Kitabı oku: «Hawk's Way: Rebels», sayfa 5

CHAPTER SIX

BREAKFAST WAS A HUGE success. Cherry sat at the kitchen table giving herself a pat on the back for having pleased both girls so well. Two plates had been licked clean. Annie must have eaten almost as many additional marshmallows as the two of them had cut up together for her hot chocolate. Raejean had devoured the entire batch of whipped cream. The kitchen was a mess, but Cherry would have time to clean it once the twins were at school.

“Uh-oh,” Annie said.

“Daddy’s going to be really mad,” Raejean said.

Cherry followed the direction of the girls’ gazes out the kitchen window and saw the school bus at the end of the lane. It paused momentarily, honked, and when no one appeared, continued on its way.

“Oh, no!” Cherry raced to the back door, yanked it open and shouted to the bus driver. “Wait!”

He didn’t hear her, which was just as well, because when she turned back to the kitchen she realized the girls weren’t dressed and their hair wasn’t combed.

Billy hadn’t asked much of her—only that she feed his children breakfast and get them to school and be there when they got home in the afternoon. She couldn’t even manage that.

She looked at the clock. Seven-thirty in the morning and she was already a failure as a stepmother. Before despair could take hold, it dawned on her that elementary school surely couldn’t start this early. Maybe she could still get the girls there on time.

“When do classes start?” she asked Raejean.

“Eight o’clock sharp,” Raejean answered. “Mrs. Winslow gets really mad if we’re late.”

“You still have time to get there if we move like lightning,” Cherry said.

She hurried the girls upstairs, but the more urgency she felt, the slower they both seemed to move. She ended up accidentally yanking Annie’s hair as she shoved the hairbrush through a knot.

“Ouch!” Annie cried. “That hurt.”

Cherry was instantly contrite. She had too much experience of her own with substitute parents who were in too much of a hurry to be gentle with her. She went down on one knee in the bathroom beside Annie and said, “I’m sorry, Annie. I should have been more careful. I guess I’m worried that I won’t get you to school on time.”

“Yeah. And Daddy will be really mad,” Raejean reminded her through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Spit and rinse,” Cherry ordered Raejean as she finished putting Annie’s hair into pigtails. “I’ll get to you next.”

For a moment Raejean seemed to consider putting up a fight, but she stood still while Cherry pulled the brush through her tangled hair.

“My mom always put ribbons in our hair,” Raejean said.

Cherry heard the wistful longing in the complaint, but there wasn’t time to fulfill any wishes this morning. “Tonight we’ll see what we can find and have them ready for tomorrow morning,” she promised.

It wasn’t until she had dressed herself and was ushering the girls out the back door that she realized she had no idea what they were going to use for transportation. There had to be some vehicle available, because Billy had suggested she go shopping during the day. But the only thing on four wheels she saw was a rusted-out pickup near the barn.

A set of hooks inside the back door held a key attached to a rabbit’s foot. She grabbed the key, shoved the girls out the door, and prayed the truck had an automatic transmission.

It didn’t.

“Don’t you know how to drive?” Annie asked, concern etched in her young brow.

“I can drive. I have the license to prove it.”

“Then why aren’t we moving?” Annie asked.

Cherry stared helplessly at the stick shift on the floor of the pickup. “I’m not sure how to get this thing into gear.” She tried moving the stick, and it made an ominous grinding sound.

“If you break Daddy’s truck, he’s going to be really mad,” Raejean said.

Cherry was getting the picture. If she didn’t figure out something soon, she was going to be dealing with a seriously annoyed teacher when she got the girls to school and a fierce, wild-eyed beast of a man when Billy got home.

She crossed her arms on the steering wheel and leaned her head down to think. She could call her sister Jewel to come rescue her, but that was so mortifying a prospect she immediately rejected it. She felt a small hand tapping her shoulder.

“I can show you how to do it,” Annie volunteered.

Cherry lifted her head and stared suspiciously at the six-year-old. “You know how to drive a stick shift?”

“Sure,” Annie said. “Daddy lets us do it all the time.”

Since there wasn’t anyone else to show her how, Cherry said, “All right. Go ahead and show me what to do.”

“Put your foot on that pedal down there first,” Annie said. “Turn the key, and then move this thing here.”

Cherry pushed down the clutch, turned on the ignition, and reached for the black gearshift knob. To her amazement the gearshift moved easily without making a sound. However, she ended up in third gear, didn’t give the truck enough gas, and let the clutch go too fast. The pickup stalled.

“You have to follow the numbers,” Raejean chided, pointing to the black gearshift knob. “See? One, two, three, four, and R.”

“R isn’t a number,” Cherry pointed out.

“R is for Reverse,” Annie piped up.

Maybe Billy did let them drive, Cherry thought. At least they knew more about a stick shift than she did. “All right. Here goes.”

It was touch and go at first, but she managed to get the truck into second gear, and they chugged down the lane headed for the highway. She stalled a couple of times and ground the gears more than once before she got the hang of it. But she felt proud of herself when she finally pulled into the school parking lot and killed the engine.

“We made it,” she said, glancing at her wristwatch. “With five minutes to spare.”

“You forgot our lunches,” Raejean said.

“What lunches?”

“Mrs. Motherwell always made us a sack lunch. We’re going to starve,” Annie said.

“Daddy’s going to be really mad,” Raejean said.

“Maybe you could buy your lunches today,” Cherry suggested.

“I guess we could,” Raejean conceded.

Annie and Raejean held out their hands for money.

Cherry realized she hadn’t brought her purse with her. She checked both her jeans pockets and came up empty. “Look, I’ll go home and make lunches for you and bring them back to school. How would that be?”

“Okay, I guess,” Raejean said.

“I don’t feel so good,” Annie said, her hand on her stomach.

“Probably all the excitement this morning,” Cherry said sympathetically. “You’ll feel better once you’re settled in class. Have a nice day, Raejean. Enjoy yourself, Annie.”

She watched the two girls make their way inside, Raejean skipping and Annie holding on to her stomach.

To be honest, her own stomach was churning. It had been a hectic morning. And it wasn’t over yet. She had to get home, make lunches and get back, then get the kitchen and the house cleaned up before the girls got home in the afternoon.

It was a lot of responsibility for someone whose biggest problem before today was whether she could figure out her calculus homework or get the formulas right in chemistry class. The entire responsibility for the house and two lively children now rested on her shoulders. It was an awesome burden.

She should have thought of that sooner. Now that she had made the commitment, she was determined to see it through. There were bound to be a few glitches at first. The important thing was to keep on trying until she succeeded.

Of course, she wasn’t going anywhere until she figured out how to get the pickup into Reverse. No matter how many times she put the gearshift where she thought R ought to be, she couldn’t get the truck to back up. When the final tardy bell rang, she was still sitting there.

She was going to have to call Jewel after all.

“Hey, Cherry, what’s the matter?”

Cherry looked up into the sapphire blue eyes of her eleven-year-old brother, Colt. A black curl had slipped from his ponytail and curled around his ear. He was wearing tight jeans instead of the frumpy ones currently in style, and a white T-shirt and cowboy boots reminiscent of James Dean. Colt truly was the rebel in the family. But he somehow convinced everybody that doing things his way was their idea.

Cherry glanced at the empty schoolyard and said, “You’re late, Colt.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Looks that way.”

“You don’t seem too concerned about it. Zach will be—” Cherry stopped herself when she realized she was about to echo Raejean and say “really mad.”

“Dad knows I’m late,” Colt said. “Things were a little crazy this morning because of you disappearing and all. You really did it this time, Cherry. Mom went ballistic when she heard what you did, and Dad hasn’t come down off the ceiling since he got back from the Stonecreek Ranch. Are you really married to Billy Stonecreek?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Neat. He really knows how to use his fists to defend himself.” Colt shrugged his book bag off and did some shadow boxing. He was tall for his age, his body lean, his movements graceful. “Billy’s been in three fights this year,” he said. “Do you think he’d show me a few punches?”

“Absolutely not! And where did you find out all this information about Billy?” Cherry asked.

“I heard Mom and Dad talking. They’re worried that Billy’s a bad influence on you. They said he’s gonna undo all the hard work they’ve done, and you’re gonna end up back in trouble again.”

Cherry felt her face heating. Not that she didn’t appreciate what Zach and Rebecca had done for her. But she had come a long way since the days when she had habitually cut school and been ready to fight the world.

“You’d better get inside,” she told Colt.

“It’s all right. Mom called and told them I’d be late,” Colt replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I drove Raejean and Annie Stonecreek to school.”

“Why didn’t they take the bus?”

“They missed the bus.”

Colt grinned. “Overslept, huh? You never were very good at getting up in the morning.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t over-sleep. I merely lost track of the time.”

“Same difference,” Colt said. “So why aren’t you headed back home?”

“I can’t figure out how to get this damn truck into Reverse.”

Colt laughed. “It’s easy. Press the stick down and over.”

“Press down? You have to press down on the stick before you move it?”

“Sure.”

Cherry tried it, gave the truck a little gas, and felt it move backward. “Good grief,” she muttered. “Thanks, Colt. I owe you one.”

“Will you ask Billy if he’ll show me a few punches?”

“I’ll think about it,” she replied as she backed out of the parking lot. “Tell Rebecca I’ll come see her tonight,” she called out the window as she drove away.

It was the coward’s way out to have Colt relay her message. She should have called Rebecca and told her she was coming. But she didn’t want to be forced into explaining things to her mother over the phone, and she knew Rebecca must be anxious for some sort of explanation for what she had done. The truth was, she needed the rest of the day to think of one.

By the time she made it back to the ranch she was a pro at shifting gears. She parked the truck behind the house, stepped inside the kitchen, and realized it looked like a tornado had been through. What if Billy came back home for some reason and saw it looking like this?

But she didn’t want to stop and clean it right now and take a chance on being late with the girls’ lunches. The mess was even worse by the time she finished making sandwiches. She vowed to clean up the kitchen as soon as she returned. She was out the door half an hour later, sack lunches in hand.

When she arrived at the principal’s office, Cherry was surprised to be told that Annie still wasn’t feeling well. Her teacher had asked the office to call the house and have someone come and pick her up.

“I was concerned when I couldn’t reach anyone at the ranch,” the principal said, “so I called Mrs. Trask.”

“Oh, no,” Cherry groaned. “Call her back, please, and tell her it isn’t necessary to come. I’ll take Annie home.”

“I’ll try,” the principal said. “But she’s probably already on her way.”

Cherry’s only thought was to get Annie and leave as quickly as possible.

“I’m Cherry Whitelaw, Mrs. Winslow,” she said when she arrived at Annie’s classroom. Cherry flushed. “Except it’s Stonecreek now. My name, I mean. I’m here for Annie.”

“She’s lying on a cot at the back of the room, Mrs. Stonecreek. Raejean insisted on sitting with her.”

It felt strange to be called by her married name. Only she really was Mrs. Stonecreek, and responsible for the twins’ welfare. She sat on a chair beside the cot and brushed the bangs away from Annie’s forehead. “How are you, sweetheart?”

Annie moaned. “My stomach hurts.”

“She ate too many marshmallows,” Raejean said from her perch beside her sister.

“Marshmallows?” Mrs. Winslow asked.

“Annie had a few marshmallows with her hot chocolate this morning,” Cherry said.

“How many is a few?” Mrs. Winslow asked.

Cherry hadn’t counted. “Too many, I guess. Can you walk, Annie? Or do I need to carry you?”

Annie sat up, holding her stomach. “I don’t feel so good.”

Cherry picked her up in her arms.

“Where are you taking her?” Raejean demanded.

“Home,” Cherry said.

“I’m going, too,” Raejean said.

“There’s no reason for you to miss a day of school,” Cherry said reasonably. “I’ll take good care of Annie.”

“How do I know that?” Raejean demanded. “You’re practically a stranger!”

“Raejean,” Mrs. Winslow said. “Mrs. Stonecreek is right. There’s no reason for you to leave.”

“I’m going with Annie,” Raejean said to Mrs. Winslow, her face flushed. “I’m not staying here alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Mrs. Winslow soothed. “You’ll—”

“I’m going with Annie!” Raejean cried.

“Raejean—” Cherry began.

“I’m going with Annie!” she screeched hysterically.

Cherry knew the dangers of giving in to a tantrum. But in her mind’s eye she saw Mrs. Trask arriving to find a scene like this and knew she was over a barrel. “All right, Raejean, you can come. I’m sorry for the trouble, Mrs. Winslow.”

She turned and headed for the door with Annie in her arms and Raejean a half step behind her. She was almost out the door when Mrs. Trask showed up.

“What’s the matter with my granddaughter? What have you done to her?” she demanded.

“Annie is fine, Mrs. Trask.” Cherry kept moving down the hall toward the front door of the school, still hoping to escape without a major confrontation.

“Annie’s sick because she ate too many marshmallows,” Raejean volunteered.

“Marshmallows?” Mrs. Trask said as though what she was really saying was “Poison?”

“Annie will be fine, Mrs. Trask.”

“I was afraid of something like this. You’re not responsible enough to be left in charge of two little girls.”

Cherry didn’t want to admit Mrs. Trask might be right. She had misjudged the situation this morning, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do better. She would learn. After all, nobody had practice being a parent before they actually became one.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Trask, but as you can see, I have the situation well in hand.”

“I’m coming home with you,” Mrs. Trask said.

“I don’t believe that’s necessary,” Cherry countered.

“I—”

“What’s going on here?”

Cherry stopped in her tracks.

It was Billy. He didn’t look really mad, as Raejean had promised. He looked frantic, his brow furrowed, his sweat-stained work shirt pulled out of his jeans and hanging open, revealing a hairy chest covered with a damp sheen of sweat. He was still wearing his buckskin work gloves, but he was missing his hat. He had obviously shoved an agitated hand through his dark hair more than once, leaving it awry. He looked virile and strong…and very worried.

“I stopped by the house for some tools and found you gone and a message on the answering machine that Annie wasn’t feeling well. Is she all right?”

“I’m sick, Daddy,” Annie cried.

For a moment Cherry thought Billy would take Annie from her. Instead he asked, “Do you need any help with her?”

“I can manage if you’ll get the door to the pickup.”

“I knew something like this would happen,” Mrs. Trask said to Billy as they all headed outside to the rusted pickup.

“Something like what, Penelope?” Billy said.

“Something awful.”

“Kids get stomachaches, Penelope,” Billy said.

“Not if parents are careful and watch what they eat.”

“Look, Penelope, I appreciate you coming, but Cherry and I can handle things now.”

“How can you trust that woman—”

Billy turned on his former mother-in-law, and for the first time Cherry saw the anger Raejean had threatened. “That woman is my wife. And I have the utmost trust in her to take the very best care possible of Raejean and Annie.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You don’t have anything to say about it, Penelope.”

“We’ll see about that! The day is coming—”

Billy cut her off again. “You’ll have your day in court, Penelope. Until then, I can manage my family just fine without any help from you.”

Cherry was impressed by Billy’s support of her. She had done nothing to deserve his trust, and yet he had given it to her. She wanted very much to prove his faith in her was well-founded. She was simply going to have to try a little harder to be responsible.

“I’ll follow you back to the house,” Billy said to her as he buckled Raejean into her seat belt. “Maybe we can figure out what made Annie sick.”

“She ate too many marshmallows,” Raejean volunteered.

“What the hell was she doing eating marshmallows at breakfast?” Billy demanded of Cherry.

“I gave them to her,” Cherry confessed. “With her hot chocolate. I guess I gave her a few too many.”

Billy opened his mouth and snapped it shut on whatever criticism was caught in his throat. “We’ll discuss this when we get home.” He turned and marched to the other truck, a pickup in much better shape than the one she was driving.

The ride home was silent except for an occasional moan from Annie. When they arrived home, Billy carried Annie inside with Raejean trailing behind him. Billy breezed through the chaos in the kitchen without a pause and headed for the stairs. Cherry followed them, feeling as unwelcome as red ants at a picnic.

She stood at the bedroom door watching as Billy tucked Annie into bed and settled Raejean at a small desk with a coloring book and some crayons. She was amazed at his patience with his daughters. Amazed at his calm, quiet voice as he talked to them. The longer she watched, the worse she felt.

Billy had needed someone to help him out. All she had done was cause more trouble. Maybe he would want out of the marriage now. Maybe that’s what he wanted to discuss with her.

When he rose at last and came toward her, he indicated with a nod that she should precede him down the stairs. Cherry felt the tension mounting as she headed into the kitchen, where the peanut butter jar stood open and blobs of jelly lay smeared on the counter. A pan bearing the scraped remnants of scrambled eggs sat in the sink, along with one lined with scalded milk.

She turned to face Billy. “I can explain everything,” she said.

That was when he started laughing.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“WHAT’S SO FUNNY?” Cherry demanded.

“Annie eating all those marshmallows. She probably begged you for more.”

“How did you know?”

“Laura and I let the twins eat too much ice cream the first time they tried it. It’s hard to deny them anything when you see how much they’re enjoying it. You’ll learn.” His expression sobered as he added, “That’s what parents have to do, Cherry. They have to set limits and stand by them, for the sake of the kids.”

“I’ll try to do better, Billy,” she replied.

Rather than say more, he merely scooped her into his arms, gave her a hug and said, “I’ve got to get back to mending fence. See you at supper.”

It wasn’t until he was out the door and gone that she realized he hadn’t said a word about the sorry state of the kitchen. Cherry took a look around. There was no way he hadn’t noticed. She blessed him for not criticizing, and decided to reward him with a sparkling kitchen when he next saw it.

Of course, that was before she knew what the afternoon held in store.

Grocery shopping was out of the question because Annie was in bed sick, so she took some hamburger out of the freezer to defrost for meatloaf while she cleaned up the kitchen. When she went to check on the twins, she found Annie sound asleep.

Raejean was gone.

She searched the entire house, high and low, without finding her. “She couldn’t have left the house. I would have seen her,” Cherry muttered to herself.

Unless she went out the front door.

Cherry found the front door open a crack.

“Oh, no, Raejean.”

She was afraid to leave Annie alone in the house while she searched, but she knew she had to find Raejean before Billy came home. It was one thing to let a child overeat; it was quite another to lose one entirely. She had no choice but to call for help.

“Jewel, can you come over here?”

“What’s wrong, Cherry? Should I get Mom and Dad?”

“No! I’m sure I can handle this. Would you please just come over?”

When she was home from college, Jewel helped run Camp Littlehawk, a retreat that Rebecca had started years ago at Hawk’s Pride for kids with cancer. Summer sessions hadn’t yet begun, so Jewel was free to come and go as she pleased.

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Jewel said. “Is that soon enough?”

“No. But I guess it’ll have to do.”

“It sounds serious, Cherry. Are you sure—”

“I’m sure I can handle it with your help, Jewel. Please hurry.”

The next thirty minutes were the longest of Cherry’s life. Billy had shown a tremendous amount of trust in her, and she had already let him down once. She had to find Raejean before anything happened to her.

“How can I help?” Jewel asked the instant she came through the kitchen door.

With that single question, Jewel proved what a gem of a sister she was and why she was Cherry’s favorite sibling. Jewel gave a thousand percent to whatever she did and never asked for anything in return.

She walked with a slight limp, a result of the car wreck that had orphaned her, and her face bore faint, criss-crossing scars from the same accident. She had mud-brown eyes and dishwater-blond curls, and looked so ordinary you wouldn’t see her in a crowd. But she had a heart so big it made her an extraordinary human being.

“I’m in way over my head, Jewel,” Cherry confessed. “I thought taking care of two little girls was going to be a breeze. It isn’t.”

“What’s the problem?” Jewel asked.

“Annie’s upstairs in bed sick, and Raejean’s missing. I need you to watch Annie while I hunt for Raejean.”

“I’ll be glad to do that. Are you sure you don’t want some more help hunting down Raejean?”

“I’d rather try to find her myself first. With any luck, she’s hiding somewhere close to the house.”

Cherry looked in the barn, which was the most obvious place for the little girl to hide. It was dark and cool and smelled of hay and leather and manure. A search of the stalls turned up two geldings and a litter of kittens, but no little girl.

She climbed the ladder that led to the loft and gave it a quick look, but there was nothing but hay bales and feed sacks, so she climbed down again. As she turned to leave the barn, she heard a sound in the loft. Several pieces of straw wafted through the air and landed on the cement floor in front of her.

“I know you’re up there, Raejean,” she said. “Please come down. I’ve been very worried about you.”

Footsteps sounded on the wooden floor above her before Raejean said, “You have not! I’m not coming down till my Daddy gets home.”

Cherry climbed the ladder to the loft and followed the sounds of a sobbing child to the feed sacks in the corner. Raejean was huddled there, her knees wrapped up in her arms, her stubborn jaw outthrust as she glared at her new stepmother.

Cherry sat on the scattered straw across from Raejean. “I know what it feels like to lose your mother, Raejean. I know what it feels like to have a stranger try to boss you around. I’m sorry your mother died. I’m sorry she isn’t here right now. I know I can never replace her. But your Daddy asked me to take care of you and Annie for him while he works every day. Won’t you let me help him?”

Raejean’s tear-drenched eyes lowered as she picked at a loose thread on the knee of her coveralls. “I miss my mommy. I want my nana.”

Cherry’s heart climbed to her throat. She could understand Raejean’s need for the familiar. In the ordinary course of things, it would have been wonderful to have the girls’ grandmother take care of them temporarily. But Mrs. Trask wanted to wrench them away from their father permanently. Cherry wasn’t willing to worry Raejean with that possibility, but she wasn’t going to encourage Raejean’s desire to run to her grandmother for solace, either.

“I’m sure your daddy will take you to visit your grandmother soon. Right now we need to go back inside and check on Annie. I invited my sister, Jewel, to stay with her while I looked for you, but I think Annie needs us.”

“She doesn’t need you!” Raejean retorted.

“Maybe not. But she needs you. Will you come back inside with me?”

Cherry’s heart sank when the little girl said nothing. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t very well drag Raejean down the ladder. And while she could probably let her sit up here until Billy came home, it wasn’t a particularly safe place for a six-year-old.

She put a comforting hand on Raejean’s shoulder, but the child shrugged it off. “Please, Raejean? I need your help with Annie.”

“Oh, all right,” Raejean said. “But I’m coming inside for Annie. Not for you.”

Her face remained sullen as she followed Cherry inside, and she glowered when she discovered that Annie was still asleep.

“Maybe while Annie’s sleeping you could help me make supper,” Cherry cajoled.

“I don’t know how to cook,” Raejean said. “Mrs. Motherwell wouldn’t let us in the kitchen, and Nana has a lady to do all her cooking.”

“Would you like to learn?”

Reluctantly Raejean nodded her head.

“Let’s give it a try, shall we?”

“If the emergency is over, I’ve got some chores I need to do this afternoon,” Jewel said.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Cherry said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Raejean. Then we can get started on supper.”

“When will I see you again?” Jewel asked as they headed downstairs.

“I told Colt I was going to bring the girls and Billy to meet Zach and Rebecca this evening, but I think I’d better revise that plan. Will you tell Rebecca that Annie’s not well, and that we’ll come visit as soon as we can?”

“Why don’t you call her yourself?” Jewel urged as Cherry walked her out to her car. “I know she wants to talk to you.”

“I can’t face her, Jewel. Not after the way I disappointed her again.”

“You know Mom and Dad are proud of you.”

“Most of the time.”

“You’re their daughter. They love you.”

“I don’t know why,” Cherry said with a sigh.

Jewel shook her head. “There’s no rhyme or reason to loving someone. You should know that by now.” She gave Cherry a hug. “Take care, Mrs. Stonecreek.”

“Please don’t call me that, Jewel.”

“Why not? You’re married, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Temporarily. “It feels strange, that’s all. It’s a marriage of convenience,” she confessed. “Billy needed someone to take care of his girls, and I—I couldn’t face Zach and Rebecca after what happened at the prom.”

“I figured it might be something like that.”

Cherry could tell Jewel was curious, but Jewel didn’t ask questions. She merely smiled and gave Cherry another hug. “Call me if you need me, okay?”

As Jewel drove away, Cherry turned back to the house, to perhaps the biggest challenge of her life—being a mother to two little girls who didn’t want one.

BILLY ENTERED THE KITCHEN at dusk, after a long, discouraging day that had included a visit to a lawyer, to find utter chaos.

The open peanut butter and jelly jars were gone from the counter, replaced by catsup and a round container of oatmeal. Dirty dishes no longer sat in the sink; it was filled with potato peels. The kitchen smelled like something good was cooking in the oven. But instead of a table set for supper, he found three flour-dusted faces standing on a flour-dusted floor, laboring over a flour-dusted table.

“Hi, Daddy!” Raejean’s face bore perhaps the biggest smile Billy had seen there since Laura’s death. She held a rolling pin in her small hands and was mashing it across some dough spread on the table. “We’re cooking.”

“Hi, Daddy!” Annie’s grin was equally large. She held up two flour-dusted hands, one of which held a hunk of half-eaten dough. “We’re making an apple pie for you, because it’s your favorite!”

Billy finally let his gaze come to rest on Cherry. She had been in his thoughts too often during the day. She had a panicked look on her face as she glanced around at the mess in the kitchen. She pointed to the dough in Annie’s hand and said, “I only let her have this little bit. It’s not enough to make her sick.”

“I see,” Billy said.

What Billy saw was Cherry reassuring him that she had learned her lesson. That she was willing to take responsibility for being the adult when she was barely one herself.

“We’re running a little late,” Cherry said, rubbing her hands across the front of her jeans and leaving them flour-dusted, as well. “After we got the meatloaf and mashed potatoes prepared, there was still time before we expected you back, so we decided to make a pie.”