Ready or Not (Aggie's Inheritance) (38 page)

She looked up at the officer standing on her last step and sighed.
“
William, thank you for trying to help. I know this isn
’
t your fault, but right
now,
it
feels
like it is. I know that
’
s irrational, but right now I
want
to be irrational. It makes me feel better.
”

Her ridiculous words showed how bothered Aggie really was by the situation, and Mr. Take-Charge Markenson did something that the officer normally wouldn
’
t do. He excused himself and drove away. Strains of a fierce rendition of
“
Angry Words
”
were playing repeatedly in his head as he headed back to the sheriff
’
s station. Absent mindedly, the man hummed the chorus, filling in the words now and then.
“
Love one another… thus saith the Savior… mmm…mmm…mmm
”

Friday, June 14
^th

A hammer banged in her dream-filled mind. Still lost in what she thought was a dream, Aggie decided the sound was her heart hammering at some horrible thing the twins escaped from at the last second. She struggled to awaken, but her eyes refused to budge. Finally, one eye peeked open as a second round of bangs pierced her burgeoning consciousness. That wasn
’
t a hammer or her heart. It was the door.

Stumbling from the dining room, Aggie prayed that it wouldn
’
t be the Sheriff with legal papers. She
’
d waited, a constant knot in her stomach, for over a week, to be served with some kind of court documents. While she had little concern that the Stuarts could do anything to change the court order, she did dread the idea of the children being dragged into an ugly custody battle, and selfishly, dreaded the time away from work on the house. They
’
d been there almost two weeks, and all that was accomplished was adding wonky wiring and a little cleaning.

At the door, toolbox in hand, wearing an old ARMY t-shirt and half worn-out jeans, was a man. His eyes were kind, and the smile on his face was oddly familiar for someone she
’
d never met. His eyes seemed to laugh at an inside joke as the man introduced himself.
“
Miss Milliken? I
’
m Luke, my Uncle Zeke sent me to fix your power.
”

Aggie knew she looked as startled and discomfited as she felt, so she gave up the idea of trying to hide it.
“
Isn
’
t it a bit early? It can
’
t be past seven…
”
Aggie added acting lessons to her list of things to do someday when she had a spare second.

Luke grinned broadly before replying,
“
Well, actually it
’
s just after eight. I meant to be here on the dot, but there was a line at the gas station this morning. If you
’
ll just give me that list you talked about with Uncle Zeke, I
’
ll get to work on it, and you can go back to bed. From what Uncle Zeke tells me, you need all the rest you can get.
”
As an afterthought, he added,
“
Oh, and how is the ankle?
”

“
Ankle? How
’
d you know about that?
”
Aggie was rarely coherent before her first cup of coffee.

He shuffled his feet uncomfortably, making Aggie even more suspicious.
“
Uncle Zeke told me about it. That must have been pretty stressful.
”
Luke smiled again as he waited for Aggie to step aside so he could enter and get to work.

Aggie wanted to be angry with him, but at that particular moment, anyone who could fix her electrical nightmare was on par with a knight on a white charger
--
or at least a great substitute for a battery charger. She dug the list out of her purse, making a mental note to find her clipboard for these kinds of things, unwrinkled it, and handed it to Luke. As the handyman took it, Aggie noticed how strong his forearms appeared to be.

Luke wasn
’
t a large man. Average height, weight, and build implied a common, everyday Joe. Luke, however, was remarkably strong for someone his size. Though not classically handsome, he had a firm jaw line and incredible blue eyes that seemed to light up his whole face when he smiled. To the delight of most single females of his acquaintance, he smiled often. Aggie, lost in her sleep and java-deprived stupor, noticed nothing but his forearms, the tool belt around the man
’
s waist, and a lingering scent of shaving cream once he turned to leave.

As Luke strolled outside to check the breaker box and turn it off, Aggie snatched up her rumpled clothes from the previous day and hurried to the shower. The children were stirring around her, and if she didn
’
t make a dash for it now, she
’
d find another day over and another layer of grime on her unwashed body. The piles of laundry in the corner of the room caught her eye on her way up the stairs, so Aggie made another mental note to ask Luke to hook up the washer and dryer while he was here. She could pay him for both things at once, and
surely,
that wasn
’
t an expensive or time-consuming job.

Although Zeke had encouraged her to make a list of everything she needed to do and give the Luke the most difficult of the jobs, Aggie hadn
’
t intended to do it. She was already rethinking her plans. She turned on the shower and stepped into the tub, the water pouring over her body like a torrential rain. She missed a daily shower but just didn
’
t have time
--
That was it. If he
’
d walk her through the house and help her make lists of what he could and couldn
’
t do, she
’
d hire him to do all the coulds. Maybe she could even pay him to hire out the other jobs so that they
’
d get done right
--
that is,
if
he did manage to fix the major gaffe of the last guy.

Just before lunchtime, Aggie decided that it was time for real food
--
not thrown together real ingredients like carrot sticks now and then, or an apple when she realized that their entire menu for a day was out of a can or box, but
real
meals out of
real
food. She thought of calling her mother, but the thought of the worry she
’
d cause stopped her. For two weeks, she
’
d picked up a bag or two of groceries here and there, but there had been few meals that weren
’
t thrown together, or borderline junk food. It was better than it had been, at least there were vegetables and fruit on the snack list, but she needed more. If she only knew where Celia Mullins
’
menu plan was hiding…

Why she picked this day, when she needed to be home and supervise an electrical repair job that she had no idea how to supervise in the first place, to go to the store, Aggie didn
’
t know. However, she brushed hair, washed little faces and hands, and ordered all the children into the van. She found Luke unscrewing every wire from every outlet and switch in the house and informed him she had to make a trip to town.

“
Do you need anything while I
’
m there? Bolts, wire, circuits, duct tape? Doesn
’
t that stuff fix anything?
”
Her eyes twinkled as she laughed at herself and her silliness.

“
I
’
m good. Happy shopping.
”

“
Yeah, right,
”
she muttered as she hurried down the stairs and out to her van.
“
I
’
ve got a certifiable nut case working on my electrical.
Happy shopping
.
”
Had Luke heard the harrumph that followed, he
’
d have howled with laughter.

For reasons unfathomable to Aggie, the children were excited about their grocery shopping excursion, and all the way there, they sang silly songs about hunting for food in the store. Aggie couldn
’
t decide if it was some game Allie had taught her children, or their keen, collective, and wacky imaginations. She would later learn that Allie never took her children grocery shopping with her, and she would soon understand why.

Suffice it to say, three children desperately needed to ride in the front seat of a shopping cart. This meant Aggie, Vannie, and Laird all had to push a cart. Thanks to injury, helpful church members, and a wonderful mother
’
s helper, Aggie had yet to do a full shopping trip for the family. Today would be her debut into the world of family nutritional procurement. Halfway through her shopping trip, she was livid. How she
’
d managed to make it through high school and college without a basic understanding of how much food each person needed per day, she didn
’
t know. Furthermore, how to multiply that by people and days, all while sticking to whatever food guidelines were popular this week, and keeping her sanity, eluded her. She could explain the intricacies of the Battle of Ticonderoga, but she couldn
’
t predict how much she needed in grains vs. proteins, or how to balance that knowledge with fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, from her observations, the children didn
’
t eat a consistent amount from day to day anyway. Vannie was helpful, as were Ellie and Laird, but they simply knew some of the foods their mother often bought
--
not how she used them once they arrived home, or how she balanced them in the family
’
s meals.

Feeling like an incompetent fool, but knowing that food was food (even if it didn
’
t seem to have rhyme or reason), Aggie bought almost an entire cart of meat, half a cart of frozen veggies, and the other half of fresh vegetables for salads and snacking, an entire case of apples, several bags of other fresh fruit, canned soups, lunchmeats, bread, boxed cereals and ten gallons of milk. With all three shopping carts filled, she then filled another one. By the fifth cart, Aggie was getting desperate.

As she tried to keep the little children from climbing from their seats, she realized that other than the fruit, there were no snack foods. She also realized that tuna, peanut butter, and jelly would be helpful and sent the other children in different directions, while trying to keep the twins and Ian occupied and quiet. Only three displays and two jars were demolished in the process, and Aggie thought surely that was good!