Yesterday's Embers (21 page)

As she moved her treasures from her house to Doug’s, she started to feel something shift in her heart.

M
ickey crawled out of bed and walked down the hall in her nightgown. Seven o’clock on Saturday morning and the house was blissfully quiet with the kids still at Wren and Bart’s. The sun gleamed through windows that sparkled with her efforts.

As she wandered through the downstairs rooms, every muscle screamed for relief, yet she felt like turning cartwheels. She had never worked so hard in her life as she had these past two days. She’d gotten up with the sun and worked steadily until after midnight two nights in a row. Without the kids to demand her attention, she’d been able to accomplish far more than she’d dreamed.

She still had a day’s worth of finishing touches she wanted to put on her project, but almost overnight the house had been completely transformed. She could hardly
wait for Doug and the kids to see how it had turned out. As much as she’d enjoyed the solitude of these last two days, she was beginning to miss them. A fact that caused her to breathe a sigh of relief. It had worried her a little that she felt so…unencumbered without them.

Not only had she organized the entire downstairs so that everything had a place, but she’d also discovered cans of leftover paint in the garage and had touched up the walls where the kids had banged into them and repaired nail holes where she’d taken pictures off the walls and replaced them with paintings she’d brought from her house.

She’d taken down the dusty draperies and curtains throughout the house, too. Some she’d washed and rehung, others she’d tossed and replaced with curtains from her house. The entire downstairs looked fresh and clean and organized.

With her careful placement of shelves and baskets, she thought the kids could keep the place tidy with just a little effort. No more than they were used to when they were at daycare.

She’d made half a dozen trips back and forth to her house, collecting books and decorative items she’d missed. As she moved her treasures from her house to Doug’s, she started to feel something shift in her heart.

For the first time since moving in with Doug and the kids, she didn’t feel as if she were living in another woman’s house. The farmhouse had her touch on it now, and with that she finally felt like she belonged here.

The house had good bones. They’d just been hidden behind poor furniture arrangement—and a lot of clutter. Moving the furniture had given her a chance to do some deep cleaning, and the weather had allowed her to open up the house and circulate some fresh air. She inhaled and smelled only the clean scent of fresh paint and lemon polish and Windex.

Humming, she went through to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. The empty countertops gleamed, and when she opened the cupboard
doors, organized shelves greeted her. She’d packed away much of Doug’s kitchen equipment—Kaye’s, actually—and replaced it with the dishes and decorative items she hadn’t had room for until now.

Before they could rent her place out, they’d have to deal with the two dozen boxes of stuff from the farmhouse that she’d stored in her garage, but at least they were out of here now. Maybe they could have a garage sale in town later this summer. That would be something the kids could all help with.

She planned to tackle their bedrooms and the bathroom upstairs next, but she didn’t dare do that without them there to help.

Looking through to the laundry room, she admired the rows of bookshelves under the windows. With stickers and art supplies she’d collected from garage sales, she’d made clever labels for each child. Now she had a place to stack their clean laundry until they could put it away in their rooms, and they had a place to store their book bags, jackets, and toys at the end of the day.

She’d taken down the cherry-print curtains from the dining room and hung them at the laundry room windows. They fit this room much better.

Continuing her tour through the house, she moved to the dining room. The space looked positively elegant with the sideboard cleared of clutter, and the lustrous brown draperies from her living room in town puddling on the wood floor.

The stained, worn braided rugs had been relegated to the trash bin, and she’d polished the floors till they gleamed. Never mind that the scuffs from roller skates and Tonka trucks still shone through the wax. Doug would probably think that particular patina worth preserving anyway.

She showered and dressed, then made a quick trip into town to load up some of her houseplants that she’d been storing at the daycare since she moved out. The center was dim and quiet, and seeing the twins’ and Harley’s names on the cubbies in the entryway made her miss the kids
terribly. It would be fun to pick them up from Wren’s tonight. Right after she gave Doug a proper welcome home.

Smiling at the thought, she hauled two large leafy ficus trees and a collection of smaller philodendrons and ferns out to the car. She could hardly wait to get back to the house and arrange them in the sunny corner of the living room where she’d cleared a space for them. They would be an oasis and an anchor in the room. It had about killed her moving the heavy bookcases in that room to the opposite wall, but the arrangement worked much better and kept the television from being the focal point of the room.

She was dragging the second plant inside the house when the phone rang. She brushed the dirt off her hands into the pot, left it sitting in the middle of the living room, and ran to grab the phone.

“Hey, babe, it’s me.”

“Hi, Doug. How’s it going?”

“Good. Everything going okay there?”

“Better than okay.” She smiled, looking around the tidy room. “You won’t believe how much I’ve already accomplished. I got the—”

“Listen, babe, sorry to cut you off, but we’re on a break, and I need to make this quick. Wren left a message on my cell phone last night.”

“Oh?” Mickey’s mind raced straight to the worst-case scenario. “Is everything okay with the kids?”

“This isn’t about the kids. But she said she’d tried to get hold of you and got no answer.”

Mickey stretched to look at the answering machine. The light was blinking. “I’m sorry. I’ve been in and out, and I haven’t checked for messages.”

He clucked his disapproval. She could almost see his frown and his head wagging. “You really need to check it. What if it was one of the kids?”

She swallowed back the angry words that pushed into her throat at his accusation. “You said the kids are okay. What did Wren want?”

“Meg Ashlock talked to her, and I guess her sister wants your house.”

“Really?” For some reason that news made a knot twist in Mickey’s belly. But then she looked out over Doug’s house—
their
house—and remembered how empty her house in town was now that she’d moved most of her belongings here. The knot fell loose. “That’s great.”

“Except…there’s a catch.”

“Oh?”

“They want to move in next week.”

Her hand flew to her throat. “No way. There’s no way I could have it ready that soon. It’d take a week just to get the rest of my furniture moved out.” After all the work she’d done these last two days, her strength flagged at the mere thought.

“According to Wren, they need to get into something right away. Wren said they might even want a furnished place.”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure I want renters tearing my stuff up.”

“They might find something else if we hedge. We could really use the money, babe. I’ll help you get stuff moved out. I promise. And don’t forget Monday’s Memorial Day. You don’t have to work, right?”

“No…”

“We can rent a storage unit for anything you don’t want to leave in the house.” She heard voices in the background. “Listen, Mick, I’ve got to run. The next session’s starting. We can talk when I get home, okay?”

“Yes…okay.” She hung up, feeling slightly numb. And wishing she had another two days to herself. Instead, Doug would come home tonight, they’d go get the kids, tomorrow would be taken up with church and getting everything back to normal—hopefully a new normal with an organized house—and then the kids would be out of school, and every spare minute of the next few days would be spent trying to get her house ready for renters.

She flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. So much for the breather.

The phone rang again. She let out a growl and reached for the handset, working to modulate her tone. “Hello?”

“Mickey?” Wren’s tremulous voice came over the line.

Mickey tried to organize her thoughts, thinking what answer she’d give Wren about renting her house to Meg’s sister. She needed more time to think things through.

“Oh, Mickey. Have you—?” Wren’s voice broke. “You haven’t heard from Kayeleigh, have you?”

“Kayeleigh?” Mickey sprang to her feet, every sense on alert. “No. She’s there with you, right?”

“No, Mickey, she’s not. The girls and Landon were in the lobby playing Monopoly. I went to change Harley’s diaper, and when I came back, Kayeleigh was gone.”

There was something akin to fear behind the defiance in her blue eyes.

M
ickey held the telephone tighter to her ear, trying to make sense of Wren’s words.

“I thought Kayeleigh was with the other kids,” Wren said through tears. “But Landon says she left. With that Berger boy…Seth. She didn’t tell anyone. She just left, and she didn’t say when she’d be back.”

“Oh, dear.” Mickey pressed the cordless phone to her ear, pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other.

“I’m so sorry,” Wren said again. “I truly had no idea she was gone. I sent Bart looking for her, but he came back a few minutes ago. He’d walked all over town and didn’t see hide nor hair of her. He just now left in the car to look for her.”

“Have you called anybody? Seth’s parents? Doug?” She didn’t know whether to pray Wren hadn’t called Doug, or wish
she had. The last thing she and Doug needed between them was more trouble over Kayeleigh.

“I rang the Bergers’,” Wren said, “but no one was home. I called Clara—she’s Seth’s grandmother, you know—and she said Paul and Cindy are out of town for the weekend. Seth’s older brother was supposed to be holding down the fort. Do you want me to call Douglas?”

“No,” Mickey said a little too quickly. “I—I’ll call him. But he’s in meetings all day. I don’t want to bother him if we don’t have to.” She grabbed her purse and probed the side pocket for her car keys. “I’m coming in to town. Neither one of those kids can drive yet, so they can’t have gone too far.”

“I feel just terrible.”

Mickey could almost see the sweet woman wringing her hands. “It’s not your fault, Wren. If you’ll stay with the other kids, I’ll track her down. We’ve…well, this isn’t the first time Kayeleigh’s not been where she’s supposed to be. I’m sure she’s fine.” She wished she felt as confident as her voice sounded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have any news.”

She hung up the phone and scrambled to think what she should do. She did not want to have to call Doug out of his meeting, but remembering the last time Kayeleigh had pulled a stunt like this, she didn’t dare wait too long to call him.

Entering Clayburn’s city limits a few minutes later, Mickey realized she didn’t have a clue where to look. She’d start at the coffee shop, since that was where Seth and Kayeleigh had gone on their little after-school tryst. If they weren’t there, she’d look up the Bergers’ address in the phonebook. She thought they lived over on the east side of town, but she wasn’t sure.

Cars lined Main Street in front of the coffee shop. Everybody was out for Saturday morning donuts and coffee. She pulled into an empty space at the end of the block and jogged to the front door.

The rich aroma of espresso hit her the minute she opened the door, but a quick glance around the coffee shop told her Kayeleigh wasn’t
here. Jack was behind the counter taking orders, and Vienne was tamping down shots at the shiny espresso maker.

Two people stood in line waiting to order, and Mickey slipped to the other end of the counter near the cash register. When Jack had relayed the last order to his wife, he turned to Mickey. “I’m filling in this morning, so if you have a ‘usual,’ you’ll have to help me out.”

“Oh, no. I don’t care for anything. I’m looking for my—for Kayeleigh DeVore.”

“One of Doug’s girls?” A slow smile came to his face. “Hey, did I hear right that you and Doug tied the knot?”

She nodded, forcing a smile. “Yep. Last month.” It startled her to realize that their one-month anniversary was the day after tomorrow. It seemed like yesterday—and it seemed like a lifetime ago—that they’d stood before the judge and promised forever.

“Well, congratulations!” Jack’s grin pulled her back.

Behind him Vienne threw her a radiant smile and added her best wishes over the noise of the steamer.

“Welcome to the ranks of newlyweds,” Jack said. “You’re looking for Katy, you said? I’m not sure which one she is.”

“Kayeleigh,” she corrected. “The oldest. She’s twelve, long blond hair. She might have been with Seth Berger?”

“There were a bunch of teenagers in here earlier, but I don’t remember seeing one of Doug’s kids.” Jack scratched his chin and turned to his wife. “Do you know if she was in here, babe?”

A needle of envy pricked Mickey, seeing the love that oozed between them.

Vienne shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t remember seeing her. Rudi Schmidt was in here with her mom. She and Kayeleigh run around together, don’t they? But Kayeleigh wasn’t with them.”

Mickey thanked her and started to ask if they knew where Seth lived, then decided she didn’t need to start any rumors. She’d look it up herself. “Can I borrow a phonebook?”

“Sure.” Jack reached under the counter and laid the thin book in front of her.

She made a mental note of the address and, a few minutes later, drove slowly along the route to where Seth lived, her eyes darting from the sidewalk on one side of the street to the other. When she located the Bergers’ house, she pulled into the driveway and walked slowly to the front door, trying to decide where she would look next if Kayeleigh wasn’t here, or worse, how she would handle it if she was.

She rang the doorbell twice and was about to go back to the car when the door opened and a sleepy-looking, wild-haired teenage boy stood squinting at her. “Yeah?”

“Hi. Sorry if I woke you up. Um…is Seth here?”

He grunted. “I think so. Hang on.” He opened the door wider and yelled behind him at the top of his lungs, “Seth!”

Mickey heard a television blaring in the background, and she saw movement behind the older boy. A second later Seth appeared at his brother’s side. By the look on his face, she didn’t think he recognized her.

“Hi. I’m Mickey DeVore. I’m trying to find Kayeleigh. Have you seen her?”

Without acknowledging her question, he echoed his brother, yelling over his shoulder for Kayeleigh.

So she
was
here. Her relief was replaced by fury that boiled up in her like lava. How should she handle this? She’d learned her lesson last time. She’d wait for Doug to dole out the punishment, but somehow she still had to get Kayeleigh home.

She craned her neck for a view of the stairway between the brothers and saw Kayeleigh’s blond head bobbing up the dark stairwell. Her face was flushed, and she wore a sheepish half grin.

Mickey waited for an explanation, but Kayeleigh just stared at her.

“We’ve been looking all over for you. What is going on?”

Seth put a possessive arm around Kayeleigh, but she backed away
from him and propped her hands on her hips. Her eyes blazed with defiance, and her grin turned to a smirk. “I told Landon where I was.”

“But you didn’t ask us if you could leave Wren’s. Wren and Bart are worried sick.”

“Well, they didn’t need to be. I’m fine. I told Landon,” she said again.

Mickey took a deep breath. “But you didn’t ask Wren—or me.”

Kayeleigh ignored that. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s still at his meetings in Salina. He’ll be back this evening. You need to come with me.”

“Dad won’t care if I’m here.”

“That’s not the point. You didn’t ask permission. Wren was the one in charge of you and—” She eyed the Berger boys. “We’ll discuss this later…with your dad. For now you need to come home with me.”

Kayeleigh moved back toward Seth, and he wrapped long, muscular arms around her from behind. A frisson of alarm went through Mickey. Their way with each other was far too cozy for two young teens. She turned to the older brother. “Are your parents here?”

His Adam’s apple pumped in his throat. “Nope. They’re in Cancun.”

“You guys are home alone?”

“Yup.” His stance said,
And what are you gonna do about it?

“Come on, Kayeleigh. We need to go.” She turned and put a hand on the screen door handle.

“I’ll walk back to Wren’s,” Kayeleigh said behind her.

Mickey turned and straightened, stretching to her full height, but even so, she was only a fraction of an inch taller than Kayeleigh. “No. You’re coming with me.”

“No. I’m not.” There was something akin to fear behind the defiance in her blue eyes.

But Mickey sensed that Kayeleigh was emboldened by her audience. Seth tightened his hold on her.

Mickey reached for the door again. “Fine. But you need to know I’m calling your dad.”

“Fine.” Kayeleigh mimicked her. “He won’t care.”

Mickey tensed.
He’d better care
.

She let the screen door slam behind her and tried to ignore the rude comments the older brother made behind her back…something about not letting the door hit her on the way out.

By the time she got to the car, Mickey’s hands were trembling. What was wrong with her that she’d let a sassy twelve-year-old intimidate her? But she’d told Doug that day Kayeleigh had lied to her about being with Seth that she’d let him handle it next time. Well, here they were at next time. So let him. This was not her problem.

Except she knew that
she
was the one who would somehow bear the consequences.