A Place Called Home (26 page)

Three sets of parents, Mitch thought. Biological. Foster. Adoptive. How was a child supposed to make some sense of that?

Thinking of the three children staying with his parents right now made Mitch’s chest tighten uncomfortably. God, what if he screwed this up? What if they did all the stupid things he did as a kid and weren’t as lucky to come out on the other side? He wasn’t their parent. What the hell did he know about it anyway? Gabe and Kathy trusted him with their kids but it wasn’t like they’d left an instruction manual behind. The closest thing he had was Kathy’s recipes and he’d already proven he couldn’t make her meat loaf to please the troops.

What kind of dad fed his kids spiced couscous with fruit and nuts?

Awww, jeez, he was losing it. Next he’d be asking Thea for a list of doctors that would prescribe him the choice drugs.

That thought made Mitch flash back to something Emilie had said about Thea weeks ago.
We make her nervous.
Thea had denied it, Mitch had covered for her, but Emilie, repeating something she’d overheard from her mother, had been telling the truth. Being around the kids
did
make her nervous, and it always had. Mitch realized that he was just ready to join her.

“Great,” he whispered. “That’ll really help the kids. Kathy? Gabe? What the
hell
were you thinking putting us in charge?”

There was no answer, which Mitch, in his present frame of mind, took as a good thing. Thea Wyndham, high school honor student, fledgling ballerina, Bryn Mawr grad, ad exec at the family-founded firm, and award recipient, was making him a little crazy.

What was he supposed to
do
with what she’d told him? Had her confession been in the way of an excuse or simply the explanation he’d been asking for from the start? Was he supposed to keep the kids out of her hair or let them pull her in? If she relapsed, who would be to blame?

“Strike that,” he said at the end of a long sigh. “It’s got to be on you, Thea.”

The phone rang and Mitch almost let the machine pick up. At the last moment he realized that it was probably the kids calling to say good night and he made a mad dash to the kitchen, catching it a second before his recorded voice did.

“Hello.”

“Mitchell, it’s your mother.”

He smiled. Some things didn’t change and he was probably the better for it. “I know, Mum. What’s up? Everyone’s okay? No broken bones?”

“Your father parboiled himself in the hot tub, but other than that, we’re fine. The kids want to talk to you.”

Mitch glanced at the clock. “They’re up kind of late.”

“I’m the grandmother, dear. Things are different. You’re the one saddled with the hobgoblins of consistency or some such thing.”

“‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,’” Mitch quoted. “That’s Emerson, Mum. Are you saying that I have a little mind?”

“Don’t twist my words. In a few years you’ll have no mind, with no chance of recovery. Do you want to talk to the children or argue with a woman who knows of what she speaks?”

Mitch didn’t hesitate. “Pass the phone, please. I love you.” He thought he heard her chuckle before Case’s voice came over the line.

“What’s a hobgoblin?”

“Ask Pap,” Mitch said. “He’ll be happy to explain. Did you have fun today?”

“Yeah. I made it the whole way down the hill without falling.”

“Good for you. How many times did Nonny take a spill?”

“She didn’t fall at all. She’s good.”

There was a relief, Mitch thought. “Put Grant on,” he said. “Good night and I love you.”

“Love you, too.” There was some fumbling with the phone before Mitch heard Grant’s soft breathing on the other end of the line. “Hey, Sport. What’s the word?”

“Dis-com-
bob
-u-la-tion.”

“Pretty cool word. Where’d you hear that?” As if he didn’t know.

“Pap. He said that a lot after he got out of the hot tub.”

“I’ll bet. He was discombobulated, uh?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Dis-com-
bob-
u-la-ted.”

Mitch grinned at Grant’s singsong pronunciation. He got the skiing report and signed off after he asked for Emilie. “Hi, Em. How’s my ski bunny?”

“Uncle Mitch! Nonny says that’s a sexy remark.”

“Sexist,” he corrected her. “Put Nonny on the phone.” He waited. The transfer was quick because his mother was hovering and had probably overheard the exchange. “Mum, what are you teaching her?”

“That she is something more than ornamentation on the slopes no matter how pink her ski clothes are. Emilie is actually quite accomplished and tomorrow I’m taking her on a bigger run.”

“Okay, just checking. Put her on.” The phone was exchanged again. “Sorry about the sexist remark, Em. I think you can be anything you want to be.”

“I know that,” Emilie said frankly. “But right now I want to be pretty.”

In the background he could hear Case and Grant start to chant.
Pretty ugly. Pretty ugly.
“We’ll work on loftier goals later, Em. Right now tell your brothers that ‘pretty ugly’ is an oxymoron and send them to Pap for the full explanation. That will put them to sleep.” He waited while Emilie did as she was told. When she got back on the line, he asked, “So how was the skiing?”

“Good. Nonny says I’m a natural. I might even have a street name. Peekaboo.”

Mitch laughed. “Nonny’s talking about a skier named Picabo Street who won an Olympic gold medal.”

“Oh. That’s good, too.”

“Sure is.”

“What are you doin’?” Emilie asked.

There was nothing disingenuous about the question, Mitch knew. Emilie was fishing for information. “Watching TV.”

“All by yourself?”

He shook his head, smiling wryly as her eleven-year-old guided missile system locked on to its target. “All alone,” he told her. “Your aunt Thea was here but she’s gone now. We picked up the car this afternoon.”

“Miss Sommers didn’t go with you?”

“No. I asked Thea to help instead.”

“You like her more?”

Oh, boy. Mitch’s collar felt a little tight. Emilie was a tough interrogator, but then he considered who was standing next to her and realized she was learning from the Jedi master. “I like her fine,” he said. Take
that,
Mama Yoda. “Now, tell me more about your ski lessons.” Mitch listened for another five minutes while Emilie gave him the excruciating details of everything she’d managed to learn that day. He signed off with “don’t murder your brothers” and “I love you.” When his mother got back on the phone he was prepared for her questions about Thea, and he fielded them with what he liked to believe was a certain casual grace. It wasn’t until he was off the phone that he swallowed hard.

He managed to get halfway across the kitchen when the phone rang again. This time he did let the machine pick up.

“Mitch? Are you still awake?”

It was Thea. Mitch leaped back toward the phone. “Hey!”

“Mitch, it’s Thea. If you’re—”

“Thea! I’m here.” He fumbled with the answering machine to make it stop recording. “I’m here,” he said more quietly. “Where are you? You can’t be home already.”

“I’m not. I’m just south of Cranberry on 79. I’m waiting for a tow truck. I put the Volvo in the median and I can’t get it out. I was wondering if—”

“I’m on my way.” In his eagerness to get to her quickly, he almost hung up the phone. He caught himself. “Are you all right? Do I need to bring anything?”

“Hot coffee would be nice. Decaf.”

“You got it. Call me on my cell if the tow truck gets there before I do.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. They said it’d be about an hour and a half. That was twenty-five minutes ago.”

She’d been waiting that long already? “Thea! Why didn’t you call right away?”

“I did. Your line was busy. I guess you don’t have call waiting either.”

He hated call waiting, but he said, “At the top of my list now. See you in twenty minutes.”

“Be careful.”

Mitch hung up but not before he heard her teeth chattering. Wasn’t she in the Volvo with the heat running? He grabbed his coat and gloves and then ran upstairs for a couple of blankets. The snowfall hadn’t diminished since the last time he was outside. Mitch brushed off the new SUV and hopped inside. He was out of town in a few minutes and on the interstate not long after that. The roads had been scraped and salted but the surface was still visible only in isolated spots in the driving lane. The passing lane was all packed snow. The snowplows and salt trucks couldn’t keep up with the rate of accumulation, and Mitch had to keep his speed under thirty miles an hour because of the reduced visibility. Even with only his low beams on, it was like navigating through hyperspace.

He had driven a mile and a half after the Cranberry exit when he saw flashing red-and-blue lights up ahead. The state police had found Thea first. Mitch slowed down to a crawl and pulled up carefully behind the cruiser. He left his motor running and jumped out. The officer was out of the car before Mitch’s feet reached the ground. The cab light showed Thea sitting in the front seat.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“Your name?” the officer demanded.

“Mitchell Baker.” The SUV’s headlights illuminated the officer and Mitch could see him lower his guard a fraction. “Thea explained she called me, didn’t she?”

“She did. Just wanted to make certain it was you.” He pointed to the median strip. “Her car’s over there.”

Mitch turned. He hadn’t even looked for the Volvo once he’d seen the police car. Now he paled. The car was on its side in the snow-covered grass strip between the north and southbound lanes. “She rolled a
Volvo?
” he asked incredulously.

“Not without some help. According to Ms. Wyndham a pickup passed her and then cut back into her lane too soon. He clipped her front headlight and she skidded, spun, and couldn’t correct.”

Mitch looked around. “Where’s the pickup?”

“Gone. Didn’t stop. We have her information. She caught some of the license plate. It might be enough.”

He nodded. “She’s okay, though?”

“Seems to be, and she says she is, but I’m no doctor. I’d get her to the ER to check her out.”

“I’ll take her there for coffee,” Mitch said.

“Good idea.”

Mitch rounded the back of the cruiser and went to the passenger side. He opened the door. Thea was still warming her fingers in front of the heater. “You ready to go? I have blankets in the car. Coffee’s waiting for us at the hospital.”

Her head swiveled. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“Sure. We’ll talk about it when we get there.” Mitch waited patiently for her to get her purse and the papers she’d taken from the glove compartment of her car, then he escorted her back to the SUV. The officer made certain they had enough gas to wait out the tow truck, waved aside their thanks, and told them he had to go. Calls were coming in from all over, he said, shaking his head. Why didn’t people just stay home on nights like this?

Thea didn’t offer an explanation. She watched the cruiser pull safely onto the highway before she sank back in her seat. “I don’t think he really wanted to hear my reasons for being out in this, do you?”

“Probably not,” Mitch agreed. He took the purse and papers she was still clutching and put them in the backseat. He tucked the blankets he’d brought around her. They waited almost forty minutes for the tow truck. Mitch made arrangements for the car to go to a garage and mechanic he knew, and then he paid the driver and got back in the SUV.

“I have a bag in the trunk,” Thea said. She yawned widely. “Please. Before he goes.”

Mitch jumped out, ran up to the driver’s window, and tapped on it. “The lady says she has something in the trunk she needs.”

“Don’t they always,” the driver said. He accepted the twenty-dollar tip Mitch gave him and lowered the hoist to retrieve Thea’s bag.

Climbing into the SUV for what he hoped was the last time before the hospital trip, Mitch regarded Thea’s slim smile and sleepy-eyed thank-you in the cab light and decided it was worth it. He put the bag between the seats and buckled up before he adjusted the vents to direct more heat in Thea’s direction. “What do you have in there that you couldn’t leave behind?”

Thea closed her eyes as the car rolled forward and moved off the shoulder and onto the highway. “It’s my just-in-case.”

“Justin Case?” He frowned, certain he couldn’t have heard her correctly. “What are you saying again?”

“You know. Just in case I have to spend the night. Just in case I get asked.”

“I see.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she murmured. “I always keep it there. I’ve had to do a fair amount of last-minute traveling for the business. I’ve found it’s a good idea to have a grab-and-go bag.”

“Handy.”

“Sometimes.”

He glanced over when she didn’t say anything and saw she appeared to be sleeping. Concern that she could have a concussion prompted Mitch to press a little harder on the gas pedal. He took the next exit, turned around, and got back on the highway heading north to the hospital.

Thea made a few protestations once he parked the car, but she didn’t dig her heels in. Mitch helped her register, poking through her purse for her wallet and insurance card while she answered questions. His fingers stilled only once, and that was when they closed over the object that was undeniably her engagement ring.

The urgent care waiting room wasn’t crowded and Thea was taken back relatively quickly. After an initial evaluation, the physician ordered a few X-rays of her neck and upper back as a precaution. The results, when they finally came, showed nothing unusual. Concussion had been ruled out early and the discharge recommendations were rest and over-the-counter pain relievers as needed.

“Told you so,” Thea said, curling into the front seat.

“Yeah, but you looked real cute in that hospital gown.”

“So that was your angle.”

“Guilty.”

Thea’s smile was sleepy. “Take me home, Mr. Baker.”

Mitch did.

Thea woke as she always did: bleary-eyed and unable to bring the room into immediate focus. This morning her disorientation was more than usual and then she remembered she was not in her own room, not in her own bed, and most importantly, she was not alone.