.”
“I can call and tell his mom you decided to stay here.”
“Nah. It’s not that far.” He took a few steps. “You can see from your bedroom window.”
At the bottom of the stairs, he called back, “I’ll lock up,” then let himself out and did so.
Therese stood and went to the bedroom window, watching him jog across the street and down two houses before disappearing into the shadows. For a long time she stood there, gazing out at their peaceful neighborhood, breathing deeply, feeling a little peaceful herself.
Maybe Abby hated her and was a lost cause, but Jacob…For the first time in a long time she had reason to be hopeful about Paul’s son.
Chapter Fourteen
When she got home, Carly set a big foam take-out box on the kitchen table, pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then dialed Dane’s number. He answered on the third ring, the sound of a baseball game in the background. “Hi, is it too late?”
“Depends on what you want to do. To find shapes in the clouds in the sky? Yep. To catch the after-Christmas sales? Yeah.”
She made a miffed sound. “To share a piece of the best caramel cake I’ve ever had.”
“Not at all. How was the dinner?”
“Good. Fia, Jessy, and Marti do a mean take on ‘Feel Like a Woman,’ and Bennie—you haven’t met her yet—had the place in tears with her version of ‘Amazing Grace.’ The food was wonderful, and we had a really nice time.”
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