“We agreed you needed a housekeeper,” Mike said. “I was expecting a different sort of person.”
“What do you know about her?” Ian said.
“She’s a widow.”
His brothers waited for more. “Where does she come from?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked that much.”
Ian and Mike stared at each other. “Where’d you find her—or vice versa?” Ian chimed in.
Daniel sighed. “She saw my ad and asked for an interview. She has a son, six or seven years old. I finally figured out they were homeless. I turned the job into one for a live-in housekeeper.”
“Omigod,” Ian moaned. “Don’t tell me. She said, ‘Oh, my, I just don’t know, but, well, yes, I can do that.’”
“I had to con her into accepting the job,” Daniel snapped. “They’ve been living in their car, and I have an empty apartment. And besides, Nick met her son at Sunday school, they hit it off, and she made Nick a dreamcatcher.”
“A what?” Ian said, scowling.
“It’s a thing. A totem. A good luck charm. Wards off bad dreams.” He took off his lab coat, washed his hands and gestured both of them into the waiting room.
Mike lined up the carry-out cartons on the receptionist’s counter and started heaping food onto plastic plates. Beef cooked in wine, some fancy kind of scalloped potatoes, asparagus, crusty bread.
“Looks great,” Daniel said enthusiastically. “What do you call those potatoes? And is this the daube or the bourguignonne?”
“Don’t change the subject. Have you moved her into the house?”
“The carriage house. Before she even agreed to take the job, she cooked breakfast, did the laundry…”
Mike and Ian gave each other another one of those irritating looks. This was a common occurrence, but Daniel liked it much better when he and one of them was giving the third one that look. Ian settled himself in a seat against the wall, and Daniel sat down a chair away for elbow room. Mike chose a spot facing Daniel. Plate in hand, he said, “Daniel.”
“What?” Daniel replied, knowing what was coming and already feeling cross.
“Do you remember the dog you brought home just before you were going off to vet school, when we were waiting to close out our jobs? The one who ripped up the kitchen floor? Which the landlord made Ian and me replace, when we were living on spaghetti without meatballs? Sometimes without sauce?”
“You did good things with spaghetti,” Ian said. “A little oil, some cheese…”
“Shut up, Ian. We’re not talking about my cooking.”
“It wasn’t the dog’s fault,” Daniel protested. “He missed me. You brought him with you when we joined up again, and he was the best dog…”
“And that girl,” Ian said, “also homeless, who moved in with us and left with every penny of the paychecks we’d just cashed?”
“That disappointed me,” Daniel said. “She’d had a terrible life, though, and—”
“The old man selling magazine subscriptions?”
“Mike, every family should subscribe to a high-quality news magazine—”
“And every old man should have a good hot meal—a twenty-dollar good hot meal. Daniel,” Mike said, “you’re doing it again. You’re taking in another stray.”
“Lilah? She’s nothing like that girl we took in. She’s a good person who needs a break.”
“How can you tell she’s a good person?” Mike asked. “How much time have you spent with her? Thirty minutes?”
“I can tell from her son. They’re crazy about each other. He’s a homeless kid who feels sure his mom can turn things around. And,” he added, “say what you want to about dreamcatchers, but Nick didn’t have any nightmares last night.”
“Well, that’s something,” Mike said. “All it took was a dreamcatcher.”
Daniel and his brothers were always honest with each other. “And her son, Jonathan, spending the night. That probably had more to do with it than the dreamcatcher.”
“Great,” Ian said. “They probably stayed up all night throwing pillows at each other. No time for nightmares.”
“He’s a great kid,” Daniel insisted. “He went to soccer camp with the kids this morning and they said he…”
“You paid for him to go to soccer camp.”
“I couldn’t let him feel left out. Look, you two,” Daniel said, fed up with his brothers’ doubts. “She’s lost her husband. She has a scar on her forehead. I can’t put it all together yet, but something bad has happened to this woman. She’s not the kind of person you’d ever expect to be homeless and penniless. I just want to help her, that’s all.”
For a second he thought they were going to jump him and wrestle him to the ground. Not that they really would, but they looked as if they’d like to. He stood up. “Great dinner, Mike. We have a few minutes before the meeting. So come meet her—officially, I mean. And act nice,” he said, glaring at them.
WHEN A MAN ABOUT Daniel’s height, but somehow bigger, had walked into the kitchen without knocking, Lilah instinctively fled, even though she was supposed to be tossing a salad to go with Jesse’s lasagna. Who is he? In the few minutes she heard him talking to Jesse, he’d sounded like a stand-up comedian.
At last she sneaked downstairs to finish the salad. At the bottom of the staircase, she became aware of footsteps and voices coming from the clinic. It was too late to flee again. Daniel and his companions had spotted her.
“Lilah Jamison,” Daniel said, “meet my brothers, Mike and Ian.”
The hallway was crammed with Fosters, tall, imposing Fosters: Mike, the one who’d come into the kitchen without knocking, and the third one, who glared at her as if he disliked her even before he’d met her. She was trapped. She held out a shaky hand to each of them.
“I’m Ian.”
The one who glared.
“Mike,” said Mike. His smile was guarded, as if he was testing her.
Lilah tried to take them in. Mike was a little taller than Daniel, and Ian, a little shorter. While Daniel had sandy hair and light-brown eyes—Ian’s hair was dark, as were his eyes, both dark and brooding. Mike’s head was shaved, but his red-brown eyebrows and faint freckling gave him away. A redhead with spectacular green eyes.
She took a second look. “You don’t look anything alike,” she blurted out, then realized they might have been adopted. She blushed. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“We get that a lot,” Daniel said quickly, probably to fill the sudden silence. “And we’re pretty darned grateful for it. Aren’t we?” he added, when the other two remained silent.
“Uh-huh,” Mike murmured, staring at Lilah. Ian, on the other hand, just kept glaring.
“Well,” Lilah said, feeling dismissed, “I’m glad I got to meet you.”
The brothers muttered something that might have been “nice to meet you, too,” and then Ian said, “We’re late for a meeting.” His voice was steely.
But Daniel smiled at her. “Everything under control here?”
“Absolutely,” she said, afraid to smile back. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
When they left, she collapsed on the stairs. The two brothers Daniel hadn’t mentioned didn’t like her. Didn’t want her here. She’d had no idea Daniel had brothers who might have a say in his hiring her. Fearing that Bruce would find her, she’d made a commitment to Daniel, to Jonathan, to Jesse and to Daniel’s boys.
But her most important commitment was to herself and Jonathan. If his brothers didn’t like her, how would Daniel come to feel about her? And if he began to dislike her, to regret his job offer, might she and Jonathan find themselves living in close proximity with and dependent upon a man like Bruce? She’d leave now, with Jonathan, before it could fall down on her.
“Mom!” In the dimly lit hall, Jonathan barreled into her on his way out of the kitchen. “Guess what? We’re having lasagna for dinner, and Uncle Mike brought all kinds of pies! Jesse says we can
have them for dessert.”
Already, the enemy was “Uncle Mike.” Lilah sighed, then joined Jesse in the kitchen to finish dressing the salad.
AFTER A BRIEF ARGUMENT, Mike got to drive and Ian copped the front seat. Daniel compressed himself into the backseat of Mike’s Subaru wagon. “Ian, you could at least move your seat forward,” he grumbled.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Ian asked as soon as they were on their way to the Town Hall for the meeting. “Taking that woman in without checking her out.”
Daniel knew his brothers were just trying to protect him, but he was an adult now and able to protect himself. “I asked Child Services to check her out,” he snapped. “She has a great kid, she has Jesse kissing her feet, and the boys seem to want her around.”
“So now you’re letting the boys choose the housekeeper?”
“I’ve learned to trust people, okay? A skill you could stand to work on.”
“Time out!” Mike said. “We all need to calm down here. Daniel, you can’t get mad. How this meeting goes tonight will affect the rest of your life, and you won’t do it right if you’re mad. So,” and now he raised his voice, “if you guys can’t stop fighting in the car, Mom and I aren’t taking you to Disneyland next summer.”
A brief silence, then Daniel chuckled. A second later, Ian snorted. He turned around in the car seat. “I was counting on Disneyland,” he said, his voice and his face as gruff as ever.
“So pull yourself together for the meeting, Daniel,” Mike said.
“Don’t worry. Five minutes of sulking and I’ll be in top form.” He had to be. His project, his dream, meant too much to him. He couldn’t blow off this chance to do something really important, to protect more children than he could possibly fit into his house on Prospect Street.
DISCUSSION AT THE MEETING droned on forever. It was an open board meeting, which meant all Serenity Valley residents could attend, but Daniel still couldn’t imagine why so many of them had come out. He fidgeted in his seat, waiting for the words, “The floor is now open for new business.”
If anybody took the floor before he did, he thought the veins in his temples might explode.
The moment arrived, and he shot from his seat. “Mr. Chairman.”
“Daniel. Yes.” The chairman of the board gave him a nod. “State your name, please, and present your business.”
He stated his name as requested, although everybody in the room already knew who he was, and then he began his pitch, trying to sound easy and casual. “Most of you know I take in foster children,” he began. “And that has gotten me interested in the whole foster home situation.” He went on, respectful of those who already were foster parents, but emphasizing the number of children who probably needed foster care and weren’t getting it.
“Many communities,” and he named various other places, “have built foster-care centers designed to house a number of children in individual homes staffed by couples, with common rooms in a larger main building that would also house…”
The local pediatrician was nodding. So was the head of Child Services in the valley. On the other hand, the Churchill minister’s wife, Virginia Galloway, was frowning, and several members of the Women’s Auxiliary had their heads together with hers. Daniel was sure she was a good person—she taught the teenagers’ Sunday school class and she hadn’t expelled Jason or Maury yet—but he’d never been able to work up much enthusiasm for the woman. Ironically, he was probably going to have to persuade these godly women to be kind to others who were less fortunate, while the inebriated man who’d staggered into a backseat at the last minute would turn out to be 100 percent in favor of the project.
“My brother Ian has volunteered to donate land for the project, if it receives your approval. The kids will have playing fields to share with the rest of the valley, and a safe, protected environment. I’ve consulted an architect, and I’ve researched the grants that might be available. But I’ll need your support to move on to the planning stage, and I’d like to hear your opinions.”
“The floor is open for discussion,” the chairman said.
When the minister’s wife raised her hand, Daniel’s heart sank. The chairman acknowledged her, and she asked, “Would any of these children come from locations outside the valley?”
“Yes,” Daniel said politely. “The facility would be available to any child in Vermont.”
“Aren’t you at all concerned that this foster center would bring undesirable elements into the valley?”
Daniel was gritting his teeth to keep from snapping, “No,” when he heard Ian’s voice. Startled looks came from the audience. Ian wasn’t noted for contributing verbally to any cause.
“Ian?” the chairman said doubtfully.
Daniel held his breath. If Ian spoke the way he usually did, it could mean the end of the center. His gruffness and reserve put people off. God knew what he might say. The townspeople should focus on what he’s done, Daniel worried, donating that land, and not what he…And then his eyes widened. Was that calm, even voice Ian’s?
“Ma’am,” Ian said, directing his gaze toward the minister’s wife. “With all due respect, we’re not talking about ‘elements’ here, we’re talking about children.”
Daniel was gratified to hear a ripple of laughter run through the room.
“The children aren’t undesirable. Is any child undesirable?” He pinned his gaze on the woman, who shifted in her seat.
“Many of the parents of these children aren’t undesirable, either,” Ian went on. “They’re poverty-stricken, or they’re sick, or one parent is fine but the other is abusive. Sometimes the parents really care about their children, but they know they can’t afford to take care of them.”
Just as abruptly as he’d stood up, Ian sat down.
Daniel was stunned. He’d never heard Ian speak so eloquently. He’d never heard him speak eloquently at all.
The pediatrician, who was legendary for his lack of tact in situations not involving his patients, leapt to his feet. “Don’t be an idiot, Virginia,” he said to the minister’s wife. “As Foster said, the children aren’t criminals. Just because they’re foster children doesn’t mean they’re going to raise hell.”
“The sins of the fathers are visited on the children,” intoned the minister from the back of the room.
He and his wife were a perfect couple.
“The sins of the fathers, speaking generically,” the head of Child Services spoke up, “often result in the need for foster homes for the children. In that sense I agree with you.”
Other objections arose, along with other statements in defense of the project. Daniel felt exhausted, and now, as if Mike were tuned in to his thought process, he raised his hand.
“Daniel’s been talking to Ian and me about this project for a long time,” he told the group in his smiling, easygoing way, “so I’m not exactly objective.”
The group smiled back at him. Of the three of them, Daniel thought dolefully, Mike did the best job of fitting in with the community. Nothing like having the best restaurant—the only real restaurant—in the valley. People had a vested interest in staying on his good side.
“But I do think you folks need to know more specifics. Mr. Chairman, I’d like to propose that Daniel deliver a formal presentation with all the details at the next board meeting.”
In seconds, the chairman had a motion and a second from the floor, and the show of hands was impressive. Apparently the townspeople wanted to know about the center, at least.
Daniel’s heart swelled with affection for Mike and Ian. Whatever their disagreements, their bond stood firm. All for one, one for all.
“WELL, NOT A COUP,” Mike said on the way home, “but a good start. Virginia Galloway lost this one.”
“We need a mole in the Women’s Auxiliary,” Ian growled. “Or a hit man.”
“I’d prefer the mole,” Daniel said.
“You would,” Ian said.
“Disneyland?” Mike said
.
“Okay,” Daniel said. “When we get back to my place we’re all going in to see if Lilah has bruised, mutilated or killed the boys, and then we’ll come to an agreement about whether she’s a suitable housekeeper.” He waited through the silence.
“Okay, fair enough,” Mike said.
Daniel released a deep breath. Dear God, let everything be okay. Because Mike and Ian were the constants in his life. If they disapproved of Lilah, he couldn’t let her stay.
When all three of them had finally set out on their careers, Ian had taken the legal steps to incorporate them. They’d struggled to educate each other in their chosen fields, and following that they’d decided to share the wealth, such as it was. Their income went into a corporate account, out of which they paid themselves equal salaries. Hiring Lilah didn’t represent a cost for Daniel alone, but for all three of them.
And maybe Daniel’s brothers were right. Maybe he’d taken this trust thing too far.
Chapter Five
“The house is too dark,” Ian said, as Mike pulled into the parking area.
“Not the living room,” Daniel remarked. “I imagine they’re all in there.”
“Tied up,” Ian suggested. “Begging for their lives.”
“Ian!” Mike said.
“Oh, okay, but I think we ought to sneak in and catch her at whatever she’s doing.”
“All right,” Daniel said, getting out of the car. “Come on.” He was sure everything was fine. Had to be. It would be, wouldn’t it? Sure it would.
Through the window he saw Lilah standing in the living room, wearing an evil expression. “What the hell—”
She rushed toward the sofa with her arms outstretched. He launched into a run, with his brothers breathing down his neck, and almost ripped the front door off its hinges. As he lunged through the foyer and into the room, he heard a scream, then Jesse said from the far corner, tilting his chair forward and almost falling out of it, “What the heck are you doing, Daniel? You scared us out of our wits.”
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