“Yeah. That’s where we stayed,” Kendra said shortly. “There’s another thing to remember about child seats from those stories . . .” And she was back onto that track.
They pulled beyond the house to a fenced side yard with children’s playground equipment inside it and a trio of women standing outside it. As Kendra braked to a stop, he wondered if her detailed monologue on child seats was totally for his education or to avoid talking about the ranch around them–the place she’d talked about with such open longing during the hurricane.
To occupy his hands he scooped up a handful of fallen leaves as he got out of the passenger side. They crumbled like potato chips, leaving him with nothing but crumbs to wipe off on his jeans.
Arriving brought his third lesson.
Other parents were a lot more interested in a “new” father than kids were, including his own. Of course, Matthew didn’t know Daniel was his father.
And Kendra showed no inclination to tell him.
Daniel hadn’t questioned that yesterday. He didn’t have time to consider it now, either, not with three women staring at him with the half-abashed air and sudden silence of people who’d been discussing the person who’d just shown up.
One was Kendra’s aunt, Marti Susland. He’d half remembered that from Kendra’s confidings during Aretha; he’d confirmed it yesterday by getting the man at the gas station to gossip. The youngest of these three women, the one with the wounded eyes, had answered the door at Kendra’s yesterday. The third woman had run the meeting at the church last night.
Beyond them, he saw two grade-school aged kids leading horses into the stable, followed by the man who’d volunteered to throw Daniel out yesterday.
Luke, that’s what Kendra had called him. And that’s what Matthew had called Daniel.
The man looked over his shoulder now toward Daniel, as if he didn’t trust him. As if he might be hoping Kendra would give him the go-ahead to run off Daniel – to try anyway.
Kendra had said they were friends, she and this Luke. Was that feeling mutual?
Daniel waited for Kendra to introduce him to the three women, but she focused on Matthew, who in turn appeared intent on filling a bucket held by the dark-haired girl who’d been sleeping when Luke carried her out yesterday, Marti Susland’s daughter.
“I understand you’re Daniel Delligatti,” said the woman from the meeting, stepping forward. He shook her extended hand, work-worn but neat. “I’m Fran Sinclair. Glad to see you signed up for duty at the babysitting co-op. We need some men.”
Eyes wide, Kendra turned at Fran Sinclair’s words, but didn’t have a chance to comment before the woman addressed him again.
“Sorry I’ve got to run off now, but stop by the co-op any time if you’ve got questions.”
“Thank you, Fran.”
With a general wave, she walked off to a dusty, mid-sized car with a full decade under its hood.
Hardly noticing her friend’s departure, Marti gave him a chillingly neutral up-and-down survey, then announced, “Kendra, I need to talk to you. Inside.”
“Marti–”
“Go ahead, Kendra,” he told her. “I’ll watch Matthew.”
Kendra opened her mouth as if to protest his ability to do that, then shot a look at the third woman, yesterday’s door-opener, who responded with a nod.
Kendra pivoted and followed her aunt toward the house.
When the door closed behind them, he turned back, and found the woman watching him. She smiled, genuine and warm.
“Hi, Daniel. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself yesterday. I’m Ellyn Sinclair. I’m Kendra’s nearest neighbor.”
The other people from yesterday had not been much more than blurs. But he recognized this curly-haired woman from last night at the church. She’d been the one to shepherd Marti and the woman he now knew as Fran Sinclair out of the room, leaving him alone with Kendra.
He also recognized an ally when he met one.
“Hi, Ellyn. Nice to meet you. Kendra pointed out where you live–Ridge House, right? And you have a couple kids.” He tipped his head toward the barn, with a questioning lift of his eyebrows.
“Right. Meg and Ben are mine. The charmer with Matthew is Emily Susland. Marti adopted her nearly three years ago, right after a hurricane hit Santa Estella and killed her parents.”
From her pointed tone, she clearly knew that he knew about Santa Estella and that particular hurricane.
“A lot of lives were changed by Aretha.” His words were neutral, but a flicker in her eyes indicated she knew how they applied to Kendra and him. “Orphanages there had more kids than they could handle. Still do. Emily’s lucky.”
“Yes, she is. Marti has a great deal of love to give. She’s very protective of those she loves.”
He’d already seen that.
“So, did you grow up coming here for summers, too, Ellyn?”
“Not exactly. I grew up in town, but Marti let me come out here whenever I could get away, so I spent a lot of time with all of them.” She hesitated, as if there might be more to her answer, then added a little stiffly. “We moved in about a year and a half ago.”
He watched Matthew level off the top of the filled sand bucket. “I envy you that year and half.”
She rested her fingertips on his arm in a fleeting gesture of sympathy. “There are lots more memories to come, believe me. And there is a bright side–you missed a lot of dirty diapers.”
She grinned, and he smiled back.
“Thanks for pointing out the bright side. But I’d have traded all those dirty diapers for the chance to have been around.”
“Sometimes being around isn’t all that counts.” Her gaze wasn’t judgmental, yet definitely assessing. “I’d known Kendra since we were kids, and I’d lived here almost a year before she started opening up. Even though I was certain from the start that she needed a friend.”
A friend? That wasn’t what he had in mind. It sure as hell wasn’t what his body had in mind.
He glanced at his companion, and she immediately gave him a nod, as if encouraging a tentative student. Maybe Ellyn didn’t mean friend literally. Maybe she had in mind that wall of Kendra’s.
“Sometimes she just needs persuading. And you–” Other than a glint in her eyes, her face was solemn “–look to me like a persuasive man.”
*
Marti stopped inside the door to the mudroom.
“Kendra, is he bothering you? Because if he is–”
“I called him, Marti. Asked him to come out to talk.”
“Are you sure . . .?”
“I’m not sure of anything except that as long as he wants to be a father to Matthew, I’m not going to be the one who stops it.”
“But–”
Kendra held up a hand. “I know, I know. The chances that he’ll actually stick around and be a real father to Matthew are next to none, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see he doesn’t hurt Matthew.”
She sounded grim even to her own ears. She tried to lighten her tone as she continued.
“But I have to give him some chance. I don’t know how I would explain it to Matthew when he’s older if I didn’t. Besides,” Kendra admitted, “I’m not sure you, me and Luke combined could keep him away from Matthew right now.”
“I suppose that’s the way you have to approach it,” Marti started rather doubtfully, “but–”
“Don’t worry, Marti. I know better than most how much it hurts to have a father who’s there one day and disappears the next. I’m not going to let Matthew count on Daniel just to have him disappear.”
“I know you won’t, Kendra. But I’m worried about you.”
“Me?”
“About your getting hurt by this man. Again.”
“Don’t worry, Marti. I know what to expect now. If I’d had half a brain operating during that insanity on Santa Estella, I’d have known what to expect then, too. I did know. But now the lesson’s ingrained even deeper. He’ll realiz
e that soon.”
“So he has indicated he’s not here solely to see Matthew.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kendra said firmly. “There’s no danger of my falling for his lies again. Not even if we got caught in the middle of another hurricane. Besides–” She tried for a rueful grin. “–to borrow from Eliza Doolittle, hurricanes hardly ever happen in Wyoming, so I should be safe.”
At last Marti’s frown lightened.
“You’re saying he wants to pick things up between the two of you, and you’ve told him no, but he hasn’t listened so far?”
“I’m saying none of that matters.”
Marti appeared uncharacteristically willing to accept that judgment. Although Kendra had the uneasy impression that the gears in her aunt’s mind were whirring overtime as they headed out.
Ben and Meg had arrived after putting away their horses in the barn and were pushing Matthew and Emily in the safety swings, to the vocal delight of the younger kids. Ellyn and Luke stood by the barn, probably talking about Meg’s and Ben’s progress as riders.
That left Daniel alone, resting his forearms on the top rail of the side-yard fence, looking in.
He appeared unaware of anything except the playing, laughing quartet of children. The lines at the corners of his mouth dug deeper, his shoulders weighed down.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said slowly. “It’s right.”
Puzzled, she looked from him to the children and back. “They’re awfully noisy,” she ventured.
“Noisy, yes. But that’s not awful.”
Four kids playing. Healthy, happy, well-fed children playing. No concern for where their next meal might come from. No danger of their critical medical supplies being redirected to line someone’s pocket.
So different from the desperate want she’d seen among the children in Santa Estella. The only time she’d heard those children laugh and get excited was when they told or listened to tales of Taumaturgio. Generations would surely hear those tales of Taumaturgio on Santa Estella.
But only Daniel Delligatti carried the memories of Taumaturgio.
Kendra’s view of the children screeching with unrestrained laughter seemed to shift, as if she were seeing them through his eyes and, to a small extent, also seeing those other children through his eyes, those children of Santa Estella.
Unexpected tears burned at her eyes.
An impulse to put her arms around him, to stroke her hands over his strong back, propelled her a step forward.
No!
She gripped the top rail of the fence, appalled.
Not three minutes ago she’d told Marti how the lessons learned about this man on Santa Estella and in the years since were deeply ingrained. Then, one sympathetic exchange with him–good heavens, she didn’t even know if her suppositions were close to the mark–and she would throw her arms around him?
Maybe she needed to be more careful around him. Much more careful.
And maybe she better keep an eye on the weather forecast for hurricanes venturing into Wyoming.
*
“Now, Matthew, you stay put,” Kendra ordered once she had him encased in his bib and safely in his high chair.
“ ‘Unch!” he ordered.
“Please?”
“Pease.”
“That’s a good boy. I’ll get it right away.” Over her shoulder, she added to Daniel, “Keep an eye on him, will you? He’s taken to thinking he gets to decide when and how to uh, dismount.” She touched the faint remnants of a scratch beside Matthew’s left eyebrow. “Sometimes the degree of difficulty gets away from him.”
“Sure.” Daniel took a seat beside the high chair.
As she sliced a pear and added cottage cheese, she thought of how closely Daniel had listened and watched as she’d put Matthew in his car seat. Nearly as closely as he watched him now, as Matthew played with his toy wooden car.
“Would you like to help?” she asked on impulse.
Another impulse. But at least this one didn’t involve physical contact.
“Help?” His faint smile was crooked. “You need a plane landed on a dirt road? Want pointers on pulling together a disguise that would fool your best friend? Expertise in evading Santa Estellan government forces?”
She shook her head, trying not to smile. “I had preparing Matthew’s lunch in mind, not taking over a small country.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever taken over a country, small or large. But if you insist on help with lunch . . . Need a jar opened?”
“Nothing that easy. You could give Matthew his milk while I finish.”
“Or wait until he’s old enough to pour his own,” Daniel muttered.
Leaving the piece of leftover chicken breast half cut up, she turned and pointed the knife at him. “You said you want to be a father, Daniel. Didn’t you mean that?”
He gazed at Matthew with such intensity Kendra half expected her son to react as he would to a touch. But Matthew was absorbed in running his wooden car around the tray top.
“I meant it.”
He turned back to her and their gazes connected, but only for an instant before Daniel’s slid away.
Last night he’d said he didn’t know how to deal with Matthew, passing it off as the general ignorance many of his gender had of kids. But then he’d added a sentence that indicated it might be more specific than general.
I don’t know how.
But was there more? Why was this man, so sure of himself in most arenas, intimidated by this two-and-a-half-foot high dynamo?
“Then you might as well start with the milk.”
He stood and took the duck cup she handed him with a quick lift of his eyebrows but no comment. She was aware of him passing behind her to get milk from the refrigerator, but forced herself to not watch the process. Even when he returned to his chair and presented the cup of milk to Matthew she didn’t turn.
“There you go. Milk. I’ll hold–”
But not even the best of intentions could stop her from spinning around after a scuffling sound accompanied by the screech of a thwarted two-year-old.
“No! Mine! No!”
Apparently jolted by Matthew’s scream, Daniel jerked back as if he’d given the child an electric jolt. At the same time, Matthew slung the newly captured cup around, as far away as his short reach could carry it from threatened recapture, spewing milk across himself, high chair, a corner of the table and the floor.
“Matthew!”
The cup came to rest on the milk-sodden tray with a splash, and her son emitted a rebellious, “Me do!”
“Matthew, you know better than that,” she scolded as she gathered paper towels, sponge and damp cloth–the stalwarts of a toddler’s mother’s arsenal.
“Here–” She handed paper towels to Daniel. “Start mopping. It’s good practice.”
“Sorry, Kendra. It happened so quick–”
“It always does. That’s part of the drill. No–start at the top and work down, otherwise it drips on where you’ve just mopped.”
She unhooked the high chair’s safety belt to wipe up around Matthew and the few drops beyond his mega-sized bib. They worked in silence for a moment, with Matthew an interested spectator.
“He’s fast, isn’t he,” Daniel said with a rueful kind of pride.
“As a rattler.”
He chuckled, and the atmosphere eased as they contained the milk spill.
“That should do it,” she said after a while, heading to the sink. “I’ll rinse out this sponge and do another pass.”
“ ‘Unch!” demanded Matthew.
“You have to wait a minute, Matthew. You made a mess and we have to finish cleaning–”
“Matthew!”
At Daniel’s shout, she spun around in time to see her son, standing on the seat of his high chair–Oh, God, she’d failed to belt him back in!–leap into the air as if reaching for a trapeze that wasn’t there.
CHAPTER SIX
Before a cry could re
ach Kendra’s throat, Daniel snared Matthew with one arm and gathered him in close to his side.
For a second, all three of them remained frozen and silent.
She stared into Daniel’s eyes and saw reflected there the same fears of what might have happened as she felt churning inside her. But something deeper and darker, too.
A gasp escaped Kendra’s constricted throat–how much a reaction to her son’s near miss and how much to what she saw in Daniel’s eyes she didn’t know.
She had no time to sort it out as Matthew began hollering in thwarted outrage, “Me do! Me do! Down! Down!”
Holding the toddler against his side in a cross between a sack of potatoes and a football, Daniel shifted for a more secure grip as the squirming boy arched his back and flailed his legs.
“Here, you better . . .”
It trailed off as he turned to give Kendra the opportunity to take Matthew off his hands. At the last second, and as much as she wanted to reassure herself her son was truly safe, she pulled her hands back.
“No. You should make sure he knows who’s in charge.”
“Isn’t he?”
A chuckle escaping her efforts to stifle it, Kendra gave him a reassuring smile. “You’re doing fine. Have you heard of the terrible twos? Matthew is a great believer in them.”
Her laughter and their failure to pay attention to him had calmed Matthew. In fact, he apparently liked the novelty of his position and the new angle it gave him on the adults.
“Matthew,” Kendra asked in an even voice, “what did I tell you?”
“ ’tay put,” he answered promptly. “Me di’n’t”
“No, you didn’t. You could get hurt, and Mommy doesn’t want you to get hurt. So, this time, what are you going to do?”
“ ’tay put.”
“Good boy. Daniel, would you put Matthew back in his chair?”
Only a flicker of discomfort showed in his eyes before he said with a fair assumption of casualness, “Sure.”
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