by Mae Nunn
The tender comment caused a lump the size of Dallas to lodge in Cullen’s throat.
His gut clenched and churned.
There was a burning behind his eyelids and a nervous smile quivered on his lips.
The cardboard tray jiggled, giving visible evidence of the trembling of his hands.
For years he’d done everything possible to avoid this combination of physical symptoms, and here he was putting himself in the position to be drenched by a fire hose of feelings.
There was no doubt it was worth it. The doubt was whether or not he could handle it.
* * *
SARAH WATCHED EMOTIONS play out across Cullen’s face.
Sadness, confusion, tenderness, guilt and something that seemed a great deal like fear.
Fear?
What could an accomplished scholar such as Cullen Temple possibly have to fear? As far as she knew failure was the only thing that worried him and he had certainly been a success with her and the girls. At least until now.
An oblivious passerby bumped Cullen from behind. He lost his footing on the edge of the step and squelched a loud oath as he began to stumble backward. In what seemed like slow motion, the disposable tray that had occupied both of his hands escaped his grasp and launched into the air. All heads jerked toward the commotion as fries rained down on nearby spectators. Cullen twisted in the aisle to recover his balance, but his feet slid out from underneath him and he landed hard on his rear end. Baseball fans gasped as the box filled with open-faced hot dogs flew upward and then plunged toward the ground. But Cullen saved the day by grabbing the cheesy mess, clutching it to his chest and bowing his head over what was left of their meal to shield everyone from chili splatter. The little cups of mustard squashed against his shirt, adding gooey splashes of gold to the blue and red plaid.
“Safe!” shouted a man two rows up, and the crowd around them erupted in applause.
Cullen peered out from under the brim of his Rangers cap to see how many spectators had witnessed the clumsy debacle. Specks of ketchup and chili dotted his cheeks and clung to his chin. Led by Hope, the Eason girls howled with laughter at the silly picture Cullen made sprawled on the steps covered in hot dog fixin’s. A Good Samaritan in the aisle behind them extended his hand to pull Cullen to his feet and signaled for an usher.
“That was so funny, Cullen.” Hope’s woes were forgotten.
“Honey, are you okay?” Sarah jumped from her seat, grabbed her empty popcorn bag and began cleaning up the debris on the steps.
“Our crew will take care of that, ma’am,” the usher assured her as he hurried toward the scene. “That was a quite a spill you took. Everybody up on the mezzanine groaned when you hit the deck.”
“Oh, great. Half the stadium watched me fall on my keister.” He rubbed his tailbone. “At least I didn’t make it to the Jumbotron.”
“Do you require first aid, sir? We have a station on this level, or I can radio the medics to come down here?” He indicated the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
“Nothing’s bruised but my ego.” Cullen waved away the offer.
“Maybe you better go with him, Cullen,” Sarah suggested, never expecting him to agree in a million years.
“I’ll be right back.” He gave a disgusted wag of his head and moved to climb up to the concessions level.
“Should we all go with you in case you want to leave after the EMTs check you out?”
“I don’t need medical attention. I’m only going to the men’s room to wash off some of this mess and then buy us some more hot dogs.”
“Freakin’ highway robbery.” Hope repeated what she’d heard him say a few minutes earlier.
Sarah arched an eyebrow and glared at her daughter. “Where did you learn that phrase, young lady?”
Hope lifted her eyes to Cullen, reluctant to throw him under the bus.
“From me,” he admitted, raising his hand in admission of guilt. “I apologize, Hope. That wasn’t a nice thing for me to say and it’s not appropriate language for you, either, so please don’t repeat that again, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sarah mouthed, “Thank you,” and gave him a wink.
“You girls sit tight and I’ll go wash up. Let’s forget about the hot dogs and just head out. With this five-run lead over the Angels we’re safe to make a getaway.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind leaving early?”
“Nope and there’s a storm on the way so let’s beat it back to Kilgore. As long as you don’t mind being seen with a guy covered in mustard and ketchup, we’ll find a family restaurant on the way home to get some real food.”
Everyone agreed to the plan and fifteen minutes later Sarah and the girls waited for Cullen at the top of the steps by the entrance to their row. Hope proudly held a sack containing a surprise. It had been Meg’s idea and they all agreed it was perfect under the circumstances.
Cullen approached with a quizzical look in his eyes and a big wet spot on the front of his shirt.
“This is for you.” Meg offered up their treasure.
“What is it?” Cullen accepted it suspiciously.
“Something we wanted our now-daddy to have,” Meg announced.
“Yeah, our now-daddy,” Hope agreed.
“Cullen, will you be our now-daddy?” Carrie asked.
Sarah watched for his reaction to the nickname the girls had decided should stick. Maybe one day he’d be a forever-daddy but for today now was enough.
He dipped his chin, hiding his expression for several seconds. With his right hand Cullen reached to adjust his cap and made a surreptitious swipe of his shirtsleeve across his eyes. He cleared his throat, sniffed and whispered, “I’d be honored.”
“Open it.” Hope pointed to the bag and gave him a tender, toothless grin.
Cullen did as instructed and spotted the Texas Rangers logo on a summer-weight T-shirt. He rolled the bag closed again, tucked it under his arm and cleared his throat again.
“Thank you, girls. This is the nicest thing anybody ever did for me.”
“Put it on!” Hope insisted, dancing on first one foot and then the other.
“Yeah, put it on!” Meg agreed.
“I want to save it for a special occasion.”
“This is a special occasion. It’s our very first baseball game,” Carrie reminded him.
“And we figured you might want a clean shirt to put on for the ride home and our dinner date.”
“All great points.” He seemed to consider their arguments but for some reason that escaped Sarah, he was hesitant to agree.
“You don’t like the shirt we picked out.” Meg’s voice was deflated, as if all the excitement had leaked out of her.
“That’s not it at all. Okay, I’ll be back in a minute. Y’all wait right here,” Cullen instructed them. Then he strode in the direction of the men’s room again.
“Cullen doesn’t want to be our now-daddy, does he?” Hope asked Sarah.
“I’d bet my paycheck that he does, but this is all new to Cullen so we have to give him some time to get used to the idea. And it hasn’t even been a half hour since he hit the ground like a sack of wet sand in front of all these people, so his behind and his pride will be smarting at least for the rest of the day.”
“What if somebody from the university is here and they saw what happened?”
Sarah’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh, Carrie, I hadn’t even considered that. Well, we’ll just hope that’s not the case.” To the little ones, she said, “And don’t either of you bring that possibility up again in front of Cullen. He’d be mortified to think his colleagues or students witnessed his fall.”
“But it was funny,” Hope insisted, not quite catching on to the embarrassment factor.
Sarah t
ried to frame it in a way that would make sense to Hope. “If you went to the bathroom at school and came out with the tail of your dress stuck in your underwear and everybody noticed and pointed and laughed at you, would you think it was funny?”
“No, ma’am.” The light of understanding dawned in her eyes and she nodded her agreement to keep silent on the subject.
“How do I look?” Cullen asked as he returned to the group.
“The same as you did five minutes ago, like a guy with a big wet spot on the front of his flannel shirt,” Sarah answered.
He unfastened the top two snaps and pulled the plaid collar wide to reveal the big “T” logo on a gray background.
“It’s close to my heart where it belongs.”
“You were supposed to take the dirty shirt off,” Meg instructed.
“Yeah, that was the whole point in the gift,” Carrie added.
“Was it?” Cullen pretended he hadn’t connected the dots. “Well, I’m not wet anymore and the home team’s up another run so let’s make tracks.”
“Make tracks?” Hope crinkled her nose.
“It means let’s get moving. My daddy used to say that to us.”
“Then it’s right that our now-daddy says it, too,” she agreed.
Hope’s sadness was forgotten as she took Cullen by the hand and made her own little tracks by skipping beside him all the way to the parking lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THUNDER RUMBLED IN the distance as rain pelted the window of Sarah’s bedroom. Once upon a time she’d loved a good storm at night, but something about this one had her on edge. She rolled to her side, punched her pillow just so and caught sight of the alarm clock—4:30 a.m.
The ambient noise that came with apartment living had kept her from a deep sleep and she’d pay for it with dark circles beneath her eyes if she didn’t drop back off soon.
Then she heard a pounding on the door and jumped to her feet, barely suppressing a startled scream. The glow from the security light in the parking lot filtered through the curtains, giving her just enough visibility to grab her lightweight robe from the foot of the bed. As she slid it over her cotton pajamas and yanked the belt tight, the pounding on the door resumed. She hurried down the short hallway into the family room and pressed her eye against the peephole.
Two of Kilgore Police Department’s finest stood on her front step, rivulets of water cascading off their raincoats. And between the tall cops was a smaller figure wrapped in a bright orange rain poncho with an officer’s hand on her shoulder. The girl’s head tipped forward, a cascade of purple hair shielding her face.
Carrie!
The scream that had threatened moments earlier was in Sarah’s throat again as she threw open the dead bolt and yanked the door wide. The officer’s hand fell away from Carrie’s shoulder and she flung her body against her mother’s, sending a spray of water across the linoleum entry and soaking Sarah’s clothes.
“Are you Mrs. Sarah Eason?” a familiar voice inquired.
“You know exactly who I am, Stanton. What’s this all about?” she asked the man who’d been a lifelong friend of her husband’s.
“We spotted your daughter and a young man together outside the Sonic a few blocks from here. When we questioned them about being out so late and in this storm I realized she was Joe’s kid and thought it best to give her a ride home.”
“Where is this boy you mentioned?” Sarah gripped Carrie close, unconcerned that her pajamas had soaked through. She needed to get to the bottom of the situation and quickly.
“He’s in the squad car. We’ll drop him off next,” the other officer answered, then he nodded politely to excuse himself and returned to the cruiser parked at the curb.
Sarah pushed Carrie to arm’s length, grasped her chin and raised her face so they were eye to eye.
“Go into my room very quietly and get out of these wet clothes. Do not wake your sisters, do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Carrie murmured. She shrugged off the poncho and handed it back to the officer before making a soggy escape to Sarah’s bedroom and closing the door softly.
“Please come in for a minute, Stanton. The floor’s already wet so you won’t hurt anything.”
She moved aside to make room. He shook off the rain as best he could and stepped across the threshold.
“I can’t think what to say besides ‘thank you.’” Sarah crossed her arms to cover her clinging night clothes. “I would never have dared to do anything this crazy, and certainly not when I was her age. If I’d slipped out of the house in the middle of the night when I was thirteen I’d still be locked in my daddy’s woodshed.”
Stanton chuckled. “Unfortunately, it happens all the time. We keep an eye out for the young ones and do our best to prevent them from getting into trouble.”
“Can you tell me the boy’s name, Stanton?”
“Alex Henderson. He’s a good kid and I know his parents. They’re going through a nasty divorce, so nobody’s paying him any attention right now.” Sarah suddenly remembered her awkward discussion about sex with the girls—and that it had come up because of information Carrie had gotten from one of her friends. Stanton continued, not noticing Sarah’s momentary distraction. “I’ll pass this situation on to the coach at the middle school and ask to get Alex added to the list of kids at risk. The athletic department has a program that assigns mentors for the boys and girls who may be struggling socially, and it seems to be changing lives for the better.”
“Will there be a record of this incident? Do you have to report Carrie to the school?” Sarah shuddered to think of another weighty issue to deal with and so publicly. Carrie would be mortified, but that might not be a bad thing, considering how she’d behaved.
“No, this is strictly off the record. They weren’t breaking any laws, just hanging out in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m pretty sure a ride in the backseat of a cruiser has put the fear of God in both of them.”
“Thanks, Stanton. Joe would appreciate this kindness.”
“I promised your husband years ago that he could count on me and I’m a man of my word.”
“There aren’t many men like you left.”
He settled his cap back on his head so she opened the door.
“Oh, sure there are. You’ll hook another one when the moment’s right.” Stanton gave her a kind smile and stepped out into the rain.
Sarah turned the lock and leaned against the wall to steady her pounding heart.
“Actually, I may already have hooked a great guy, but he’s gonna spit out the bait if my daughter keeps this up.”
Then a disturbing thought struck her. What if this was Carrie’s way of rebelling against Sarah’s relationship with Cullen? After all, at the baseball game, the kids had used the word daddy.
If forced to choose between Cullen and Carrie, Sarah would do what was best for her child. But the very idea of cutting Cullen from her life sent a shiver through her body and her spirit.
Would that be necessary? There was only one way to find out.
Sarah tiptoed down the hall and cracked open the door to the girls’ room just enough to reassure herself that Meg and Hope were asleep in their beds. Then she sucked in a deep breath to steel herself for whatever was to come with Carrie and crept into her own bedroom.
She clicked on the night table lamp to find Carrie in the bed, covers pulled up to her chin and her damp purple hair spread across what had once been her daddy’s pillow.
“Mama, I’m so sorry!” Carrie’s words were hushed but nonetheless frantic as tears dribbled down both cheeks. “I’ve screwed up big-time, haven’t I?”
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment of the situation,” Sarah agreed as she tossed her damp pajamas over a chair and pulled on a soft nightgown.
&nbs
p; Sarah flipped the light off, slid beneath the covers and drew her firstborn against her heart. They were silent for long moments, clinging to each other while Carrie’s breathing and tears slowed.
“You want to tell me who Alex is and what, by the name of all that is holy, would possess you to sneak out of the house at all, much less on a night like this?”
“Alex is a guy from school. He texted me to say he couldn’t take any more of his parents fighting and being all wrapped up in their own problems. He was going to run away. Or worse, Mama.”
The pleading eyes Carrie turned upward told Sarah exactly what “or worse” meant.
“I figured if I could to talk to him in person I could stop him from doing something stupid.”
“So you did something stupid yourself instead?”
“I admit I didn’t think it through, but it was an emergency and I was trying to help a friend. The Sonic is only a couple of blocks from here. I locked up when I left and figured I’d be back home before you woke up.”
“I can understand the situation and I’m even proud of you for having such compassion for a friend. But why didn’t you discuss it with me first? What made you take this into your own hands?”
Carrie looked away.
“What? Talk to me, baby,” Sarah pleaded softly.
She knew in her heart of hearts that this was a pivotal moment in their relationship, and maybe in their lives. She sent up a silent prayer for the wisdom to deal with whatever Carrie had to say.
“Please, what’s on your mind?” Sarah gave her daughter a tender shake.
“You and Cullen are moving pretty fast. It won’t be long before you don’t have time left for me. I figured I should start making decisions for myself instead of relying on you for everything.”
“Oh, honey,” Sarah crooned, and brushed purple strands out of Carrie’s eyes. “If you were eighteen I might see the sense in those thoughts. But you’re only thirteen and still my little girl, no matter how grown up you seem sometimes.”
“Am I right about you and Cullen?”
