“I’m not sure we can.”
“I’m sure we have to try.”
K
endra hadn’t expected to have a good night, but despite everything, she slept particularly well, not waking as she usually did when tree limbs rustled in the wind or a horned owl shrieked.
By the time she awoke, sun was streaming through the cabin’s narrow windows. The prediction had been for rain, and she had dreaded a gray day indoors with two rambunctious, easily bored children. She doubted that Jamie had come prepared for such small quarters.
Aware that the only bathroom in the house was in the bedroom wing, she rose and showered quickly. She had told Jamie and the girls to troop through whenever they needed to, but if they had, they’d done it without a sound—which was unlikely.
She crossed the porch and opened the door into the living area. The air mattresses were gone; the room looked as untouched as a museum, and the little table in the kitchen area was set with crockery and pottery for one. The saucer held a supersize muffin—chocolate chip, from the look of it. The bowl held fresh strawberries, obviously meant to go with the plastic bag of low-fat granola beside it. Coffee warmed on the counter to fill her sunflower mug.
She was touched. Despite herself. Despite every instinct that told her to be careful, that her sister was a talented liar, that Jamie had managed to elude her, ignore her, forget for years to mention a daughter. Jamie was not the sweet-faced cherub who had clung to her older sister like a shipwreck victim clinging to a rock in treacherous waters.
And still, she was touched.
She poured coffee and retrieved milk from the refrigerator. She ate the granola and thought she might manage one bite of the muffin. Five minutes later she was carrying dishes, without so much as a crumb, to the sink.
She washed up to the chirping of birds, wondering as she did so where Jamie and the girls had disappeared to. She stepped out on the porch and she listened for children laughing, then descended the stairs and turned to skirt the house and head toward the old apple orchard. She found her sister and nieces running through the tall grass, hiding among the gnarled old trees.
“Kendra!” Jamie’s face was wreathed in a smile. “Don’t run. Just stay there and grab one of these little monsters if she sails by.”
Kendra was glad the girls were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. She didn’t know when this area had last been mowed. The trees were so old that some had fallen, yet she saw now that buds were beginning to form on the closest, despite its proximity to the ground. Undoubtedly the grass harbored ticks, snakes, any manner of varmints, but Jamie had foreseen the possibilities.
“We saw a snake!” This morning Hannah was less a princess than a tomboy. Her bright little eyes gleamed as she ran past Kendra, laughing when Kendra pretended to make a grab. “A big, big, big, big snake!”
“Back Booty.” Alison scurried by. “Name’s Back
Booty
.”
“Black Beauty,” Hannah articulated carefully.
Kendra was sticking with Slithering Godzilla. “Under the porch?”
“You’ve seen him?” Hannah said.
“Sis, you knew?” Jamie bent over, resting her hands on her knees, to gasp for a breath. “My Lord, you knew that snake was there?”
“Trust me, I’m not real fond of him.”
“I nearly jumped out of my skin. He went slithering by at about forty miles an hour. We were headed out to the van. I took the girls into town to use the facilities and have some breakfast so you could sleep.”
“You didn’t have to do that. But thanks. I haven’t slept that late in a long time.”
“Did you find your breakfast?”
“It was a treat. I appreciate it.”
Jamie straightened. “We got the muffins at a bakery in Woodstock. What a cute little town. This whole area is so pretty. I think I’m in love.”
“Tag!” Alison started to run again.
The familiar notes of “Egyptian” began to play.
“Darn,” Jamie said. “Sorry girls.”
“I guess it’s hard to get away from real life, even on vacation.” Kendra told herself she wasn’t prying. It was a simple, polite comment.
Jamie grimaced. “Tell me about it.” She flipped open her phone and took it to a log.
Kendra could hear her voice, but not what she was saying or to whom. While Jamie finished her call, Kendra took the girls on an impromptu nature hike. They spotted a bluebird, an event that seemed to rival a day at Walt Disney World for Hannah, who proclaimed herself a nature lover.
“Rosario tells me about birds,” she told Kendra. “He’s one of Mommy’s friends.”
Kendra filed away “one of” and wondered how many men strode through the little girls’ lives in an average month.
When Jamie finished her call, they wandered back toward the house, Alison riding piggyback and flogging her mother to go faster, and Hannah holding Kendra’s hand. Hannah had slipped it there as naturally as if she had grown up with Kendra.
“What does Riva think of the girls?” Kendra asked after Alison and Hannah had gone to peer under the porch to see if Black Beauty had returned.
“You’re not going to lecture me, are you?”
“Wasn’t planning on it. Should I?”
“I won’t let her see them.”
This took Kendra by surprise. “You mean they haven’t met their grandmother, either? Don’t tell me you had to prove yourself to Riva, too?”
“Before I let her near them, she has to prove herself to
me
. She’s off her medication again. Has been for a couple of years, as far as I can tell. But you probably know that. The girls wouldn’t understand what was happening, and I don’t think I can handle it. Even when she’s stable, Riva’s not good for me. But, of course, you know that. She can shred me into a thousand pieces in a matter of minutes.”
Kendra knew Jamie didn’t mean shred by criticism. She was talking about Riva’s wrenching dramatic abilities. Riva could make a strong man weep by recounting a trip to the spa. Their mother could hold an audience in thrall or rally troops for war, and she could do it without a single genuine emotion. She felt everything and she felt nothing. She was the psychological equivalent of Typhoid Mary, a woman who could infect everyone in sight and continue undeterred.
“Maybe that explains why she’s so quiet when your name comes up,” Kendra said. “She doesn’t want me to know that the girls are strangers to her, too.”
“That’s not the way I want it. But I’ve learned what I want the world to be like has very little to do with the way it really is.” Jamie’s phone sang again.
“None of these calls are from Riva, are they?”
“They’re from a friend. And I have to take them. Excuse me.”
Kendra was sitting on the porch steps and Jamie was still on the phone when a familiar pickup drove into the clearing. Kendra finished explaining to Hannah why crawling under the porch to leave a bowl of milk and Oreos for the snake was not an option. Alison was glued to Kendra’s side, a dead weight against her.
“But you said he’s not poisonous,” Hannah argued.
“That doesn’t mean he won’t bite. Besides, I don’t think snakes eat cookies or drink milk.” Kendra raised her hand in greeting to Cash, who got down from the cab and started toward them.
Today Cash wore a dark green T-shirt tucked neatly into khakis, and he carried a brown portfolio under his arm. As he passed, his gaze flicked appreciatively toward Jamie. Still on her call, she smiled at him, and the air warmed appreciably.
“How’s it going?” Cash rested one foot on the bottom step and ruffled Hannah’s hair.
“Do snakes drink milk?” Hannah asked.
“No, but they suck eggs.”
“Aunt Kendra, can we—”
“Nope,” Kendra said. “But I’ll tell you what. We’ll put a couple of eggs outside tonight, and then we’ll see if they’re gone by morning. But only if you promise you won’t go outside and check when the lights go out.”
Hannah considered. “Okay, but remember, I have not said a thing about the window.” She took her sister by the hand and led her up the stairs into the house.
“Your sister?” Cash nodded toward Jamie.
“Yes.” She thought how odd this was. For all practical purposes, yesterday morning she’d been an orphan. Today she was a sister
and
an aunt, plotting snake strategies with a child she had never been allowed to know or discuss.
She noted that Jamie was slipping her phone back in her pocket. Kendra waited until she joined them, and introduced Cash. Jamie held out her hand. Kendra had seen her mother make the same graceful gesture. Queen Riva acknowledging the knights of the realm. Queen Riva choosing which knight would wear her colors.
“I’m Jamie Dunkirk.” She made no attempt to brush her hair off her face or straighten her plaid shirt. But all the same, she came on to him.
Kendra watched it happen, fascinated and appalled. She could not put her finger on exactly how the signals were sent. The way Jamie shifted her weight, perhaps. The way she thrust one hip forward, straightened her back so her small shapely breasts pressed against her shirt. Something about the way her eyes swept slowly across his face, lingering for just the tiniest part of a second on Cash’s nicely formed lips. Maybe something about the way Jamie’s own lips angled by degrees.
Kendra knew she was watching a master at work. She had been trained well.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Cash said. “Were those your little girls?”
“Yes.” Jamie looked over her shoulder. “Where have they gone?”
“Inside,” Kendra said. “Probably to count eggs.”
“They’ve talked you into something, haven’t they.”
“Hannah could talk a centipede into an extra set of legs.”
“Her father’s a defense attorney. You should see him with a jury. Alison will probably be every bit as bad.
Her
father can talk his way into any poker game in the world. Last I heard, he was making a lot of money doing it.”
Kendra thought that had been neatly done. In her own way, Jamie had insinuated she was no longer with either man. She was free to pursue Cash, if she chose.
“They’re real little beauties,” Cash said.
She smiled as if he’d complimented her. “Smart, too, and sweet. I’m lucky.”
“Looks to me like they’re lucky, too.”
Kendra could not stand another moment of this. “Cash and his father are going to do some renovation work for me.”
“Really?” Jamie’s smile widened. “You mean you’re not happy with the place just the way it is?”
“Not as happy as she’s going to be once we finish up.” Cash offered the portfolio to Kendra. “I’ve just put a few things together for you, and some rough sketches to go with them.
Rough
is the key word. This is just to get you thinking. But since time’s a little short here, I wanted to get things rolling.”
“Why is time short?” Jamie asked.
“We had a window in our schedule, but it closes soon. We’ll still be working here, but our crews will also be working on other jobs.”
“They’re going to take down a barn a couple of miles away and use the logs to add on,” Kendra said.
“Oh, imagine that.” Jamie’s eyes sparkled. “It’s going to be glorious. I can’t wait to see what you’re planning.”
Kendra honestly couldn’t tell if Jamie was just trying to impress Cash—who was, she had to admit, worth impressing—or if her sister really was excited.
“The barn’s coming down as we speak,” Cash said. “They’ll start hauling it this way come tomorrow.”
“The girls will love that. Maybe we can drive over a little later and watch them take it down.”
“You do that.” Cash turned to Kendra. She thought he looked sorry to be pulling his gaze from Jamie’s. “I ran out of time yesterday, but I’ve got what I need to finish up the railing. Mind if I do it now?”
“Of course not. And thanks, it’s making things a lot easier for me already.” Kendra stood to go inside.
“Why don’t you send the girls out, Ken?” Jamie said. “We’ll watch Cash work. They’ll get a kick out of it.”
Kendra wondered exactly who was going to enjoy watching him work the most.
Forty-five minutes later, she was working on the list of what she’d learned about Leah Spurlock, when Isaac called. Ten minutes ago, Jamie and the girls had followed Cash down Fitch Crossing to see the barn being dismantled and loaded on trucks. Tomorrow the logs would arrive. Considering the way Jamie and Cash had looked at each other, Kendra expected at least another hour of contemplative silence.
“How are you doing?” Isaac asked after a brief greeting.
“It’s Friday. Aren’t you at work?”
“I have a break.”
Because hope is a hard emotion to banish, she waited for him to say he had missed her and needed to make contact. But she didn’t wait long, because it wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m doing fine.” She put down her notepad, realizing how much easier it was to give her thoughts over to blank paper than to the man she had vowed to love, honor and cherish.
“It’s been cold and rainy here. Are you having a decent spring?”
“It’s fine.” She pictured him deleting e-mail as they spoke. Isaac always did at least two things at once. Maybe he was signing letters, or penciling in appointments on his desk calendar.
“Is anything new?”
“You might say that.”
He answered right away, as if he really
was
listening. “What’s up?”
“Jamie’s here.”
For a moment he didn’t respond. Then he made a noise deep in his throat, almost a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. You invited her?”
“No, I must have left a trail of bread crumbs.”
“You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“She’s here to take care of me.”
There was a silence. She could almost hear him thinking.
“What’s she like?” he asked at last.
“Beautiful. Charming. If I wasn’t such a cynic, I’d say she’s sincere.”
“You’re not a cynic. You’ve been burned.”
“She has
two
daughters, Isaac. And she’s a college student. The children are just…” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Pretty messed up?”
“No. Amazing. A peek into eternity.”
This time the silence spoke volumes.
“You need to come and meet them,” Kendra said. “This might be the only chance you’ll ever have.”